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Cayla 07-14-2011 09:45 PM

(In Japan)What is the most popular type of Japanese?
 
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.)

JohnBraden 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....

Cayla 07-15-2011 01:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnBraden (Post 871891)
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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