Modern Japanese writing consists of three main components: kanji - hieroglyphs of Chinese origin, and two syllabaries formed on the basis of the same hieroglyphs in Japan - hiragana and katakana. For example, the word "Aikido" in Japanese can be written in three different ways. Using Kanji characters - 合気道. Or using the hiragana syllabary ー あいきど
. Another option is possible - using the "katakana" alphabet - アイキド. In addition, the Japanese often use Arabic numerals when writing numerals. Latin letters may also appear in texts when writing well-known international abbreviations (km - kilometers, TV - television). Less common in the texts is the so-called “romaji” - transliteration of Japanese in Latin letters.
Kanji - ( Japanese:
漢字) - literally - signs of the Han Dynasty. Mainly used in writing when writing nouns, adjectives, verb stems and proper names of Japanese origin. Often one kanji has two or more readings. For example, the kanji for sword (刀) is katana, in the word "tanto" (短刀) - short sword is read "to", and in the word "sinai" (竹刀) - bamboo sword - "nai". The choice of kanji reading depends largely on the combination with other kanji. Because of this, choosing the correct reading of hieroglyphs at the initial stage of learning is not an easy task.
The written language of modern Japan uses approximately 3,000 characters. Currently, 2150 kanji is the required minimum that is taught in schools.
For example, let's write "Daseikan dojo" using kanji characters:
蛇 勢 館 道 場
Or another example - "Aikido Yoshinkan":
合 気 道養 神 館
Hiragana (Japanese: 平仮名) is a syllabary alphabet. The so-called "women's letter". The name stuck due to the fact that at the initial stage, hiragana was used mainly by women, who at that time did not have access to a good education. Hiragana expresses short vowels, their combinations with consonants, and the only consonant sound - “n” (ん). It is used in writing mostly to write words for which there is no kanji, such as particles and suffixes. In addition, it is used instead of kanji in cases where the writer or reader does not know the spelling of some hieroglyphs.
For example, consider the recording of the name of the Aikido Yoshinkan technique Shomen Irimi Nage- shomen iriminage 正面 入りみ 投げ - "front entry throw". Here's the word Shomen - 正面 - facade, front - is written only using kanji, and in the word Irimi - 入りみ - entrance and Nage 投げ - throw, channels are used りみ - "rimi" and げ - "ge", respectively. Another example: 合気道養神館の道場 - Aikido Yoshinkan no dojo - kana here の (but) indicates the genitive case, that is, it emphasizes that the dojo belongs specifically to Aikido Yoshinkan - and the translation is: " dojo Aikido Yoshinkan."
Note the use of hiragana in case of ignorance of kanji characters with a known phonetic sound. In this case, the phrase already familiar to us 蛇勢館道場 - We can write Daseikan Dojo in hiragana, it will turn out - だせいかんどじょ.
Hiragana.
Katakana (Japanese:
片仮名) - second The syllabary alphabet of the Japanese language is completely consistent with the first one phonetically, but functionally performs other tasks. First of all, it is used to write words borrowed from other languages, foreign proper names, as well as technical and scientific terms. In addition, katakana can be used to create semantic emphasis in a certain section of text written in kanji and hiragana. Katakana characters are significantly simplified and many resemble similar hiragana kana, but only one “he” character is completely identical - (へ).
Let's look at examples: Russia - Ro-Shi-A - ロシア, or Irina - I-Ri-Na - イリナ, antenna from the English word "antenna" - A-N-TE-Na - アンテナ, or Pu-Ro-Ge-Ra- Mu - プログラム - from the English "programme" - program.
Katakana.
Romaji - (Japanese: ローマ字) - literally - Latin characters (letters). First of all, these are abbreviations of foreign origin - USB (Universal Serial Bus), UN (United Nations). Japanese names are written in Roman letters on documents so that foreigners can read them. Romaji significantly simplifies work with a computer and other electronic equipment. Any keyboard can be switched to kana input mode using Romaji.
Horizontal and vertical writing in Japanese. Until 1958, the Japanese language used the traditional Chinese writing method 縦書き (たてがき - Tategaki) - literally - vertical writing, characters written from top to bottom, columns from right to left. To this day, this option is used in newspapers and fiction. In the computer industry, as well as in scientific and technical literature, the European way of writing characters is used: 横書き (よこがき - Yokogaki) - literally
- side letter, characters are written from left to right, lines - from top to bottom. Officially adopted in 1959, this notation allows you to insert terms or phrases in European languages, chemical formulas and mathematical equations. You can, however, also encounter horizontal writing from right to left; this is not uncommon on all kinds of plates and signs.
