Most people who start learning Japanese sooner or later also start learning Japanese characters.
The Japanese have a saying: "How you sit while writing a hieroglyph is how you write it."

That is, the posture while writing the hieroglyph must be correct: the feet are located on the floor, the hips are on a chair parallel to the floor, the back is straight.

By the way, when writing hieroglyphs, the elbows should not be located on the table, but should be gently lowered from the table. The distance between the notebook on which you are writing and your eyes should be sufficient - you do not need to lean forward too much.

In writing hieroglyphs, there are rules - they must be written in a strictly defined order, line by line.

Let's look at other rules:
1. It is very important to write hieroglyphs harmoniously, that is, all parts of the hieroglyph should be arranged so that these parts make up a single hieroglyph. A common mistake beginners to study hieroglyphs is that they write the parts that make up the hieroglyph at a fairly large distance from each other.
Hieroglyphs should be written compactly:

2. Hieroglyphs should be written from left to right or top to bottom.
Let's first look at what types of hieroglyphs are written from top to bottom.

3. follows from left to right.

From left to right, characters are written as follows:

Also, from left to right, small lines are written, following one after another at the bottom of the hieroglyphs:

4. There is a sufficient number of hieroglyphs when one line crosses the entire hieroglyph.
In such cases, this trait is written last:

5. should be written vertically.

Japanese beginners often do common mistake- write hieroglyphs with an inclination either to the right or to the left. Of course, there are Japanese who write hieroglyphs with a slope, but still they should be written strictly vertically:

So, we have considered the basic rules for writing hieroglyphs.

I hope that they will help you write hieroglyphs correctly and beautifully!

Modern Japanese writing consists of three main components: kanji - hieroglyphs Chinese origin, and two syllabic alphabets formed on the basis of the same hieroglyphs in Japan - hiragana and katakana. For example, the word "Aikido" in Japanese can be written in three different ways. With the help of kanji characters - 合気道. Or using the "hiragana" syllabary ー　あいきど . Another option is also possible - using the alphabet "katakana" - アイキド. In addition, when writing numerals, the Japanese often use Arabic numerals. Also, in the texts, Latin letters can be found when recording well-known international abbreviations (km - kilometers, TV - television). Less common in the texts is the so-called "romaji" - a transliteration of Japanese with Latin letters.

Kanji - ( Japanese: 漢字) - literally - signs of the Han Dynasty. Mainly used in writing when writing nouns, adjectives, verb stems and proper names Japanese descent. Often one kanji has two or more readings. For example, the kanji sword (刀) - katana, in the word "tanto" (短刀) - a short sword is read - "that", and in the word "shinai" (竹刀) - a bamboo sword - "nai". The choice of reading kanji depends more on the combination with other kanji. Because of this, it is precisely the choice of the correct reading of hieroglyphs on initial stage learning is not an easy task.

In written language modern Japan Approximately 3000 hieroglyphs are used. At the moment, 2150 kanji is the required minimum, which is taught in schools.

For example, let's write "Daseikan dojo" using kanji characters:

蛇 勢 館 道 場

Or another example - "Aikido Yoshinkan":

合 気 道養 神 館

Hiragana (Japanese: 平仮名) is a syllabary. The so-called "women's letter". The name was fixed due to the fact that at the initial stage, hiragana was used mainly by women, who at that time were not available a good education. Hiragana conveys short vowels, their combinations with consonants, and the only consonant sound is "n" (ん). It is used in writing mainly to write words for which there are no kanji, such as particles and suffixes. In addition, it is used instead of kanji in cases where the writer or reader does not know the spelling of some hieroglyphs.

For example, consider the recording of the name of the Aikido Yoshinkan technique. Shomen Irimi Nage- shomen iriminage 正面 入りみ 投げ - "throw front entrance." Here is the word Shomen - 正面 - facade, front - is written only with kanji, and in the word Irimi - 入りみ - entrance and Nage 投げ - throw, kana are used りみ - "rimi" and げ - "ge", respectively. Another example: 合気道養神館の道場 - Aikido Yoshinkan no dojo - kana here の (but) indicates Genitive, that is, it emphasizes that the dojo belongs to Aikido Yoshinkan - and the translation is: " dojo Aikido Yoshinkan".

Note the use of hiragana in case of ignorance of kanji characters with known phonetic sound. In this case, the already familiar phrase 蛇勢館道場 - Daseikan Dojo, we can write it in hiragana, it will turn out - だせいかんどじょ .

Hiragana.

