Like I said in an earlier post, I’m taking my first Japanese class this semester… and I’M LOVING IT! I figured I could post here what I’ve learned so far. I’m no expert by any means, but I’m really interested in what I’m learning & want to share it. 
(If you happen to be an experienced speaker & I’m incorrect or you have a better way of explaining it PLEASE let me know!)
First things first, you need to be able to see what I’m talking about. Generally most computers from English-speaking countries don’t come with these features equipped.
So, if 日本語 doesn’t look like 
then you’re have problems seeing the kana (Japanese characters.)
Check out this page to enable your computer the read them:
http://blog.sanriotown.com/arcsis:hellokitty.com/learning-japnaese/how-to-view-japanese-characters/
So If you’re interested too… read on!
Japanese writing comes in 4 forms:
Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji & Romaji
Hiragana
Hiragana is a character set, but not like the alphabet that we’re used to. each character is a sound & syllable. There are46 basic hiragana. These are used for everyday writing of native Japanese words.
From Wiki:
“Hiragana are used for words for which there are no kanji, including particles such as kara から “from,” and suffixes such as ~san さん “Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms.” Hiragana are also used in words for which the kanji form is not known to the writer or readers, or is too formal for the writing purpose”
Katakana
Katakana is set up just like hiragana, 46 basic characters. Katakana is used for foreign words.
The English word Computer in Japanese is Konpyutaa (sounds very similarr) & is written with Katakana.
From Wiki:
“In modern Japanese, katakana are most often used for transcription of words from foreign languages (called gairaigo). For example, “television” is written terebi (テレビ, terebi). Similarly, katakana is usually used for country names, foreign places, and personal names. For example America is written アメリカ Amerika (America also has its own kanji (ateji) Amerika (亜米利加, Amerika) ”
Kanji
From Wiki:
“Kanji (漢字, ) are the Chinese characters that are used in the modern Japanese logographic writing system along with hiragana (ひらがな, 平仮名), katakana (カタカナ, 片仮名), Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet. The Japanese term kanji (漢字) literally means “Han characters”.”
I’ll be updating these posts as I go, and we’ve only JUST finished Hiragana so I’ll go through what we’ve done.