An example of traditional vertical writing.
The same text in a modern horizontal version.
AYF (Aikido Yoshinkan Foundation Tokyo Japan) certificates issued by the Hombu Dojo (headquarters) Yoshinkan Aikido, as well as certified instructors Aikido Yoshinkan, as a rule, are traditionally filled in a vertical manner.
Aikido Yoshinkan Instructor Certificate.
Tattoos in the form of Chinese and Japanese characters are very popular in European countries. Tattoo hieroglyphs carry originality and mysticism, since their meaning is practically unknown to anyone except the owner himself. But despite this, a seemingly simple symbol can hide deep meaning and powerful energy. In fact, only Europeans apply Chinese and Japanese characters on their bodies, while residents of these Asian countries prefer English inscriptions, which are written with grammatical errors. Be that as it may, hieroglyphs are very difficult to translate.
Before choosing any design you like, take a little time to find out the exact meaning of the symbols. Otherwise, you can end up in an unpleasant situation, for example, the one that happened two years ago to a German teenager. After paying 180 euros, the young man asked the tattoo artist to infuse him with Chinese characters meaning “love, respect, obey.”
Having got the long-awaited tattoo, the guy went on vacation to China. Imagine his surprise when Chinese waitresses in restaurants constantly paid attention to him. The young man decided to ask why his tattoo had such an effect. Having learned the correct translation of his hieroglyphs, the young man was shocked. On his arm was the inscription “At the end of the day I become an ugly boy.” Returning home, I discovered that the tattoo parlor was closed. The unlucky guy had to undergo laser tattoo removal for 1,200 euros.
If you decide to get hieroglyphs as a tattoo, find out their meaning in advance in authoritative reference books, or choose from the most popular and sought-after symbols.
Meaning of hieroglyphs
Chinese characters tattoo
Zi is the name of the traditional Chinese script used to write official documents in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other Chinese settlements. The Chinese “alphabet” (let’s call it that) contains 47,000 letter-symbols Tzu. In order to improve the literacy of the population, the government passed a law to simplify the writing system. Many dashes, sticks and dots have disappeared from use.
The Chinese themselves say that to speak and write fluently in Chinese, you only need 4,000 characters. Yes, hieroglyphs are really difficult both to write and to translate. However, a certain trend has already emerged for tattoos. The most popular and sought-after tattoo hieroglyphs are considered to be symbols meaning love, strength, family, luck, peace, fire. This doesn't mean your choices are limited to just these words. With the help of Chinese tattoos, you can express your positive or negative emotions, inspire yourself with encouraging words, or capture a pleasant moment in your memory.
Japanese characters tattoo
Japanese hieroglyph tattoos, like Chinese ones, are popular almost everywhere except these countries themselves. Writing in Japan consists of three systems: kanji, katakana and hiragana. Kanzi is the most common of the three. The symbols from this system come from Chinese writing. However, Japanese characters are easier to write. In total, the alphabet has 50,000 characters, most of which belong to nouns. Katakana is used primarily for loanwords, internationalisms, and proper names. Hiragana is responsible for adjectives and other grammatical phenomena. Tattoos based on the symbols of this system are much less common than the previous two.
Many celebrities have chosen Japanese characters as tattoos. For example, Britney Spears chose a symbol that translates as “strange.” However, in reality the singer wanted to get a tattoo with the words “mystical”. Melanie C, the ex-peppercorn, has never hidden her girl power. The phrase "Girl Power" was the group's motto. It was these words that Mel C tattooed on her shoulder. Pink expressed her happiness with a Japanese tattoo of the same name.
Would you get such a tattoo for yourself?We look forward to your comments!
Modern Japanese has two syllabary alphabets: hiragana and katakana.
Japanese hiragana alphabet
Hiragana is usually used in combination with hieroglyphs, where it denotes prefixes, suffixes and other grammatical elements, all sorts of particles, etc. You can simply write a Japanese word in this alphabet in various situations. For example, it is customary to write some words in this alphabet, rather than in hieroglyphs, or as a transcription of hieroglyphs, etc.
