Learn Japanese language writing systems
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Learn to write in Japanese
If you're looking to learn how to write in Japanese, this is the right place! Here you can learn about the different systems for writing in Japanese. There are also a number of excellent Japanese-English dictionaries and translator recommendations here for your further study of the Japanese language. Japanese is a very elegant language to learn once you are familiar with how to read and write in Japanese.
Japanese writing systems
Kanji
Kanji is the pictorial writing system based on Chinese characters. There are about 2000 kanji in common usage which would be required to, for example, read a Japanese newspaper. Additionally, there are thousands of special kanji used in names and specialist publications.
Hiragana
Hiragana is a Japanese syllabary used to write Japanese words phonetically. Each character represents a particular sound in the Japanese language. It can be written alone or as the furigana (ruby characters) to aid in the pronunciation of kanji.
Katakana
Katakana are "broken kana", fragmented characters used to transcribe foreign languages into Japanese. It can also be used as emphasis, similar to the usage of italics in the English language. Each character represents one sound.
Romaji
Romaji is the means of transliterating the Japanese language with the Latin alphabet. There are several systems of rendering Japanese in this way to enable non-native speakers to pronounce the Japanese language correctly.
Japanese-English dictionaries
Japanese dictionaries
Japanese language for children
Japanese grammar guides
Japanese language apps
iPad, android, kindle, nook
More Japanese dictionaries
Online Japanese translators
Translate Japanese online
- Denshi Jisho - Online Japanese dictionary
- Powerful and easy-to-use online Japanese-English dictionary with words, kanji and example sentences.
- Tangorin Online Japanese Dictionary
- Online Japanese English language reference, example sentences and kanji search based on character elements. Create your own vocabulary lists.
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Did you enjoy reading this lens? Would you like to leave some feedback, or just make a suggestion? I'm always glad to hear what more you'd like to see here!
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Edutopia
Jan 31, 2012 @ 12:34 am | delete
- I did enjoy reading this lens! I'd never be able to read it though if it were all in any of the Japanese languages though, haha.
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by murasaki
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