Writing Japanese

Multiple writing systems

I’m learning Japanese. Among all the things that you have to learn in Japanese is the writing system which is composed of four parts:

• Hiragana, a set of around 50 characters, specific to Japanese, which represent syllables and are used for grammar elements and simple words
• Katakana, a second set of around 50 characters, also specific to Japanese, which represent the same syllables, but are used for foreign words or onomatopoeia in manga
• Kanjis, the Chinese characters that where imported around six hundred years ago. They represent meanings and have multiple pronunciations depending on context. The official list for schools in Japan contains 2250 of those
• Romaji, as they call it, are our characters, so we just have to learn how they are included in Japanese, because they are used to make something look modern or if it’s a french word, chic (with various results)

All of these are mixed in normal texts, and there’s no white space between words for example, because the transition from one kind of characters to another already makes it readable. Japanese can also be written vertically, starting in the top right of the page, and that’s pretty unusual for westerners.

As Kanjis have many pronunciations, there is a way to help beginners to read them by showing above them (or on the right when writing vertically) the corresponding Hiraganas. This practice is called Furigana in Japanese, and ruby in western typesetting.

Trying to write

When I first encountered all of this, I was lost but at least I could write by hand on paper. Then I searched for ways to type it on computers or smartphones.

For smartphones with Android, it’s quiet easy to install a Japanese keyboard, as you can download virtual keyboards for any language. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to use ! That’s where the input methods enter. When typing, the input method shows a list of possible words, mostly in Kanjis. As there are few syllables in Japanese, there are many homophones, with vastly different meanings, so this list is not very helpful to me as a beginner… So I will keep using Hiragana for some time I believe.

When I write on a computer, the problem is different. For now I didn’t try input methods, mostly because I have to use Windows at work, and I chose Linux at home. I didn’t want to learn two ways to enter text, and I don’t control my work computer so I can’t install anything. I’ve found a simple site that makes it easy to write Hiragana, Katakana, and possible to write Kanjis: https://www.lexilogos.com/clavier/nihongo.php. It’s not limited to Japanese. You can write using alphabet letters, and they are converted to the corresponding character automatically.

Helping myself

I’ve started to write some short texts with Kanjis, and I wanted to use Furigana to be able to read later even if I forget Kanjis. I’ve seen that it’s possible to add Furigana in Microsoft Word, but it’s a bit cumbersome, because you have to open a dialog for each word.

So far the easiest solution I found to write Kanjis and their Furigana is HTML, which provides a specific element for this use : ruby. If you have a standard editor, you can write HTML on any system, and include Japanese (if the editor supports UTF-8).

You use it this way:<ruby><rb>Kanjis</rb><rt>Furigana</rt></ruby> 

For example “year” is: <ruby><rb>年</rb><rt>ねん</rt></ruby>(“nen” in this case), and should produce the following visual result, with the Furigana above the Kanji:

年ねん

Only the beginning

I still need to learn many things about Japanese but at least I can write what I already know not only on paper !