One of my favourite things about learning Japanese is the alphabet .
Whilst it can sound quite scary at first to realise there are 3 different alphabets, it makes a lot of sense when you figure out why.
Kanji || Kanji originated from the Chinese alphabet. In fact some of the letters/characters are common in the Chinese language also, and even boast the same meaning. Kanji are typically the bain of foreigners because every single one is pronounced differently. You have to simply remember them as you go.
Hiragana || Hiragana was created during the 9th century, mainly for describing something informal, or telling stories. Every letter is unique with many curved lines as you can see below.
Katakana || Katakana is a more angular version of Hiragana. The most typical use of Katakana are for words outside of the Japanese language, loanwords essentially. This means when you learn to read Katakana, you unlock a whole part of the Japanese language straight away.
I actually don’t like the look of katakana. It almost looks like Romanji and most of the time it is used for loanwords. It confuses my brain too much. It took me a considerable amount of time to remember シ ツ ソ ン They look like faces laughing at me
I used to wish Kanji doesn’t exist because it’s too much to remember. But not anymore since my teacher told me it’d be even harder for everyone to study Japanese, for example 鳳凰を追う王を覆う meaning “Let’s cover the king chasing the phoenix” would be read as ほうおう を おう おう を おおおう
I’ve studied Japanese since about 1998 off-and-on (though my Kanji is a little rusty, and I can only read at an elementary level – figure that will change once I learn some Mandarin ) so here’s a few things that help me!
I always remember:
“TSUchi” (ツチ) – the left mark is reaching to the “ground”
“tenSHI” (テンシ) – the right mark is close to heaven (“angel”)
The other two … well, I just try to remember “n” is more flat than “so” and “so” is reaching towards the “sky” (SOra – ソラ).
Something that’s helped me is knowing what hanzi the kana came from – sometimes they have similar sounds (like “ハ” (ha) is from “八” (ba) – hachi & ba both mean “eight”!) You can look up what hanzi are used for both hiragana and katakana and they generally have that “sound” to them somewhere.
I also found this video super helpful - although some of the mnemonic aren’t great, others stuck with me almost immediately. It’s long, but if anyone is learning the Japanes alphabet now, this is a great start.
TIP || break the video down into small chunks, watch maybe ten minutes at a go and then pause it. Watching all at once might be too overwhelming
I’ve always been fascinated by Japanese, but the idea of learning three different alphabets feels both exciting and overwhelming at the same time! I love how each one has its own distinct style and purpose—especially how Kanji connects to Chinese. I don’t know Japanese (yet!), but I think I’d enjoy writing Katakana the most. There’s something really sleek and modern about those sharp angles!
For the Japanese students here, how long did it take you to feel comfortable switching between the three?
I don’t learn Japanese so Japanese is very confusing to me. So for the writing system, they have Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Do we use a mix of 3 characters in 1 sentence? Or there are always 3 versions of how to write it, and we can choose whatever?
Actually Hiragana and Katakana are really easy to learn.
That video I posted above is a superb resource that will help you learn both alphabets in a matter of hours.
Watch and rewatch it.
For Kanji (alphabet number 3) that’s just a lifelong commitment! The fact you know traditional Chinese thought gives you a major head start in at least understanding the kanji (just not much help with reading).
Yeah the fact of knowing Traditional Chinese is very helpful indeed. When I went to Japan last August I remember that I could understand some of the signs on the street!
