User blog:JapaneseOPfan/Lesson Seven (Japanese Alphabet)

JOPfan's Lesson #7 ; Japanese Alphabet

Hi again, all. This is the most basic out of basic out of basic lesson you gotta know. If you know the Japanese Alphabet, life would be easy since there is only one pronunciation for each letter. In other words, as long as you know how the word is pronounced, you can write it yourself! Here's an example: if you know how "Vivi" is pronounced (bibi), you'll see below that the way to write it is ビビ since ビ is pronounced vi. Enjoy (and possibly memorize) the lesson! (This one is longest so far. Be prepared >v<)

-There are 3 types of ways to write in Japan. They are Hiragana (ひらがな), Katakana (カタカナ), and Kanji (漢字). It's pretty easy to tell which is which even if you aren't japanese, since Hiragana is usually the letters that look all round/curvy, Katakana usually have sharp corners/ straight lines, and Kanji is usually all complicated with lots of lines. When you master all three (exept for maybe Kanji since there are alot), you can write words that mix the 3 ways of writing. Since the amount of Kanji is infinite (like numbers), I'll just tell you the other two alphabets. Just ask if you have an I-need-to-know-how-to-write-this-in-Kanji-or-i'll-die-disease.

-Hiragana (ひらがな)

Explaination of how to identify is stated above. Hiragana is the very first way of writing that babies usually start to learn. The most important alphabet to learn is this. It's even used as a reading aid for people who can't read kanji because it's too hard. Note that all except one letter is pronounced with a vowel in it. In katakana, hiragana is ヒラガナ and in kanji, it is 平仮名. -Katakana (カタカナ）

Explaination of how to identify is above. Katakana is the alphabet usually used for words that root from different languages. For example, "piano" is pronounced the same in Japan, so instead of pi-a-no in Hiragana (ぴあの), you would usually write it in katakana as ピアノ. It is also common for sound effects, different languages, foreign people speaking, and robots/aliens speaking. In Hiragana, Katakana is かたかな and in Kanji, it is 片仮名. All letters in Hiragana can be converted to Katakana; in other words, Katakana is another clone-type version of Hiragana. Notice that a few letters are the same as Kanji or Hiragana, and thet some letters look similar to others. Whewww... that was way longer than I expected. Took me the whole weekend to do it! (Reason why I was half non-active and the lesson appeared/disappeared from my sandbox from time to time during that period.) There are lots of other "small hiragana/katakana"s, but... I can't be workin on this thing forever, so yeah. Feel free to ask if help is needed. Thanks for reading.

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