What is the Japanese alphabet called?

Answer 1

There is no such thing as a Japanese Alphabet. Japanese uses 2 syllabaries (symbols called Hiragana and katakana that represent whole syllables) and about 2000 Chinese characters, called kanji.

Answer 2

Technically, it's called just that: the Japanese Alphabet. But Japan doesn't technically have an alphabet as we know it. They have a collection of characters - separated into groups such as kanji, kana, katakana, and hiragana - which each make a different sound, and these sounds are what build their words.

If you'll notice, Romanized Japanese words (words converted from Japanese characters into Latin characters) all seem to have the same pieces to them. Things like kou, ya, ja, na, a, sen, ro, kan... These are all things that have characters in the Japanese alphabet. (Those would be 項, 矢, 蛇, 菜, あ, 線, 炉, 間 .)

Answer 3

Nippon arufabetto

a i u e o

ka ki ku ke ko

sa shi su se so

ta chi tsu te to

na ni nu ne no

ha hi fu he ho

ma mi mu me mo

ya yu yo

ra ri ru re ro

WA wo

n

Answer 4

The Japanese have 3 alphabets, This may seem strange at first but realize in English there are two, uppercase and lowercase. The 2 basic alphabets in Japanese is hiragana and katakana (Not that these do not follow the same rules as English's uppercase and lowercase). The third language is called kanji and it is where the Chinese symbols are used to represent meanings, this means there are alot of character. To a foreigner kanji is a daunting aspect of the language but when learned it is quite beneficial. I will not cover the kanji symbols as there are tens of thousands of symbols.

Japanese consonants can be written using the roman alphabet in a style called romanji, this is how I will show the entire alphabet. Please refer to the related links to visit pages that have the symbols as images if you were looking for it.

The alphabet in romanji is as follows.

a i u e oka ki ku ke kosa shi su se sota chi tsu te tona ni nu ne noha hi hu he homa mi mu me mora ri ru re roya yu yowa won

You can see that they follow a pattern, the Japanese don't have names for their characters like in English, they just refer to the sound that character represents.Also note that certain accents can be applied to modify a sound such has hardening the consonant such as ka becoming ga. See the reccommended links for more info.

Answer 5

Writing Japanese words in the Roman alphabet is called romanization. This "English version" of the Japanese words is referred to as the "romaji" spelling.

For example:

The Japanese word for "paradise" is 楽園. 楽園 is the kanji spelling (using Chinese characters), らくえん is the hiragana spelling (for native Japanese words), ラクエン is the katakana spelling (used for foreign words), and rakuen would be the romaji spelling.

Answer 6

It is:

a i u e o ka ki ku ke ko sa shi su se so ta chi tsu te to na ni nu ne no ha hi fu he ho ma mi mu me mo ya yu yo ra ri ru re ro WA wo n

Answer 7

Japanese has no alphabet. It uses two syllabaries (Katakana, Hiragana), and about 2000 Chinese characters (Kanji).

Answer 8

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