Listen up peeps, Japan Fan here! Today we’ll be discussing the written language of Japan. Now Japan has three (technically four) systems that they use to write: Hirigana, Katakana, and Kanji. (the fourth system is Romanji which is mentioned lower in the post.) They do this because they are evil Japan is all about the mixing of cultures. (You’ll get this further down.)

Hirigana is the first and most basic system. It has 46 basic characters with 46 syllables. There are an additional 23 syllables that can be made using some of the same characters, but instead you add quotations on the right side of the character.

Now the thing about both Hirigana and Katakana is that the characters/symbols used actually represent what would be 2 American letters. For instance the hirigana character ‘ki’ is き, if you add two quotes to the right, like this ぎ it instead represents the letters ‘gi’. Katakana is the same way. Every symbol is a consonance x vowel pattern. Pretty simple and straight forward. Why on earth they couldn’t have just this system, I don’t know.

Katakana has the same idea as Hirigana. 46 characters, 23 additional syllables/sounds that can be made with adding quotes. The exact same sound patterns can be made with Katakana, the only thing is that the characters are different. Why do they have a second writing system that expresses everything the same way? Because Katakana is used to write out all things that aren’t Japanese. For instance, the word ‘computer’, is spelled in katakana. My name would also be spelled in Katakana since I am American. It is noteable that no matter how big of a Japan geek you are, if you are not from Japan YOUR NAME WOULD BE SPELLED IN KATAKANA AS WELL! I don’t care if you have a distant strain of Japanese blood. Not from Japan = written in Katakana.

The final writing system is called Kanji. It actually originated in China, although the Japanese have changed the characters/symbols to suit themselves over time. There are over a hundred thousand kanji symbols because kanji are used to represent things. every item (like dog, or book) adjective (like fun, or pretty) and verb (like to go, to shave, to put on makeup) all have their own Kanji or a combination of Kanji are used to construct the words. Kanji can be extremely simple, consisting of one line, or incredibly difficult with up to as many as 26 strokes/lines. The tricky thing about Kanji symbols is that many of them have up to 4 or more consonance x vowel patterns assigned to them, although they have the same basic meaning. It’s just another way for you to screw up and make a moron out of yourself in Japan.

Here is an example of the same word written in all three writing styles. The word, in English letters, is ‘genki’, and it means to be healthy, or good/fine.

げんき: genki in Hirigana

元気: genki in Kanji symbols

ゲンキ: genki in Katakana (And yes annoying perfectionist, normally genki wouldn’t be written in Katakana. However, for this demonstration I made the exception.)

The final/not really type of writing in Japanese is Romanji. It’s basically writing in Japanese but you use English letters. (Like just writing ‘genki’ instead of using a language system.)

And that’s the ‘basics’ of writing in Japanese. For any poor sucker who wants to know more, good luck.

Everyone seems to be under the impression that Japan is a little country filled with small people that ride bicycles, wear suits, have no free time, only eat raw fish, are extra polite, and all look alike. The children are viewed as being short with the same haircut, same clothes, and of course all of them attend prestigious schools, wear uniforms, and will major in business or computer technology.

This is sooooooo wrong and un-politically correct even I don’t have to poke fun at it to show you how ridiculous it is. This blog will try to educate you out of that horrible school of thought and show you what Japan really is like.

I will be taking a closer look at the customs, fashions, history, language of Japan and more. No I’m not some random idiot posting what I think is correct about Japan, I’m posting what I know is correct. Wikipedia does not know everything, sorry to say. Anyway, my credible sources are my textbooks, combined with the fact that I am also a second year Japanese student, and I will be going to Japan in a few months.

My humor may appear to be dark and mean at times when I make fun of the ignorant idiots of the world who hold up unrealistic ideals of Japan, but please keep in mind it’s all in good fun. I make fun of them because they are idiots I love them. <3 (Somewhere very, very, very deep in my heart.)