Katakana (Japanese: 片仮名) - the second the syllabic alphabet of the Japanese language fully corresponds to the first one phonetically, but functionally performs other tasks. First of all, it is used to write words borrowed from other languages, foreign proper names, as well as technical and scientific terms. In addition, katakana can be used to make a semantic stress in a certain section of the text written in kanji and hiragana. Katakana symbols are significantly simplified and many resemble similar hiragana kana, but only one character "he" - (へ) completely matches.

Consider examples: Russia - Ro-Shi-A - ロ シア , or Irina - I-Ri-Na - イリナ , antenna from English word"antenna" - A-N-TE-Na - アンテナ , or Pu-Ro-Ge-Ra-Mu - プログラム - from English "programme" - program.

Katakana.

Romaji - (Japanese: ローマ字) - literally - Latin characters (letters). First of all, these are abbreviations of foreign origin - USB (Universal Serial Bus - Universal Serial Bus), UN ( United Nations- United Nations). Japanese names are written in Latin letters on documents so that foreigners can read them. Romaji greatly simplifies the work with a computer and other electronic equipment. Any keyboard can be switched to kana input mode using romaji.

Horizontal and vertical writing in Japanese. Until 1958, the Japanese language used the traditional Chinese way of writing 縦書き (たてがき - Tategaki) - literally - vertical writing, characters are written from top to bottom, columns from right to left. To this day, this option is used in newspapers and in fiction. In the computer industry, as well as in scientific and technical literature, the European way of writing characters 横書き (よこがき - Yokogaki) is used - literally - side letter characters are written from left to right, lines - from top to bottom. Officially adopted in 1959, this notation allows you to insert terms or phrases in European languages, chemical formulas and mathematical equations. You can, however, meet with a horizontal letter from right to left, this is not uncommon on all kinds of plates and signs.

An example of traditional vertical writing.

The same text in modern horizontal writing.

AYF (Aikido Yoshinkan Foundation Tokyo Japan) certificates issued by Yoshinkan Aikido Hombu Dojo (Headquarters) and certified instructors Aikido Yoshinkan, as a rule, are traditionally filled in a vertical manner.

Aikido Yoshinkan instructor certificate.

The last and most famous side Japanese writing - kanji. Kanji - Chinese characters adapted for Japanese. Most Japanese words are written in kanji, but the sounds are the same as in hiragana and katakana.

Stroke Order

From the very beginning of the study, pay attention to the correct order and direction of the lines in order to avoid bad habits. Often students don't see the point in stroke order if the result is the same. But they overlook the fact that there are thousands of characters and they are not always written as carefully as they look on print. The correct stroke order helps to recognize characters, even if you write quickly or by hand.

The simplest characters are called radicals, are often used as components of complex characters. Once you learn the stroke order of the radicals and get used to the principle, you will find that it is not difficult to guess correct order for most kanji.

Most often, strokes are applied from the upper left corner to the lower right. This means that horizontal strokes are usually drawn from left to right, while vertical strokes are drawn from top to bottom. In any case, when in doubt about stroke order, consult a kanji dictionary.

Kanji in the lexicon

There are just over 2,000 characters in modern Japanese, and memorizing each one individually doesn't work as well as hiragana.

An effective strategy for mastering kanji is learning with new words with more context. So to fix in memory, we associate a symbol with contextual information. Kanji are used to represent actual words, so focus on the words and vocabulary rather than the characters themselves.

You'll see how kanji work by learning a few common characters and the words in this paragraph.

Kanji readings

The first kanji we'll learn is 「人」 , the character for "person". This is a simple symbol of two strokes, each of which is applied from top to bottom. You may have noticed that the character from the font does not always look like the handwritten version below. This is another important reason to check stroke order.

Kanji in Japanese have one or more readings, which fall into two categories: kun'yomi(or kun, or kunnoe reading) and on'yomi(or He, or onnoe reading). Kun'yomi is the Japanese reading of the character, while on'yomi is based on the original Chinese pronunciation.

Kun'yomi is mainly used for single character words. As an example, a word with the meaning "person":

人　【ひと】 - person

Kun'yomi is also used for native Japanese words, including most adjectives and verbs.

On'yomi is mostly used for words that come from Chinese, often of two or more kanji. For this reason, onyomi is often written in katakana. More examples will follow as you learn kanji. One very useful example of on'yomi is the addition of 「人」 to country names to describe nationality.

  • アメリカ人　【アメリカ・じん】 - American
  • フランス人　【ふらんす・じん】 - French

Although most characters do not have multiple kun'yomi or on'yomi, the most common kanji, like 「人」, have many readings. Here I will only give readings that apply to the words being studied. Learning readings without context in the form of words creates unnecessary confusion, so I do not recommend learning all the readings at once.

