Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Modern Japanese: Uses 3 Main Writing Systems (+ 1!)
Modern Japanese: Uses 3 Main Writing Systems (+ 1!)
2. HIRAGANA ()
Hiragana is used to spell out native Japanese words, mark grammatical elements, etc.
3. KATAKANA ()
Katakana is used for foreign loanwords, onomatopoeia and sometimes for emphasis. This means katakana functions a lot like italics in English. In addition, sometimes the Latin (English) alphabet is used, such as in abbreviations like CD or DVD.
4. ALPHABET
Heres an example of all four scripts in use from yesterdays news:
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20110413/k10015275041000.html