Japanese Writing
By Namiko Abe, About.com Guide
Welcome to my free Japanese writing lessons. There are three types of scripts in Japanese: kanji, hiragana and katakana. The combination of all three is used for writing. Japanese characters are very different from those found in western alphabets. You might think it is hard to learn, but I think it is the most interesting and fun part of the Japanese language. Already confused? Don't worry; these free japanese lessons will help you to understand how to write Japanese, step by step.
Kanji
Kanji are used for writing nouns, stems of adjectives, adverbs and verbs.
- Japanese Writing for Beginners
- Most Frequently Used Kanji
- Kanji Lessons
- Kanji Land
- Kanji of the Week
- Kanji for Tattoos
- Kanji Radicals (1)
- Kanji Radicals (2)
- Kanji Radicals (3)
- Yoji-Jukugo
- Kanji Challenge Reading Quiz
- 50 Popular Kanji
- What is On-reading and Kun-reading?
- When to use On-reading and Kun-reading?
Hiragana
Hiragana is used for grammatical endings of verbs, adjectives and nouns, as well as for particles, and several other words of Japanese origin.
- Hiragana Chart
- Hiragana Audio
- How to Write Hiragana
- Learning Hiragana
- Hiragana Lessons
- Let's Learn Hiragana with Japanese Culture
- Why "wa" is sometimes written as "ha"?
- How to write double consonants
- Two ways to write "ji" and "zu"
- Different writing style for "ki" and "sa"
- What is Furigana?
Katakana
Katakana is generally used for foreign names, places, and the words of foreign origin.
- Katakana in the Matrix
- What is the katakana "u" character with two dashes?
- What is the long dash that appears in katakana?
Calligraphy
Japanese calligraphy is the art of drawing characters with a brush to express spiritual depth and beauty.