4 lapanese Writing Syste There are three kinds of characters in Japanese: hiragana, katakana, and kanji.' All three characters can be seen in a single sentence, FvVEeRE T I watch television. katakana kanji hiragana Hiragana and katakana, like the alphabet, represent sounds. As you can see in the above ex- ample, hiragana has a roundish shape and is used for conjugation endings, function words, and native Japanese words not covered by kanji. Katakana, which has rather straight lines, is normally used for writing loanwords and foreign names. For example, the Japanese word for “television” is written in katakana as F V € (terebi). Kanji, or Chinese characters, represent not just sounds but also meanings. Mostly, kanji are used for nouns and the stems of verbs and adjectives. @Hiragana 1. Basic Hiragana Syllables ‘There are forty-six basic hiragana syllables, which are listed below. Once you memorize this, chart, you will have the skill to transcribe all of the Japanese sounds. 4 \y 4 8 =a ka ki ku ko x L + x bk | 2 Tt x ‘a_| “su te 0 te a | oD na i ne ~ (t nN (Z ha he ho " There is another writing system called rdmaji (Roman letters) which is used for station names, signs, and so on.* BN/ES| Er & Japanese Writing System +> 25 * the syllables L, %, P,and 5s are romanized as shi, chi ts, and fi, = spectively, to closely resemble English pronunciation ** € is also pronounced as “wo.” “The romanization is given for general pronunciation reference. 2. Hiragana with Diacritical Marks You can transcribe 23 additional sounds by adding diacritic marks. With a pair of short diagonal strokes (“ ), the unvoiced consonants ks, and / become voiced consonants g, 2, 4d, and b, respectively. The consonant h changes to p with the addition of a small circle (" ). aan ee ee ga a gu ge go xf cul Ff] ee = |e |= |» | Es tile da ji mu de do (¥ ue aN “~ (Z ba bt | bu be bo wlefls | «le pa pi pu pe Po 3. Transcribing Contracted Sounds * (i) and (zu) are pronounced the same as U (ji) and ¥ (zu), respec- tively, and have limited use, Small %, ’, and L follow after letters in the second column (i-vowel hiragana, except \') and are used to transcribe contracted sounds. The contracted sound represents a single syl- lable.26 ta, a Ge bh ya yw hyo Av Aw At pa | pu | pe | earl yo Qe) Uo) Ue ya ry 190 4, Transcribing Double Consonants ‘There is another small letter, 2, which is used when transcribing double consonants such as ttand pp. Examples: #>/ kata (won) cf #2 kata (shoulder) ot sakka (writer) ldol£ happa (leaf) XL zasshi (magazine) Note double consonant n’s as in sannen (three years) are written with L +a hiragana with an initial m sound (4, (=, #2, 44, and 0), Examples: A444 sannen (three years) ACY annai (guide) 5. Other Issues Relating to Transcription and Pronunciation A. Long Vowels When the same vowel is placed one right after the other, the pronunciation of the vowel becomes about twice as long as the single vowel. Be sure to hold the sound long enough, because the length of the vowel can change one word to another. _— Japanese Writing System>»> 27 aa BILH*XA obaasan (grandmother) cf. BIL XA obasan (aunt) ii BULA ojiisan (grandfather) cf BU XA ojisan (uncle) uu Iu suuji (number) ce The long ee sound is usually transcribed by adding an \ to an e-vowel hiragana. ‘There are a few words, however, in which 2 is used instead of t., AWA coga (movie) BAATA oneesan (big sister) 00 ‘The long 00 sound is in most cases transcribed by adding an 3 to an o-vowel hiragana. There are, however, words in which the long vowel is transcribed with an &, for historical reasons. 