I know there is Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji but which one do they use the most? I'm wanting to go to Japan as a foreign exchange student in nine months and I want to know which one to study the most. I know I'll need to know all of them, but I'm just curious. Thanks!
Japan - 4 Answers
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1 :
You'll need all three. Hiragana and Katakana are phonetic and have a relatively small number of characters, so start with them. Kanji are the adopted Chinese characters, and there's thousands of those. As a rough approximation, Katakana is used to write words borrowed from foreign languages, Hiragana for spelling out Japanese words, and Kanji for most Japanese writing, although the rules for when they use Hiragana and when they use Kanji are utterly arcane.
2 :
Japanese language is combination of those 3. You can't write Japaense without knowing all of them. Japanese kids learn 50 hiragana, 50 katakana and about 2,000 kanji by 15. So high school kids know all of them.
3 :
You have a fair amount of time, so I'd say to just study as much as you can of the whole language. Yes, all three systems are used together, all the time. As an exchange student, though, probably the most useful is going to be katakana. Most menus are written with a lot of katakana, and often borrow from English words, so you'll be able to understand what to eat! In nine months, you should EASILY be able to memorize all katakana and hiragana, though, and get a start on some common kanji. Good luck!
4 :
A funny question. The three types of characters are not "writing systems" and they use all of them. All Japanese high school student have learned approx 2,000 kanji until they graduated Junior high, 15 years old. I don't think all forieners spend life in Japan should know many kanji and I don't want to threaten you to say what a large number of kanji Japanese high school student knows, but I think it will be good for you to learn basic 1,000 kanji which are taught in elementary school. If you get stunning surprise for 1,000, how about start learning asop at least all hiragana and katakana + 240 kanji taught until 8 years old (80 for 1st grade plus 160 for 2nd grade) in Japanese elementary school, to spend nine-month long life in Japan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KyÅiku_kanji It is interesting that many English speaker think it's silly that many Japanese can read English but they can't SPEAK English, but many Japanese think many Westerners are silly that they can't READ and WRITE usual Japanese sentence including many kanji although they can speak Japanese. They are another sides of one coin. In Japanese mentality, language is rather to be written than spoken. It is a reason why skype is not widely accepted in Japan, although Japanese people love texting in Keitai, chatting on web sites and 2ch bulletin boards. On the other hand, I think most Western foreigners are tend to take too lightly for written words. If you are an English teacher in Japan, you feel it is strange why many Japanese even language school students don't want to improve their English pronounciation. Seeing students read hiragana they add upon English words, you might think it is in question that they really want to be a English speaker. Many Japanese feel many Westerners are stupid because they don't do practice about kanji, though even my small 7years old girl write some kanji which are new for her 100 times (百å—帳) every day, to lead a worthy life. As proverb says, Do in Rome as Romans do. Japanese should practice SPEAKING English more, and Western foreigners should practice READing and WRITing KANJI more. (I said "Western foreigners" because I know my many Taiwanese, Chinese, old Korean or Singaporean friends have no problem on kanji)
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