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Cayla (Offline)
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(In Japan)What is the most popular type of Japanese? - 07-14-2011, 09:45 PM

Hi. I noticed that in Japan, people either speak Haragana, Katakana, Kanji, or
Japanese. What do most people prefer to speak? All I really know is that
either Haragana, kanji, or Katakana is a mixture of chinese and japanese. (I think its Kanji.)
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07-14-2011, 11:00 PM

They are not languages they speak. They are writing methods and they use all three at the same time. Hiragana is a phonetic "alphabet" for Japanese words. Katakana is a phonetic "alphabet" for non-Japanese words. Kanji is the Chinese-based writing method where a character stands for a word. In a sentence, you can run into all three writing methods all mixed in.

Japanese people speak Japanese....

Last edited by JohnBraden : 07-14-2011 at 11:11 PM.
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Cayla (Offline)
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07-15-2011, 01:01 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnBraden View Post
They are not languages they speak. They are writing methods and they use all three at the same time. Hiragana is a phonetic "alphabet" for Japanese words. Katakana is a phonetic "alphabet" for non-Japanese words. Kanji is the Chinese-based writing method where a character stands for a word. In a sentence, you can run into all three writing methods all mixed in.

Japanese people speak Japanese....
Oh, ok. I think I got confused. Thanks.
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