Pronunciation Practice The Japanese Written Language (Information Only) The Japanese Writing System Basic Hiragana Particles (wa, o, e) The Diacritics ˚ (plosive) and " (voicing) Long Vowels Double Consonants (ā, ii, ū, ē, ō) Palatalized Sounds (kya, myo, ryu) Katakana Kanji Punctuation and Format Japanese 1100-L02a Class Session 2a Chapter 1

Japanese 1100-L02a Pronunciation Practice – Unvoiced Sounds

Japanese 1100-L02a Pronunciation Practice – Voiced Sounds

Japanese 1100-L02a Pronunciation Practice – Palatalized Sounds

Japanese 1100-L02a Japanese writing consists of three different systems: kanji, hiragana, and katakana Kanji(literally, Han Chinese characters) logographic characters HiraganaA syllabic writing system KatakanaA syllabic writing system All three systems are routinely used in writing Japanese: 私は中国とアメリカに行います。 (kanji, hiragana, katakana) The Japanese Writing System

Kanji Characters 漢字 Japanese was originally not a written language Kanji were introduced from China through Korea around the 5 th Century AD by Korean scribes who could write Chinese In order to write Japanese, one had to learn (a form of) Chinese; writing was limited to the educated elite Over time, kanji were adapted to more directly represent the Japanese language Japanese and Chinese are linguistically unrelated languages Using Chinese characters to represent Japanese was a long and difficult process Today, written Chinese and written Japanese are two different systems, although they use some of the same characters Language reforms in 1947, 1972, and 1981 resulted in a list of 2,135 “common use” chararacters ( 常用漢字, jōyō kanji ) Many more characters must be learned to read older material Kanji characters are used to represent concrete meanings conveyed by nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs Japanese 1100-L02a

7 Kanji Kanji characters were developed in China years ago Each kanji represents meaning rather than sound Many kanji have both a Chinese and a Japanese pronunciation Most of the simple kanji were created from pictures More complicated kanji were created by combining two or more simple kanji into a single character

Example Kanji Characters Japanese 1100-L02a

9 Hiragana 平仮名 Created from cursive forms of kanji characters used phonetically to represent Japanese sounds during the Heian Period ( ) Each symbol represents a syllable sound rather than a meaning (a syllabary) Used to represent grammatical items (verb endings and particles) and words that are not written in kanji or katakana Here is a sample sentence written normally, then in only hiragana: 私は中国とアメリカに行います。 わたしはちゅうごくとあめりかにいきます。 There are 46 basic hiragana characters, two diacritics and a few conventions (discussed shortly) You can write anything in Japanese using hiragana

Japanese 1100-L02a Katakana 平仮名 Katakana are the angular-shaped syllabic characters derived from parts of kanji characters (kata means “side”) The katakana syllabary was derived from abbreviated Chinese characters used by Buddhist monks to indicate the correct pronunciations of Chinese texts in the 9th century. Also consists of 46 basic characters, two diacritics, and some different conventions than are used with hiragana Used for foreign words, words that mimic sounds, scientific names of plants and animals, and to put emphasis on words Some new conventions have been developed to better represent foreign sounds

Japanese 1100-L02a Basic Hiragana あ A い I う U え E お O か KA き KI く KU け KE こ KO さ SA し SHI す SU せ SE そ SO た TA ち CHI つ TSU て TE と TO な NA に NI ぬ NU ね NE の NO は HA ひ HI ふ FU へ HE ほ HO ま MA み MI む MU め ME も MO や YA - ゆ YU - よ YO ら RA り RI る RU れ RE ろ RO わ WA ゐ (W)I - ゑ (W)E を WO ん N Unvoiced Sounds

Japanese 1100-L02a Particles (wa, o, e) Convention used in the syllabaries (hiragana and katakana) include the use of the following symbols for particles: ha ( は and ハ ) is used for the particle wa (w)o ( を and ヲ )is used for the particle o he ( へ and ヘ ) is used for the particle e

Japanese 1100-L02a The Diacritics " (voicing) and ˚ (plosive) Two diacritic marks are added to the right, upper corner of some of the basic kana characters to represent sounds added to Japanese speech: The voicing marker ″ changes the initial voiceless consonant of the syllable to its voiced counterpart. For example: ka か becomes が gake け becomes ge げ ki き becomes ぎ giko こ becomes go ご ku く becomes ぐ gu The plosive mark is added to ha, hi, fu, he or ho to convert them to syllables with The consonant ‘p’ ha は becomes pa ぱ he へ becomes pe ぺ hi ひ becomes pi ぴ ho ほ becomes po ぽ fu ふ becomes pu ぷ

Japanese 1100-L02a Hiragana Long Vowels Two hiragana characters are used to represent long vowels: Putting a あ after ka か represents kā かあ Putting u う after o お represents ō (sometimes romanized as ou or oo) Putting i い after e え usually represents ē ( ええ may also be used) A long i sound is usually represented by ii (rather than ī )

Japanese 1100-L02a Double Consonants Double consonants are represented by a small tsu つ (hiragana) or ツ (katakana) Kitte (stamp) and kekkon (marriage) include a double consonant and are written in hiragana as き っ て け っ こん The tsu is not pronounced but represents the brief pause (a glottal stop) before the next consonant

Japanese 1100-L02a Palatalized Sounds (kya, myo, ryu) Palatized sounds (such as kya, kyu, kyo ) are represented by the kana character that represents the initial consonant plus the vowel i and a small-sized character ya, yu, or yo (hiragana や ゆ よ and katakana ヤ ユ ヨ ) hiraganakatakana kyō (today) is written as き ょ う ( キ ョ ウ ) kaisha (company) is written as かいし ゃ ( カイシ ャ )

Japanese 1100-L02a

Japanese 1100-L02a Punctuation and Format Japanese is written vertically, top-to-bottom and right-to-left Japanese is also written horizontally, left-to-right No spaces are used between words Common punctuation marks include: 。 period 、 comma 「 」 quotation marks No question mark is needed (but ? is sometimes used) Except for the period, there are no strict rules on using punctuation