How to Learn Japanese Symbols
For non-native speakers, Japanese can be a challenging language to learn, and an even more challenging language to write. The written language uses a combination of three sets of characters. The main "symbols" used in Japanese are Chinese characters called kanji, which are used in conjunction with two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana.
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Instructions
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Learn the syllabaries first: hiragana and katakana. These are the Japanese equivalent of the ABCs, with hiragana used to supplement kanji and katakana, which is used for foreign names and words as well as words in nature.
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Study the kanji. Find a good text that not only teaches the basics, but does so in a way that appeals to you. For example, the "kanji de manga" series of books uses Japanese comic art to help teach Japanese. Some students may find this a little more user-friendly than a standard textbook, especially if you are trying to learn entirely on your own.
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Start with the basic kanji learned in elementary schools. There are 1,006 of these "kyoiku kanji" characters, with 80 of them taught in the first year.
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Join a Japanese language club at your school or library. There's really no way to check your work unless you have a chance to interact with other people who are learning, in particular people who are more advanced than you.
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Move on to the next 939 kanji taught in Japanese schools. The combined 1,945 kanji make up the "joyo kanji," which are the characters most Japanese are expected to know.
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Tips & Warnings
Learn to speak some Japanese before you try to write it. Japanese and English use very different sentence structures, and learning to write requires more than just translating each word and writing it down.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Claire H., Augapfel, Puamelia via Flickr
