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The History Of Hiragana and Katakana

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I thought it would be a good idea to do a little history of Hiragana and Katakana in Japan. Instead of doing a boring and dry research paper style rendition of it I decided that it would be fun to make it kind of “Ghetto”, AKA “easy to understand”.

Back in the day there was no writing system in Japan. Then one day some Chinese Monk Dudes came to over and introduced the Chinese characters “Kanji” to the Japanese people. Of course Kanji was crazy difficult and required lots of study to master, so mostly the rich folks could learn. Then one day some people said “Hey, this Kanji thing really sucks!! There has got to be a better way!!”. So what they did was simplify some of the Kanji into characters that represented the sounds of the Japanese language. Then the first form of Kana was introduced. Later they were like man how the hell are we going to know if the word is a Japanese word, or a borrowed word from another language? So they thought, lets make another alphabet to be used with foreign or borrowed words. Now the common folk and the rich people alike had ways to communicate using the written word.

The End.

References if you want to read the full story:
Japanese writing system
Hiragana
Katakana

Digg Verification Code b0235d42541c4a5190591041b8667022

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Hiragana of the Day: Dangerous!!

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“a”, “bu”, “na”, “i” = Dangerous in English (The yellow letters on the sign).  あぶない

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Hiragana App for iPad: Kana Sounds for iPad

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Hopefully it will be approved in a week or two!?

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Some Japanese Verbs

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Here are some common Japanese verbs that you will need when visiting Japan or studying Japanese:

To Eat = Ta Be Ru = た　べ　る　＝　食べる

To Drink = No Mu = の　む　＝　飲む

To Go = I Ku = い　く　＝　行く

To Come = Ku Ru = く　る　＝　来る

To Sleep = Ne Ru = ね　る　＝　寝る

To Do = Su Ru = す　る　＝　する

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Kana Sounds for the iPad

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Well I am starting to mess around with the design on the iPad version of Kana Sounds, the Hiragana and Katakana App.  The screen capture above is what I am leaning toward right now. Since the iPad has a lot of screen real estate I decided to use it :-)

Stay tuned!

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World Cup in Katakana

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Here is a screen capture from the Yahoo! Japan website. I thought it would be cool to show you how World Cup was written in Katakana, so here you go.

ワールドカップ　(Waarudo Kappu）＝　World Cup

南　＝　みなみ　= mi na mi = South

アフリカ = A Fu Ri Ka = Africa

大会 = 　たいかい    = taikai  = Big Meet (literally)

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Real World Katakana: Part 1 “They aint following the rules!!”

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As a supplement to the Kana Sounds App I decided that it was probably a good idea to put some real world examples of how both Hiragana and Katakana are used. What I will do is take a picture of interesting examples of Kana being used in real life here in Japan. I hope you will find this interesting and a help with your studies!

The first example here is from Fukuoka Magazine. You will notice that there is Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana on the main headline. With this picture we will ignore everything except for the Katakana. It says カラだ　or “ka” “ra” “da” if you sound it out. “Karada” is a Japanese word that is usually written in Kanji or Hiragana, and it means “Body” as in your body.

Now you must be saying “TIME OUT”!! Katakana is supposed to be for borrowed words from other languages!! Why are they doing this? Why are they trying to confuse me? Well there are probably several reasons for this:

  1. It looks cool
  2. Artistic balance
  3. It’s a headline so they are trying to attract attention
  4. If they used Hiragana it would blend in with the particles
  5. They are trying to confuse the gaijin studying Japanese (Joking)

Unfortunately, this type of thing happens all the time, so you just have to get used to it. It is going to confuse the hell out of you, especially when you are a beginner. Hell I’m sure it confuses some Japanese people too!

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