Japanese Culture

I know there is hiragana, katakana, and kanji. But I keep seeing things like romaji and genki and now am somewhat confused. If you are trying to learn this language, which one does one learn (first) and which one is to ignore, or whatever?

Someone who has studied japanese or speaks japanese fluently please answer.

Thanks.

There is romaji, hiragana, katakana, and kanji. You should learn romaji first, because it is like chinese pinyin, except for the Japanese language (If you don’t know what pinyin is, it’s basically the pronounciation, or the spelled-out version of the characters, to help Americans like us learn Japanese)…For example, "Konnichiwa" is the romaji for saying "Hello" or "Good Day" in Japanese. Then, you should learn hiragana. Kanji would be the next in line of importance, but nowadays, the Japanese language has a lot of Americanized words, which are usually written in katakana. Kanji is derived from Chinese "Kangxi", and many of the (complicated) traditional or simplified characters of kanji and kangxi are exactly the same!!! Not all of them, however, and you definitely still need to know one of the kana’s. I would recommend learning hiragana before katakana (these two are stricly Japanese, not copied from Chinese), but it’s your choice. In manga books and street signs around Japan, they use all three Japanese character languages (kanji, hiragana, and katakana). Good Luck!

4 Responses

1. Belie Says:
   March 3rd, 2010 at 3:13 am

   Hiragana, katakana, and kanji are the Japanese writing systems. You have to know them all and they’re typically learned in that order.
   Romaji is where Japanese is written with the Roman alphabet. No one uses it in Japan. "Studying" it is stupid and too many students use it as a crutch to learning Japanese.
   Genki is a textbook and/or a word. I don’t even know how you came across this and thought it was a "part" of Japanese.
   References :

2. pink_is_metal Says:
   March 3rd, 2010 at 3:56 am

   Romanji is when you write out the word into english

   for example: How to say "cat"
   The Romanji would be "Neko", which sounds exactly the same as Japanese, but considering most people asking the question wouldn’t know how to read Japanese translators turn the word into English-Japanese in order to say it and read it.

   Genki…I’m not sure but it means Healthy or Fine in Japanese.

   I’m not fluent but I do know it
   References :

3. Okashi-chan Says:
   March 3rd, 2010 at 4:21 am

   There is romaji, hiragana, katakana, and kanji. You should learn romaji first, because it is like chinese pinyin, except for the Japanese language (If you don’t know what pinyin is, it’s basically the pronounciation, or the spelled-out version of the characters, to help Americans like us learn Japanese)…For example, "Konnichiwa" is the romaji for saying "Hello" or "Good Day" in Japanese. Then, you should learn hiragana. Kanji would be the next in line of importance, but nowadays, the Japanese language has a lot of Americanized words, which are usually written in katakana. Kanji is derived from Chinese "Kangxi", and many of the (complicated) traditional or simplified characters of kanji and kangxi are exactly the same!!! Not all of them, however, and you definitely still need to know one of the kana’s. I would recommend learning hiragana before katakana (these two are stricly Japanese, not copied from Chinese), but it’s your choice. In manga books and street signs around Japan, they use all three Japanese character languages (kanji, hiragana, and katakana). Good Luck!
   References :
   me (experience!)

4. ithinkthereforeiam Says:
   March 3rd, 2010 at 4:53 am

   At first, considering to Japanese children, they firstly learn speech from their mother eg;???means meal, secondly study simple Hiragana eg;???????and next study katakana. Almost of all words that are written in katakana are noun. and next they are tought simple kanji eg; ?????? I think almost of all foreign Japanese leaners tend to study Japanese from romaji, but we Japanese seldom use romaji. I don’t think this way is efficient because it just likes we Japanese study English with Katakana.
   References :
   Japanese

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