reading and writing

Christine Perry

www.facebook.com/muffinmash

Hiragana: Phonetic alphabet, each letter corresponds to a sound,

used for particles, verb endings, phonetic spellings

Katakana: Phonetic alphabet, each letter corresponds to same

sounds as in hiragana but used for foreign loanwords

Kanji: Chinese characters used for nouns, verb stems, names,

places. Each kanji may have multiple meanings/pronunciations which depend on usage.

Today we are learning…

Commonly used kanji such as numbers, yen symbol, characters used to denote time

Hiragana and how it links to kanji pronunciation

Katakana and how it can be transliterated into English words

Kanji often have both, so they can be used in many different words as components (on) or stand alone as words (kun).

On’yomi Chinese pronunciations of kanji that are mostly used

when strings of multiple kanji are needed to make a word. Mostly, these are short sounds.

Kun’yomi Japanese adaptation of kanji that attaches whole words

to a single kanji (or whole verb stems). Hiragana may be appended, such as in verbs, to complete the word.

ku/u ku/rau ta/beru ha/mu

Jisho.org

taberu

Jisho.org

Maikeru.cc

きや

きゃ

しよ

しょ

りゆ

りゅ

しっぱい

けってい

Kiya

Kya

Shiyo

Sho

Riyu

Ryu

Shippai

Kettei

Yomuze.com

しゅう

きゅう

ちょう

しょう

こおり

かっこいい

へいせい

れんあい

Shuu

Kyuu

Chou

Shou

Koori

Kakkoii

Heisei

Renai

Used for writing foreign loanwords, such as English words commonly used in everyday language

Also may be seen to phonetically represent Japanese words as a sort of stylized script when the writer wants to differentiate it from surrounding words or highlight it somehow (such as the way Jisho.org writes on’yomispellings in kanji lookups).

Maikeru.cc

キヤ

キャ

シヨ

ショ

リユ

リュ

シッパイ

ケッテイ

ジャージー

Kiya

Kya

Shiyo

Sho

Riyu

Ryu

Shippai

Kettei

Jaajii (jersey)

Yomuze.com

William

(wiriamu)

Christine

(kurisutiin)

Fight

(faito)

Venus

(viinasu)

Lady

(redii)

ウィリアム

クリスティーン

ファイト

ヴィーナス

レディー

Yomuze.com

First, learn the stroke order for each character and practice writing them with the proper strokes many times. (Graph paper with large squares) This is the way you will learn and practice all characters,

including all kanji, so get used to it…

Read a lot. Textbooks have readings geared toward your skill level, but to practice hiragana, katakana, and basic kanji recognition without one, I recommend manga geared towards children.

Now, we will look at the most basic of kanji: numbers

一 いち (ichi) 1

二 に (ni) 2

三 さん (san) 3

四 よん (yon) 4

五 ご (go) 5

六 ろく(roku) 6

七 なな (nana) 7

八 はち (hachi) 8

九 きゅう (kyuu) 9

十 じゅう (juu) 10

You know 1-10, so you can use those to make any number up to 99.

Structure is: tens place-ten-ones place

20= 二十 (nijuu)

36= 三十六 (sanjuuroku)

88= 八十八 (hachijuuhachi)

92= 九十二 (kyuujuuni)

There are a few cases where the sound becomes different to make the flow better, but since we’re just going to look at the kanji today, I won’t go into it.

五時

一時四十分

一日六月二千十五年

560円

月曜日 火曜日 水曜日げつようび かようび すいようびGetsuyoubi Kayoubi Suiyoubi

木曜日 金曜日 土曜日もくようび きんようび どようびMokuyoubi Kinyoubi Doyoubi

日曜日にちようびNichiyoubi

http://www.textfugu.com/resources/hiragana-chart/

http://www.tofugu.com/2010/03/23/the-types-of-kanji-in-japanese-onyomi-vs-kunyomi/

http://www.yomuze.com/kana/youon.php

http://jisho.org/

http://www.maikeru.cc/allthingsjapan_language_hiraganaandkatakanacharts.htm

Genki I, Genki II, Genki Intermediate

http://jisho.org/ (beta version has write-in kanji look up tool)

Rikaikun/rikaichan browser extension

Erin, Japan Foundation videos

https://www.erin.ne.jp/en/

To download this presentation, as well as my other presentations from this weekend and more resources,

visit my Facebook:

www.facebook.com/muffinmash