Learn Japanese Language: Kanji Symbols and Characters

About 120 million people of Japan speak the Japanese language. It is also used as a second language in China and Korea.

The word ‘Kanji’ is the Japanese version of the word ‘Hanzi’ which translates into ‘Han Characters’. Han refers to the Han Dynasty and is used by the Chinese for themselves. While the Japanese borrowed Chinese characters to make a script for the themselves, they also ended up borrowing many Chinese words, before which Japanese was a purely spoken language. Hence, today about half the vocabulary of Japanese comes from Chinese. It was after World War II that the language was simplified and standardized.

The Japanese language consists of 3 alphabets:

• Kanji: More than 2000 characters borrowed from Chinese writing, each character representing a different meaning.
• Hiragana: 46 phonetic symbols used for inflected ending and other Japanese words.
• Katakana: 46 phonetic symbols used for writing foreign loan words and names and also for emphasis.

It is a common misconception that the Japanese script consists of only the Kanji alphabets. While, it is true that Kanji is the most used alphabets, the Japanese use a mixture of all the three alphabets. While the Kanji symbols have been borrowed fro the Chinese language in the 5th century and are used as ideograms, Hiragana symbols are used to support the Kanji symbols. Katakana symbols are used to represent foreign words or names that have been adopted into the Japanese writing system. While traveling through Japan, you will witness that all the 3 types of symbols are used. The Japanese magazines use 80% Kanji symbols, 10% Hiragana and 10% of Katakana. The Japanese language can be written horizontally, from left to right. But the usual practice followed is to write vertically, in columns running from right to left.

Each Japanese Kanji has two readings: Japanese origin reading and Chinese origin reading. While the Japanese reading is known as Kum Yomi, the Chinese origin reading is known as On Yomi. A Kanji character can be used alone or in conjunction with another Kanji character and is known as Jukugo. When a single Kanji is used in a sentence, it is read in Kun Yomi, while, when Kanji is used in compound, it is read using On Yomi. By convention, Kun Yomi is always in lower case while On Yomi is in upper case. There can be exceptions to this rule too. For example, it is often difficult to work out how to pronounce people’s names because some of the Kanji used for names have non-standard pronunciations.

Most Kanji characters are made up of several parts, each part known as Bushu also known as radicals. For example, the Kanji symbol representing a man is made up of 2 kanji characters that is the rice field and power, while the Kanji symbol to represent break or rest is made up of person and tree. There are over 200 radicals and memorizing them surely will be one difficult task.

Kanji is taught to Japanese students at schools who spend many hours writing them over and over until they fully memorize it. A student is expected to learn 881 Kanji character in the elementary school and must have a command over 1850 Kanji characters by the time they graduate from school. However, if a foreigner wishes to study Kanji, I believe that the patience required to learn Kanji will be more than that required for any other language, as before learning the character, they will have to explore the meaning and origin of each character. One of the recommended methods to learn the language is by using a set of flashcards along with a good dictionary handy. Mnemonics too is a very useful tool to learn the language.

Japanese is a very difficult language, with speaking comparatively simpler than reading and writing. In English, we need to learn only 26 alphabets, but that too takes a couple of years to master. While at school, a Japanese student must learn about 2000 symbols.

To describe the complexity, yet the beauty of the language, I would like to quote Dr. Amy Vladeck Heinrich, who says, "The difficulties of learning Japanese have their compensations. Having symbols that indicate both sound and meaning gives the language flexibility, and can express deep and subtle meanings. The writing system is also a beautiful one, and when it is written with a brush and ink it is an art form in itself."

Well, now we are all set to learn Kanji ‘dan dan’ (Japanese for ‘little by little’).