There has never existed an independent, purely Japanese system of writing. Around the 7th century the attempt was first made to use Chinese characters to note down Japanese speech. In the 9th century the Japanese simplified the complex Chinese ideographs (characters)into what are now the
kana. It is quite possible to write exclusively in kana, but in practice this would hamper communication due the large number of words pronounced alike but different in meaning (homophones), which are distinguished from one another by the use of different kanji.
There are three kinds of characters in Japanese
hiragana, katakana, and kanjji. Both katakana and hiragana are identified under the umbrella term
kana. In these two writing systems, each symbol represents the sound of one syllable.
Hiragana: テ,レ,ビ
Katakana: を,ま,す
Kanji: 猫,狗,魚
Hiragana and
katakana, like our alphabet, represent sounds.
Hiragana has a roundish shape and is used for conjugation endings, function words, and native Japanese words.
Katakana has rather straight lines and is normally used for writing words imported from outside of Japan and also for foreign names.
Kanji or Chinese characters, represent not just sounds, but meanings as well. Kanji is mostly used for nouns and the stems of verbs and adjectives.
Romanization or
romanji is another writing system which is used for the transliteration of Japanese into roman or arabic letters. This writing system is primarily used in Japan for station names, signs, and so on. Outside of Japan it is used to help foreigners, like you and me, with pronunciation and recognition alongside it's corresponding characters or symbols.
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