Is it time for you to learn the Japanese alphabet? Well, there are three of them. Yep, you read that right. For those who didn’t know, Japanese has three different alphabets. Count ’em. THREE. The second one just makes me smegging angry. You’ll see why when you get to it.

Some people have asked me why there are three and what the differences are between them. Well, hold tight; all shall be revealed.

Hiragana

So, the first alphabet most people learn is hiragana. The characters in the hiragana alphabet are unique to Japan and there are 46 of them to memorise. Unlike the English alphabet, where we have vowels (a, e, i, o ,u) and consonants (b, c, m, k, etc.) as separate characters, in hiragana, they are fused together.

Already Confused?

Let me explain. So, they have separate characters for the vowels and then they have a set of consonant/vowel characters with the exception of ‘n’. See below!

The Hiragana Alphabet:

a – あ　 i – い　 u – う　 e – え　 o – お

ka – か　ki – き　ku – く　ke – け　ko – こ

sa – さ　shi – し　su – す　se – せ　so – そ

ta – た　chi – ち　tsu – つ　te – て　to – と

na – な　ni – に　nu – ぬ　ne – ね　no – の

ha – は　hi – ひ　fu – ふ　he – へ　ho – ほ

ma – ま　mi – み　mu – む　me – め　mo – も

ya – や　　　　　yu – ゆ　　　　　 yo – よ

ra – ら　 ri – り　 ru – る　 re – れ　 ro – ろ

wa – わ　　　　　　　　　　　　　wo – を

n – ん

Some written Japanese characters also differ slightly from typed Japanese. For example, when you write the characters ‘sa’ さ and ‘ki’ き by hand, the vertical strokes and the curved strokes at the bottom are not actually joined. Y’know, just for the sake of making your life more difficult, I presume.

Katakana

The second alphabet people tend to turn to is katakana. This Japanese alphabet also has 46 characters (in fact, exactly the same character sounds as in hiragana, just written differently) and it’s a pretty irritating alphabet, to be honest. No one is sure why it exists. Nah, I’m just joking. This Japanese alphabet is used especially for spelling out non-Japanese words. Japanese has a lot of loan words in it, many coming from English, and katakana is the guy for the job.

The Katakana Alphabet

a – ア　 i – イ　 u – ウ　 e – エ　 o – オ

ka – カ　ki – キ　ku – ク　ke – ケ　ko – コ

sa – サ　shi – シ　su – ス　se – セ　so – ソ

ta – タ　chi – チ　tsu – ツ　te – テ　to – ト

na – ナ　ni – ニ　nu – ヌ　ne – ネ　no – ノ

ha – ハ　hi – ヒ　fu – フ　he – ヘ　ho – ホ

ma – マ　mi – ミ　mu – ム　me – メ　mo – モ

ya – ヤ　　　　　yu – ユ　　　　　yo – ヨ

ra – ラ　ri – リ　ru – ル　re – レ　ro – ロ

wa – ワ　　　　　　　　　　　　　wo – ヲ

n – ン

Why Katakana Is a Bastard

Just look at the smegging characters! This Japanese alphabet doesn’t even look nice! It looks like a bunch of weird squares; in fact, ‘ro’ (ロ) is literally a square! At least hiragana looks pretty so you don’t mind learning to read and write it. Katakana just made me feel depressed, quite frankly. Let’s compare some of the most awful characters.

‘Ku’ (ク) and ‘ke’ (ケ) are pretty smegging similar, aren’t they? It’s just that extended top line that makes all the difference. The bastards.

Then there’s ‘fu’ (フ) and ‘wa’ (ワ), which, come on, proves that the person that made this was just having a laugh.

Next up, we have ‘na’ (ナ) and ‘me’ (メ). Just different variations of crosses to piss you off.

‘Ta’ (タ) is just ‘ku’ (ク) with a shitty extra line, and ‘nu’ (ヌ) is just ‘fu’ (フ) with a line through it.

And then we get to my favourites. The absolute worst pieces of smeg to ever cross the earth…

‘Shi’ (シ) and ‘tsu’ (ツ) – I mean, what the absolute flying fuck is that all about?

And ‘so’ (ソ) and ‘n’ (ン), which physically make me want to vomit.