For example, the expression "bon appetit" in the Japanese hiragana alphabet is written as follows: 
and is pronounced "itadakimas"
And this means "sorry" in Japanese. 
and is read as "sumimasen".
Japanese katakana alphabet
Katakana is used to write foreign words, titles, names and other things. This alphabet is also sometimes used to write Japanese words as italics to highlight the word.
As you may have noticed, the Japanese language lacks some letters. Therefore, to write words with missing letters, those closest to the sound are used. For example, s=w=sch, v=b, s=dz, l=r, f=x, etc. Besides the letter H, the Japanese alphabet has no consonants that are not part of syllables. They are replaced by syllables with the letter U, and since there are no syllables TU and DU, TO and DO are used.
As an example, let's look at how to write the name Maxim in Japanese: マクシーム
Ma=マ, k=ku=ク, si=シ, ー – accent mark, m=mu=ム and it turns out “makushimu”
The following example, let's write the name Victoria in Japanese: ビクトーリヤ
vi=bi=ビ, k=ク, then=ト, ー – accent mark, ri=リ, i=ヤ = bicutoria
However, in the 20th century, foreign words began to be used more and more and the Japanese katakana alphabet was supplemented.
Now you can write the name Victoria not as Bikutoria, but with the new signs Vikutoria - ヴィクトーリヤ
And the name Zina in Japanese will be ズィーナ, and not Jina, as it was written before. ジーナ
You can write a name using any option, but the second one is more modern and better conveys the recording of a foreign name/word. By the way, it is used when translating names on this site.
If you want to learn the Japanese alphabet, then the most effective way is to read texts in Japanese alphabets. It’s also very good to learn Japanese alphabet from songs:
Song for memorizing Japanese hiragana alphabet
Song for memorizing the Japanese alphabet katakana
Let's talk about the Japanese language. It’s worth mentioning right away that this language is unique and its position in the system of other languages is still controversial. It is usually considered as an isolated language, but there is an opinion that Japanese should still be classified as an Altai language. For example, the same language family includes Korean and Mongolian. The total number of Japanese speakers in the world is about 140 million people.
Japanese is the native language of more than 125 million Japanese people. In its grammatical structure, it is agglutinative, that is, a language in which the main method of word formation is agglutination, that is, an abundance of various suffixes and prefixes, due to which words change shape. Also, the Japanese language expresses grammatical meanings synthetically: synthetic languages express grammatical meanings within the word itself using stress, internal inflection, and so on. The Russian language is also classified as a synthetic language.
Usually, when teaching Japanese to foreigners, it is called “nihongo”, that is, literally “Japanese language”. In Japan itself, as part of the native culture, it is called “kokugo” - the national language. I will not go into the history of the origin of the Japanese language for now; this is an even more controversial and complex issue than its position in the world system of languages.
It’s not for nothing that I called this post “Three Types of Japanese Writing,” because there are just three of them. Moreover, two of them are generally unique, and one, let’s say, is not unique at all =) I’ll start a little from afar. There is often an argument about which direction the Japanese write. It's simple: there is a traditional way, borrowed from the Chinese - the characters are written from top to bottom, and the columns go from right to left. This method is still used in newspapers and fiction.
Things are different in scientific sources: they often have to use Western terms, so symbols are written in the usual way for us - from left to right, in lines. In general, horizontal writing was officially adopted only in 1959, and is now used everywhere. It sometimes happens that the symbols run horizontally, but from right to left - a rare case, used on signs and slogans, but essentially in this case, each column simply consists of one sign. That's all, today the Japanese for the most part write like us.
Now, actually, to the topic of this post. The first part of Japanese writing that I will talk about is called “kanji” - these are hieroglyphs borrowed from China. This term literally translates as “Han letters”, this is one of the Chinese dynasties. An example kanji is 武士道 (literally " ", the first two characters mean "warrior", the last one means "path").
Presumably this type of writing came to Japan in the 5th century AD along with Buddhist monks. Each hieroglyph represents a certain meaning or its abstract expression, that is, one symbol can be either a whole word or meaning, or part of a word. Today, kanji are used to write the stems of nouns, adjectives and verbs, and their number has been reduced to two thousand. It would be a bit strange to show all the kanji here, so I'm only showing a group of kanji that require 18 hand movements to write.
