Japanese food

Last update October 5, 2025

Japanese Alphabet



    

Character Sets Used by the Japanese Language

The Japanese writing system comprises Hiragana and Katakana, fundamental alphabets, combined with Kanji, and sometimes the Roman alphabet, which may often discourage learners from fulfilling their original goal.

However, there’s always a bright side to everything that seems like a drawback. That is, once you’ve learned how to read Japanese, you will appreciate the use of multiple types of letters. You can see each word automatically separate from others without using a space, as in English or other European languages.

You can tell which words are imported (or borrowed) from different languages, namely, not original Japanese, simply because they are written in Katakana.

Particles such as Joshi are always presented in Hiragana and used to show a relationship with other words.

Romaji (Roman alphabetised words) may suggest that the word is an abbreviation or a phrase that cannot be easily pronounced in Japanese. Therefore, the mixed writing can sometimes be handy!

See the Hiragana and Katakana Alphabets