The Three Writing Systems in the Japanese Language

A student at Mercer County Community College in West Windsor, New Jersey, Adam Porcher most recently worked at The Brothers Moon, a restaurant in Hopewell, NJ. Outside of his academic and work life, Adam Porcher pursues a diverse range of interests, including learning the Japanese language.

Japanese is considered one of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers. The complexity of Japanese partly stems from its use of three different writing systems interchangeably and often within a single sentence. Here is a brief overview of each system:

- Hiragana. Unlike the straightforward 26 letters of the English alphabet, the Japanese language uses a syllabary of 46 characters. Each of the characters, known as “hiragana,” represents a syllabic unit, for example, “ka,” “sa,” and “chi.” Hiragana is often what people mean when they refer to the Japanese alphabet, though it is only a small part of the written language.

- Katakana. Similar to hiragana, “katakana” is a set of 46 characters that make up the Japanese syllabary. Katakana characters, however, look completely different from hiragana, even though they represent the same sounds. While hiragana is used to spell the majority of Japanese words, katakana characters are used for specific types of words, for example, words borrowed from other languages. 

- Kanji. Many words are represented with “kanji,” a pictographic system similar to the Chinese system. Tens of thousands of kanji exist in Japanese, with each kanji character often containing multiple meanings and pronunciations.