How does the Japanese writing System Work?
Well, Fist of all, there are 4 different groups of characters.
romanji-(Roman Alphabet) Romanji is the way that Japanese is romanized. This means it's written in the Roman alphabet that you and I can understand. There are many systems of romanization, like the Hepburn system. Also, romanization is used when you're typing in Japanese on a computer. I'll go over some styles with you. Consonants N、ん ん is pretty much the only real stand-alone consonant in Japanese. It can be used at the end or in the middle of words. In the middle, when romanized, ん has to have an apostrophe after it. This makes the difference between tani, 谷（たに）A hill, and tan'i 単位（たんい）a unit or school course credit. The difference between saying these two is that the i in the first one is in ni, and in the second one it's independent. ん in the middle of a word can also exist. Sannin or san'nin 三人、(さんにん）three people. The apostrophe here is actually unnecessary. To type a ん that is in the middle of a sentence, type n twice (nn). Consonants that don't follow pattern: Shi, chi, tsu, fu, ji, ji, zu/dzu し、ち、つ、ふ、じ、ジ，づ In old romanizations (I have a 1945 book that uses this style) the romanizers wanted these to follow the romanji pattern, so they romanized them as the others in their group. Like in the T group, it's said ta chi tsu te to, but they spelled it ta ti tu te to. instead of using ji and zu for the voiced versions of chi and tsu, the used di and du. Possibly (does not go to check). so for shi they used si, for fu they hu, and so on. Another one of this variations is for the voiced version of tsu. Sometimes it's written dzu to show that the kana for it is づ. All of these can be typed with either versions but to type づ you have to type "du". Vowels Long vowels are romanized in all sorts of ways. with a macron over them, "jiyū" doubled up "jiyuu" with a line after them, i've only really seen this in romanizations of katakana in songs "HA-TO" (heart) I've also seen an o that is made long by adding a u. I like this way the best for O because this is how it's written in hiragana. jousei 情勢. situation. also spelled joosei or jōsei. Sayounara さようなら。 That's all i can think of now. this site has some info on it. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/japanese_romaji.htm
Kanji- (漢字） Borrowed chinese characters used for words with multiple meanings like shi 四(four) 市(city)
Katakana-（カタカナ） used for writing foreign words like names of people and "borrowed words" like...salad (sarada サラダ.
Hiragana-（ひらがな） used for writing basic japanese words and words that dont have kanji attached to them。(Like nice to meet you はじめまして）
romanji-(Roman Alphabet) Romanji is the way that Japanese is romanized. This means it's written in the Roman alphabet that you and I can understand. There are many systems of romanization, like the Hepburn system. Also, romanization is used when you're typing in Japanese on a computer. I'll go over some styles with you. Consonants N、ん ん is pretty much the only real stand-alone consonant in Japanese. It can be used at the end or in the middle of words. In the middle, when romanized, ん has to have an apostrophe after it. This makes the difference between tani, 谷（たに）A hill, and tan'i 単位（たんい）a unit or school course credit. The difference between saying these two is that the i in the first one is in ni, and in the second one it's independent. ん in the middle of a word can also exist. Sannin or san'nin 三人、(さんにん）three people. The apostrophe here is actually unnecessary. To type a ん that is in the middle of a sentence, type n twice (nn). Consonants that don't follow pattern: Shi, chi, tsu, fu, ji, ji, zu/dzu し、ち、つ、ふ、じ、ジ，づ In old romanizations (I have a 1945 book that uses this style) the romanizers wanted these to follow the romanji pattern, so they romanized them as the others in their group. Like in the T group, it's said ta chi tsu te to, but they spelled it ta ti tu te to. instead of using ji and zu for the voiced versions of chi and tsu, the used di and du. Possibly (does not go to check). so for shi they used si, for fu they hu, and so on. Another one of this variations is for the voiced version of tsu. Sometimes it's written dzu to show that the kana for it is づ. All of these can be typed with either versions but to type づ you have to type "du". Vowels Long vowels are romanized in all sorts of ways. with a macron over them, "jiyū" doubled up "jiyuu" with a line after them, i've only really seen this in romanizations of katakana in songs "HA-TO" (heart) I've also seen an o that is made long by adding a u. I like this way the best for O because this is how it's written in hiragana. jousei 情勢. situation. also spelled joosei or jōsei. Sayounara さようなら。 That's all i can think of now. this site has some info on it. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/japanese_romaji.htm
Kanji- (漢字） Borrowed chinese characters used for words with multiple meanings like shi 四(four) 市(city)
Katakana-（カタカナ） used for writing foreign words like names of people and "borrowed words" like...salad (sarada サラダ.
Hiragana-（ひらがな） used for writing basic japanese words and words that dont have kanji attached to them。(Like nice to meet you はじめまして）
posted by Sasha @ 12:36 PM
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