掲示板 Forums - Katakana, hiragana, kanji

I'm sure somebody can and will give a better answer, but to be very basic:

·Hiragana (ひらがな) is closest to being just your typical alphabet. Each character has its own sound, they're used in most words.

·Katakana (カタカナ) is basically hiragana but used for foreign words. It's very fun, in my opinion, because once you know the sounds of the characters you can sound out a lot of English loanwords.

·Each kanji (漢字) has its own definition, and a lot of words are just compound words from kanji being put together. I won't really get into anything about readings, but they're essentially still pronounced using hiragana.

There's more to it, especially to kanji, I'm just trying to be very basic and not get into anything outside of my own knowledge I'd definitely suggest mastering hiragana and katakana before starting kanji!

Hello and welcome to Renshuu! A good first step would be to watch the introductory videos and go through the lessons available here. Look in the menu, under Resources. Meanwhile, here is a quick introduction, just remember that it's oversimplified and as such not very precise.

Also, short version first: start by learning the hiragana and katakana, through their dedicated schedules (ask if you can't find them), and learning simple words you can spell with them.

Now for the long version:

Hiragana is a set of characters that are phonetic, i.e. each has one reading: か = ka, と = to etc. Most of them are a combination of one consonant + one vowel: ka, ke, ki, ko, ku, sa, se, shi, so, su... There are also the individual vowels, a few compounds, and a separate one for "n". They don't have meaning per se, they are just used to spell words, just like the letters of the Roman alphabet. "Dog", for example, is "inu" which is an "i" and a "nu", in other words い + ぬ, いぬ.

Katakana is a simplified version of hiragana, used for spelling words of foreign origins and a few other purposes. "A" in hiragana is あ; "A" in katakana is ア.

Now for kanji: we've seen "dog" is "inu". But it's rarely written phonetically as いぬ, because Japanese has kanji, these symbols of Chinese inspiration which have standalone meaning: you see 犬 and you immediately know it means "dog". Because of their complicated origin, they can have multiple readings, but that's for a more advanced level.

Don't hesitate to ask anything else, and don't let yourself get discouraged: it really isn't as complicated as it sounds! As long as you want to do this, you can.