Posted by Nina on 6/27/2004, 12:03 am Hirakana and Katakana are similar to English alphabet, as they are sound-related. Hiraka is used whent there is no Kanji to express the word or the sound. Katakana is just another way to write the same pronunciation as hirakana, but it is usually used when the word comes from another language. Kanji is the Chinese writing system. It's meaning-related. The pronunciation could be write as hirakana or katakana (That is, you can write the same word in three different ways). A lot of Japanese words have the same pronunciation, but the Kanji are different. You can know what it means if you see the kanji. Example: Shin (person's name, literally, means stretch) and Shin (his virtue, means trust/faith) are two different kanji. They sounds the same, they spells the same (in English, in hirakana, in katakana), but they are not the same words. Japanese people do not usually use romaji (English alphabet) to express/write, they use Kanji, hirakara, and katakana. Therefore, they won't have the trouble such as "how can I know which word it is if they are having the same pronunciation?' For the smoothness of translating English back and forth to Japanese, let me just write down the Romaji system I'm using (there are at least 2 or 3 common systems). The word in the parenthesis is the Hirakana corresponds to it,if your computer can read Japanese: a( ), i(¢), u(¤), e(¦), o(¨) for the compound ones:(small ya yu yo) shi with small ya yu yo becomes and so on.
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Written Japanese includes three parts: Hirakana, Katakana, and Kanji (Chinese characters).
ka(©), ki(«), ku(), ke(¯), ko(±)
ga(ª), gi(¬), gu(®), ge(°), go(²)
sa(³), shi(µ), su(·), se(¹), so(»)
za(´), ji(¶), zu(¸), ze(º), zo(¼)
ta(½), chi(¿), tsu(Â), te(Ä), to(Æ)
da(¾), (ji(À)), du(Ã), de(Å), do(Ç)
na(È), ni(É), nu(Ê), ne(Ë), no(Ì)
ha(Í), hi(Ð), fu(Ó), he(Ö), ho(Ù)
ba(Î), bi(Ñ), bu(Ô), be(×), bo(Ú)
pa(Ï), pi(Ò), pu(Õ), pe(Ø), po(Û)
ma(Ü), mi(Ý), mu(Þ), me(ß), mo(à)
ya(â), yu(ä), yo(æ)
ra(ç), ri(è), ru(é), re(ê), ro(ë)
wa(í), wo (or o)(ð). n(ñ)
e.g. ki with small ya yu yo becomes
kya(«á), kyu(«ã), kyo(«å)
sha(µá), shu(µã), sho(µå)
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