Understanding the Japanese Writing System: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji

Learning Japanese starts with understanding its unique writing system, a blend of three scripts that work together: hiragana, katakana, and kanji.

The Kana: Hiragana & Katakana

Hiragana and katakana are collectively known as the kana. Both are phonetic scripts, meaning each character represents a sound rather than an idea or meaning. Each script has 46 basic characters, and while they represent the same set of sounds, they’re used in different ways.

Hiragana (ひらがな) is the foundation of written Japanese. It’s used for grammatical elements and for words that either don’t have a kanji version or when the writer chooses not to use kanji.

Katakana (カタカナ), on the other hand, is mainly used for loanwords (foreign words adopted into Japanese), for emphasis (similar to italics in English), and occasionally for stylistic reasons.

If you’re just starting out, learning hiragana is your first step. It’s the “bread and butter” of Japanese reading and writing, once you can read hiragana, you’ll be able to use most beginner resources and start recognizing basic sentence structures.

For detailed breakdowns of the kana, check out Tae Kim’s excellent guides on hiragana and katakana.

Kanji

The third script, kanji (漢字), is where things get more complex and more fascinating. Kanji are logographic characters that represent meanings or concepts rather than sounds. Each kanji can represent part of a word or sometimes an entire word on its own.

Japanese high school students are expected to learn at least 2,136 kanji as part of their standard curriculum, though around 3,000 appear frequently in everyday life.

While mastering kanji takes time, understanding its structure and logic will open up an incredible amount of the Japanese language, from street signs and books to manga and beyond.