Checkpoint: The First Kanji

Three scripts, three jobs

Hiragana writes the grammar and the native words the characters do not cover. Katakana writes what came from outside. Kanji write the content – the nouns and the stems of the verbs and adjectives. A real Japanese line uses all three at once, and the mixture is not a complication but the thing that makes the line readable: the eye finds the meaning in the kanji and the structure in the kana.

What to do with a character you do not know

Read the parts you recognise and take the meaning before the sound. If the character stands alone or has kana after it, try the native reading; if it sits next to another character, try the Chinese one. And if neither works, the sentence around it usually settles the matter – a Japanese reader does exactly this, several times a page, without noticing.

六月に大きい山を見に行きますIn June I am going to see a big mountain.

先生は日本人で、学生は五人ですThe teacher is Japanese and there are five students.