writing reference

Tip: You can hover over underlined下線付き terms to see how to write them in Japanese!

The Sounds of Japanese

Japan uses three scripts in writing: Katakana片仮名, Hiragana平仮名, and Kanji漢字.

Both Katakana片仮名 and Hiragana平仮名 are referred to as Kana仮名. The kana are the alphabets of Japanese, but instead of representing single sounds, they represent single syllables.

Meanwhile, Kanji漢字 is pretty different from the Kana仮名 as Kanji characters have two ways of being pronounced, called on-yomi⾳読み and kun-yomi訓読み. Kun-yomi is used when pronouncing a kanji that is written alone, while on-yomi is used for kanji that are compounded together.

For example: "stone", written with the kanji character 石, is read ishi. However, the word "gemstone", written with the characters for treasure and stone, (宝石) is read houseki. The character 石 was read in two ways, it's kun-yomi "ishi" and it's on-yomi "seki".

Japanese Writing

Kanji漢字 were originally Chinese symbols borrowed by Japan long ago for writing purposes. They are used in writing along with hiragana for all types of words.
Sometimes, Kanji are compounded together to form new words, such as the kanji for electricity (電) and car (車) being combined to make train (電車). Names are also usually written with kanji, meaning a name in Japan can mean things like Blessing恵 (Kei) or Fragrance香 (Kaori). How nice!

As for the kana, Hiragana is more used in grammatical purposes, such as in particles (similar to the is's and to's of English) or in spelling out Japanese words.
Meanwhile, Katakana is used when spelling out loanwords, since there is no Kanji/Hiragana equivalent to represent them. For example, you would write restaurant as レストラン (read resutoran)

Now, there is actually a sort of "fourth" script for Japanese called romaji, using the English alphabet to describe how to read a word. These are mostly for foreigners trying to read things. If you're learning Japanese, try to avoid using romaji to practice your kana reading.

If each of the four scripts still seem a bit ambiguous, here's an example of the four used to write a few words. The highlighted one means that would be the proper/more common one to use.

Katakana	Hiragana	Kanji	Romaji	Meaning
ヒト	ひと	人	hito	person
フライドポテト	ふらいどぽてと		furaido poteto	french fries
オイシイ	おいしい	美味しい	oishii	delicious
フジサン	ふじさん	富士山	fujisan	Mount Fuji

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