【Learn Japanese from scratch】What alphabets do Japanese people use?

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Three types of Japanese alphabets
Japanese writing system
1. Basic rule for writing a Japanese alphabet
Japanese sound system

Three types of Japanese alphabets

Let’s learn basic information of Japanese alphabets.

There are three types of Japanese alphabets: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. You should learn them in the order.

アシスタント

Japanese people say Kana to indicate both Hiragana and Katakana.

Romaji

Romaji is not an official Japanese alphabet, although you may often see it when you learn Japanese.

What is Romaji?

Romaji is for writing Japanese sound using Roman alphabets. It is convenient if you just want to learn spoken Japanese.

Hiragana

Let’s have a glance at Hiragana characters.

	a	i	u	e	o
	あ	い	う	え	お
k	か	き	く	け	こ
s	さ	し (shi)	す	せ	そ
t	た	ち (chi)	つ (tsu)	て	と
n	な	に	ぬ	ね	の
h	は	ひ	ふ (fu)	へ	ほ
m	ま	み	む	め	も
y	や		ゆ		よ
r	ら	り	る	れ	ろ
w	わ				を	ん (n)

【Alphabet】Hiragana

On this page, you can learn one of the most important Japanese alphabets, Hiragana. It is used to write words which stem from (were born in) Japan.

Katakana

Let’s have a glance at Katakana characters.

	a	i	u	e	o
	ア	イ	ウ	エ	オ
k	カ	キ	ク	ケ	コ
s	サ	シ (shi)	ス	セ	ソ
t	タ	チ (chi)	ツ (tsu)	テ	ト
n	ナ	二	ヌ	ネ	ノ
h	ハ	ヒ	フ (fu)	ヘ	ホ
m	マ	ミ	ム	メ	モ
y	ヤ		ユ		ヨ
r	ラ	リ	ル	レ	ロ
w	ワ				ヲ	ン (n)

【Alphabet】Katakana

On this page, you can learn Katakana, which is one of the three Japanese alphabets. Katakana is mainly used to write loan words, which stem from countries other than Japan.

Kanji

There are heaps of Kanji characters, so let’s have a glance at them.

number in Kanji → 一二三四五六七八九十百千万
people in Kanji → 父母子兄弟姉妹家族人友私男女者
body part in Kanji → 目口耳手体
season in Kanji → 春夏秋冬
animal in Kanji → 牛魚馬犬
colour in Kanji → 赤青白黒銀色

【Alphabet】What is Kanji? How many?

Kanji is one of the Japanese alphabets. There are millions of them but don't worry, even native Japanese speakers don't know all of them.

【Kanji 200 Plus】Let's find Kanji characters with stroke order.

On this page, you can see find basic 200 Kanji characters with stroke orders.

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Japanese writing system

Let’s watch a video (up to 1 minute and 30 seconds) to understand how Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji characters are used.

Basic rule for writing a Japanese alphabet

When you write a Japanese alphabet, it is important to remember that you write them:

from left to right
from top to bottom

For example, when you write い, the first stroke is the left line and the second stroke is the right line.

Another example is う. The first stroke is the short line at the top and the second stroke is the curve line, which you need to write from top to bottom as well.

This rule applies to Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji symbols.

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