Japanese Kanji & Kana: A Complete Guide to the Japanese Writing System

429 Pages·2011·16.44 MB·English

Table 2. Basic Rules for Writing by Hand
Stroke direction
1. Horizontal strokes from left to
right 一
2. Vertical or slanting strokes from
top to bottom 丨丩丰 丂 七
3. A stroke may change direction
several times 丵丹 丄 乂乃 丅 丁
Stroke order
a. From top to bottom
乆乇 丆 万
b. From left to right
么 义 丈 三
c. Middle stroke before short
flanking side-strokes 乐乑乒
d. Horizontal stroke before inter-
secting vertical stroke 乖乗乘 丐 丑
e. X-forming strokes: from upper
right to lower left, then from 乢乣 乤
upper left to lower right
f. Piercing vertical stroke last
乥 书乧乨乩买乱
If the vertical middle stroke
does not protrude, uper part, 乲 乴
then middle stroke, then lower
part
g. Piercing horizontal stroke last
乵乶乷乸
These handwriting rules for the stroke direction and order apply to kana as well as kanji. For a
more-detailed explanation of kanji writing rules, see the summary on pages 46–48.
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Japanese
Kanji
AND
Kana
A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE JAPANESE WRITING SYSTEM
WOLFGANG HADAMITZKY & MARK SPAHN
TUTTLE Publishing
Tokyo Rutland, Vermont Singapore
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The Tuttle Story: “Books to Span the East and West”
Most people are surprised to learn that the world’s largest
publisher of books on Asia had its beginnings in the tiny
American state of Vermont. The company’s founder, Charles
E. Tuttle, belonged to a New England family steeped in pub-
lishing. And his f rst love was naturally books—especially
old and rare editions.
Immediately after WW II, serving in Tokyo under General
Douglas MacArthur, Tuttle was tasked with reviving the Jap-
anese publishing industry, and founded the Charles E. Tuttle
Publishing Company, which thrives today as one of the world’s leading independent publishers.
Though a westerner, Charles was hugely instrumental in bringing a knowledge of Japan and Asia
to a world hungry for information about the East. By the time of his death in 1993, Tuttle had pub-
lished over 6,000 books on Asian culture, history and art—a legacy honored by the Japanese emperor
with the “Order of the Sacred Treasure,” the highest tribute Japan can bestow upon a non-Japanese.
With a backlist of 1,500 titles, Tuttle Publishing is more active today than at any time in its past—
inspired by Charles’ core mission to publish f ne books to span the East and West and provide a
greater understanding of each.
Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Distributed by
Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.
North America, Latin America & Europe
www.tuttlepublishing.com Tuttle Publishing
364 Innovation Drive
Copyright © 2012 by Wolfgang Hadamitzky North Clarendon, VT 05759-9436 U.S.A.
and Mark Spahn Tel: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
Table of Contents
Preface ....................................................................... 6 Brief Historical Outline .................................40
Introduction ............................................................8 From Pictures to Characters ....................... 42
Romanization ...................................................... 10 Readings ............................................................ 44
The Kana Syllabaries ........................................ 14 Rules for Writing Kanji .................................. 46
Origin .................................................................. 14 Lexical Order .................................................... 53
Order ................................................................... 18 Tips on Learning Kanji .................................. 66
Writing ................................................................ 23 Explanation of the Jōyō Kanji Entries ....... 68
Orthography .................................................... 26 The Jōyō Kanji List ............................................. 69
Usage ..................................................................30 Index by Radicals ............................................ 377
Punctuation ..........................................................34 Index by Stroke Count .................................. 387
The Kanji ................................................................ 40 Index by Readings ......................................... 395
List of Tables
1 The Syllabaries (inside front cover) 11 Important Katakana Combinations ..... 29
2 Basic Rules for Writing by Hand 12 Punctuation Marks ..................................... 39
(front endpaper) 13 The 79 Radicals (with variants) ............... 57
3 Transliteration 14 The 214 Traditional Radicals ................... 58
(Hepburn romanization) ...........................12 15 The Most Important of the 214
4 Hiragana Derivations ................................. 16 Traditional Radicals .................................... 60
5 Katakana Derivations ................................. 17 16 The 214 Traditional Radicals and
6 Alphabetical order of the syllables Their Meanings ............................................ 61
of the Fifty-Sounds Table and 17 The 80 Graphemes (without variants) 65
supplementary table ................................. 20 18 The 79 Radicals (without variants)
7 Example of Dictionary Order .................. 21 (back endpaper)
8 The Iroha Syllable Order ........................... 22 19 Checklist for Determining the Radical
9 How to Write Hiragana .............................. 24 of a Character (inside back cover)
10 How to Write Katakana ............................. 25
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Preface
Fourteen years after it was last revised, this standard work of the Japanese writing system has
been expanded and completely updated. The main part of the book now lists 2,141 kanji (for -
merly 1,945). In addition, with its 19 tables, it presents a fresh, modern design.
A feature of this handbook is its double usefulness as both a textbook and a reference work.
It serves beginners as well as those who want to look up individual kanji via the three indexes.
And the many tables provide a quick overview of all important aspects of the Japanese writing
system.
The information is so organized and presented – the pronunciation of each character is
spelled out in roman letters – as to allow easy entry into the Japanese writing systemf or be-
ginners and those who are learning on their own, providing the background anyone needs to
know to become able to read Japanese without constantly looking up one kanji after another.
