# Hiragana and Katakana



## binhan200892

Hello everyone . 
After learning 2 syllabary : Hiragana and Katakana , I wonder : " Why dont Japanese just use 1 of 2 syllabary instead of using 2 . 
I know I 'm just a newbie in Japanese so there will be something I dont know but I want someone can explain it to me  .
Thanks in advance.


----------



## Tonky

Because they were created for different purposes.
Hiragana is to write faster and more easily, instead of writing all in Kanji which has many strikes in one and is harder to learn.
Katakana is invented to write pronunciations of Buddhism texts (originally written in Sanskrit) alongside Kanji, so it was made to be small and easy to fit in small size (between lots of hard kanji lined up).
Hiragana became popular among female writers and then became plebian, now we use Hiragana for mostly Japanese words, especially grammatical parts, and also for replacing hard Kanji. Katakana is used to show the pronunciations of foreign origin words, or for emphasis.


----------



## binhan200892

Tonky said:


> Because they were created for different purposes.
> Hiragana is to write faster and more easily, instead of writing all in Kanji which has many strikes in one and is harder to learn.
> Katakana is invented to write pronunciations of Buddhism texts (originally written in Sanskrit) alongside Kanji, so it was made to be small and easy to fit in small size (between lots of hard kanji lined up).
> Hiragana became popular among female writers and then became plebian, now we use Hiragana for mostly Japanese words, especially grammatical parts, and also for replacing hard Kanji. Katakana is used to show the pronunciations of foreign origin words, or for emphasis.



Thank you for your answer , but as a foreinger , I think 2 syllabaries have the same way in reading and trying to remember 2 syllabaries is harder than just 1 syllabary , that's what i want to know .
I think someone can think my question is so silly , but i have been learning Japanese for a few weeks , and it's about self-learning .

Anyway ありがとうございます。


----------



## Tonky

Even though they may look like they have the same way and whatsoever to you, you will need to learn both unless you only want to learn survival Japanese. I only answered as to reply to "why" part. 

You can start learning Hiragana first, and be done with it if that is how you want for now, but you will eventually want to learn Katakana too as most Vietnamese (and French) words would be written in Katakana (or possibly Kanji) to communicate with Japanese. But knowing only Katakana will not get you anywhere to learn the language unfortunately, because most of the grammatical parts are always written in Hiragana. 
So, try learning Hiragana perfectly first, and then, when you think you are ready, try learning Katakana and Kanji later.


----------



## yonh

binhan200892 said:


> as a foreinger , I think 2 syllabaries have the same way in reading and trying to remember 2 syllabaries is harder than just 1 syllabary


When I was learning the English alphabet, I had wondered why there are capital letters and small letters. But I'm used to it now.


----------



## ThomasK

[Moderator note: This thread is split from here as the discussion was off-topic in the original thread. Cherine]



810senior said:


> Not in Japanese, because we have a enough short name for it.
> 
> ワニwani a crocodile, an alligator



Just asking (don't feel obliged to answer): do the separate kanjis have some meaning explaining the concept of crocodile?


----------



## 810senior

@ThomasK, nope, we only have a 鰐(read as _wani_) that refers to both crocodile and alligator. No separate kanjis for them.


----------



## ThomasK

I am sorry, I meant something else: can you define the two symbols in _wani_ separately? (I thought one symbol was called the kanji, but I suppose it is the two together...)


----------



## Dymn

ThomasK said:


> I am sorry, I meant something else: can you define the two symbols in _wani_ separately? (I thought one symbol was called the kanji, but I suppose it is the two together...)


Kanji is one of the (four?) Japanese writing systems, the ones which look "Chinesy". ワニ is katakana (aka straight symbols). _Wani _would be written わに in hiragana (aka crooked symbols), but I think hiragana is only for Japanese native words and _wani _perhaps isn't a native word. The fourth one is romaji, which is just the Latin-alphabet transliteration, but I don't know how often is it used. Let's see if 810senior sheds lights on the issue.


----------



## Rani_Author

ThomasK said:


> I am sorry, I meant something else: can you define the two symbols in _wani_ separately? (I thought one symbol was called the kanji, but I suppose it is the two together...)



Completing Diamant7's explanation above. Japanese alphabets have three types of writing system: Kanji, Kana (Hiragana & Katakana) & Romaji.

