japanese writing paper rules

Japanizing Your Computer Formatted papers for learning Japanese and "How to" directions 原稿用紙 (げんこうようし：Sakubun formatted paper) 400 (20X20) PDF format (better copy) and JPG format (click and drag to your desktop) 200 (20X10 1/2 page)　 PDF format and JPG format "How to" directions How to use 原稿用紙 (げんこうようし) ワープロフォーマット (よこがき: horizontal) ワープロフォーマット（たてがき: vertical) かな、漢字練習用紙 (かな、かんじれんしゅうようし：Kana and Kanji practice formatted paper) Kanji, reading, and meaning practice Kanji and reading practice (small) Kanji and reading practice (large) Kana and Kanji practice sheet (the page without spaces for furigana) Language Links Culture Links Radio/News Links Travel Links Fun Fun Fun Links For Teachers Links Miscellaneous Links (scholarships, internships, jobs, etc) JOSHU Utilities

, June 17, 2022

The Japanese Writing: #1 Basic Introduction

Are you thinking about learning Japanese ? You’ve come to the right place. First things first, you have to get familiar with the Japanese writing system since the Japanese alphabet is pretty different from the Latin alphabet.

If you’ve researched the Japanese writing system before, then you might have come across different types of Japanese writing. If you’re confused, don’t worry! We’re here to introduce you to the Japanese writing system in a more detailed and concise way!

The Basics Of The Japanese Writing System

Today, the modern Japanese writing system consists of two elements: kanji and kana. Kanji basically refers to the Chinese characters that were adapted into Japanese, while kana is divided into hiragana and katakana.

Japanese is applicable to both vertical writing (縦書き – tategaki) and horizontal writing (横書き – yokogaki). However, keep in mind that vertical writing is mostly used in traditional Japanese writing while horizontal writing is used in modern Japanese writing.

History Of The Japanese Writing System In A Nutshell

Until kanji was introduced in the 5th century by the Chinese, Japan didn’t have a writing system. But, once the Japanese took the kanji characters from the Chinese language, they were able to match them to the same word in Japanese.

After the adaptation of Chinese characters, kanji started to be used everywhere to write Japanese. In 650 CE a new writing system known as 万葉仮名 (manyō gana) was invented that used Chinese characters for their sounds to represent Japanese meanings. Interestingly, Kana was mostly used by women who were not allowed to get higher education during those times.

There is another type of kanji known as national characters (国字 – kokuji) . These kanji characters are used to indicate native Japanese words, so they are not known to Chinese speakers.

Japanese Alphabet

Japanese consists of two alphabets known as hiragana and katakana, but they are actually just two different versions of the same sound. This is because the Japanese alphabet consists of kana syllabaries and every syllable you see has a different phonetic value.

It is very easy to distinguish hiragana, katakana, and kanji from each other. Hiragana has a curvy script, katakana has a jagged script, and kanji is the one that looks the most complicated since they are actually Chinese characters.

Hiragana Alphabet

あ-A か-Ka さ-Sa た-Ta な-Na は-Ha ま-Ma や-Ya ら-Ra わ-Wa

い-I き-Ki し-Shi ち-Chi に-Ni ひ-Hi み-Mi り-Ri

う-U く-Ku す-Su つ-Tsu ぬ-Nu ふ-Fu む-Mu ゆ-Yu る-Ru

え-E け-Ke せ-Se て-Te ね-Ne へ-He め-Me れ-Re

お-O こ-Ko そ-So と-To の-No ほ-Ho も-Mo よ-Yo ろ-Ro を-Wo

Katakana Alphabet

ア-A カ-Ka サ-Sa タ-Ta ナ-Na ハ-Ha マ-Ma ヤ-Ya ラ-Ra ワ-Wa

イ-I キ-Ki シ-Shi チ-Chi ニ-Ni ヒ-Hi ミ-Mi リ-Ri

ウ-U ク-Ku ス-Su ツ-Tsu ヌ-Nu フ-Fu ム-Mu ユ-Yu ル-Ru

エ-E ケ-Ke セ-Se テ-Te ネ-Ne ヘ-He メ-Me レ-Re

オ-O コ-Ko ソ-So ト-To ノ-No ホ-Ho モ-Mo ヨ-Yo ロ-Ro

Where To Use Kanji, Hiragana, And Katakana?

Hiragana is mostly used for grammatical elements, such as verb endings and particles. You can also switch to hiragana if you don’t know how to write the word in kanji. In Japan, children’s books are usually written in hiragana since they don’t know how to read and write kanji yet.

Katakana is used for foreign words that are loaned from other languages. For example, you can see that katakana is commonly used in manga to indicate that the character is not Japanese and, therefore, has an accent.

Although there are plenty of words that can be written in just Hiragana, Kanji is used for general words. For instance, verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.

Japanese Punctuation

The Japanese period (.) and comma (,) are used for the same purposes as in the English language.

The question mark (?) is not used in traditional and formal texts, but it can be used in informal and casual texts. It is also used in transcriptions of dialogues because, otherwise, it might not be clear whether a statement is a question or not.

The exclamation mark (!) is only used in casual and informal texts.

Quotation marks in Japanese are different than what we’re used to. They are symbolized as 「 … 」, or 『 … 』.

