A Beginner’s Guide to the 3 Japanese Writing Systems

If you’re beginning to learn Japanese, one thing becomes clear right away — Japanese doesn’t just use one alphabet. It uses three distinct writing systems: Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Each has its own function, style, and history. While that might sound overwhelming at first, don’t worry — this guide breaks it all down simply and clearly. 

A Brief History of Japanese Writing 

The Japanese language has no indigenous writing system. When Japan established diplomatic and cultural ties with China around the 4th century CE, Chinese characters were adopted for written communication. Two early adaptations of Chinese script shaped the modern writing system:

• Kanbun (漢文): A Classical Chinese writing style used by Japanese scholars. It used Chinese characters (kanji) for meaning but followed Chinese grammar rules.

• Man’yōgana (万葉仮名): A phonetic use of Chinese characters to represent Japanese syllables. This system led to the development of Hiragana and Katakana.

Over time, Japan developed its own hybrid system, combining these influences with native innovations to form the three scripts used today.

Today’s Three Japanese Writing Systems

In modern written Japanese, all three systems — Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana — are used together. While the exact usage varies depending on the type of text, here are approximate percentages to give you a sense of how often each script appears in typical written Japanese:

• Kanji (~54%)

• Hiragana (~38%)

• Katakana (~8%)

These figures come from linguistic studies analyzing a variety of texts and help illustrate the relative prominence of each writing system.

Here’s a breakdown of each:

Kanji (~54%)

What it is:
Logographic characters borrowed from Chinese. Each represents a word or morpheme and often carries multiple readings.

Use:
Used for nouns, verb stems, adjectives, and many core concepts.

Japanese	Pronunciation	English
犬	inu	dog
日本	nihon	Japan
水	mizu	water

Note: While many kanji are shared with Chinese, pronunciation differs. For example:

• 日本: rìběn (Mandarin), nihon (Japanese)

• 水: shuǐ (Mandarin), mizu (Japanese)

Hiragana (~38%)

What it is:
A phonetic syllabary with 46 characters. Each represents a distinct syllable.

Use:
Grammatical functions like particles, verb endings, adverbs, and native Japanese words not written in kanji.

Katakana (~8%)

What it is:
Another syllabary, visually sharper and more angular than hiragana.

Use:
Foreign words (loanwords), brand names, onomatopoeia, slang, and technical/scientific terms.