The Japanese scripts consists of three different character sets: Kanji (several thousands of Chinese characters) and Hiragana and Katakana (two syllabaries of 46 original characters and some derived syllabaries each; together called Kana). Kanji characters are pronounced through Hiragana while non-native Japanese words (e.g. English, French, German, Bengali, and Hindi etc.) can be expressed using Katakana. Japanese texts can be written in two ways: In western style i.e. horizontal rows from top to bottom of the page or in traditional Japanese style i.e. in vertical columns from the right to left side of the page. Both writing styles exist side by side at this present age. わ た 私 し わたし にほんご じょうず はな は 私 は日本語が上手に話したいです。 日 に ほ 本 ん I want to speak Japanese fluently. 語 ご が Script 1: horizontal writing western style じ 上 ょ う 手 ず に は 話 な し た い で す
I want to speak Japanese。 fluently.
Script 2: vertical writing traditional Japanese style
Apart from these traditional scripts a fourth script also exists which is targeted at non-Japanese speakers who cannot read Kanji or Kana. Thus it is used to transliterate Japanese terms in text written in English. This method of writing is referred to as Rõmaji i.e. Romanization of Japanese language using Latin script (Aa, Bb, Cc,..etc.). Example of Kanji, Hiragana and Rõmaji & meaning in English
日本 日(に) 本(ほん) にほん Nihon Japan
Example of Katakana, Rõmaji & meaning in English
インド Indo India
日(kanji) 窓(kanji)
ひ(hi) まど(mado) (hiragana) (hiragana)
SPECIAL TOPICS Okurigana: Okurigana (accompanying letters) are kana suffixes following kanji stems in Japanese written words. They serve two purposes: to inflect adjectives and verbs, and to force a particular kanji to have a specific meaning and be read a certain way. For example, the plain verb form 見る (miru, "see") inflects to past tense 見た (mita, "saw"), where 見 is the kanji stem, and る and た are okurigana, written in hiragana script. Furigana: Furigana is a Japanese reading aid, consisting of smaller kana, or syllabic characters, printed next to a kanji (ideographic character) or other character to indicate its pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also known as yomigana or rubi (ルビ) in Japanese. The rubi function can be found on microsoft word. Furigana is most often written in hiragana.