Japanese Lesson - Japanese Writing
The Japanese writing is consists of 3 different systems: Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. For example, the above image (I buy a television) includes all of the three.
Hiragana
Hiragana originates from the cursive script of Chinese calligraphy. The form of Hiragana is round and smooth without any sharp angles. Hiragana is a phonetic lettering system. It can be used to represent the pronunciation of Kanji as well as used alone as a character on its own, it can be a segment of a word or a grammatical element in a sentence such as particle.
As segments of a word: わたし, かばん
As particles: は, を
Katakana
Katakana comes from the regular script of Chinese calligraphy. Its form is more angular in comparison with Hiragana. Both Hiragana and Katakana can be used to represent Japanese pronunciation. And each Katakana has a correspondent Hiragana, which has the same sound, and vice versa. Katakana is usually used to spell foreign words. The words below are all have English origins, therefore as written in Katakana.
television -- > テレビ
coffee -- > コーヒー
camera -- > カメラ
Kanji
There are massive amounts of Kanji in the Japanese language that are almost identical in appearance with Chinese characters yet with completely different pronunciations and denotations.
I -- > 私
umbrella -- > 傘
desk -- > 机
Tip: Hiragana placed above Kanji is called Furigana, which indicates the pronunciations of the Kanji as in the examples below.
わたし かさ つくえ
私 傘 机
Don't worry if you can't read Japanese characters yet. I will discuss it one by one until you grasp it.