The Katakana alphabets are used for:
- Transliteration of foreign words and names. (Some foreign borrowings that have become naturalized may not be rendered in katakana.)
- Commonly are used for names of animals and plants, and certain other technical and scientific terms, such as mineral names.
- Occasionally, the names of miscellaneous other objects that kanji are rare.
- Onomatopoeia (words that phonetically imitate, resemble, or suggest the source of the sounds that they describe) and other sound symbolisms.
- Emphasis, like italicisation in European languages. (Note: it edited again to the early text)

The Hiragana alphabets are used for:
- Okurigana (inflectional endings for adjectives and verbs).
- Various function words, including most grammatical particles or postpositions.
- Miscellaneous other words of various grammatical types that lack a kanji rendition, or whose kanji is obscure, difficult to typeset, or considered too difficult to understand (as in children's books).
- Furigana (phonetic renderings of kanji placed above or beside the kanji character. Furigana may aid children or nonnative speakers or clarify nonstandard, rare, or ambiguous readings, especially for words that use kanji that isn't part of the kanji list.

All of beginner learners would just use Katakana and Hiragana. Here, until intermediate 1. Because, Japanese has too much Kanji.

The Kanji alphabets are used to write most content words of native Japanese or (historically) Chinese origin, including::
- Most nouns.
- The stems of most verbs and adjectives.
- The stems of many adverbs.
- Most Japanese personal names and place names. (Certain names may be written in hiragana or katakana, or some combination of these and kanji.)

The romaji alphabets are used for:
- Latin-alphabet acronym and initialisms.
- Japanese personal names, corporate brands, and other words intended for international use.
- Foreign names, words, and phrases, often in scholarly contexts.
- Foreign words deliberately rendered to impart a foreign flavour, for instance, in commercial contexts.
- Other Japanized words derived or originated from foreign languages.

Don't mind with my explanation! If you don't need it, maybe another persons would. 

Japaneses whom I knew don't want to write Japanese with Romaji styles fully. If basically, we can't write in Kanji, it's better to write in English with them. Japaneses are so proud of their own writing systems. Right, @810senior-san?


----------



## 810senior

Thank you for the detail explanations, Diamont7 and Rani_Author.
As mentioned very earlier, we like to use it more when it signifies an animal or a plant, like *rabbit*(ウサギ, usagi) or *dandelion*(タンポポ, tanpopo) which is probably written in Katakana more frequently.
That's why I started with _wani _written in Katakana instead of Hiragana in my first post.

In most cases, romaji *doesn't* show up in common Japanese sentences, as English and other Romance Languages too aren't normally spelled out in Greek alphabet or Cyrillic.


To sum up:
Hiragana
- _Okurigana_(as ahead-mentioned)
- F_unction words_(like postpositions, particles, or inflectional words)
- I_nstead of hard-to-read kanji_(e.g. 憂鬱→憂*うつ*, 嘔吐→*おう*吐)
- _Furigana _or _ruby_(as ahead-mentioned), some Onomatopoeic words

Katakana
- _Transliteration of foreign or exoic things_(names, conceptions not existing in Japanese like *television*, *radio*, *inflation *etc.)
- _Names of animals and plants_(sometimes written in Hiragana too. I guess this use is optional)
- _Onomatopoeia_(it depends on onomatopoeic words and contexts, whether they are written in Hiragana or Katakana e.g. にんまり[hiragana]と笑う[to grin] and カンカン[katakana]に怒る[angry at])
- _Emphasis_(Katakana has a function in part that strengthen the word the writer wants to be put on emphasis, especially if it is commonly spelled in Hiragana or Kanji)

Hope this helped. 

*Edited for the misunderstanding part.


----------



## Rani_Author

810senior said:


> ?Emphasis(we don't have this function in Katakana that resembles *italicization *or *capitalization*, just because Katakana is used doesn't mean the writer wants it to be put on emphasis)



I know, we discuss about off-topic too much. But, one question:

Then, besides of emphasis, what else I should correct in my text above?  I got it from the explanation of any websites. That's the lack if we trust to websites.


----------



## 810senior

Silly me, the website isn't to blame.

I'm sorry that I should correct my post and also have you to edit the post.
Katakana has surely a use for emphasis by converting the word normally written in Hiragana or Kanji into Katakana e.g. "クルマ"(commonly spelled as 車)はアメリカで生まれました。(the _car _was invented in America), この"ヒトデナシ"にかける情けなどない(I have no mercy on this _brute_).


----------