Where To Begin Writing In Japanese?

Writing Japanese is not easy, but practice makes perfect!

As a beginner, make sure to learn hiragana and katakana. After you’re comfortable with those, you can start studying kanji. In order to learn the stroke order of any kanji, you can get help from various Japanese learning apps , and don’t forget to practice with an actual pencil and paper. When learning characters, muscle memory is very important.

Another tip when learning kanji is to study kanji characters with context.

If you’re a beginner learning Japanese, understand that the alphabet, pronunciation, and grammar rules can be overwhelming, but never give up!

If you want to know even more ways to learn Japanese , there are plenty of online resources out there!

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Japanese teaching ideas for Writing

General writing ideas, font s and font recognition, games in class - general writing activities, genkouyoushi 原稿用紙　げんこうようし, powerpoints.

Learn Japanese online

How to write sakubun.

Sakubun – writing (a paragraph, an essay, etc.), is an important part of teaching and learning Japanese. So Sakubun is considered a skill that is not easy to acquire for Japanese learners. In this post, Learn Japanese Daily will introduce to you the lesson: How to write Sakubun. Let’s start!

Table of Contents

How to write Sakubun in Japanese

What is sakubun.

Sakubun (作文) is writing a paragraph, an essay, etc. in Japanese. When writing Sakubun, Japanese people will use a special type of paper called 原稿用紙 (Genkou youshi). This type of paper is divided into small squares for the sake of writing Sakubun easily. Genkou youshi is usually sold at 100 yen stores or at stationery stores in the schools.

How to use Genkou youshi (Japanese writing paper)

The most common 原稿用紙 (Genkou youshi) is the paper consisting of 20 lines on one side of that paper, and each line has 20 squares. So the total number of squares is 400.

There are rules when using Genkou youshi that writers need to know. The most basic way to use is to rotate the paper horizontally and write vertically from right to left. However, there are some Japanese language schools that allow students to to rotate the paper vertically and write horizontally from left to right. This post will guide you the first way (rotating the paper horizontally and writing vertically from right to left).

How to write the title of Sakubun, your full name, school and class

Before writing the content of Sakubun, you need to write your full name, your class and the title of Sakubun first.

Title: Write in the first line. Leave the first two or three squares blank (from top to bottom).

Full name: Write in the last squares in the second line, but you must leave the last square blank. There is one square between first name and last name.

School and class: It may or may not be written depending on the requirement. If you have to write, write in the second line (above the full name and there is one square between school – class and full name).

The content of Sakubun

– Leave the first square blank and start writing from the second square. When moving to the next paragraph, you also need to leave the first square blank and start writing from the second square.

– Commas, dots, question marks, exclamation points, and quotation marks are like a letter, so each of them is written in a single square. However, when these marks may appear at the beginning of a new line, you need to write them in the same square with the letter immediately preceding them in the old line (or write them in the margin at the bottom of the old line), in order to avoid these marks start a new line.

– For conversation sentences, dots and quotation marks are written in the same square. If the sentence is needed to be written in 2 or more lines, leave the first square blank and then write from the second square.

– Small letters such as っ、ゃ、ゅ、ょ are also written in a single square.

– The digits must be written in Kanji: 一, 二, 三, 万 v…v….

– If you need to write the numbers (0,1,2, etc.), write two numbers horizontally in the same square.

– With Alphabet letters, two lowercase letters can be written horizontally in the same square, and each capital letter can be written vertically in a single square.

The structure of Sakubun

You can write Sakubun according to the 4-part structure 起承転結, including: 起 – introduction, 承 – development, 転 – turn, 結 – conclusion.

Or you can write Sakubun according to the 3-part structure – 三段構成 (Sandan kousei), including: 序 – opening, 破 – body, 急 – conclusion.

To understand more about the way of writing as well as the structure of Sakubun, you can refer to some samples of Sakubun on different topics at category : Japanese essay.

Above is: How to write Sakubun. Hope this post can help you improve your writing skills. Wish you all good study!

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Category: The Writing System

Chapter overview, the scripts.

Japanese consists of two scripts (referred to as kana ) called Hiragana and Katakana , which are two versions of the same set of sounds in the language. Hiragana and Katakana consist of a little less than 50 “letters”, which are actually simplified Chinese characters adopted to form a phonetic script.

Chinese characters, called Kanji in Japanese, are also heavily used in the Japanese writing. Most of the words in the Japanese written language are written in Kanji (nouns, verbs, adjectives). There exists over 40,000 Kanji where about 2,000 represent over 95% of characters actually used in written text. There are no spaces in Japanese so Kanji is necessary in distinguishing between separate words within a sentence. Kanji is also useful for discriminating between homophones, which occurs quite often given the limited number of distinct sounds in Japanese.

Hiragana is used mainly for grammatical purposes. We will see this as we learn about particles. Words with extremely difficult or rare Kanji, colloquial expressions, and onomatopoeias are also written in Hiragana. It’s also often used for beginning Japanese students and children in place of Kanji they don’t know.

While Katakana represents the same sounds as Hiragana, it is mainly used to represent newer words imported from western countries (since there are no Kanji associated with words based on the roman alphabet). The next three sections will cover Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji.

