Lesson 1

After a day of waiting, here comes the first post that actually contains some useful information, so we will call it Lesson 1. Not that much of a lesson, really,  but we need to lay down the ground first, before we move on to the more advanced stuff. And like learning every other language, learning Japanese start with the alphabet, although they don't really have one. As you've read in the intoduction, the Japanese use THREE different writing systems.


HIRAGANA

First is the Hiragana. That's the basic writing system, in which you can write almost everything in Japanese. There are things that are always written in Hiragana, but writing only in Hiragana will make you seem stupid. The more Kanji you learn and use instead of Hiragana, the more educated you will seem. This is the writing system everone should start with.









KATAKANA

The next one is Katakana. As you can see what you can write using Katakana is exactly the same as what you can with Hiragana, the Japanese insist, however, that every word with foreign origin is written in Katakana. Katakana is used to spell all the loan words (and only them)*, so you won't be seeing it that much in everyday life (at least not as much as Kanji and Hiragana).






KANJI

The last, and unarguably HARDEST writing system is Kanji. There will be no table posted here for them, simply because there is literally thousands of them. You shouldn't be worried about Kanji yet, it is far too early - besides everything in Japanese can be written using Hiragana and Katana only. Later I will start posting some Kanji after every lesson.


Anyway, that is all for now. I will leave you to learn the writing system - it takes a while, as some of them seem really similar. But if you think this is hard, just wait till you start learining Kanji.


P.S  As I don't expect you to memorize all of the kana (that's what Hiragana and Katakana are collectively called) I will be writing the beginner lessons in romaji (simply put using latin latters to write Japanese).

*Actually there are some cases when katakana is used to write Japanese words, such as names of restaurants, but that is only because the Japanese think that Katakana is cooler than Hiragana, and by writing words that should be written in Hiragana in Katakanam, you are considered COOL. That, however, is like slang in English, and is not correct.