Yes, it’s true. Japanese has three completely separate sets of characters, called kanji, hiragana, and katakana, that are used in reading and writing. That first rendering of “Tokyo” is in kanji, with the hiragana version next, and the katakana one at the bottom.

Studying Japanese kanji is still pretty hard, but after five years of learning the language more or less seriously, what my teachers didn’t tell me in class was that katakana was going to take much longer to grasp. It sounds like hiragana, which you usually learn first, except its usage is more varied and complex.

In order to write certain grammatical function words, inflections, and particles, the Japanese had to use some kanji just for their pronunciation rather than their meaning. In the 9th century hiragana and katakana developed as simplifications of the original Chinese characters.

if i remember correctly they mix it up because they want to use hiragana and use it, but sometimes it may be to long, so they make it into kanji. Japan also mixes in katakana because their may be foreign words. remeber that hiragana is native, katakana is foreign, and kanji is shorten versions of hiragana.

In a sense, hiragana is the most commonly used, standard form of Japanese writing. Japanese vocabulary usually tends to be written in hiragana as opposed to katakana. Also, hiragana is used to write furigana, a reading aid that shows the pronunciation of kanji characters, which is sure to be helpful.

In anime always used casual Japanese and in courses or in school we would be taught formal Japanese language version^^ that’s why sometimes we cannot understand Japanese language that is said by anime characters. So, to understand Japanese language in anime and manga you must learn Japanese language casual version.

Watching Anime can certainly be a useful tool to learn Japanese language. Yes, people can learn at least a bit watching anime! Although it may be tricky at times, it is possible to enjoy and learn Japanese at the same time.

The major difference between hiragana and katakana is the fact that hiragana is primarily used to represent Japanese words, while katakana represents foreign words.

Both Hiragana and Katakana can be used to represent Japanese pronunciation. And each Katakana has a correspondent Hiragana, which has the same sound, and vice versa. Katakana is usually used to spell foreign words.

Katakana (片仮名, かたかな, カタカナ, Japanese pronunciation: [katakana]) is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana , kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word katakana means “fragmentary kana”, as the katakana characters are derived from components or fragments of more complex kanji.

Katakana is used as a phonetic guide for the Okinawan language, unlike the various other systems to represent Okinawan, which use hiragana with extensions. The system was devised by the Okinawa Center of Language Study of the University of the Ryukyus .