As you will find out in the next section, every character in Hiragana (and the Katakana equivalent) corresponds to a [vowel] or [consonant + vowel] syllable sound with the single exception of the 「ん」 and 「ン」 characters (more on this later). This system of letter for each syllable sound makes pronunciation absolutely clear with no ambiguities. However, the simplicity of this system does not mean that pronunciation in Japanese is simple. In fact, the rigid structure of the fixed syllable sound in Japanese creates the challenge of learning proper intonation.

Intonation of high and low pitches is a crucial aspect of the spoken language. For example, homophones can have different pitches of low and high tones resulting in a slightly different sound despite sharing the same pronunciation. The biggest obstacle for obtaining proper and natural sounding speech is incorrect intonation. Many students often speak without paying attention to the correct enunciation of pitches making speech sound unnatural (the classic foreigner’s accent). It is not practical to memorize or attempt to logically create rules for pitches, especially since it can change depending on the context or the dialect. The only practical approach is to get the general sense of pitches by mimicking native Japanese speakers with careful listening and practice.

Hiragana is the basic Japanese phonetic script. It represents every sound in the Japanese language. Therefore, you can theoretically write everything in Hiragana. However, because Japanese is written with no spaces, this will create nearly indecipherable text.

Here is a table of Hiragana and similar-sounding English consonant-vowel pronunciations. It is read up to down and right to left, which is how most Japanese books are written. In Japanese, writing the strokes in the correct order and direction is important, especially for Kanji. Because handwritten letters look slightly different from typed letters (just like how ‘a’ looks totally different when typed), you will want to use a resource that uses handwritten style fonts to show you how to write the characters (see below for links). I must also stress the importance of correctly learning how to pronounce each sound. Since every word in Japanese is composed of these sounds, learning an incorrect pronunciation for a letter can severely damage the very foundation on which your pronunciation lies.

* = no longer used

You can listen to the pronunciation for each character by clicking on it in chart. If your browser doesn’t support audio, you can also download them at http://www.guidetojapanese.org/audio/basic_sounds.zip . There are also other free resources with audio samples.

Hiragana is not too tough to master or teach and as a result, there are a variety of web sites and free programs that are already available on the web. I also suggest recording yourself and comparing the sounds to make sure you’re getting it right.

When practicing writing Hiragana by hand, the important thing to remember is that the stroke order and direction of the strokes matter . There, I underlined, italicized, bolded, and highlighted it to boot. Trust me, you’ll eventually find out why when you read other people’s hasty notes that are nothing more than chicken scrawls. The only thing that will help you is that everybody writes in the same order and so the “flow” of the characters is fairly consistent. I strongly recommend that you pay close attention to stroke order from the beginning starting with Hiragana to avoid falling into bad habits. While there are many tools online that aim to help you learn Hiragana, the best way to learn how to write it is the old fashioned way: a piece of paper and pen/pencil. Below are handy PDFs for Hiragana writing practice.

※ As an aside, an old Japanese poem called 「いろは」 was often used as the base for ordering of Hiragana until recent times. The poem contains every single Hiragana character except for 「ん」 which probably did not exist at the time it was written. You can check out this poem for yourself in this wikipedia article . As the article mentions, this order is still sometimes used in ordering lists so you may want to spend some time checking it out.

The Muddied Sounds

Once you memorize all the characters in Hiragana, there are still some additional sounds left to be learned. There are five more consonant sounds that are written by either affixing two tiny lines similar to a double quotation mark called dakuten （濁点） or a tiny circle called handakuten （半濁点）. This essentially creates a “muddy” or less clipped version of the consonant (technically called a voiced consonant or 「濁り」, which literally means to become muddy).

All the voiced consonant sounds are shown in the table below.

Notice that 「ぢ」 sounds essentially identical to 「じ」 and both are pronounced as / ji /, while 「づ」 is pronounced like / dzu /.

The Small 「や」、「ゆ」、and 「よ」

You can also combine a consonant with a / ya / yu / yo / sound by attaching a small 「や」、「ゆ」、or 「よ」 to the / i / vowel character of each consonant.

The Small 「つ」

A small 「つ」 is inserted between two characters to carry the consonant sound of the second character to the end of the first. For example, if you inserted a small 「つ」 between 「び」 and 「く」 to make 「びっく」, the / k / consonant sound is carried back to the end of the first character to produce “bikku”. Similarly, 「はっぱ」 becomes “happa”, 「ろっく」 becomes “rokku” and so on and so forth.

The Long Vowel Sound

Whew! You’re almost done. In this last portion, we will go over the long vowel sound which is simply extending the duration of a vowel sound. You can extend the vowel sound of a character by adding either 「あ」、「い」、or 「う」 depending on the vowel in accordance to the following chart.

For example, if you wanted to create an extended vowel sound from 「か」, you would add 「あ」 to create 「かあ」. Other examples would include: 「き → きい」, 「く → くう」, 「け → けい」, 「こ → こう」, 「さ → さあ」 and so on. The reasoning for this is quite simple. Try saying 「か」 and 「あ」 separately. Then say them in succession as fast as you can. You’ll notice that soon enough, it sounds like you’re dragging out the / ka / for a longer duration than just saying / ka / by itself. When pronouncing long vowel sounds, try to remember that they are really two sounds merged together.

