Japanese writing systems
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Japanese is customarily written with a mix of three writing systems: Kanji (漢字), Hiragana (平仮名) and Katakana (片仮名). The first one is a logographic system adapted from the Chinese ideograms. The two other systems are syllabaries. In general, Kanji is used for most native Japanese words. Hiragana is used to write the postpositions and grammatical endings in words such as verbs and adjectives. Katakana is used for words that were borrowed into Japanese from other languages, or for emphasis (in the same way that italics is used in English and other languages). A typical sentence can contain all three writing systems.
It is perfectly possible to write Japanese completely in hiragana (or even in katakana, but this would not be common). In fact, school books and books for small children are written entirely or in large part in hiragana, because the children will known only a few (if any at all) kanji.
It is also common to see latin characters used in Japanese texts. They are used for example for acronyms or foreign words which haven't been imported and adapted to Japanese. This use of the latin alphabet in Japanese should not be confused with romaji, a system of transliteration that allows writing Japanese with latin characters.
The following sentence (meaning "I speak German") contains all three writing systems:
わたしはドイツ語を話します。
(Watashi-wa doitsugo-o hanashimasu, lit. I-(topic marker) German-language-(obj. marker) speak.)
The pronoum "watashi" (I) is written in hiragana: わたし. The topic marker particle "wa" is also written in hiragana, like all other particles and endings: は. (The attent reader will have noted that this is the hiragana for "ha" and not "wa". This is explained in hiragana.) "Doitsugo" (German language) is written in a mix of katakana and kanji: "doitsu" is a borrowed word, thus written in katakana: ドイツ. The word "go", meaning language, is written with a kanji: 語. Next, the postposition "o" that marks the direct object is again written hiragana: を. Finally, the verb "speak" (in its polite form) is written with a kanji (話, read "hana") and hiragana for the ending: します (shimasu).
As an aid for young Japanese, foreign learners or uncommon words, sometimes also Furigana (振り仮名) are used, which are small Hiragana written above the Kanji giving the pronunciation.
There's also Okurigana (送り仮名), which are the suffix hiragana used after a kanji, normally to conjugate a verb. Ex.: 買う (to buy)
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