What do you call the pronounced written way of the Japanese language?

Answer 1

There are several different writing systems for the Japanese language. First, you have the native Japanese words, which are written with Hiragana. Then, you have non-native Japanese words which have been "borrowed" from other languages (a large amount come from English), and are written with katakana. The Japanese also use Chinese characters, which they call kanji, which are used for parts of a noun, adjective, pronoun, or verb. When you don't know the reading for a particular kanji, sometimes they will have hiragana written above it, which are called furigana. Finally, when a Japanese word is transliterated into English, it is written in roomaji (English letters used to write a Japanese word). Japanese is classified as one of the most difficult writing systems to master. The most difficult part of the writing system is the kanji. For one kanji, you can have up to six or seven or more readings, depending on which word is being written. The reason for the kanji are because many words look exactly the same when written, so kanji help to differentiate and speed up the reading process. Another thing that makes it difficult to read is Japanese is written without spaces. So kanji help in that sense also. Chinese may be written with complete characters, but at least it's only one pronunciation per character. In fact, if it wasn't for the Chinese, the Japanese wouldn't have a writing system at all. Every symbol (except for kanji and roomaji) is derived from one of the Chinese characters.