It’s important to make sure you hold the vowel sound long enough because you can be saying things like “here” （ここ） instead of “high school” （こうこう） or “middle-aged lady” （おばさん） instead of “grandmother” （おばあさん） if you don’t stretch it out correctly!

There are rare exceptions where an / e / vowel sound is extended by adding 「え」 or an / o / vowel sound is extended by 「お」. Some examples of this include 「おねえさん」、「おおい」、and 「おおきい」. Pay careful attention to these exceptions but don’t worry, there aren’t too many of them.

Hiragana Practice Exercises

Fill in the hiragana chart.

Though I already mentioned that there are many sites and helper programs for learning Hiragana, I figured I should put in some exercises of my own in the interest of completeness. I’ve removed the obsolete characters since you won’t need to know them. I suggest playing around with this chart and a scrap piece of paper to test your knowledge of Hiragana.

Click on the flip link to show or hide each character.

Hiragana Writing Practice

In this section, we will practice writing some words in Hiragana. This is the only part of this guide where we will be using the English alphabet to represent Japanese sounds. I’ve added bars between each letter to prevent the ambiguities that is caused by romaji such as “un | yo” vs “u | nyo”. Don’t get too caught up in the romaji spellings. Remember, the whole point is to test your aural memory with Hiragana. I hope to replace this with sound in the future to remove the use of romaji altogether.

Hiragana Writing Exercise 1

Sample: ta | be | mo | no ＝たべもの

More Hiragana Writing Practice

Now we’re going to move on to practice writing Hiragana with the small 「や」、「ゆ」、「よ」、and the long vowel sound. For the purpose of this exercise, I will denote the long vowel sound as “－” and leave you to figure out which Hiragana to use based on the letter preceding it.

Hiragana Writing Exercise 2

Sample: jyu | gyo－＝じゅぎょう

Hiragana Reading Practice

Now let’s practice reading some Hiragana. I want to particularly focus on correctly reading the small 「つ」. Remember to not get too caught up in the unavoidable inconsistencies of romaji. The point is to check whether you can figure out how it’s supposed to sound in your mind.

Hiragana Reading Exercise

Sample: とった＝ totta

As mentioned before, Katakana is mainly used for words imported from foreign languages. It can also be used to emphasize certain words similar to the function of italics . For a more complete list of usages, refer to the Wikipedia entry on katakana .

Katakana represents the same set of phonetic sounds as Hiragana except all the characters are different. Since foreign words must fit into this limited set of [consonants+vowel] sounds, they undergo many radical changes resulting in instances where English speakers can’t understand words that are supposed to be derived from English! As a result, the use of Katakana is extremely difficult for English speakers because they expect English words to sound like… well… English. Instead, it is better to completely forget the original English word, and treat the word as an entirely separate Japanese word, otherwise you can run into the habit of saying English words with English pronunciations (whereupon a Japanese person may or may not understand what you are saying).

* = obsolete or rarely used

Katakana is significantly tougher to master compared to Hiragana because it is only used for certain words and you don’t get nearly as much practice as you do with Hiragana. To learn the proper stroke order (and yes, you need to), here is a link to practice sheets for Katakana.

Katakana trace sheets

Also, since Japanese doesn’t have any spaces, sometimes the symbol 「・」 is used to show the spaces like 「ロック・アンド・ロール」 for “rock and roll”. Using the symbol is completely optional so sometimes nothing will be used at all.

Long vowels have been radically simplified in Katakana. Instead of having to muck around thinking about vowel sounds, all long vowel sounds are denoted by a simple dash like so: ー.

All long vowel sounds in Katakana are denoted by a dash. For example, “cute” would be written in Katakana like so: 「キュート」.

The Small 「ア、イ、ウ、エ、オ」

Due to the limitations of the sound set in Hiragana, some new combinations have been devised over the years to account for sounds that were not originally in Japanese. Most notable is the lack of the / ti / di / and / tu / du / sounds (because of the / chi / tsu / sounds), and the lack of the / f / consonant sound except for 「ふ」. The / sh / j / ch / consonants are also missing for the / e / vowel sound. The decision to resolve these deficiencies was to add small versions of the five vowel sounds. This has also been done for the / w / consonant sound to replace the obsolete characters. In addition, the convention of using the little double slashes on the 「ウ」 vowel （ヴ） with the small 「ア、イ、エ、オ」 to designate the / v / consonant has also been established but it’s not often used probably due to the fact that Japanese people still have difficulty pronouncing / v /. For instance, while you may guess that “volume” would be pronounced with a / v / sound, the Japanese have opted for the easier to pronounce “bolume” （ボリューム）. In the same way, vodka is written as “wokka” （ウォッカ） and not 「ヴォッカ」. You can write “violin” as either 「バイオリン」 or 「ヴァイオリン」. It really doesn’t matter however because almost all Japanese people will pronounce it with a / b / sound anyway. The following table shows the added sounds that were lacking with a highlight. Other sounds that already existed are reused as appropriate.

