A Quick Guide to Japanese Alphabet – Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji

One of the unique feature of Japanese language is its writing system.

There are three types of script in Japanese: hiragana, katakana, and kanji or Chinese characters.

These three types of script are mixed to use in words and sentences.

You might wonder why Japanese people are using such a complex writing system.

To answer these questions, let me tell you about overview of Japanese hiragana, katakana and kanji.

Why are there three types of script in Japanese?

Japan has a long history, so does Japanese writing system.

First, there were only kanji in Japanese writing.

Kanji were imported into Japan from China around 5th century.

Since then, Kanji have been used to write official documents.

However, as kanji were too hard to learn for ordinary people, simplified version started to be used among people.

The simplified kanji were phonetic, representing only sounds. They gradually developed into hiragana and katakana.

Why are hiragana/katakana all different in shape?

There are 46 basic sounds in Japanese and Japanese ancestors chose a kanji for each sound.

As a result, 46 sounds has different shapes.

For example, あ originated from 安 that was pronounced “a”.

How and when to use hiragana/katakana?

Hiragana are mainly used for particles and ending to verbs and adjectives in kanji or okurigana.

Katakana are used to write loan words like foreign names, countries and foreign ideas.

For example, chocolate is written like チョコレート in katakana.

How many kanji are used in Japan?

The number of kanji that are recommended to use in public documents by Agency of Cultural Affairs is about 2136.

However, the total number of kanji that are used is said to be from 50000 to 10000.

How many kanji should Japanese learners learn?

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