All the information about the hiragana and katakana syllabaries and the kanji is based on
the official orthography rules of the Japanese government. The 2,141 kanji listed in the main
part of this book include the 2,136 characters of the “Revised List of Kanji for General Use” (改定
常用漢字表, 2010) as well as five further kanji that were dropped from the official list that was in
effect up to 2010.
This work is divided into three parts:
1. Introductory chapters
A general introduction to transliteration is followed by a presentation of the two sets of pho-
netic characters, the hiragana and the katakana (called collectively the kana) . Then comes a
section devoted to punctuation. Next is a general introduction to the world of the ideographic
characters, the kanji: how they arose, how they are put together, how to write them, how to
read (pronounce) them, what they mean, how to find them in a character dictionary, and tips
for how to learn them effectively.
2. List of the 2,136 Jōyō Kanji
The bulk of the book is made up o f the o fficial list o f the 2,136 Jōyō Kanji. The order o f pre-
sentation is based on pedagogical principles, proceeding from simple, frequent kanji to those
that are more complex and occur less often. Within this general framework, characters that are
graphically similar are presented together in order to call attention to their similarities and dif-
ferences in form, reading, and meaning.
Each head-kanji is set in a modern, appealing font, and is accompanied by: its running identifi-
cation number from 1 to 2141, how it is written (stroke by stroke) and its stroke-count; its read-
ings and corresponding meanings; its handwritten form and variants; its structure and graphic
components; its radical; and its location in more-comprehensive character dictionaries.
Under each head-kanji are listed up to five important compounds with reading and meaning.
These compounds are made up of earlier-listed characters having lower identification numbers
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(with only a few exceptions). So working through the kanji in the order they are presented in
this book will make it easier for you to build up a vocabulary while reviewing what you have
learned before. Each compound is labeled with the numbers of its constituent kanji, for quick
review lookup.
In all, the kanji list and compounds contain a basic Japanese vocabulary of over 12,000 words.
3. Indexes
Each of the 2,141 characters in the kanji list can be looked up via three indexes at the end fo the
book: by reading, by stroke-count, and by radical.
Acknowledgments
The revision of this book is owed primarily to Mr. and Mrs. Rainer and Seiko Weihs, who pre-
pared and proofed all the data in their usual competent, patient, detailed way and produced
the typographically complex work you hold in your hands. The q uality of the data was con-
siderably improved by the many additional suggestions of Mrs. Vera Rathje and Mrs. Violaine
Mochizuki. To all of them we express our heartfelt thanks.
Buckow, Germany, August 2011 Wolfgang Hadamitzky
www.hadamitzky.de
West Seneca, New York, USA, August 2011 Mark Spahn
Further study aids and dictionaries by the authors on the Japanese writing system
A Guide to Writing Japanese Kanji & Kana. Books 1, 2. 1991
Writing templates for the kana syllabaries and the kanji 1 to 1945.
Kanji in Motion. (KiM) 2011
Game and tutorial program. Trains the user for rapidly recognizing and reading all kana and
Jōyō Kanji.
KanjiVision. (KV) 2012
Web-based Japanese-English character dictionary. Contains about 6,000 head-kanji and 48,000
multi-kanji compound words. Search options: by grapheme (up to six per character), reading
(in romanization or kana), meaning, stroke-count, and kanji (copied from other sources).
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Introduction
Japanese is written in a mixture (called kanji-kana majiri ) of three types of symbols, each with
its own function:
1. Kanji
These ideographic characters, adopted from the Chinese language, are used for conceptual
words (mainly nouns, verbs, and adjectives) and for Japanese and Chinese proper names.
2. Hiragana
Written with hiragana are the inflectional endings of conceptual words as well as all words,
mostly of grammatical function, that are not written in kanji.
3. Katakana
Katakana are used to write foreign names and other words of foreign origin, and to empha-
size individual words.
Besides kanji, hiragana, and katakana, one often finds in Japanese texts the same roman
letters and Hindu-Arabic numerals as in English; for example, the semigovernmental radio and
television broadcasting corporation 日本放送協会 Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai is abbreviated NHK (the
letters are pronounced as in Eng lish), and in horizontal writing, numbers are usually written
with Hindu-Arabic numerals rather than with kanji.
There has never been an independent, purely Japanese system of writing. Around the
seventh century the attempt was first made to use Chinese characters to represent Japanese
speech. In the ninth century the Japanese simplified the complex Chinese ideographs into
what are now the two sets of kana (hiragana and katakana). Each of these kana syllabaries
encompasses all the syllables that occur Japanese, so it is quite possible to write exclusively
in kana, just as it would be possible to write Japanese exclusively in romanization. In practice,
however, this would hamper communication due to the large number of words that are pro-
nounced alike but have different meanings; these homophones are distinguished from each
other by being written with different kanji.
Japanese today is written either in vertical columns proceeding from right to left or in hor-i
zontal lines which are read from left to right. The traditional vertical style is seen mostly in liter-
ary works. The horizontal European style, recommended by the government, isf ound more in
scientific and technical literature. Newspapers use both styles: most articles are written verti-
cally, headlines and advertisements appear in both styles, and radio and television program
listings are laid out horizontally.
Handwritten Japanese may be written either vertically or horizontally. For writing practice
it is recommended that the beginner use either manuscript paper (genkō yōshi), which has
space for either 200 or 400 characters per page, or the practice manuals that accompany this
text. There, each kana, and each kanji from 1 to 1945, is presented twice in gray for tracing over,
followed by empty spaces for free writing.
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