Some examples of words in Katakana

Translating English words into Japanese is a knack that requires quite a bit of practice and luck. To give you a sense of how English words become “Japanified”, here are a few examples of words in Katakana. Sometimes the words in Katakana may not even be correct English or have a different meaning from the English word it’s supposed to represent. Of course, not all Katakana words are derived from English.

Katakana Practice Exercises

Fill in the katakana chart.

Here is the katakana chart you can use to help test your memory. 「ヲ」 has been removed since you’ll probably never need it.

Katakana Writing Practice

Here, we will practice writing some words in Katakana. Plus, you’ll get a little taste of what foreign words sound like in Japanese.

Katakana Writing Exercise 1

Sample: ta | be | mo | no ＝タベモノ

More Katakana Writing Practice

This Katakana writing exercise includes all the irregular sounds that don’t exist in Hiragana.

Katakana Writing Exercise 2

Sample: bi－ | chi ＝ビーチ

Changing English words to katakana

Just for fun, let’s try figuring out the katakana for some English words. I’ve listed some common patterns below but they are only guidelines and may not apply for some words.

As you know, since Japanese sounds almost always consist of consonant-vowel pairs, any English words that deviate from this pattern will cause problems. Here are some trends you may have noticed.

If you’ve seen the move “Lost in Translation”, you know that / l / and / r / are indistinguishable.

（１）　Ready -> レディ（２）　Lady -> レディ

If you have more than one vowel in a row or a vowel sound that ends in / r /, it usually becomes a long vowel sound.

（１）　 Tar get -> ターゲット（２）　 Shoo t -> シュート

Abrupt cut-off sounds usually denoted by a / t / or / c / employ the small 「ッ」.

（１）　Ca t ch -> キャッチ（２）　Ca c he -> キャッシュ

Any word that ends in a consonant sound requires another vowel to complete the consonant-vowel pattern. (Except for “n” and “m” for which we have 「ン」) For “t” and “d”, it’s usually “o”. For everything else, it’s usually “u”.

（１）　Goo d -> グッド（２）　To p -> トップ（３）　Jac k -> ジャック

English to Katakana Exercise

Sample: Europe ＝ヨーロッパ

What is Kanji?

In Japanese, nouns and stems of adjectives and verbs are almost all written in Chinese characters called Kanji . Adverbs are also fairly frequently written in Kanji as well. This means that you will need to learn Chinese characters to be able to read most of the words in the language. (Children’s books or any other material where the audience is not expected to know a lot of Kanji is an exception to this.) Not all words are always written in Kanji however. For example, while the verb “to do” technically has a Kanji associated with it, it is always written in Hiragana.

This guide begins using Kanji from the beginning to help you read “real” Japanese as quickly as possible. Therefore, we will go over some properties of Kanji and discuss some strategies of learning it quickly and efficiently. Mastering Kanji is not easy but it is by no means impossible. The biggest part of the battle is mastering the skills of learning Kanji and time . In short, memorizing Kanji past short-term memory must be done with a great deal of study and, most importantly, for a long time. And by this, I don’t mean studying five hours a day but rather reviewing how to write a Kanji once every several months until you are sure you have it down for good. This is another reason why this guide starts using Kanji right away. There is no reason to dump the huge job of learning Kanji at the advanced level. By studying Kanji along with new vocabulary from the beginning, the immense job of learning Kanji is divided into small manageable chunks and the extra time helps settle learned Kanji into permanent memory. In addition, this will help you learn new vocabulary, which will often have combinations of Kanji you already know. If you start learning Kanji later, this benefit will be wasted or reduced.

Learning Kanji

All the resources you need to begin learning Kanji are on the web for free. You can use dictionaries online such as Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC or jisho.org . They both have great Kanji dictionaries and stroke order diagrams for most Kanji. Especially for those who are just starting to learn, you will want to repeatedly write out each Kanji to memorize the stroke order. Another important skill is learning how to balance the character so that certain parts are not too big or small. So make sure to copy the characters as close to the original as possible. Eventually, you will naturally develop a sense of the stroke order for certain types of characters allowing you to bypass the drilling stage. All the Kanji used in this guide can be easily looked up by copying and pasting to an online dictionary.

Reading Kanji

Almost every character has two different readings called 音読み（おんよみ） and 訓読み（くんよみ）. 音読み is the original Chinese reading while 訓読み is the Japanese reading. Kanji that appear in a compound or 熟語 is usually read with 音読み while one Kanji by itself is usually read with 訓読み. For example, 「力」（ちから） is read with the 訓読み while the same character in a compound word such as 「能力」 is read with the 音読み（which is 「りょく」 in this case）.

Certain characters (especially the most common ones) can have more than one 音読み or 訓読み. For example, in the word 「怪力」, 「力」 is read here as 「りき」 and not 「りょく」. Certain compound words also have special readings that have nothing to do with the readings of the individual characters. These readings must be individually memorized. Thankfully, these readings are few and far in between.

訓読み is also used in adjectives and verbs in addition to the stand-alone characters. These words often have a string of kana (called okurigana) that come attached to the word. This is so that the reading of the Chinese character stays the same even when the word is conjugated to different forms. For example, the past form of the verb 「食べる」 is 「食べた」. Even though the verb has changed, the reading for 「食」 remain untouched. (Imagine how difficult things could get if readings for Kanji changed with conjugation or even worse, if the Kanji itself changed.) Okurigana also serves to distinguish between intransitive and transitive verbs (more on this later).

