Japanese Writings and Recommended App To Learn All of Them

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The Japanese writing system is vastly different compared to the most popular writing system, the Roman Alphabet. While most languages only use one writing system, the Japanese language uses three different kinds of scripts which are Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Because the Japanese language uses different writing system, learning their writing system is a must for Japanese learners. Learning a new writing system, especially the Japanese writing system, may sound and look challenging but it is nothing impossible if you are always practicing on learning and writing in Japanese language. In this post, I will introduce you to the three scripts that are used in the Japanese language.

Hiragana

Hiragana is the most frequently used script in the Japanese writing system. This script is basically the default script to write Japanese. Hiragana script is used for many different purposes such as writing the grammatical suffixes, particles, and substituting Kanji in some cases. Hiragana has the basis of 48 (or 46 in the modern version) characters as shown in the image above and the addition of diacritics or the semivowel add up the total number of syllables that the hiragana can transcribe. Hiragana is also the one that looks relatively different because it looks more squiggly compared to the other Japanese scripts. The full chart of hiragana can be seen below.


Katakana

The other Japanese script is called Katakana. This script is most frequently used for writing loanwords and emphasis. The number of the characters in Katakana is also the same which is 48 characters as the basis and the addition of diacritics or the semivowel add up the total number of syllables that the katakana can transcribe. Because Katakana is also used for transliterating loanwords, it has several character additions to transcribe the sounds that do not exist in Japanese. The full chart can be seen below.




Kanji

And lastly Japanese also has a writing system that is called kanji. Kanji is basically the Chinese characters that are used for writing Japanese. Kanji is mainly used to write nouns, the root of adjectives, the root of adverbs, and the root of verbs. Because Kanji is used to write the root of many different words, it is a must to learn it to be able to understand Japanese. In Japan, the number of Kanji that is taught to the student until the end of senior high school is about two thousand characters. The number sounds scary but it is not too difficult to learn kanji as long as you do it with passion and have fun while learning the characters.


Reccomended app for learning Japanese writing

My personal recommendation of a Japanese writings learning app is an app called Obenkyo. In Obenkyo, you can learn the correct order of writing Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Obenkyo also has the materials on the rule of Japanese writings which will be beneficial for your study. The application also provides multiple choice tests for Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji to make you more proficient in using and writing the Japanese scripts. The app can be download from play store. If you have not downloaded it yet you should download it now!

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