125.92 hooritsu (law) CB too (ten) B. Pronunciation of Ay A. “n’ is treated like a full syllable, in terms of length. Its pronunciation varies, however depending on the sound that follows it. Japanese speakers are normally not aware of the different sound values of A.. Therefore, you do not need to worry too much about its pronun- ciation? C. Vowels to Be Dropped ‘The vowels i and u are sometimes dropped when placed between voiceless consonants (k, sf, p,and h), or at the end of an utterance preceded by voiceless consonants. Example: $3 TF s(u)kides(u) (Like it.) D. Accent in the Japanese Language Japanese has pitch accent: all syllables are pronounced basically either in high or low pitch. Unlike English stress accent in which stressed syllables tend to be pronounced longer and louder, in Japanese each syllable is pronounced approximately in equal length and stress, The pitch patterns in Japanese vary greatly, depending on the region of the country. One variety of the A pronunciation merits discussing here. When itis followed by a vowel or at the end of an utterance, A indicates that the preceding vowel is long and nasalized. (Nasalized vowels are shown here with a tilde above vowel letters. You hear nasalized vowels in French words such as “bon,” or the English interjection “ub-uh,” asin “no” cx MLBLY bai (somance) LEK (book) Followed by n, 1,48 and 2 sounds, 4 is pronounced as“n cx BA ona (woman) Followed by m,p, and b sounds, is pronounced asm.” ex. SAIE sampo (tell) Followed by kand g sounds, A is pronounced as “ng” asin“song” ex. 244° mayga (comics)a Examples: $8 (morning) wer ga (ame) Bas (high) @Katakana T 4 2 =x a | a i u e ° 4 + 2 2 ka ki kw ke ko [ely ]lxzlely sa “shi su se _ 2 yg) |r| elt ta “chi “tsu te fo +] a] 2 r | 7 ina ni aw ne no Wn 7 a * ha hi fu he | ho z eI | ma mi mu me mo + } 2 a ya yu ~ 7 » v Lv vo vy 7 wa _ ° “The syllables, #, 7, and 7 are 5 —) romanized as shi, chi, tsu, and fu re- oa spectively, to closely resemble English a pronunciation. aw x 7 7 za ga a ou be go oF y KR) + v za ji =m 5 2Japanese Writing Systern>+>29 °# (ji and “7 (zu) are pronounced the same as 7 Gj) and X (zu), respec- tively, and have limited use tyr | ta) 3 ¥+ | Fa ¥a ee Iya iy yo oe | om Wate |e eas. Yr | Yala sha shu sho ia ju ie Fx | Fa Fs ha | du cho + =a mm | m | w | [ey] ea] ea te | eta | ea oa | bu | be in| im | bp ey | ea | es Z4+] ia] ia |_p ee mya | my | myo Yr) Ya) Ya ya yi in ‘The pronunciation of katakana and its combinations are the same as those of hiragana, ex- cept for the following points. (1) The long vowels are written with — Examples: 7 — kaa (car) 7% kecki (cake) R¥— — sukii (ski) =" booru (ball) A-Y — suutsu (suit) ‘When you write vertically, the — mark needs to be written vertically also, Example:30 (2) Additional combinations with small vowel letters are used to transcribe foreign sounds which originally did not exist in Japanese. Examples: 99400 U4 —Y harowiin (Halloween) Dx MOEA haiwee (highway) UH 2 RBM 4—F— — minerarwwootaa (mineral water) yu ¥s7 shefu (chef) Yn Yar jeemusu ames) F277 chekku (check) Drovay ‘fasshon (fashion) 7ayey firipin (Philippine) a7 = kafe (cafe) 74-7 ‘fooku (fork) paatii (party) FAR Z Dizuniirando (Disneyland) Faxtyt dyuetto (duet) (3) The sound “v” is sometimes written with %. For example, the word “Venus” is some- times written as E—4% or F4 — FR, @kKanji Kanji are Chinese characters which were introduced to Japan more than 1,500 years ago ‘when the Japanese language did not have a writing system. Hiragana and katakana evolved later in Japan based on the simplified Chinese characters, Kanji represents both meanings and sounds. Most kanji possess multiple readings, which are divided into two types: on-yomi (Chinese readings) and kun-yomi (Japanese readings) On-yoi is derived from the pronunciations used in China, Some kanji have more than ane on-yomi due to temporal and regional variances in the Chinese pronunciation, Kun-yorni are Japanese readings. When people started to use kanji to write native Japanese words, Japanese readings (kun-yomi) were added to kanji. By the time of high school graduation, Japanese are expected to know 2,136 kanji (called Joyo kanji), which are designated by the Ministry of Education as commonly used kanji. A total of 1,006 kanji are taught at the elementary school level, and most of the remainder are taught in junior high school. There are roughly four types of kanji based on their formation,