Another concept that is difficult to grasp at first is that the actual readings of Kanji can change slightly in a compound word to make the word easier to say. The more common transformations include the / h / sounds changing to either / b / or / p / sounds or 「つ」 becoming 「っ」. Examples include: 「一本」、「徹底」、and 「格好」.

Yet another fun aspect of Kanji you’ll run into are words that practically mean the same thing and use the same reading but have different Kanji to make just a slight difference in meaning. For example 「聞く」（きく） means to listen and so does 「聴く」（きく）. The only difference is that 「聴く」 means to pay more attention to what you’re listening to. For example, listening to music almost always prefers 「聴く」 over 「聞く」. 「聞く」 can also mean ‘to ask’, as well as, “to hear” but 「訊く」（きく） can only mean “to ask”. Yet another example is the common practice of writing 「見る」 as 「観る」 when it applies to watching a show such as a movie. Yet another interesting example is 「書く」（かく） which means “to write” while 描く（かく） means “to draw”. However, when you’re depicting an abstract image such as a scene in a book, the reading of the same word 「描く」 becomes 「えがく」. There’s also the case where the meaning and Kanji stays the same but can have multiple readings such as 「今日」 which can be either 「きょう」、「こんじつ」, or 「こんにち」. In this case, it doesn’t really matter which reading you choose except that some are preferred over others in certain situations.

Finally, there is one special character 々 that is really not a character. It simply indicates that the previous character is repeated. For example, 「時時」、「様様」、「色色」、「一一」 can and usually are written as 「時々」、「様々」、「色々」、「一々」.

In addition to these “features” of Kanji, you will see a whole slew of delightful perks and surprises Kanji has for you as you advance in Japanese. You can decide for yourself if that statement is sarcasm or not. However, don’t be scared into thinking that Japanese is incredibly hard. Most of the words in the language usually only have one Kanji associated with it and a majority of Kanji do not have more than two types of readings.

Some people may think that the system of using separate, discrete symbols instead of a sensible alphabet is overly complicated. In fact, it might not have been a good idea to adopt Chinese into Japanese since both languages are fundamentally different in many ways. But the purpose of this guide is not to debate how the language should work but to explain why you must learn Kanji in order to learn Japanese. And by this, I mean more than just saying, “That’s how it’s done so get over it!”.

You may wonder why Japanese didn’t switch from Chinese to romaji to do away with having to memorize so many characters. In fact, Korea adopted their own alphabet for Korean to greatly simplify their written language with great success. So why shouldn’t it work for Japanese? I think anyone who has learned Japanese for a while can easily see why it won’t work. At any one time, when you convert typed Hiragana into Kanji, you are presented with almost always at least two choices (two homophones) and sometimes even up to ten. (Try typing “kikan”). The limited number of set sounds in Japanese makes it hard to avoid homophones. Compare this to the Korean alphabet which has 14 consonants and 10 vowels. Any of the consonants can be matched to any of the vowels giving 140 sounds. In addition, a third and sometimes even fourth consonant can be attached to create a single letter. This gives over 1960 sounds that can be created theoretically. (The number of sounds that are actually used is actually much less but it’s still much larger than Japanese.)

Since you want to read at a much faster rate than you talk, you need some visual cues to instantly tell you what each word is. You can use the shape of words in English to blaze through text because most words have different shapes. Try this little exercise: Hi, enve thgouh all teh wrods aer seplled icorrenctly, can you sltil udsternand me?” Korean does this too because it has enough characters to make words with distinct and different shapes. However, because the visual cues are not distinct as Kanji, spaces needed to be added to remove ambiguities. (This presents another problem of when and where to set spaces.)

With Kanji, we don’t have to worry about spaces and much of the problem of homophones is mostly resolved. Without Kanji, even if spaces were to be added, the ambiguities and lack of visual cues would make Japanese text much more difficult to read.

How do I use the Japanese writing paper? (Genkouyoushi)

Hello, I am finishing high school very soon in Ireland and I am doing Japanese for my finals (Leaving Cert) but I realised that I never used Genkouyoushi. So this might be the time to learn how to do so.

The paper is present vertically. So do I write on it from the vertical position (Vertically from top to bottom and from left to right) or do move the page to the horizonal position? (Horizontally from right to left and top to bottom? Or are both methods fine. I am worried I will lose a lot of marks if I write it the incorrect way.

The genkouyoushi rules I will learn myself just wondering how to position it.

