hiragana and katakana?

[niko2x]

dochira wrote:

^ See my previous post.

you would think one reads response to his/her own questions.
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[ryanloveyukie]

hundred more? T_T

kanji what is kanji? im a newb sorry if i ask so many question!!!
can we learn it together? ^^


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[dochira]

You should meet my friend, Sir Google. He's very helpful. You can ask him anything.

[ryanloveyukie]

ok thx
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[leykis101]

Hiragana and katakana isnt hard to learn. I learn both in about 3 days.

[ryanloveyukie]

look at this link

http://www.watanabesato.co.jp/jpculture/letters/letters.html

what should i use?? there are two letters ea....

is that ok if i use the left one?
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[ahochaude]

oh man, i'd chip in with insight however, i'm so drunk right now, i'm seeing triple.... i'll chime in tomorrow if no one else has yet... sorry!
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[ryanloveyukie]

but what they usually use? horagana or katakana?
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[thtl]

ryanloveyukie wrote:

but what they usually use? horagana or katakana?

These two types of characters are used in different occasions. In general Hiragana (and Kanji) is used in formal text, and Katagana are used to describe words borrowed from a foreign language. For example the word 'love' can be expressed in hiragana as 'ai', and in katagana as 'labu'.

There is a tendency for the younger generation to use katagana even when the hiragana form should be used.

[KouSeiya315]

ryanloveyukie wrote:

look at this link http://www.watanabesato.co.jp/jpculture/letters/letters.html what should i use?? there are two letters ea.... is that ok if i use the left one?

If you don't know katakana and hiragana, the "left" one won't help you at all. That site shows the Chinese character (called "kanji" in Japanese) from which the corresponding hiragana and katakana (the "right" ones) came from. If you want to learn Japanese you should learn both hiragana and katakana first. There are 46 of each. Just look at the tables, study/memorize them, and practice writing and reading them. A beginner Japanese workbook would be ideal here. That's about all you can do for now. As for kanji....don't get ahead of yourself. That comes later. There are what seems to be an infinite amount of kanji.

[ryanloveyukie]

thtl wrote:

These two types of characters are used in different occasions. In general Hiragana (and Kanji) is used in formal text, and Katagana are used to describe words borrowed from a foreign language. For example the word 'love' can be expressed in hiragana as 'ai', and in katagana as 'labu'. There is a tendency for the younger generation to use katagana even when the hiragana form should be used.

oh.... looks like its very hard to learn.. 1 word= 2 words in japanese!!! awtssss!!!!!!! ummmm is there a part of japan who only use hiragana or katakana?

KouSeiya315 wrote:

If you don't know katakana and hiragana, the "left" one won't help you at all. That site shows the Chinese character (called "kanji" in Japanese) from which the corresponding hiragana and katakana (the "right" ones) came from. If you want to learn Japanese you should learn both hiragana and katakana first. There are 46 of each. Just look at the tables, study/memorize them, and practice writing and reading them. A beginner Japanese workbook would be ideal here. That's about all you can do for now. As for kanji....don't get ahead of yourself. That comes later. There are what seems to be an infinite amount of kanji.

infinite??? i see... after i finish learning hiragana and katakana now for the meaning not again!!!!! is there a site that can teach me the easy way????
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[GodsGirl7]

Well basically you can decide whether you want to write something in katakana or hiragana. In general hiragana is used for Japanese words and katakana is used for foreign words, but I've seen katakana used to write Japanese words plenty of times. So I don't think there's a real "rule." I learned how to read hiragana and katakana, all I did was basically write them over and over until I memorized them. But there really are thousands of kanji. I've heard it said that no one really knows how many kanji there are, but you can learn what different parts mean so that you can figure out what a kanji means. But even in Japan people can't read every kanji. Far from it! My friend who moved to America from Japan around the time she was in middle school has a hard time with a lot of kanji that's common enough to be in magazines and such, because she didn't get the high school education in kanji. So really, kanji is complicated, if you're that new to Japanese I wouldn't worry about it yet.

[ryanloveyukie]

GodsGirl7 wrote:

Well basically you can decide whether you want to write something in katakana or hiragana. In general hiragana is used for Japanese words and katakana is used for foreign words, but I've seen katakana used to write Japanese words plenty of times. So I don't think there's a real "rule." I learned how to read hiragana and katakana, all I did was basically write them over and over until I memorized them. But there really are thousands of kanji. I've heard it said that no one really knows how many kanji there are, but you can learn what different parts mean so that you can figure out what a kanji means. But even in Japan people can't read every kanji. Far from it! My friend who moved to America from Japan around the time she was in middle school has a hard time with a lot of kanji that's common enough to be in magazines and such, because she didn't get the high school education in kanji. So really, kanji is complicated, if you're that new to Japanese I wouldn't worry about it yet.

is kanji really important? i mean do i need to learn it?
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[lucy_monostone]

ryanloveyukie wrote:

is kanji really important? i mean do i need to learn it?

dude that's for you to answer...it depends on how you will gonna use it.

if you're going to japan to work or study well yes it's important and it's a requirement. if your going to live there yes it's also necessary but if not better stay for the basic nihonggo lessons...
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by: jecca_o9

[dochira]

You don't have to learn kanji, but you won't be able to read most signs, newspapers, books, Japanese websites, etc... In other words, you could get by, but you'd only be experiencing a very, very small fraction of the language.

[ryanloveyukie]

i think my head divided into two!!!!
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[thtl]

There is no easy way to learn any language, and Japanese is certainly one of the more difficult ones. Even if you memorized all the hiragana and katagana characters you won't even begin to be able to read anything, let alone understand speech. There are a lot of grammatic rules in Japanese and the form of a word often changes when different rules and in use. You won't be able to even use a dictionary to find most of the words unless you know which form they are in.

A good site for beginners is as follows:

http://japanese.about.com/

Good luck.

[ryanloveyukie]

oh my thx man......

arigato gozaimas
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[aznkether]

you don't HAVE to laern Kanji, but you pretty much won't be able to read anything unless they provide you with mini hiragana translations.

Hiragana is used for traditional/native Japanese words
i.e. I-KU = to go
i.e. TA-BE-RU = to eat
i.e. SA-KA-NA = fish

Katakana is used for non-Japanese word translations
i.e. A-RU-BA-I-TO = part-time work; the German word der Arbeit which
means job
i.e. KU-RI-SU-MA-SU = Christmas

Of course there are sometimes where people use Katakana even for native Japanese words, which happens a lot when playing Japanese games.

Also, not to be anal to the above poster, but the ROMANJI you are looking for is: arigatou gouzaimasu

[Tu_triky]

aznkether wrote:

you don't HAVE to laern Kanji, but you pretty much won't be able to read anything unless they provide you with mini hiragana translations.

from my own studies i remember learning that basic understanding of a newspaper requires approximately 2000 Kanji