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January 9, 2017January 10, 2017 chris_f Language Learning, Writing System

Writing System – Kanji

The third and final script used in Japanese is Kanji. The word Kanji itself means Chinese Characters. Kanji are a system of logograms that were originally borrowed from China and retrofitted to meet the needs of the Japanese language. Logograms are characters that are used to represent words and morphemes directly. For example, the words ひと (person) and みず (water) can be written in kanji as 人 and 水。

At first glance this seems pretty straight forward. However, Japanese is a language that is fundamentally different from all varieties of Chinese, and this has severely complicated the way kanji have been adopted into Japanese.

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January 8, 2017January 10, 2017 chris_f Language Learning, Writing System

Writing System – Katakana

The second Japanese script is Katakana, a syllabary that functions almost identically to Hiragana. There are 46 basic characters used in modern writing, as well as 2 archaic characters ヰ(wi) and ヱ (we) for a total of 48 characters.

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January 8, 2017January 13, 2017 chris_f Articles, Theory and Linguistics

Kanji and Homophones Part I – Does Japanese Have Too Few Sounds?

A common refrain heard across the internet is that Japanese is a phonologically impoverished language. In fact, they say, it is so phonologically impoverished that the language is inundated with an unwieldy amount of homophones. As a result, it is impossible to write Japanese using a purely phonetic writing system. Kanji are the only way to disambiguate words.

The truth is much more complicated. Japanese does in fact have an unusually large amount of homophones but the cause is only tangentially related to its phonology. Additionally, kanji may actually be exacerbating the problem.

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January 8, 2017January 10, 2017 chris_f Language Learning, Writing System

Writing System – Hiragana

As mentioned in the introduction, the first of the three Japanese scripts is Hiragana, a phonetic script called a syllabary where each character represents a whole syllable. Here is a basic hiragana chart showing the modern 46 characters plus the 2 archaic characters ゐ (wi) and ゑ(we) for a total of 48 characters.

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January 8, 2017January 11, 2017 chris_f Writing System

Writing System – Introduction

The Japanese writing system is unique in that it is composed of 3 distinct scripts that are mixed together. These three scripts are called Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji.

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January 7, 2017January 10, 2017 chris_f Language Learning, Pronunciation

Pronunciation – Vowels

Vowels are the backbone of Japanese pronunciation. In order to master Japanese pronunciation you have to master the vowels. Luckily for non-native learners, there are only 5 of them. However, these vowels are quite different in quality to the vowels found in English and will take practice to get perfect.

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January 7, 2017January 10, 2017 chris_f Language Learning, Pronunciation

Pronunciation – Introduction

Japanese is often said to have not only very easy pronunciation, but the easiest pronunciation of all the world’s major languages.

In some ways, this sentiment is not without merit. Japanese has very few consonants and only 5 vowels. In addition, the language has very simple phonotactics, meaning these sounds can only be arranged in a very limited manner (more on this later).

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