Thank You :)

That’s great that your school is offering Japanese classes. There are two different types of genkoyoshi which are typically used, one for writing vertically 縦書き (it has a dividing section in the middle) and one for writing horizontally 横書き (no section in the middle. Example images of them can both be seen here https://bizroute.net/wpaper.html (if you scroll down, the first two images are the vertical style with the divide in the middle, the second two are of the horizontal style). Since you’re outside of Japan and if your teacher has not explained how to use the genkoyoshi beforehand, I would guess that they will not be strict when marking the paper, but if possible you should probably ask them to confirm. Usually the vertical style is used for writing essay style while horizontal is used for answering short questions. It seems like you might have the vertical type so I would recommend writing it vertically, starting from the top right hand side of the page (the opposite from writing in English). For some more tips on how to write vertically you can check this link out here, even if the text is a bit hard to go through the pictures are very self explanatory https://service.zkai.co.jp/el/course/sakubun_club/sakubun-kakikata/genkouyoushi.html I’ll summarise here:

Leave two or three squares blank before writing the title / Leave one or two squares blank under writing your name, with one space between your forename and surname [note here that the title starts from the top vertically, but your name should take a new line and should end near the bottom of the page]

For the start of each new paragraph, leave a single square empty.

Punctuation marks such as 、。should take up a single square, and be placed in the top right part of that square. However, they should not start a new line; instead they should be written under the last character of the line.

Small characters such as っゃゅょ should be written to the right of the square (not the middle)

For speech, instead of quotation marks (“”) brackets should be used (「」) and they should be shifted by 90°. / The full stop 。for ending speech should be written in the same square as the closing bracket 」/ If quoted speech takes up more than one line, you can either leave one square open at the start of the new line (as shown in their example) or not / A new line should be taken when a new line of speech begins / If the line following speech is not a new paragraph, an initial square doesn’t need to be left open.

「」(brackets) and 『』(double brackets) are to use used for different situations: Brackets are used for quoting words or conversation, or for giving emphasis to a word. Double brackets are used when already within brackets 「」and wanting to use brackets for the above reasons, or for mentioning the title of a book etc.

For writing in horizontal style the rules are pretty much the same, expect that you start from the top left and write horizontally from top to bottom. Hope this helps & good luck!

Thank you very much for the answer :)

You’ve left it a bit late?! The exam is on the 28th.

Leaving Cert, that brings back memories. Japanese wasn’t an option in my day.

Have you been looking at past marking schemes by any chance? “Good use of genkouyoushi”

It looks like you write in the exam booklet and it has horizontal style (similar to English) genkouyoushi. I wouldn’t rotate the exam booklet to write the essay style answers. I think the important points would be 1 box per character, the character nicely and neatly in the box. Punctuation and small kana in bottom left of their own box. Consistent size of characters. 7paulmca7 has been very comprehensive in his answer.

Are you allowed use pencil? I can’t see anything on the booklet either way. But shudder at the thought of white-out tape and biro. I’m guessing you can also use scrap paper, and presumably this also has to be submitted. If I thought I had sufficient time I would write it roughly first then carefully transcribe it to the booklet. But that takes time you might not have. I’m guessing if you run out of space in the booklet you are using too many characters and your answer is too long. Would they give extra paper?

Check with your teacher if you have one. They should have the best info

Good luck. がんばれ〜 go n-éirí leat!

Hope you do well and get a place on whatever you want to do next.

for anyone curious about this exam you can access past papers and marking schemes here:

https://www.examinations.ie/exammaterialarchive/

My grammar, vocab and kanji is pretty good as I studied the language for about 3 years now (self-study) but i never actually used the Japanese writing paper so I was just wondering how they want me to use the genkouyoushi. Anyways thank you for the help :)

Top to bottom. Right to left. But check the internet for guides. Because there’s other rules like 。goes in the top right corner of the square (from memory could be wrong). There’s a bunch of little interesting rules like that I think.

http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/~tyabe/jpn03/items/genkouyoushi.pdf

Edit:corrected, I really don’t understand your explanation of direction.

