Understanding the Language
Japanese is quite a simple subject with its layout, but may seem confusing to start off with. I hope to try and make it less confusing.
We'll start off with the alphabets.
In English, you have the alphabet, where every letter for every word is found. It's one of the first things you learn at (or before) school. I'll show you the main alphabet of Japanese now: Hiragana.
Hiragana is the backbone of Japanese. Almost every word found can be made using Hiragana. It has 46 individual symbols, which is recommended for learning if you want to understand the language. If you don't want to learn 46 different symbols, think about this: Imagine trying to learn English without knowing how to read/recognise it. It would be hard. Yes, it's possible (blind people, for example) but it would be very hard. That's the same for every language that has an alphabet. Now we'll move on to the second, more advanced alphabet.
Kanji are like shortcuts in the Japanese language. It is used for making sentences easier to read, making them less time consuming to write, and is just generally useful. Unlike Hiragana and Katakana (which you'll learn about soon), it's not really possible to write every single one. There are over 20,000 Kanji alone. Don't freak out, as you don't need to know a whole lot to understand Japanese. For an example on how Kanji can be useful, look at the word watashi , meaning 'I' or 'Me', in Hiragana:
わたし
That's a handful to write. Now look at the same word, in Kanji:
私
That's a whole lot easier to write and understand.
Finally, there's the third, less common alphabet, Katakana.
Katakana is used for words that aren't native/haven't oriniated from Japan. It has the same layout as Hiragana, and the symbols sound the same, but they look quite different. The word soccer is an English word. To write it in Hiragana would look like this:
さっかー
But since soccer hasn't originated from Japan, nor has the word been in Japanese culture, it would be written in Katakana instead:
サッカー
The other reason you wouldn't write soccer in Hiragana is because it would not make sense to a Japanese person. However, if you write it in Katakana, the reader instantly knows that the word isn't from Japan.
So I hope this gives you an understanding to the language. If you want to begin learning some symbols, I recommend you head to the Hiragana page, where you can start learning some Hiragana. I assure you, it isn't hard!
We'll start off with the alphabets.
In English, you have the alphabet, where every letter for every word is found. It's one of the first things you learn at (or before) school. I'll show you the main alphabet of Japanese now: Hiragana.
Hiragana is the backbone of Japanese. Almost every word found can be made using Hiragana. It has 46 individual symbols, which is recommended for learning if you want to understand the language. If you don't want to learn 46 different symbols, think about this: Imagine trying to learn English without knowing how to read/recognise it. It would be hard. Yes, it's possible (blind people, for example) but it would be very hard. That's the same for every language that has an alphabet. Now we'll move on to the second, more advanced alphabet.
Kanji are like shortcuts in the Japanese language. It is used for making sentences easier to read, making them less time consuming to write, and is just generally useful. Unlike Hiragana and Katakana (which you'll learn about soon), it's not really possible to write every single one. There are over 20,000 Kanji alone. Don't freak out, as you don't need to know a whole lot to understand Japanese. For an example on how Kanji can be useful, look at the word watashi , meaning 'I' or 'Me', in Hiragana:
わたし
That's a handful to write. Now look at the same word, in Kanji:
私
That's a whole lot easier to write and understand.
Finally, there's the third, less common alphabet, Katakana.
Katakana is used for words that aren't native/haven't oriniated from Japan. It has the same layout as Hiragana, and the symbols sound the same, but they look quite different. The word soccer is an English word. To write it in Hiragana would look like this:
さっかー
But since soccer hasn't originated from Japan, nor has the word been in Japanese culture, it would be written in Katakana instead:
サッカー
The other reason you wouldn't write soccer in Hiragana is because it would not make sense to a Japanese person. However, if you write it in Katakana, the reader instantly knows that the word isn't from Japan.
So I hope this gives you an understanding to the language. If you want to begin learning some symbols, I recommend you head to the Hiragana page, where you can start learning some Hiragana. I assure you, it isn't hard!