At the time when Chinese characters came to China, the country did not have its own written language. Then, to record Japanese words, the “Man’yōgana” writing system was created; its essence is that words are written in Chinese characters not by meaning, but by sound. Next, Man'yogana, written in italics, is converted into "hiragana" - a writing system for women.
In Ancient Japan, higher education was not available to them and the study of kanji was closed to them. In parallel with hiragana, “katakana” also arose - the most simplified man’yogana. Subsequently, these two alphabets turned into modern katakana and hiragana, the first types of writing studied in the elementary grades of Japanese schools. In these alphabets, each character is a syllable, since the Japanese language has a clear syllabic structure.
With 46 basic hiragana characters and a few additional symbols, you can write anything you want in Japanese. Katakana is commonly used to write words of foreign origin, terms, names, and so on. I use hiragana to write native Japanese words. For example, let's take the same phrase - The Way of the Warrior. In Japanese it is read as "bushido". In hiragana it looks like this - ぶしどう. And in katakana - ブシドイ. Below are two character tables with readings, first hiragana, below katakana.
Symbols of syllabary alphabets are more often used to write those same suffixes and prefixes. As for kanji, compared to the Chinese “Hanzi”, they have many purely Japanese additions: some hieroglyphs were invented in Japan (“kokuji”), some changed their meaning (“kokkun”). There is also an old and a new way of writing the same thing - "kyūjitai" and "shinjitai" respectively.
In general, this topic is very extensive, and I have not written much here, but I think there is no point in closing the topic for now.
In today's article we will take a closer look.
You will learn:
- How did hieroglyphs appear in Japan?
- Why do hieroglyphs need “on” and “kun” readings?
- How many hieroglyphs do you need to know?
- Why the Japanese won't give up hieroglyphs
- How to read the symbol "々"
- What order of writing strokes should be followed?
- And much more!
At the end of the article you will find copybooks that will help you write several Japanese characters yourself.
Japanese characters and their meaning
For writing, the Japanese use special characters - hieroglyphs, which were borrowed from China. In Japan, hieroglyphs are called “Letters (of the Han Dynasty)”, or “Chinese characters” 漢字 (kanji). The system of Chinese characters is believed to have originated 
as early as the 16th century BC. Japanese is the language until the 5th century AD. had no written form. This was due to strong state fragmentation. Japan was a weak state, consisting of many principalities, each of which had its own power, its own dialect. But gradually strong rulers came to power, the unification of principalities began in the country, which led to the adoption of the culture and writing of the most powerful state at that time. It is not known exactly how Chinese writing ended up in Japan, but there is a widespread version that the first hieroglyphs were brought to the country by Buddhist monks. Adaptation of Chinese writing was not easy, because... The Japanese language has nothing in common with Chinese in grammar, vocabulary, and phonetics. Initially, Kanji and Chinese Hanzi were no different from each other. But now a difference has appeared between them: some characters were created in Japan itself - “national characters” 国字 (kokuji), some received a different meaning. And after World War II, the writing of many kanji was simplified.
Why do Japanese characters need multiple readings?
The Japanese borrowed from the Chinese language not only hieroglyphs, but also their readings. Having heard the original Chinese reading of a character, the Japanese tried to pronounce it in their own way. This is how the “Chinese” or “on” reading came about – 音読 (onyomi). For example, the Chinese word for water (水) – “shui”, taking into account the peculiarities of Japanese pronunciation, turned into “sui”. Some kanji have multiple onyomi because they were borrowed from China several times: in different periods and from different areas. But when the Japanese wanted to use characters to write their own words, Chinese readings were not enough. Therefore, there was a need to translate the hieroglyphs into Japanese. Just as the English word "water" is translated as "みず, mizu", the Chinese word "水" has been given the same meaning as "みず". This is how the “Japanese”, “kun” reading of the hieroglyph appeared - 訓読み, (kunyomi). Some kanji may have several kuns at once, or may not have them at all. Frequently used Japanese characters can have ten different readings. The choice of reading a hieroglyph depends on many things: the context, the intended meaning, combination with other kanji, and even the place in the sentence. Therefore, often the only sure way to determine where the reading is on and where the reading is kunnoe is to learn specific constructions.
How many hieroglyphs are there in total?
