Learn Japanese 101

Japanese Kanji Lesson (Introduction)

So, today, we will discuss about Kanji. But before anything, I'll just give you a little preview/insight about Kanji.

Kanji (漢字)

- Are the adopted logographic Chinese characters, known as hànzì, that are used in the Japanese writing system. They are used alongside hiragana and katakana. The Japanese term kanji for the Chinese characters literally means "Han characters". It is written with the same term and characters in the Chinese language to refer to the character writing system, hànzì (漢字).

So now that you have an Idea of what Kanji is, you are now aware that this is the hardest characters in Japanese. Now, before we begin, here are the Questions that might bug you while we're tackling this lesson:

• Do Japanese people use Kanji?

- "Hiragana is a script, which in normal Japanese texts is used alongside kanji and katakana. Hiragana is usually used for grammatical functions (e.g., particles, verb inflections, etc.) and for words for which there doesn't exist kanji, or for words whose kanji are non-standard. 海山 would usually be written in kanji."

• What does the Kanji symbol mean?

- "Kanji means Chinese letter or character. The script was invented by the Chinese and adopted by the Japanese around the middle of the 6th century AD. Kanji are ideographs meaning that the whole character conveys a meaning rather than just a sound (as in the case of hiragana and katakana letters)."

• Why does Japanese names written in Kanji?

- "Japanese names are usually written in kanji, which are characters usually Chinese in origin but Japanese in pronunciation. The kanji for a name may have a variety of possible Japanese pronunciations, hence parents might use hiragana or katakana when giving a birth name to their newborn child."

• How many Kanji do you need to know to be fluent?

- "There are about 2,000 kanji characters in common use and once you get them down, you're officially literate. You can then read newspapers and most books. There are thousands more and even Japanese folks don't know them all, but knowing 2,000 characters more or less gets the job done."

• How many Kanji characters are there?

- "Even more recently, the Zhōnghuá Zìhǎi has over 85,000 characters, but apparently many of those are variants. Of course, such counting is more-or-less academic. In Japan, there are only 2,136 Jōyō kanji (lit. commonly-used kanji), which are the ones taught in school, though literate people usually know more." (2013)

• What is Jōyō Kanji?

- "The jōyō kanji (常用漢字, literally "regular-use Chinese characters") is the guide to kanji characters and their readings, announced officially by the Japanese Ministry of Education. Current jōyō kanji are those on a list of 2,136 characters issued in 2010."

• How many kanji radicals are there?

- "There are 214 historical radicals derived from the 18th century Kangxi dictionary. Every kanji without exception only has one radical / 部首 (ぶしゅ). Each radical has a meaning(s) and lends its meaning(s) to the kanji of which it is part."