| 書き方 | Writing System | Explanation | Example |
|---|
| 漢字 | Kanji | Chinese characters borrowed from China to form the written language. Each character represents an idea or concept. A character is usually joined with one or more kanji to form words. Sometimes, a kanji can have more than one pronunciation. In order to read a daily newspaper there are around 2,000 of these to remember. There are over 6,000 in use. | 日本語 |
| ひらがな | Hiragana | Japanese syllabry that represents all the sounds that the Japanese language can produce. Japanese uses syllables not letters to form the base of its language. There are a total of 104 sounds in the Japanese language. | にほんご |
| カタカナ | Katakana | Represents the same syllables that hiragana does, only more angular in appearance. Used in Japanese for words borrowed from other countries like ‘computer’ or to represent sounds such as ‘crash’ or ‘woof woof’. Can also be used to show emphasis similar to like italics. | ニホンゴ |
| ロhマ字 | Romaji | Uses English (Roman) letters to represent Japanese sounds | Nihongo
(Japanese) |