It is almost impossible to answer the question about the total number of hieroglyphs, since their number is truly enormous. Judging by the dictionaries: from 50 to 85 thousand. However, in the computer field, font systems have been released that contain encodings for 170-180 thousand characters! It includes all ancient and modern ideograms ever used throughout the world. In ordinary texts, for example, newspapers or magazines, only a small part of hieroglyphs is used - about 2500 characters. Of course, there are also rare hieroglyphs, mostly technical terms, rare first and last names. There is a list of “kanji for everyday use” (“joyo-kanji”) approved by the Japanese government, which contains 2136 characters. This is the number of characters a Japanese school graduate should remember and be able to write.
How to quickly memorize hieroglyphs?
Why don't the Japanese give up hieroglyphs?
Many students of Japanese or Chinese often wonder: why does such an inconvenient writing system still exist? Hieroglyphs are classified as ideographic signs, the outline of which retains at least a symbolic, but similarity with the depicted object. For example, the first Chinese characters are images of specific objects: 木 - “tree”, 火 - “fire”, etc. The relevance of hieroglyphs today is partly explained by the fact that ideographic writing has some advantages over phonographic writing. People speaking different languages can communicate using the same ideograms, because an ideogram conveys the meaning, not the sound, of a word. For example, when seeing the sign “犬”, a Korean, Chinese and Japanese will read the character differently, but they will all understand that it is about a dog. Another advantage is the compactness of the letter, because one sign represents a whole word. But if the Chinese, for example, have no alternative to hieroglyphs, then the Japanese have syllabary alphabet! Will the Japanese give up hieroglyphs in the near future? They won't refuse. Indeed, due to the huge number of homonyms in the Japanese language, the use of hieroglyphs becomes simply necessary. Even if they sound the same, words are written in different hieroglyphs depending on their meaning. What can we say about the Japanese mentality, which implies loyalty to traditions and pride in its history. And thanks to the computer, the problem associated with complex writing of hieroglyphs was resolved. Today you can type Japanese texts very quickly.
Why is the symbol needed?々 »?
The symbol "々" is not a hieroglyph. As we already know, any ideographic sign has at least one specific phonetic correspondence. The same icon constantly changes its reading. This symbol is called a repetition sign, and it is needed in order to avoid re-writing hieroglyphs. For example, the word “people” consists of two characters for “person” - “人人” (hitobito), but for simplicity this word is written “人々”. Although Japanese does not have a grammatical plural form, it can sometimes be formed by repeating kanji, as in our human example:
- 人 hito - person; 人々 hitobito - people;
- 山 pit - mountain; 山々 yamayama - mountains;
It also happens that some words change their meaning when doubled:
- 時 currents - time; 時々 tokidoki - sometimes.
The character "々" has many names: the dancing sign 踊り字 (odoriji), the repetition sign 重ね字 (kasaneji), noma-ten ノマ点 (due to its similarity to the katakana characters ノ and マ), and many others.
What is the order of writing traits in hieroglyphs?
Along with Chinese, Japanese characters have a certain sequence of writing strokes. Correct stroke order helps ensure that characters are recognizable even when you write them quickly. The Japanese reduced this order to several rules, which, of course, have exceptions. The most important rule: hieroglyphs are written top to bottom and left to right. Here are some more basic rules:
1. Horizontal lines are written from left to right and parallel;
2. Vertical lines are written from top to bottom;
3. If a hieroglyph has both vertical and horizontal lines, then the horizontal ones are written first;
4. The vertical line that intersects the hieroglyph or its element in the center is written last;
5. Horizontal lines passing through the sign are also written last;
6. First the slash to the left is written, then the slash to the right;
With the correct order of strokes, the hieroglyph turns out beautiful, and it is much easier to write. All kanji must be the same size. For a hieroglyph to be balanced, it must strictly fit into a square of a given size. Now that you know what order of strokes you need to follow, try writing a few simple hieroglyphs, which we have already encountered in this article:
人 - person
山 - mountain
水 - water
木-tree
火 - fire
I hope that you learned something new and interesting from this article. As homework, write down the above several times. I think that everyone who is familiar with hieroglyphs has their own favorite hieroglyph, the one that was immediately remembered or liked. Do you have a favorite hieroglyph? Share in the comments about completing your homework, I will also be glad to hear your impressions. Second part .
Want to learn more about hieroglyphs?
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