Hiragana

Japanese is one of the difficult languages for the non-natives. Every year many Bangladeshi students enrolled in language schools to learn Japanese. However, many of them eventually fail to continue the course owing to the difficulties in learning Japanese. The present paper investigated which script of Japanese seems difficult for the learners. The findings indicated that Katakana seems to be difficult for the learners than the Hiragana. Two cognitive psychological explanations of the difficulties associated with in learning Japanese specially Katakana is offered and concludes by suggesting ways to reduce drops-out. Key words: Distinctive features, Hiragana, Katakana, Serial position effectDOI: 10.3329/dujl.v1i2.3721 The Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics: Vol. 1 No. 2 August, 2008 Page: 147-156

Loanwords (gairaigo), words ‘borrowed’ from other languages, are an integral part of the Japanese language, and are estimated to account for around 10% of the modern Japanese lexicon. While loanwords are conventionally written with the katakana script, some contemporary examples appear in the hiragana script, which is usually reserved for words of Japanese origin. A corpus of loanwords in hiragana was assembled and analysed in order to describe typical characteristics of these words, such as the source language and method of elongating vowels, as well as the genres of text in which such words appear. The motivation for the use of hiragana for loanwords is also discussed, and expands on selected welldocumented functions of loanwords. For example, loanwords can be used to fill lexical gaps, or give a ‘cool’ or ‘modern’ image to a referent. These functions are discussed specifically in relation to loanwords in hiragana. The results of this study extend prior research on loanwords in Japanese, and reinforce the often-cited flexibility and adaptability of the Japanese writing system.

This paper addresses two closely related topics for understanding the highly fungible nature of written Japanese. The first is to consider the relative merits of the notions of graphematic representation and orthography with respect to the Japanese writing system (JWS). The second issue is to advocate an inclusive notion of intentionality, which together with the notion of conventionality, provides an approach to thinking about the pervasive nature of graphematic variation within the JWS. Accordingly, the principle Japanese orthographic conventions are outlined in Part 3, while the more substantive Part 4 presents a tentative classification of the various factors of intentionality that also exert considerable influence over contemporary written Japanese.

A comprehensive guide to Japanese writing system.

THE BEST SELLING STUDENTS' GUIDE FOR OVER 40 YEARS, COMPLETELY UPDATED AND REVISED.
- 1,006 essential characters by grade
- 1,945 general use characters by stroke order
- Full range of readings and English definitions
- stroke counts and stroke-order diagrams
- compounds and derivatives
- Katakana and Hiragana syllabaries
- Index of readings

Although loanwords are conventionally written in katakana, it is possible to find examples of loanwords in hiragana script.  These marked examples of script use often appear in texts outside formal writing conventions, such as product and business names.  This research reports on the results of a survey investigating the reactions of Japanese people to three such words, はぴねす/happiness, れ もん/lemon, and ふらい/fly.  Overall, high levels of appropriacy were reported, although this figure differed significantly between examples.  The perceived motivations for the use of hiragana over katakana drew on a number of factors, including the associations of the hiragana script, the perceived audience of the text, and reasons relating to the particular loanword in question.

The modern Japanese writing system is often considered to be the most complicated one in use anywhere in the world, as it is a combination of three types of characters- Logographic Kanji, Syllabic Kana and in some cases Latin script Rōmaji. Also, kana itself consists of two syllabaries- Hiragana and Katakana. This paper elaborately discusses about the origin and development of the two types of Kana.

