Once you understand and begin to recognize the structure of the Kanji characters, they no longer seem so strange. If you go to a Sushi bar you may notice that their green tea mugs have the names of fish on them. The same goes for many names of fish, as most incorporate the basic Kanji for fish: 魚. This tells us that the word must be for some sort of flowering tree. The right side has the Kanji character for flower. Since the Kanji combination uses wood on the left, you can tell that it has something to do with wood or a tree. If you see the above characters and don’t know what this Kanji combination is, you can make a guess based on the two characters used. The left side of this Kanji represents wood or tree and the right side represents something flat.Īs mentioned, Japanese people may not know every single Kanji they come across, however they can always guess its meaning based on its components and context. The example above, the Kanji character on the left represents “day” and the Kanji character on the right represents “blue” which translates to “blue sky.” When these two characters are combined, they become the phrase “sunny day.” The left side represents the type or category of the meaning of the word and the right side is the descriptor. Most Kanji characters consist of two characters together. Thus, there are effectively two different types of characters: those that use one Kanji component standing alone (that represents a single word), as well as those that are made up of two or more Kanji characters combined to create a more complex character. Kanji often consist of several parts: some are singular components, while others are made up of several different Kanji combined into a singular character. The sentence written with Hiragana looks like it could have been written by an elementary school student. “I am from Wakayama-city in Wakayama prefecture.” However, writing complete sentences using only Hiragana can look childish and reflects on your education and academic level. If you do not know my name in Kanji you can always write it in Hiragana: 堤→つつみ. Each individual Hiragana character does not have any meaning when written alone and is used phonetically. Hiragana is similar to the basic English alphabet. If you do not know how to write certain phrases in Kanji, you can always use Hiragana. Then by the end of high school, that number grows to approximately 2,000. Children are first taught Hiragana at school, as well as its counterpart, Katakana, which is used to write western words.Īround the first grade, students are introduced to simple, single-stroke Kanji.īy the time they finish elementary school (6th grade), Japanese students will have learned approximately 1,000 Kanji characters. Kanji is one of three scripts used in the Japanese language. Once you understand the structure of the Kanji characters, especially when several characters are combined to create a word, it becomes easier to understand, and it all begins to makes sense. While their pronunciation is different, the meaning of Chinese characters and Japanese Kanji are, for the most part, the same.Įach character was originally created by drawing a picture to represent what was being communicated. Currently, Vietnam and Korea have their own written languages and no longer use Kanji, although you can occasionally see some characters still being used. It originated in ancient China and was used in China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan. Kanji is the oldest written form of language in recorded human history, and it is comprised of over 10,000 characters. For this blog, I will briefly discuss the details and history of Japanese Kanji. I get a firsthand look at the intricacies, complexities and histories of languages around the world.Īsian languages are the epitome of intricate and complex, and with a long history, these languages are especially fascinating. (Courses in Chinese, Mongolian, Indonesian, Khmer, Thai, Vietnamese, Myanmar and Nepali are scheduled to start from April 2023 onward.As a translation and localization industry professional and a team member of Globalization Partners International (GPI), I am involved with multiple projects across multiple languages. Level of Japanese: A1, A2 Language of Explanation Starter (A1) Since the IRODORI Japanese Online Course can be accessed via smartphones, computers and tablets, you can take advantage of your spare time to study Japanese anytime, anywhere. In the “Practice contents”, you can practice study areas you're unsure of, such as kanji or grammar, as much as you want. In the “Study contents”, you can interactively learn the Japanese language necessary for daily life situations in Japan using videos and other content. IRODORI Japanese Online Course is a course for acquiring comprehensive Japanese language skills based on the coursebook “Irodori: Japanese for Life in Japan”.
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