Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji help!!! I'm confused!?

Question

I am going to be learning Japanese this year at school. But It is vacation time and I want to start getting a fair idea of Japanese before school starts. So can some one please explain these for me:

What is Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji?

Which one is Japanese?

Which do they speak or write the most?

Please answer the best you can.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Japanese actually uses all three alphabets, and you'll be learning all three. Although hiragana and katakana can be memorized quickly, kanji is usually learned gradually because the kanji system is quite extensive (as in, over two thousand characters... yikes).



Hiragana (ひらがな): The basic alphabet. This is used for particles, verb conjugations, etc.　

Katakana (カタカナ): This is used for loan words. For example, cake did not originate in Japan. Because 'cake' is a foreign word, it is written in katakana (ケーキ).

Kanji (漢字): Chinese characters. These are used to write stems of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and also to write words. Kanji and Hiragana are usually used together.　



For example...

"Kore wa watashi no orenji desu." --> "This is my orange."



If written in all hiragana, this would be

これ　は　わたし　の　おれんじ　です。



But, "orange" is a loan word from English and so is written in Katakana.

これ　は　わたし　の　[オレンジ]　です。



The Kanji character for "I", or "Watashi", is 私. Sometimes, if the character is too difficult, the word is left in hiragana. But most times Kanji characters are used whenever possible.

これ　は　[私]　の　オレンジ　です。



You can see how all three alphabets can be used in a single sentence, which is why all three alphabets are quite important. D:

Answer 2

Well...first off..They are all Japanese =] Hiragana is the basic writing system they use, and is made up of 46 basic characters, which are all based off of the sounds あ a, い i, う u, え e, and お o. Katakana is the writing system used to write foreign words, onomatopoeia expressions, or to add emphasis to a word, like italics. They have the exact same sounds as Hiragana, but just different characters to represent them. Kanji, are the characters that are derived from Chinese characters. They can be converted to Hiragana, and are used to represent things. One Kanji can have several meanings. There are about 2,000 Kanji that are used in everyday situations, but there are about 40,000 Kanji all together, but most of them aren't used. In a nut shell, you will eventually be able to interpret Chinese writing, if you study Kanji to the fullest, because the characters have the same meaning..BUT Japanese and Chinese have different names for the Kanji. I would say that they are all used fairly equally, but if you were to break it down Hiragana and Kanji would be used the most. I hope this helps =]

Answer 3

Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji are all written forms of Japanese. Kanji is what you most often think of when you think of Japanese or Chinese; as it is written in characters. Hiragana and Katakana are written sounds of words that are not written by Kanji. For instance, there aren't Kanji characters to write "McDonalds," so a written alphabet was developed to write new words (most often describing technology,) or western words.

Answer 4

Hiragana is the same as katakana but written differently and katakana is for foreign words

kanji is chinese symbols

but all are japanese and you need to know all to read something like a news paper....

hmm but most important is hiragana but im not sure...

Answer 5

hiragana, katakana andd kanji are all japanese im pretty sure....i think its just different ways of writing..

lol...but i have no idea really