Loanwords  (外来語・カタカナ語), which are words ‘borrowed’ from other languages, are an integral part of the Japanese language, and are estimated to account for around 10% of the modern Japanese lexicon. While loanwords are conventionally written with the katakana script, recently some examples have been appearing in the hiragana script, which is usually reserved for words of Japanese origin.
This research investigates what kinds of loanwords appear in hiragana, in which genres of text they are typically found, and why hiragana is being used in these cases. A mixed methods research design provided a broad base from which to approach this phenomenon, and consequently four different data sets were utilized: a corpus of hiragana loanwords, a survey, a series of interviews with native Japanese speakers, and four case studies of individual texts. The case studies, in particular, drew on the multimodal nature of these texts, and utilized the ‘visual grammar’ of Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), and the semiotics of typography described by Stöckl (2005) in order to understand how hiragana was being used within a text.
The findings from this research illustrate the wide range of semiotic functions this marked use of script can perform, for example connoting traditional Japanese culture or cuteness; being ‘easier to read’ for perceived audiences; providing a sense of balance with the other scripts used in the text; or highlighting an instance of wordplay. While loanwords in hiragana can be described as a ‘marked’ use of language, another important finding was native Japanese speakers' general level of acceptance of these words within authentic texts, with script having the effect of blurring the line between loanword and ‘Japanese word’. The results of this study therefore extend prior research on Japanese loanwords (Loveday, 1996; Rebuck, 2002; Stanlaw, 2014); typography and graphic design (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Spitzmüller, 2012, 2015); and language play (Gottlieb, 2010; Knospe, 2015). These findings reinforce the often-cited flexibility and adaptability of the Japanese writing system, as well as providing new perspectives on script as a semiotic resource within the Japanese language.

This textbook is designed to follow  “Japanese in 30 Weeks I – Romaji course” by the same author, which emphasizes the structure of fundamental Japanese sentences in Romaji.  The present volume, “Kana-kanji-hen” (Kana-Kanji Course), introduces students to a wide variety of expressions and expanded structures written in Kana and Kanji. The course presents a total of 420 Chinese characters in addition to Hiragana and Katakana.  The 420 kanji have been carefully selected from the 881 Kyooiku Kanjji (Essential kanji and 115) Bikoo Kanji (Reference kanji), all of which appear in elementary school textbooks in Japan.  Except for the first two lessons in which Kana are learned, 15 new Kanji appear in each lesson.  The 30 lessons can normally be completed at the rate of one lesson a week. Each kanji is presented with easy-to-acquaint colloquial patterns, on-reading and kun-reading, applications of the Kanjis, and oral exercises. The textbook has its basis in the powerful tool that re-arranged Japanese verbs into morphological schematization—that no one else has ever done—called 19 model verbs and that allows learners to conjugate more than 10,000 Japanese verbs correctly by memorizing only 19 verbs.

Imagine that this abstract was written in a font which resembled the lettering found in comic books. Through the use of a font that is unconventional in academic writing, many readers may find that their evaluation of both this abstract and its author changes. This phenomenon points at the fact that language users hold stereotypes about what kinds of people (should) use lexical, phonological, and visual elements of language. In other words, the selection of certain fonts can index a non-academic stance as quickly as the insertion of vulgarities, or spelling errors.

While there is a need to better understand the use and function of visual indexes, they are a relatively minor presence in most writing. The one exception is in written Japanese, where four distinct scripts are used in tandem, each with the theoretical potential to represent any word in a sentence. This paper examines if and how variation in the use of these scripts functions as an index in the manga Chokotan!. More specifically, it analyzes the particular orthographic conventions used for the titular Chokotan’s speech in relation to the dialogue of other characters, looking at how the author relies on specific orthographic selections or contrasts to convey and reinforce information about speakers in the manga. Results show that the use of orthographic variation does not merely rely on binary contrasts between perceptions of standard or nonstandard writing, but often relates to impressions readers have with specific scripts, with each script playing a specific role in the creation of meaning.

This paper addresses two closely related topics for understanding the highly fungible nature of written Japanese.  The first is to consider the relative merits of the notions of orthography and graphematic representation with respect to the Japanese writing system (JWS).  The second issue is to advocate an inclusive notion of intentionality, which together with the notion of conventionality, provides an approach to thinking about the pervasive nature of graphematic variation within the JWS.  Accordingly, the principle Japanese orthographic conventions are outlined in Part 3, while the more substantive Part 4 presents a tentative classification of the various factors of intentionality that also exert considerable influence over contemporary written Japanese.

