Aurora Cacciapuoti - Lets learn Japanese : first words for everyone

Copyright 2019 by Aurora Cacciapuoti. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available. ISBN 978-1-4521-6625-4 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4521-6638-4 (epub, mobi) Design by Nami Kurita. Cover design and art direction by Alice Seiler.
Typeset in Archer, Heisei Maru Gothic, Meltow, Paqui, and Zooja.

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Welcome to Lets Learn Japanese! Imagine having three different alphabets in your language to express yourself. Thats what reading and writing in Japanese is like! The Japanese writing system is made up of two types of syllabic alphabets: hiragana () and katakana (). There are also kanji () characters, which are ideograms adopted from the Chinese. Putting these three types of characters together is called kanjikanamajiri.

For example:
Watashi wa resutoran ni iku.
I go to the restaurant.

Hiragana is a set of writing symbols composed of 46 base characters, including 5 singular vowels, 40 consonantvowel unions, and 1 singular consonant. Hiragana is a set of writing symbols composed of 46 base characters, including 5 singular vowels, 40 consonantvowel unions, and 1 singular consonant.

Each character represents a specific sound. Hiragana characters have a more round shape and are mainly used for the grammatical elements of sentences. Katakana characters represent the same sounds as hiragana, but they are more square in shape and are usually used for words of foreign origin. For example, computer is written (Konpyt). Katakana is used also for scientific words, onomatopoeia (words that are similar to the sounds they refer to, like boom or meow), and when giving a word extra emphasis. If you want to start studying Japanese, learning these characters by heart is a great place to start. If you want to start studying Japanese, learning these characters by heart is a great place to start.

In Japan, children are taught hiragana and katakana first, which is why childrens books in Japan are written in kana. If you dont know how to write a word in kanji, you can use kana and still be understood. Kanji are ideographic symbols adopted from Chinese characters. There are about 50,000 kanji characters in the Japanese language and around 2,000 are commonly used today. In Japanese schools, students must learn 2,136 kanji that are essential in everyday life. The brush strokes that make up each kanji are written in a specific order and direction. The brush strokes that make up each kanji are written in a specific order and direction.

Kanji can have more than one pronunciation. In this book you will find words written in the Roman alphabet to help you pronounce the word in Japanese. This is called rmaji. Each word in this book is written in English, kanji (if applicable), followed by the appropriate kana (hiragana and/or katakana), and rmaji to help with pronunciation:

Cat		English
		Kanji
		Kana
Neko		Rmaji

This book is meant to be an introduction to Japanese as you begin your language-learning journey. In the meantime, enjoy Lets Learn Japanese! Turtle Kame Dog Inu Cat Neko Horse Uma Next page