Glossary
Here’s a list of words that’s you’ll come across when learning Japanese. They’re sorted in 五十音 order. But wait, what’s 五十音 order? Just click on it and find out!
Disclaimer
Note that this is a glossary, not a comprehensive reference. Explanations are intended to give a basic understanding of the terms and as such occasionally contain simplifications and omissions. E.g., in the entry for 読み方, I say that the reading for 私 is わたし. It also has 16 other alternate readings, many of which (わちき, わて, etc.) are very unlikely to be encountered unless reading texts from hundreds of years ago. As such I have chosen to only list わたし since it is most common.
Glossary entries
First sound
- Word【Pronunciation (kana)】English word if applicable − Explanation in English.
か
- 片仮名【かたかな】katakana − One of the two variety kana. Used mostly for words borrowed from other languages, but has other uses including indicating emphasis and showing sounds. For every katakana character, there is an equivalent hiragana character.
- 仮名【かな】kana − The Japanese phonetic characters. Similar to the English alphabet, except simpler because one character corresponds to one sound. There are two ways of writing kana: hiragana and katakana.
- 漢字【かんじ】kanji − The Chinese characters that are used in Japanese. Note that some of the characters used in Japanese are different than the same ones in Chinese. There are also a small number of kanji that were created in Japan.
こ
- 五十音【ごじゅうおん】ー The fifty (46) basic sounds (kana) of Japanese. This is used to order lists (五十音順) similar to how the alphabet from A to Z is used to alphabetize English lists. The order is: あいうえお かきくけこ さしすせそ たちつてと なにぬねの はひふへほ まみむめも や ゆ よ らりるれろ わゐ ゑを ん. Don’t worry, you’ll know this by heart in a month. See the Wikipedia entry for a nice if rather detailed chart.
に
- 日本語【にほんご】Japanese − The language of Japan. Note that in English the word Japanese can refer to the people, the culture, or the language, but in Japanese there are separate words for these.
ひ
- 平仮名【ひらがな】hiragana − One of the two variety of kana. Used most of the time. For every hiragana character, there is an equivalent katakana character.
よ
- 読み方【よみかた】reading − In written Japanese, kanji convey meaning, but don’t directly indicate how to read the word aloud. Eventually you learn how to read them, but because there are a lot of kanji, it’s common in books for children and people learning Japanese to also show the reading. E.g., 私 is one of the kanji for “me”, but if you haven’t seen it before, you don’t know how to read it. The reading is わたし.
