When you visit Japan, you rarely find signs, menus, or posters written in English, most of them are written in Japanese characters. Some foreigners find it hard to read and understand these characters. Some Japanese characters are very easy to recognize while others are more complicated than usual.
Kanji: The adopted Chinese Characters Kanji characters resemble Chinese characters. While some characters might look the same, the meaning may differ. These characters are used to write native Japanese content like nouns, names, numbers, and basic forms of verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. Most characters may have more than one reading.
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Kana: The Syllabic Japanese Scripts There are two ways to right kana - hiragana and katakana. Both set of characters are read and pronounced the same way but are used for different functions. Each kana character represents one syllable. Hiragana is used to write native Japanese words which do not have kanji symbols. It is also widely used as topic markers, connectors, and as prepositions. Katakana is often used for writing foreign words. Foreign words are first syllabicated then written in Katakana according to their syllables.
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Romaji: The Latin Alphabet The Latin script or Roman script can also be used for Japanese terms. This is to aid foreigners who cannot read Kanji or Kana. Street signs, passports, and maps are the common materials written in Romaji.
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