I have no smegging idea why the Japanese thought it would be a fun idea to introduce a pretty much useless and downright awful alphabet into the world, but they did. I think it was all a huge practical joke, to be honest. Clearly the bloke who wrote this had had a big tiff with his boss the night before and thought he’d take revenge. Thanks, mate.

Related: How Did I Learn Japanese By Myself?

Kanji

Well, kanji is a completely different kettle of fish. It’s a katakana-level shit-fest on steroids is what it is. This Japanese alphabet is a form of altered Chinese and has been known to kill off brain cells when studying it (fact). This is the alphabet that looks like little pictures when written out. For example, ‘kirei’ (綺麗), which means ‘beautiful’. Kanji is a nightmare to learn how to read and write, which is why the Japanese start studying it from the moment they pop out of the womb, and don’t stop trying to memorise as much of it as possible until their deathbeds (slight exaggeration).

How Many Kanji Characters Are There?

Really? Do you really want to know? It’s not a fun answer at all. There are over 50,000 different kanji characters. FIFTY THOUSAND. Who the smeg has the time to learn all of those? No one. In fact, most Japanese people know about 2,000, those who went to university will have about 3,000 under their belt and the more eloquent Japanese speakers are able to read and write about 5,000. So, WHAT’S THE SMEGGING POINT IN THERE BEING 50,000 OF THE CRETINS?

Some simple kanji examples for you:

Mountain ‘yama’ 山

Tree ‘ki’ 木

Fire ‘ka’ 火

Water ‘mizu’ 水

The fun part of kanji is that there are several ways to read them, depending on if they’re used with other kanji. For example, we just saw the word for mountain is ‘yama’. That’s only if you’re talking about mountains generically. However, if you wanted to say ‘Mount Fuji’, for example, it becomes ‘Fuji san’, not ‘Fuji yama’ 富士山. If you want to say ‘mountain climbing’, it turns into ‘zan’ – 登山 – ‘tozan’. The word ‘wasabi’ also uses the mountain kanji – 山葵, so, in that case, you read it as ‘wa’. And one way to read the kanji that make up ‘mountain road’ (山道) – because apparently there are three different ways to read it, what the smeg? – is ‘sendou’ with the mountain kanji read as ‘sen’. So, for this one simple kanji (山), we’ve just found FIVE different ways to read it: yama, san, zan, wa and sen.

DO YOU SEE WHY KANJI IS A TWAT NOW? Learning this Japanese alphabet is the bane of my existence. There is hope, though. I managed to learn A LOT from Japanese Pod 101 and am now pretty fluent thanks to them. They break down the alphabets really well during the learning process too, so you don’t have to jab your eyes out just yet!

Try out Japanese Pod 101 here!

Are the Three Alphabets Used Together?

Yes. Yes, they are. So, in one sentence, you will probably have hiragana and kanji used together. In other sentences where foreign words are used, katakana will be chucked in there too. So, there’s really no way out of having to learn all three alphabets if you’re serious about learning Japanese. Sorry. Here are some example sentences of the alphabets in action below!

I like cheese: チーズが好き。So, the first word, ‘cheese’ is written in katakana as it comes from English and is pronounced pretty similarly – チーズ. The second part is a particle that joins nouns and verbs, ‘ga’ – が, written in hiragana. Finally we have the verb ‘like’ written in kanji and hiragana ‘suki’ – 好き. And there, you have it! ‘Cheese is liked’ is literally how the Japanese say it. Languages are bizarre, aren’t they?

Let’s do one more for fun, shall we?

My brain is bleeding: 私の脳から血が出てる。’My’ is written in kanji and hiragana – 私の (watashi no). Then we have the word ‘brain’ in kanji – 脳 (nou). After that is the word for ‘from’ in hiragana – から (kara), the word for ‘blood’ in kanji – 血 (chi), another ‘ga’ participle in hiragana (が) and finally the verb ‘coming out’ in kanji and hiragana – 出てる (deteru). Literally: My brain from blood is coming out. Marvellous, isn’t it?

Related: Why Do I Speak Four Languages?

Moral of the Story

Don’t bother learning the Japanese alphabets unless you’re serious about learning Japanese and/or are a bit of a masochist.

The end.

Have a lovely day!

Love Jade xxx