Now that we've got the general idea out of the way, let's learn a little more words and their accompanying kanji. The red dots on stroke order diagrams show where each stroke begins.

  1. 日本【に・ほん】 - Japan
  2. 本【ほん】 - book
  1. 高い 【たか・い】 - high; Expensive
  2. 学校【がっ・こう】 - school
  3. 高校 【こう・こう】 - high school(third stage of education, equivalent to 10-12 grades with us)
  1. 小さい 【ちい・さい】 - small
  2. 大きい 【おお・きい】 - big
  3. 小学校 【しょう・がっ・こう】 - Primary School(the first stage of education, corresponds to grades 1-6 with us)
  4. 中学校 【ちゅう・がっ・こう】 - high school(second stage of education, grades 7–9 with us)
  5. 大学 【だい・がく】 - college; university
  6. 小学生 【しょう・がく・せい】 - elementary school student
  7. 中学生 【ちゅう・がく・せい】 - high school student
  8. 大学生 【だい・がく・せい】 - student
  1. 国 【くに】 - country
  2. 中国 【ちゅう・ごく】 - China
  3. 中国人 【ちゅう・ごく・じん】 - Chinese
語 Meaning: language
On'yomi: ゴ

With only 14 characters, we've learned over 25 words - from China to schoolboy! Kanji is usually perceived as a major barrier to learning, but can easily be turned into a valuable tool if studied along with words.

Okurigana and changing readings

You may have noticed that some words end in hiragana, such as 「高い」 or 「大きい」 . Since these are adjectives, the accompanying hiragana, called okurigana, needed for various transformations without affecting the kanji. Remember exactly where the kanji ends and the hiragana begins. You don't have to write 「大きい」 like 「大い」 .

You may also notice that the kanji readings individually do not match the readings in some words. For example, 「学校」 reads 「がっこう」 instead of 「がくこう」 . Readings are often so transformed to facilitate pronunciation.

Ideally, check the reading of each new word for you. Fortunately, with the help of online electronic dictionaries finding new kanji is not difficult.
(English)

Kanji is often used to nuance or give a different flavor to the meaning of a word. For some words, it is important to use the correct kanji in the right situation. For example, the adjective 「あつい」 - "hot" - when describing the climate is written as 「暑い」 , and when it is a hot object or person - 「熱い」 .

In other cases, although kanji are used that are valid for all meanings of the chosen word, the author is free to choose characters with a narrow meaning, according to the style. The examples in this book generally use common and simple kanji. Details on using different kanji for the same word can be found in (eng.).

Modern Japanese has two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana.

Japanese hiragana alphabet

Hiragana is usually used in combination with kanji, where it stands for prefixes, suffixes, and other grammar elements, all sorts of particles, etc. You can just write a Japanese word in this alphabet in different situations. For example, some words are usually written in this alphabet, and not in hieroglyphs, or as a transcription of hieroglyphs, etc.

For example, the expression "bon appetit" in the Japanese hiragana alphabet is written as follows: and pronounced like "itadakimas"

And it means "I'm sorry" in Japanese and reads sumimasen.

Japanese katakana alphabet

Katakana is used to write foreign words, titles, names and other things. This alphabet is also sometimes used to write Japanese words in italics to highlight a word.

As you may have noticed, some letters are missing from the Japanese language. Therefore, to record words with missing letters, the ones closest to the sound are used. For example, s=w=u, c=b, z=dz, l=r, f=x, etc. In addition to the letter H, there are no consonants in the Japanese alphabet that are not included in syllables. They are replaced by syllables with the letter U, and since there are no TU and DU syllables, TO and DO are applied.


As an example, let's look at how to write the name Maxim in Japanese: マクシーム
Ma=マ, k=ku=ク, si=シ, ー is the accent mark, m=mu=ム and it turns out “makushima”

Following example, let's write the name Victoria in Japanese: ビクトーリヤ
vi=bi=ビ, k=ク, to=ト, ー – accent mark, ri=リ, i=ヤ = bicutoria

However, in the 20th century, foreign words began to be used more and more and the Japanese katakana alphabet was supplemented.


Now you can write the name Victoria not as Bikutoria, but with new signs Victoria - ヴィクトーリヤ
And the name Zina in Japanese will be ズィーナ, and not Jina, as it was written before. ジーナ

You can write a name using any option, but the second one is more modern and better conveys the recording of a foreign name / word. By the way, it is used when translating names on this site.

