Japanese+writing+systems

====The Japanese have 3 main writing systems. They are Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. Hiragana and Katakana are phonetic and based on the syllable sounds that make up Japanese words. Hiragana enables you write any Japanese word at all. Katakana is used for "loan" words or foreign words which have been adopted as part of the Japanese Language. Kanji originated in China but has be adapted by the Japanese. Kanji is quite a difficult concept at first for us to get our heads around but with perseverence it can be mastered. It is always nice when my senior students realise it is actually easier to read a piece with Kanji rather than only "kana" (Hiragana and Katakana) A Japanese person is expected to learn a basic set of 1945 kanji in order to be considered totally literate. We don't expect that of our high school students but they are expected to master approx 250 by the end of Year 13. Many students learn more and the re are some students who would easily know over a 1000.====

Check out the following sites to find out more detailed information about each one. Go to our Script practice page to practise your script skills.
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/japanese.htm http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/jwriting.html

A brief summary