Katakana, kanji, romaji

[nikki_the_insane]

Please tell me what all these diffrent types of japanese mean. I know katakana is primarily used for names. and I think Kanji is used for verbs and english to japanese names. Please could you explain these to me or give me a webiste that explains them pretty well. Doumo arigatou gozaimasu in advance.

 

[Keiichi]

I don't know much links but I remember browsing a link from Japan Information Resource - Japan's History - Japan's Culture - Japan's Geography someone posted recently. Check there near the bottom left under "Language of Japan." I might sound complicated though. ^^;

 

[nikki_the_insane]

Oooo, too confusing. anyone have something my simple mind can understand?

 

[Carolgirl00]

Check this out! They explain all those weird japanese writings quite simply.

http://www.kanjisite.com/html/wak/wak1.html

 

[Keiichi]

That's a good one. *nods*

 

[candypop]

Lets put it this way, hiragana is used purely for japanese words, katakana is used for words of foreign origin (eg. hando baggu came from english, and is hand bag). Kanji are chinese characters and romaji are the latin alphabet, like 'a' 'i' 'ki'....

Okies ^^

 

[nikki_the_insane]

Okay, I kinda get it now thank you all!

 

[dogcountry]

Well, here's my 2 cents worth. Most of my Japanese was learned during my three years in Japan and my 500 hours at Berlitz. I've forgotten now more than I've learned. But I hit the books from time to time even now. I always thought Katagana was more like the printing style where the hiragana is more like the writing style. Kanji, of course, is taken from the Chinese characters. For example, you might see a store sign and most letters are in katagana. That's the best I can come up with.

 

[nikki_the_insane]

doumo arigatou, I really appreciate your 2 cents worth! *pockets 2 cents worth*

 

[samuraitora]

That is a good Cliff-Notes version, and an excellent link. Read them both a few times and you should get a good feel for them. Plus, the more you learn, the easier everything becomes.