If you want to learn the Japanese alphabet, then the most effective way is to read texts in Japanese alphabets. It is also very good to learn the Japanese alphabet by songs:


Japanese hiragana memorization song


Japanese katakana memorization song


IN modern world Eastern culture is very popular. Japanese people study it all over the world or just use Japanese characters and their meaning in various fields life.

History of Japanese writing

The origin of Japanese writing is directly related to the introduction of Chinese traditions into the life of the Japanese. While writing was already developed in China, in the history of the country rising sun there was not a single mention of a written version of the language.

In the 6th century BC, China and Japan begin to build close diplomatic relations, as a result of which the Japanese begin to borrow the Chinese script and eventually adapt and modify it to grammatical and phonetic features nihongo.

Structure of the Japanese language

IN modern language Japan has three main leavers:

  • Kanji are hieroglyphs borrowed from Chinese;
  • Hiragana - syllabic alphabet of words and names for which there are no hieroglyphs;
  • Katakana is a syllabary used to write words borrowed from other languages.

Kanji and its readings

After the Chinese writing came to the territory of Japan, it was greatly modified and adapted to the peculiarities of local speech. The Japanese began to create new kanji or give different meanings to Chinese, which led to a significant difference between reading the same kanji. There are two main types of reading:

  • Onyomi (Chinese reading);
  • Kun'yomi (Japanese reading).

Onyomi is also called onyomi reading. It consists in the adaptation of hieroglyphs borrowed from the Chinese language. One kanji can have more than one onyomi.

Kun'yomi or kun reading is used to reproduce native Japanese words.

The same symbol can have one type of reading, or several at once. There are a number of kanji that, depending on the type of reading, completely change their meaning.

Using Japanese Characters

Japanese characters and their meaning in Russian are great importance. Examples of their use:

  • tattoos;
  • mascots with kanji;
  • gifts (handmade cards, cups and t-shirts with kanji, etc.);
  • decoration of interior elements (wallpaper, pillows, curtains, etc.).

Japanese characters and mascots Omamori

In the culture of the Land of the Rising Sun, there is a large number of traditional talismans. Among them, a special role is played by a talisman called Omamori. Mamori means "protection" in Japanese. These amulets are made in the form of small bags of silk fabric. different colors and stored in wallets, pockets, hung in the car, on a bag or mobile phone.

Inside the bag, you can put money or herbs, and so that the amulet does not lose its strength, after creating it, you cannot open the bag. Symbols are often sewn on the outside of the fabric, which are important for those to whom this amulet is intended. They are used to attract money, luck, love and so on.

Popular Japanese characters

Hieroglyph of money

The kanji for "money" is written as follows: 金. It is read as "kane" (kane). When used together with other symbols, it has many meanings:

  • Metal, gold;
  • Rich man;
  • Price;
  • Debt and so on.

Hieroglyph of love

Another popular character is 愛. In translation, it means "love" and is read as "ai" (ai). In combination with other hieroglyphs, it acquires the following meanings:

  • love or appreciate;
  • Sweet, lovely, beloved;
  • Passion;
  • Attachment;
  • Patriotism;
  • fan and so on.

Hieroglyph of happiness and good luck

To depict such important words, like happiness and luck, nihongo uses one kanji 幸. This word is read as "ko" (ko). Meaning:

  • Happiness, luck, bliss;
  • Gifts of the forest or gifts of the sea;

Hieroglyph of health

Health is written as 健康 and reads like "kenko" (kenko). This word is made up of two separate kanji. The kanji 健 (ken) does not have a meaning of its own and is found in words such as "healthy", "a lot", "hardy" and so on.

Japanese names and their meanings

Female Japanese names

For women, names are often chosen that include kanji, meaning the character trait that parents would like to endow their daughter with. One of the most popular in this case is 美 (mi), which means "beauty". It is an integral part of such names as:

  • Akemi (meaning - bright beauty);
  • Kazumi (harmonious beauty);
  • Miho (beautiful bay);
  • Manami (the beauty of love);
  • Netsumi (summer beauty);
  • Harumi (beauty of spring) and so on.

There are many such kanji. A popular component in a female name is the character for love 愛, which reads "ai" or "ai". Kanji such as "mind", "calm", "wisdom" and so on are also used.

Often the basis female name lies a symbol with the meaning of a plant. Among them are the following kanji:

  • 桃 means "peach" and reads like "momo" (found in names like Mommo and Momoko);
  • The female name 菊 (Kiku) means "chrysanthemum";
  • The name 藤 (Fuji) means wisteria, and so on.

Male Japanese names

Reading male names is one of the most difficult parts of nihongo because it uses different readings. There is no single algorithm for pronouncing a man's name. That's why correct pronunciation name should be checked with its bearer.