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Japanese Lesson Notes #1

Rōmaji is Japanese for Roman letter and it’s a way of writing Japanese using the Roman alphabet. Hiragana, katakana and kanji are another three ways of writing more traditional Japanese. Rōmaji is particularly useful for beginners because you don’t have to know Hiragana, Katakana or Kanji when first trying to speak Japanese.

Examples of Rōmaji:

oishii (I say oishii when I want to say delicious in Japanese).

sugoi (I use sugoi when I want to say awesome in Japanese).

Andoria (Andria)

makudonarudo (McDonalds)

tamashii (soul)

chikara (power)

Kanji characters are ideographs, so each kanji represents a word or idea.

魂 tamashii

力 chikara

Hiragana and Katakana symbols are called kana (Japanese syllabary) because they are used to spell words. They do not represent a word on their own like kanji.

Hiragana is used for Japanese words.

おいしい oishii (o-i-shi-i)

すごい sugoi (su-go-i)

Katakana is used for foreign words and non-Japanese names. These symbols are more angular and straight when compared to hiragana.

アンドリア Andria (A-n-do-ri-a )

マクドナルド makudonarudo (ma-ku-do-na-ru-do)