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(Offtopic) You may want to correct that blog post, the point about Japanese writing systems. "[...] Japanese using characters from Chinese (Kanji/Han), Katagana

(Offtopic) You may want to correct that blog post, the point about Japanese writing systems. "[...] Japanese using characters from Chinese (Kanji/Han), Katagana (modern japanase) and Hiregana (the old middle-age script used by women)" is really incorrect. Suggest to just say that modern Japanese uses both logographic (kanji, originated from Chinese hanzi[1]) and syllabic (kana) characters simultaneously, with two distinct types of kana (hiragana and katakana). [1] In Unicode, they're generally unified into a single set, via process called "Han unification". So, unlike Greek "Α" vs Cyrillic "А", the "same" character that may even look slightly differently in Chinese vs Japanese (e.g. "海"), would have a single codepoint in Unicode. But that's another story...

arm 10y ago
Ugh… yeah, agreed; reading that was painful. To reiterate: • Chinese characters are called hànzì¹ • modern Japanese uses many hànzì, calling them kanji² instead • katakana³ is used in modern Japanese to write words of foreign origin (loanwords) as well as onomatopoeia and is romanized as katakana, not katagana • hiragana⁴ is used in modern Japanese to write okurigana⁵, particles, and certain words, and is romanized as hiragana, not hiregana Here’s a typical (and extremely simple) sentence in modern Japanese that uses all three: この文はサンプルです。 This is a sample sentence. この: this (hiragana) 文: sentence (kanji) は: particle (pronounced wa) (hiragana) サンプル: sample (loanword; pronounced sanpuru) (katakana) です: particle (pronounced desu) (hiragana) ―――――― ¹ — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters ² — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji ³ — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana ⁴ — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana ⁵ — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okurigana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okurigana
- msbarnett 10y ago
  > です: particle (pronounced desu) (hiragana) (While we're being pedantic) です isn't a particle, it's the imperfective (present/future) polite form of the copular verb (to be, in English). The only particle in that sentence is は. And as a further side note, some words or names normally written in kanji or hiragana are ocassionally written in katakana for emphasis or to emphasize a foreign nature.
rurban 10y ago
Thanks, appreciated. I only have two "Learn Japanese" and "Learn Korean in x days" books for dummies. Fixed

arm 10y ago

Ugh… yeah, agreed; reading that was painful. To reiterate: • Chinese characters are called hànzì¹ • modern Japanese uses many hànzì, calling them kanji² instead • katakana³ is used in modern Japanese to write words of foreign origin (loanwords) as well as onomatopoeia and is romanized as katakana, not katagana • hiragana⁴ is used in modern Japanese to write okurigana⁵, particles, and certain words, and is romanized as hiragana, not hiregana Here’s a typical (and extremely simple) sentence in modern Japanese that uses all three: この文はサンプルです。 This is a sample sentence. この: this (hiragana) 文: sentence (kanji) は: particle (pronounced wa) (hiragana) サンプル: sample (loanword; pronounced sanpuru) (katakana) です: particle (pronounced desu) (hiragana) ―――――― ¹ — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters ² — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji ³ — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana ⁴ — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana ⁵ — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okurigana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okurigana

msbarnett 10y ago
> です: particle (pronounced desu) (hiragana) (While we're being pedantic) です isn't a particle, it's the imperfective (present/future) polite form of the copular verb (to be, in English). The only particle in that sentence is は. And as a further side note, some words or names normally written in kanji or hiragana are ocassionally written in katakana for emphasis or to emphasize a foreign nature.

rurban 10y ago

Thanks, appreciated. I only have two "Learn Japanese" and "Learn Korean in x days" books for dummies. Fixed