Japanese symbols/ letters. Are you stunned by them ??

Question

I just cannot believe how complicated Japanese writing looks. Surely it would take you hours to write a letter. Do Japanese have a symbol alphabet. Would it be a nightmare to learn ??How about a computer keyboard in Japan ??

Answer 1

they have chinese-based symbols that youhave to remember and an alternative alphabet of symbol parts - i.e. several letters that form a syllable are combined into a single symbol

keyboard work by typing in english letters - the system either matches them to a symbol automatically, or brings up available choices.

Answer 2

♡Well, you've already got the answers to your questions from the others so I'll just add my 'two yen' here.
YES! At first I was stunned and overwhelmed by the Japanese characters! (*^o^*) I'm an American and have lived in Japan almost 9 years now and if I try to write anything in kanji, I keep it short because it takes ME forever! I like my writing to be beautiful, so I take my time too. You have to learn the correct stroke order to write the characters. If two people have the same name in Japanese, let's say Kyoko, it may not be written using the same kanji! Interesting, huh? Sometimes over the phone, if you give your name and it has difficult kanji, you have to explain to the other person, WHICH character you use. WHEW!(*^o^*)
A nightmare to learn? Hmmmm, not really! There are thousands of characters though. Definitely a challenge.The kanji characters are really beautiful though if you look at them. Many are like small pictures. 山 'yama' is mountain, see? 川　'kawa' is river and so on. Lovely!
Take a look at some of the katakana, hiragana and kanji here if you're interested:
http://www.harapan.co.jp/english/japan/hiragana.htm
http://www.nuthatch.com/kanji/demo/frame.html
Actually, I just started learning them late in life, so it's harder for me. But there definitely are a lot to learn! If you're studying Japanese, don't give up, you'll get it eventually as I have.(^_-)-☆ You already know about the keyboard! I use a Sony VAIO and my keyboard looks something like this:
http://schools.bcsd.com/fremont/Graphics/keypals/keyboard.jpg
I am able to write in katakana, hiragana and kanji. You get used to it quick.♡

Answer 3

Only when I've been beaten with a Japanese dictionary!

There are four writing systems in Japan. Kanji are logonyms - each letter is a word - the system is essentially borrowed from Chinese. Then there are the syllabic writing systems Hiragana and Katakana which are conceptually much simpler and easier to learn. Hiragana is used for words which don't have Kanji and Katakana largely for foreign words...

Then there's romaji - Japanese written in the roman script used for English. You see it everywhere in Japan these days.

Like everything, if you learn when young it's easy. I suspect learning a couple of thousand of Kanji to a comfortable reading and writing level would be very difficult but Hiragana and Katakana not nearly so bad.

Japanese keyboards allow you to enter text in kana or romaji (via QWERTY layout) and then have it converted to Kanji later.

Answer 4

I love Japanese writing, & have studied Japanese calligraphy.

Yes, initially it does look complicated. You do have to learn the 3 different writing systems (Kanji, about 2000 Chinese characters; and the 2 syllabries of 50 simple characters each, hiragana & katakana) which they intermingle in the one sentence!

I think of the hiragana as being equal to 'lower case' writing & katakana as 'upper case or CAPITALS' as the sounds they represent are exactly the same, e.g. English AaBbCcDd, etc.

I don't need a Japanese keyboard, I just use the normal English one with a Japanese language word processing program.
Being able to read Japanese also enables me to be able to read some Chinese, especially place names, which was most useful in Taiwan!
In some ways, reading Japanese is easier than English as the syllables are phonetic i.e. spelled the way they're pronounced.
As I have taught both English & Japanese, I often find myself telling my students that English spelling is sometimes like learning a Kanji (Chinese character), you just have memorize it and don't try to make sense of the non-phonetic spelling; and vice versa teaching English students Kanji!
Eventually we all fall in love with Japanese writing because of it intrinsic beauty!

Answer 5

Once you have it memorized it's very easy to read and, no, it takes as much time to write a word for a native Japanese as it does for a native English-speaker to write an English word.

Computer keyboards have small symbols above each so you know which to type. When you want those "complicated" kanji, you just hit the space bar and it'll change automatically for you. It's very easy to write and type in Japanese when you know what you're doing.

Answer 6

I think Japanese and Chinese writ ting are the hardest writting in the world every symbol gives a meaning if it was me i think it took me 20 years to learn them. This to writting look like an art work like Persian.
still that i am an Iranian i still don't know why they use two or three shapes that means the same meaning and still myself in letters i make mistakes that which letter that i have to use so I'm very Lucky that i dint have to learn these to languages.
I think English its very easy to learn or write because there is only 26 alphabets.

Answer 7

japanese symbols are easy to write and learn but the chinese kanji which the japanese also use are very difficult to learn (imposible?) Modern japanese uses little more than 2000 kanji in their modern day language
The japanese alphabet is simple as they have a letter for each sound. They use 2 different writing styles, hiragana for their native words and katakana for writing words they import to their language

Answer 8

Japanese has two sets of alphabets, the ones used for native words, and the ones used for foreign words. Then, Japanese also borrows from Chinese, about 3000 characters. The characters have meanings, of course, but the alphabet is just the alphabet.

Answer 9

Japanese is composed of three writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. They can learn hiragana, katakana, and about 50 kanji their first year of school. Unlike the Chinese, they DO NOT learn the romanized version of their language (Japanese: romaji, Chinese: pinyin). If they need a pronunciation guide to a kanji, they use small version of hiragana above/beside the character and it's called furigana. Konnichiwa is usually written in hiragana and means hello= こんにちは Konnichiwa also has kanji: 今日は. There are around 50,000+ kanji in the Japanese language, to be literate one must know about 2,000 characters however most Japanese know well more than that. I know I know the first 1945 kanji and then some. Kanji is composed of a number of strokes, usually defined by a radical. A radical is a certain amount of strokes commonly found on kanji, ie 氵(sanzui) is a radical and it defines the characters: 氿,汗,汛,汪,沲,泊,浅,涓,湣,滏, and 滲. But here are more than this that have the radical sanzui. If you have any other questions, feel free to email me.

Answer 10

Don't let yourself get daunted by something that you are simply not used to looking at. Kanji is actually on a basic level, very easy if you use your imagination most of the images actually make perfect sense. There are a few good books on it at your local Borders. If you start at a kindergarten level and work your way up combining and elaborating on the symbols and really looking at them you'll find it easier. Like with everything it is just foreign. Imagine what our alphabet looks like to them?