What Does it mean to learn the kana?

Question

I'm learning Japanese, and it said that you could get the romanji but its good to know the kana...I don't know what romanji or kana is. And does anyone know any GOOD FREE sites to learn to read and write Japanese.

Answer 1

Japanese has three writing systems: kanji, hiragana, and katakana. Kanji are the Chinese characters. Hiragana and katakana represent sounds in Japanese. Hiragana and katakana TOGETHER are called "kana". Hiragana can be used to write anything in Japanese, but it is most often used to write particles and conjugations, as well as many words. Katakana is used to write foreign words, like cities, names of non-Japanese people, etc.

When your book says it's "good to know the kana", it means it's "good to know hiragana and katakana". They are the kana.

To learn hiragana:
http://japanese.about.com/library/blhira.htm

To learn katakana:
http://japanese.about.com/blkatakana.htm

Romaji (there is no "n") is simply Japanese words written with the alphabet. "Roma" comes from "Rome/Roman" and "ji" means "character", so together, "romaji" means "Roman alphabet/characters".

Here is an example:
明日 - (tomorrow) Here it is written in kanji
ashita - (tomorrow) It is the same word, but it is written in romaji.

It is best to learn the kana (hiragana and katakana) as quickly as possible, so that you can begin reading and writing Japanese. Many foreigners rely too much on romaji, but you cannot truly learn Japanese with romaji, because romaji is not Japanese.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Learning the Kana are handy, every set may also be memorized quite good in approximately 3 days to every week when you take a look at. Go over approximately, say 10 at a time, study the stroke orders, make flashcards in Anki (a memorization application), after which study 10 extra a bit later. I discover it plenty simpler to study Kanji after I already recognize the vocabulary phrase for it, to your starting phases you should not fear approximately it an excessive amount of, you can opt for up the rather elementary stuff simply from seeing it, and you'll begin studying the Kanji along with your vocabulary (discover a relaxed velocity, and use Anki).

Answer 3

"The romanization of Japanese is the use of the Latin alphabet (called "rōmaji" in Japanese) to write the Japanese language, which is normally written in logographic characters borrowed from Chinese ("kanji") and syllabic scripts ("kana")."

"Romanization of Japanese" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romaji