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IMAGES

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Kanji writing

COMMENTS

How to Write in Japanese
Native Japanese words not covered by the other two scripts それでも soredemo nevertheless どんどん dondon more and more Katakana (the green characters in our sample text) are recognisable for their straight lines and sharp corners. They are generally reserved for: 1. Loanwords from other languages. See what you can spot!
Japanese writing system
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana.Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalised Japanese words and grammatical elements; and katakana, used primarily for foreign words and names, loanwords, onomatopoeia, scientific names, and sometimes for emphasis.
The 5 Biggest Genkouyoushi Mistakes You can Easily Avoid
We don't use any "gap" between words in Japanese writing. We just cut a word or a phrase if there isn't enough space to finish it and continue it in the following line. We don't use a hyphen. For example, if I want to write a sentence, 田中さんは朝六時に起きました。 (Ms. Tanaka wakes up at 6:00 in the morning.)
Complete Guide to Writing Japanese
1. Why learn to write Japanese? 2. The standard strokes used to draw kanji 3. Determining kanji strokes and stroke order 4. Hiragana and katakana 5. Handwritten vs printed Japanese 6. Kanshudo's kanji drawing practice system 7. Kanji Draw - the game 8. Further reading 1. Why learn to write Japanese?
Stroke of Genius: Learn Impeccable Japanese Stroke ...
10 Steps to Write in Japanese with Perfect Stroke Order 1. Go top to bottom 2. Go left to right 3. Horizontal lines first 4. Very long lines second 5. Minor dashes, dots and other trimmings are added last 6. Symmetrical characters that sit on the outside come after the line which divides them 7. Boxes only have three lines 8.
Formatting Japanese Writing
1. Title on the 1st line, first character in the 4th square. 2. Author's name on the 2nd line, with 1 square between the family name and the given name, and 1 empty square below. 3. First sentence of the essay begins on the 3rd line, in the 2nd square. Each new paragraph begins on the 2nd square. 4.
Should Japanese Writing Be Horizontal or Vertical?
There are three Japanese scripts: Kanji Hiragana Katakana Japanese is commonly written with a combination of all three. Kanji are what are known as ideographic symbols, and hiragana and katakana are phonetic alphabets which make up the syllables of Japanese words.
Japanese Writing Paper: FREE Printable Blank Japanese Writing Sheets
These blank Japanese writing paper templates are perfect for practising your hiragana, katakana and kanji. They're just blank grids, so you can copy whatever characters you're working on from your textbook or course, and write them out as many times as you need. I've made versions with and without an inner grid.
Japanese Grammar Rules For Every Beginner
When it comes to the word 'you' or 'anata' in Japanese, using this is to be avoided when possible. Instead, use the name of the person along with 'san.'. In the same way, use the name of the person when making a referral to a 3 rd party. Many nouns in the Japanese language do not chance forms the way they do in English.
RESOURCES
Entrance exams are also done on this paper. This resource is perfect for Japanese language teachers. It is also great to practice on if you intend to study in Japan. The 240字 size is great for beginner and lower intermediate level students while 400字 size is great for upper intermediate to advanced level students.
How to write Japanese composition on a manuscript paper for ...
How to write Japanese composition on a manuscript paper for vertical writing. Yumi Zushi 463 subscribers Subscribe 770 Share 21K views 2 years ago Japanese Writing (English) There is the...
JOSHU
Japanizing Your Computer. Formatted papers for learning Japanese and "How to" directions. 原稿用紙 (げんこうようし：Sakubun formatted paper) 400 (20X20) PDF format (better copy) and JPG format (click and drag to your desktop) 200 (20X10 1/2 page) PDF format and JPG format.
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Japanese is applicable to both vertical writing (縦書き - tategaki) and horizontal writing (横書き - yokogaki). However, keep in mind that vertical writing is mostly used in traditional Japanese writing while horizontal writing is used in modern Japanese writing. History Of The Japanese Writing System In A Nutshell
Genkō yōshi
Rules for use [ edit] While genkō yōshi can be used for horizontal writing, it is most commonly used for vertical writing, which is read from right to left. The first page is therefore the right hand side of the sheet. The title is placed on the first column, usually leaving two or three leading blank spaces.
WRITING general
One side of the paper will have a hole in the middle of it. The other side will not. Ss open the folded paper and draw an object underneath where the hole is. Then fold the paper up again and write four sentences around the hole. The Ss exchange their papers.
How to write Sakubun
Leave the first two or three squares blank (from top to bottom). Full name: Write in the last squares in the second line, but you must leave the last square blank. There is one square between first name and last name. School and class: It may or may not be written depending on the requirement.
PDF How to use 原稿用紙 (essay paper) Title
(essay paper) Traditionally, Japanese is written from top to bottom and right to left. Start the composition on the Title: 1. Title is on the first line 2. Indent three boxes Name: 1. Family name first 2. Separate the family name and first name by inserting ・(a dot) in the middle of the box 3. Leave one box on the bottom third line.
The Writing System
Most of the words in the Japanese written language are written in Kanji (nouns, verbs, adjectives). There exists over 40,000 Kanji where about 2,000 represent over 95% of characters actually used in written text. There are no spaces in Japanese so Kanji is necessary in distinguishing between separate words within a sentence.
In Japanese, how do you say 'paper'?
Answer (1 of 2): The word for paper in Japanese is 紙 kami. The famous Japanese paper is called 和紙 washi in contrast with the Western paper, 洋紙 youshi. The difference being the materials used to create it and the resistance/durability of both paper. Japanese has precise words to designate differ...
Written Test Guide and Practice
The written test tests your knowledge of the basic safe driving and Japanese rules. It is available in English, as well as several other languages (varies by license center). The test consists of ten, True-False questions. You will have 10 minutes to complete it and seven correct answers are needed to pass. The method of testing differs by ...
How do I use the Japanese writing paper? (Genkouyoushi)
Leave two or three squares blank before writing the title / Leave one or two squares blank under writing your name, with one space between your forename and surname [note here that the title starts from the top vertically, but your name should take a new line and should end near the bottom of the page] For the start of each new paragraph, leave ...
Japanese Writing Practice Sheet: Syllabary Hiragana Katakana Practice
This Japanese Writing Practice Book Syllabary Hiragana Katakana Practice Worksheet, Graph Paper, Blank Book Handwriting Practice Sheet, Language Learing ,Study and Writing. It is an excellent tool for anyone to learn cursive writing, to improve their handwriting or practice calligraphy using the lines to help get a consistent size. ...
Japanese Writing Paper Teaching Resources
Japanese Writing Practice Paper for practicing Kana and new kanji.The handwriting paper is ideal for students learning Japanese and need to practice the written language.These papers are ready to print.*Lined Paper Template : ︎ ︎ ︎ Numbered Spelling Test Paper with Name - 120x5 Writing Paper ︎ ︎ ︎150 Primary Writing Paper with Picture BoxHappy …