A Short Explanation of the Japanese Alphabet

I said “Japanese alphabet,” but Japanese actually uses four: hiragana, katakana, kanji, and romaji. Romaji, as I already explained, are Roman letters. Hiragana and katakana together are called kana. They are not alphabets, rather, they are phonetic syllbaries. That is, each hiragana or katakana character represents a syllable, such as “ka” or “shi,” and has no meaning other that its phonetic pronunciation. There are 46 each of basic hiragana and katakana. Hiragana is used for writing native Japanese words, while katakana is used to write foreign words. Katakana is also used for emphasis, in much the same way that italics are used in English. The third alphabet, kanji, is also not an alphabet at all. Kanji are Chinese characters used in Japanese. Some of them are written slightly differently in Japan than in China, and may have slightly different meanings, but they are essentially the same in both countries. Japanese officially uses nearly 2000 kanji. Each kanji character represents an idea, such as “red,” “spirit,” or “moon.” Kanji usually have different pronunciations or readings depending on the context, and often words contain more than one kanji. Japanese poets have long used kanji to create word plays. By spelling a word with a kanji that is pronounced correctly but has a different meaning, a poet or lyricist creates a double meaning. J-rock artists also do this frequently.

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