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Three scripts in one sentence: hiragana, katakana, kanji

What each writing system is for, and how this app shows them.

要点The idea

Japanese is written with three scripts at once: hiragana for grammar and for words without everyday kanji, katakana for modern loanwords, and kanji for meaning.

watashi wa koohii ga suki desu.I like coffee.All three in one sentence: kanji in 私(わたし)わたし and 好(す)すき, hiragana in は, が, き and です, and katakana in コーヒー, a word borrowed from another language.

pan o tabemasu.I eat bread.Hiragana: the particle を and the ending ます carry the grammar.

nihongo o benkyou shite imasu.I'm studying Japanese.Kanji: 日本語(にほんご)にほんご is “Japan” (日本(にほん)にほん) plus “language” (語(ご)ご). The small kana above the kanji are furigana: they show how to read them.

Script	Looks like	Used for
Hiragana	ひらがなhiragana	Particles, word endings, words without everyday kanji
Katakana	カタカナkatakana	Modern loanwords, foreign names, sound effects, emphasis
Kanji	漢字(かんじ)かんじkanji	The core of most nouns, verbs and adjectives

The Hiragana and Katakana units teach the kana. Everywhere else, kanji follow your Display setting (the 表示(ひょうじ)ひょうじ button at the top right): written in kana (Kana only, the default), with furigana, or as plain kanji. This lesson always shows them, so you can see what they look like.

Akamipaper

Bkamihair

In kana both are かみ; the kanji tell them apart. Japanese has many words that share a kana spelling, which is one reason kanji stay in use.

確認Check yourself

1Which script is テレビ (TV) written in? Type its name in English letters.
2Which script writes particles like を and endings like ます? Type its name in English letters.
3On the page, what tells かみ “paper” apart from かみ “hair”? Type the script's name in English letters.

Start hiraganaThe vowels and the first four rows.