The+Japanese+Scripts

toc =The Japanese Scripts=
 * There are 3 different scripts (alphabets) that the Japanese use to write their language.
 * Roomaji is a separate script that we can use to easily read and write Japanese. "Roomaji" literally means 'Roman letters' and uses our alphabet. The Japanese do not usually use roomaji.

The "Sounds" of Japanese

 * Japanese is a phonetic language; rather than letters, it consists of sounds. There are 46 basic sounds and other combinations of these 'basic' sounds.
 * They have the same 5 vowel sounds as we do though they are pronounced slightly differently.
 * The consonants that they have in Japanese are the same as we have in English but there are some sounds in English that do not occur in Japanese (eg. Z). Can you think of any others?
 * The video below will take you through the "Sounds of Japanese".
 * And while we're here, have a look at the other video talking about Japanese in general.


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Kanji, hiragana and katakana

 * When the Japanese began to develop their writing system, they first borrowed the **Kanji** symbols from Chinese and adapted them for their own purpose. In Japanese, **kanji** are used to write complete words, or parts of words. Each **kanji** represents an object or an idea pictorially.
 * In order to write grammatical endings for words, **hiragana** was developed (they are simplified versions of particular kanji). There are 46 **hiragana** symbols. Japanese is a phonetic language, based on sounds rather than single letters, and so each ** hiragana ** represents one sound. There is only 1 sound that is a single letter - that is 'n'. All other sounds are a combination of a consonant and a vowel (//eg//. ka, hi, se).
 * There are also 46 **katakana** symbols and the sounds, of course, are exactly the same as in **hiragana** . The ** katakana **script is mainly used to write words that originated from other languages. Our names, places in Australia and other countries outside of Japan (and China), and words like "ORENJI" (orange) are all written with ** katakana **. It is also used to write onomatopoeia and is often used in advertising.


 * Read this post for a more complete explanation of the Japanese scripts and associated terms like furigana.

Kana charts
media type="custom" key="5201219" ||= ** Katakana ** media type="custom" key="5201221" ||= **Kanji** media type="custom" key="5201223" align="center" ||
 * =  ||= **Hiragana**

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 * ===Introducing the Japanese Scripts===

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Putting it all together
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 * Have a look at the front page of a Japanese newspaper and see if you can distinguish between the scripts.
 * What do you notice about the direction of text and the layout of the newspaper?
 * Link to some Japanese newspapers: Asahi / Yomiuri / Mainichi