What's the difference between hiragana, katakana, and kanji?

Strictly speaking, hiragana is your most basic alphabet. It’s the first alphabet that Japanese children learn, and the first alphabet we’d learn if you or I took a beginner Japanese course. Technically, you can spell all the words in the Japanese language using this alphabet. Unfortunately for us learners of Japanese, everything *isn’t* written in hiragana.

Katakana is a copy of hiragana, except with different letters. In other words, there is a katakana for every hiragana and vice versa. So you’re probably thinking, “why have 2 alphabets with the same sounds and different symbols?” Well, the katakana alphabet is mainly used to write borrowed words from foreign languages and distinguish them from standard Japanese words.

For example, the Japanese word for “bus” is “basu.” The two sound similar right? That’s because they “borrowed” the word “bus” from English and made it Japanese. So, instead of writing it as ばす (hiragana), they write it as バス (katakana) to differentiate it from ordinary Japanese words. Katakana is also used to emphasize words and to spell foreign names and places. It’s easy to tell the difference between the two alphabets because hiragana looks more rounded and smooth, whereas katakana look more rigid with lots of short, straight strokes.

Last, but not least, there’s kanji. Kanji is actually a subset of Chinese characters. The Japanese use kanji to help convey meaning and to make it easier to read written text (…which is ironic since it makes it harder for us non-native people to learn!)

Here’s an example of what I mean:

明日、動物園に行かない? (Sentence using hiragana & kanji) vs.
あした、どうぶつえんにいかない？ (Same sentence with only hiragana)

As you can see, it’s easier to tell where one word starts and another ends and it’s easier to scan the sentence…assuming you know how to read the kanji.

Here’s an example of where Kanji can be useful for meaning. All of the following words are pronounced “toru” but each have a different meaning:

とる (hiragana…it can mean a number of things!)
撮る (to take a picture)
取る (to take something/pick something up)
盗る (to steal something)

As tough as it is to learn, kanji is very important to the Japanese language and very useful for the above reasons.

To learn to completely read Japanese, you will unfortunately need to learn all 3 alphabets. Although it may sound overwhelming, if you stick to it you’ll learn to get it over time.

Start with hiragana because that will give you a good foundation and make it easy to pick up katakana. It’s like a 2 for 1. Kanji is a struggle for almost everyone learning Japanese, so it will take longer to master. Set some realistic goals for yourself and get as much exposure to the language as possible.