Toyota means "plentiful rice fields" and Kawasaki means "river cape," because there's a huge river that flows through parts of the city. 豊田:Toyota is actually named for a place in Japan called Toyota, similar to how the brand Kawasaki is named after a place called Kawasaki. 日産:Nissan means both sun/Japan and product/birth, and can be interpreted as "product of Japan" or "made from the sun." The kanji for the sun is the character used in Nihon, which is how Japanese people refer to Japan. Many of the names relate either to the location they came from or the brand image of the company and its products. If you check your car parts, you can sometimes see the Japanese kanji of the Japanese car manufacturer printed on them. Once you understand the kanji, you can understand the origin of the place and name, even though it may not match with the modern look of the place. Did you know that most Japanese companies actually have a name in kanji and that while those kanji's are often used in Japan, they're rarely ever used elsewhere? The same applies to Japanese places and people names. Japanese kanji can be particularly interesting when you start learning the real meaning behind common Japanese words. When you understand Japanese kanji, you’re fully immersed in the bright Tokyo billboards and the countrysides shop signs. Understanding this writing system is the gateway to Japan's long and proud history, all the way back to the 5th century. Japanese kanji has been around for nearly two millennia. When you understand the building blocks of Japanese kanji, it can be really enjoyable to break them down and study them. For example, 山 (yama), represents mountains. Many kanji are ideographs: pictures that represent real-life objects, like hieroglyphics. Japanese kanji are made up of various radicals to form an individual, whole kanji. Few of the original Chinese pronunciations were kept the Japanese people gave the characters to their own words and pronunciations and even created new ones during this period of development. Changes to the Japanese writing system began in the 5th century and ended in the 8th century. Before kanji was introduced from China in the 5th century, no official Japanese writing system existed. Japanese kanji has been part of Japan's culture for more than a thousand years and is a primary language skill for all speakers, both native and non-native. It is written with the same characters as in Traditional Chinese to refer to the character writing system. The Japanese term kanji for the Chinese characters literally means "Han characters". They are used alongside hiragana and katakana. Japanese kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters that are used in the Japanese writing system. This article will break down the steps you need to be able to master Japanese kanji, provide resources for efficient study, and most importantly - tips to actually remember them. If your goal is complete literacy in Japanese, kanji is essential. Altogether, your Japanese vocabulary will multiply, and gateways to a deeper understanding of Japanese culture will open. Some examples of katakana are ア, イ, カ, キ, and many others as well.īeing able to read kanji will take you from an intermediate level to an advanced level of Japanese comprehension. The katakana syllabary usage is quite similar to italics in English specifically, it is used for transcription of foreign-language words into Japanese and the writing of loan words for emphasis to represent onomatopoeia for technical and scientific terms and for names of plants, animals, minerals and often Japanese companies. Katakana on the other hand is primarily used for words of foreign origin. Some example of hiragana are あ, い, か, き, く, and many others. Hiragana is used to write various grammatical and function words including particles, as well as miscellaneous other native words for which there are no kanji or whose kanji form is obscure or too formal for the writing purpose. The word hiragana literally means "ordinary" or "simple". Why? Japanese kanji is one of the three main scripts used in the Japanese language, along with hiragana and katakana. Japanese kanji can seem intimidating, but it's essential if you're seeking full language comprehension. Have you tried to read any Japanese books yet? Have you walked down the streets and seen posters and company names in letters unfamiliar to you? Well, those unfamiliar characters are called Japanese kanji
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