The Japanese characters that are used daily in Japan are Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. In addition, Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, …), the alphabet (a, b, c, …) and Roman numerals (Ⅰ, Ⅱ, Ⅲ, …) are also used.
The Japanese language has a huge number of characters, which is one of the reasons why it is difficult to learn.
In particular, there are a large number of Kanji, so it is impossible even for Japanese people to remember all the Kanji.
You can learn Hiragana, Katakana and some Kanji on this page.
Hiragana
Hiragana is one of the basic characters of the Japanese language.
The types are divided into voiceless sounds, voiced sounds, semi-voiced sounds, contracted sounds, syllabic nasal, double consonant, and long sound.
Voiceless sounds are the basic forms such as “あ”, “い”, “う”, etc., and they make up most Japanese words.
Voiced sounds are “が”, “ぎ”, “ぐ”, etc., semi-voiced sounds are “ぱ”, “ぴ”, “ぷ”, etc., and they change pronunciation by adding “ ゛” or “ ゜” to the character. Contracted sounds are “きゃ”, “きゅ”, “きょ”, etc., and they change the sound with the small “ゃ”, “ゅ”, “ょ”.
Syllabic nasal is only “ん” and does not appear at the beginning of a word. Double consonant is only “っ” and represents a short, clipped sound. Long sound is only “ー” and lengthens the sound of the preceding character.
A single Hiragana character does not have meaning, but combining multiple Hiragana characters forms words with meaning.
▼▼List of Hiragana is here▼▼
Katakana
Katakana, like Hiragana, is one of the basic characters of the Japanese language, and it is indispensable in writing and conversation, especially for representing loanwords and foreign words.
The types are divided into eight categories: voiceless sounds, voiced sounds, semi-voiced sounds, contracted sounds, syllabic nasal, double consonant, long sound, and Katakana for representing foreign pronunciations.
Voiceless sounds are the basic forms such as “ア”, “イ”, “ウ”, etc., and they make up the majority of Japanese Katakana words.
Voiced sounds include “ガ”, “ギ”, “グ”, etc., semi-voiced sounds include “パ”, “ピ”, “プ”, etc., where the pronunciation changes by adding ” ゛” or ” ゜” to the character. Contracted sounds include “キャ”, “キュ”, “キョ”, etc., which are accompanied by small “ャ”, “ュ”, “ョ”.
The syllabic nasal consists only of “ン”, which never appears at the beginning of a word. The double consonant consists only of “ッ”, which represents a short, clipped sound, and the long sound consists only of “ー”, which lengthens the preceding sound.
Katakana for representing foreign pronunciations include “ウィ”, “ウェ”, “ウォ”, etc., which can indicate sounds close to those of foreign languages.
Katakana, like Hiragana, does not have meaning in a single character, and meaningful words are formed only when multiple characters are combined.
▼▼List of Katakana is here▼▼
Kanji
Kanji, like Hiragana and Katakana, is one of the essential characters that make up the Japanese language, and unlike Hiragana and Katakana, its major characteristic is that each individual character has meaning.
For example, the Kanji “一” represents the number one, and the Kanji “日” represents the sun or a date. In this way, Kanji not only express sounds but also serve the role of directly representing concepts and objects.
In Japanese writing, sentences written only in Hiragana or Katakana are difficult to read and tend to become ambiguous in meaning. Therefore, Kanji are indispensable for making sentences easier to read and for conveying meanings accurately.
The total number of Kanji characters is said to exceed 100,000, although there are various theories. However, only a very small portion of them are actually used in daily life.
In Japanese elementary schools, about 1,000 characters are learned step by step. The characters necessary for reading books and newspapers are called “常用漢字” and the total number is about 2,000.
Understanding Kanji is extremely important in learning Japanese deeply, and it is an essential foundation for rich expression and accurate comprehension.
▼▼List of common-use Kanji is here▼▼