Pembelajaran bahasa Jepun sebagai bahasa ketiga ada cabarannya yang tersendiri. Pelajar yang mempelajari bahasa Jepun perlu memahami dan menguasai ketiga-tiga sistem tulisan bahasa Jepun; Hiragana, Katakana dan Kanji. Di UiTM, pengajaran sistem tulisan bahasa Jepun diajar dalam tiga tahap iaitu Hiragana dipelajari di Tahap I, Katakana di Tahap II dan Kanji di Tahap III. Pelajar perlu menguasai Hiragana sebelum mempelajari Katakana dan Katakana juga perlu difahami sebelum mempelajari tulisan Kanji. Analisis terhadap hasil penulisan pelajar yang mempelajari bahasa Jepun di Tahap III menunjukkan bahawa pelajar masih keliru dengan penggunaan sistem tulisan bahasa Jepun. Hasil analisis menunjukkan bahawa terdapat empat kesalahan lazim yang dilakukan oleh pelajar iaitu (i) kesilapan penggunaan tulisan Hiragana dan Katakana, (ii) penggunaan tulisan Hiragana untuk penulisan partikel, (iii) kekeliruan teknik penulisan Hiragana dan Katakana dan (iv) Sono ta (kesilapan-kesilapan lain). Peruntukan masa yang sedikit dan kurangnya peluang untuk menggunakan bahasa Jepun menjadi faktor utama berlakunya kesilapan-kesilapan ini. Makalah ini membicarakan tentang kesalahan penggunaan sistem tulisan Hiragana dan Katakana oleh pelajar Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Shah Alam yang mengikuti kursus bahasa Jepun sebagai bahasa ketiga.

Bu çalışmada Japon yazı sistemlerinden ikisi olan hiragana ve katakananın sembollerinin nasıl ortaya çıktığı incelenmiş ve tablolaştırılmış ve tablo bir terim sözlüğü ile zenginleştirilmiştir.

In this study, how the symbols of hiragana and katakana, two of the Japanese writing systems, emerged, was examined and tabulated, and the table was enriched with a glossary of terms.

ABSTRACT Loanwords (gairaigo), words ‘borrowed’ from other languages, are an integral part of the Japanese language, and are estimated to account for around 10% of the modern Japanese lexicon. While loanwords are conventionally written with the katakana script, some contemporary examples appear in the hiragana script, which is usually reserved for words of Japanese origin. A corpus of loanwords in hiragana was assembled and analysed in order to describe typical characteristics of these words, such as the source language and method of elongating vowels, as well as the genres of text in which such words appear. The motivation for the use of hiragana for loanwords is also discussed, and expands on selected well-documented functions of loanwords. For example, loanwords can be used to fill lexical gaps, or give a ‘cool’ or ‘modern’ image to a referent. These functions are discussed specifically in relation to loanwords in hiragana. The results of this study extend prior research on loanwords in Japanese, and reinforce the often-cited flexibility and adaptability of the Japanese writing system.

Loanwords (外来語・カタカナ語), which are words ‘borrowed’ from other languages, are an integral part of the Japanese language, and are estimated to account for around 10% of the modern Japanese lexicon. While loanwords are conventionally written with the katakana script, recently some examples have been appearing in the hiragana script, which is usually reserved for words of Japanese origin. This research investigates what kinds of loanwords appear in hiragana, in which genres of text they are typically found, and why hiragana is being used in these cases. A mixed methods research design provided a broad base from which to approach this phenomenon, and consequently four different data sets were utilized: a corpus of hiragana loanwords, a survey, a series of interviews with native Japanese speakers, and four case studies of individual texts. The case studies, in particular, drew on the multimodal nature of these texts, and utilized the ‘visual grammar’ of Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), and th...

The construction of dialogue in comics often involves both visual and graphic considerations, with changes to the shape, size, font, colour, and even orientation of text and speech bubbles used to establish characters’ identities and voices in the medium. However, while many styles of graphic manipulation in comic dialogue have been discussed and researched to date, the variant use of script has seen little attention. In this study, I examine if and how locally variant uses of the Japanese hiragana, katakana and kanji scripts are used to index information about speakers and speech acts in three series of Japanese manga (comics). The findings show that marked selections of each script are used to index specific effects and social voices, with the interplay between script choice and the surrounding visuals often working together to establish information in the analysed texts.