Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. But when do you use which type of symbol?
Author: Richard
Q: Hi richard, Genki Japan helped me a lot with learning japanese! Thanks! But here’s my question:
I learned that Japan has 3 types of symbols. Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji. But when do you use which type of symbol? - Tinke
A: Hi Tinke, thank you for the nice words! Here’s the general rule of thumb:
Use kanji whenever you can.
Use hiragana if you don’t know the kanji or if there isn’t one.
Use katakana for words that come from countries other than Japan or China.
That’s basically it! In practice though the best thing is just to read lots of Japanese and you’ll naturally learn when to use which ones in just the same why you naturally know when to use “i” or “I” or “twelve” or “12″!
Be genki,
Richard
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Hiya,
My name is Fani, and I have been trying to work out how to write it in japanese characters, but all the websites have been confusing! The japanese learning books I have are pretty basic so do not have any symbols for “fa”. When I have found something, I don’t know if I am supposed to use Katakana, or Kanji, as I have been given kanji translations, but it is essentially a word from another country!
Please help!
Fani
What if someone used nothing BUT Kanji (except for wa, o, no, de, etc.)? Has that ever happened? Do some people write way more Kanji than others? Also, does writing in more Kanji seem more fluent?
Also, I noticed some words are just in plain hiragana and others are in Kanji. What if I wrote words that are supposed to be written in Hiragana in Kanji instead? Would that seem awkward?
You always need some bits of hiragana to make the sentence complete, other wise you’d end up needed way more kanji like we have in Chinese! Some people do write more kanji than others, and some people like to write katakana words instead of Japanese words. If you write something in kanji that is usually written in hiragana you may come across clever, or you may come across as being too showy offy!
You’d usually write your name in katakana in Japan. The “fa” sound is ファ (”fu” with a small “a” after it!)