5. Center first, then left and right:
6. Perpendicular line running through center written last:
7. Right-to-left diagonal stroke precedes left-to-right:
While the above may all seem rather complicated, the student might find solace in the fact that, as noted above, the writing system has been simplified to a considerable extent compared with the past, and has been mastered by many thousands of students having neither native speaker competence in Japanese nor prior background knowledge of the Chinese script.
2.4 Romanization
There are several different systems of representing Japanese using the Roman alphabet. This book employs a slightly modified form of the Hepburn system, this being a system which is widely used and which is based on conventions associated with the spelling of English. The minor modification involves using the letter n rather than m to represent the syllabic nasal ん when the latter occurs immediately before the consonants m, b or p (thus, for instance, shinbun [newspaper], not shimbun, and kenpō [constitution], not kempō). Other points to note are:
1. use of a macron to indicate vowel lengthening for o and u, e.g., gakkō [school], renshū [practice];
2. use of a hyphen in cases where it is considered that this might facilitate understanding of boundaries between constituent elements in a Japanese word, e.g., sara-arai [dishwashing], rather than saraarai; and
3. use of the apostrophe ’ instead of a hyphen after a syllabic nasal ん, such as tan’i [unit] (a word of three short syllables, which in kana would be written たんい) as opposed to tani [valley] (a word of two short syllables, written たに in kana).
2.5 Kana Signs and Combinations
The front and back endpapers of this book set out individual symbols in the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, and illustrations of stroke order for each of those symbols. Each of the two syllabaries evolved and became established over a period of many centuries, thereby becoming cemented as integral components in the modern writing system.
Katakana, which are more angular in appearance than hiragana, are today used first and foremost to represent loanwords of European origin, e.g., パン pan [bread] and ビール biiru [beer]. Hiragana are used widely and variously elsewhere to represent such elements as grammatical particles, inflectional endings of verbs, and frequently to represent in writing words which would otherwise need to be written with intricate or uncommon characters such as those for ōmu [parrot] (鸚鵡) or for the ken of sekken [soap] (石).
For the convenience of users of this book, the final part consists of an alphabetical index of readings for the 2,136 JK List characters.
3 Layout Details
The 1,006 most essential characters are set out in Section One in accordance with the MEXT’s division into six grades. These are in running sequence, but note that the grade divisions are:
1–80 = Grade One
81–240 = Grade Two
241–440 = Grade Three
441–640 = Grade Four
641–825 = Grade Five
826–1,006 = Grade Six
Characters within each grade are set out in the traditional “50 sounds” (gojūon) order which is commonly used for reference-type works in Japanese, except that the characters in Grade One alone are ordered on the basis of semantic groupings. Each character is typically accompanied by the on reading, then the kun reading and English meaning(s). The context is the best guide as to which reading is appropriate in a given case.
Also included for each of the 1,006 characters is information regarding the total number of strokes (the stroke count) and the set order to be followed in writing individual strokes. In most cases, three examples of character compounds are provided for each of these Essential characters.
Section Two, which presents the total 2,136 General-Use characters, gives them with their on and/or kun readings, and English meanings, but without illustrative compounds. In many cases, however, compounds containing characters which are among the 1,130 “non-essential” characters may be found among the compounds given for each of the 1,006 characters in Section One. The order adopted for listing the corpus of 2,136 characters is that of stroke count (and, within a given stroke count, by radical). So as to avoid undue repetition, each of the 1,006 Essential characters appearing in Section Two is given with the corresponding reference to Section …One, to which the reader can refer for details. This symbol ▲ marks each of the 196 newest additions to the JK list.
With regard to the typographical conventions employed in giving readings and meanings for characters, these are explained by means of the example below.
見 KEN1; mi(ru)2, to see, look3
1 On reading in upper case.
2 Kun reading in lower case italics. Parentheses used to indicate end-syllable(s) to be written in kana [(thus, mi(ru), since this word is conventionally written 見る). ] Common reading is included though it is not a kun reading.
3 English meaning(s) given in regular lower case.
Also note the use of a comma after a single on-reading to indicate that it can be used as a stand-alone word, e.g., “ZA, seat...” (i.e., “za” exists as a word meaning “seat”), as opposed to “U canopy...” (i.e., “u” does not exist as an independent word).
4 Final Notes
This guide is an ideal way to begin a serious study of the Japanese writing system. Other textbooks should be consulted for studies in vocabulary, grammar and culture. A number of textbooks and reference works are available from Tuttle Publishing.
With each revision this guide continues to provide a useful and comprehensive approach to an ever-growing circle of readers and lifelong learners. There are many specialists of Japanese who began their study of Japanese with the first version of this guide and fondly keep that original volume, with its familiar orange and black book jacket, on their shelves. My own well-worn copy reminds me of my very first sensei and the joy that learning and now teaching of Japanese brings.
5 Select Bibliography of Main Works Consulted for This Edition
Note: All the books in Japanese listed below have been published in Tokyo.
Haig, J.H. et al. (ed.), The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary. Charles E. Tuttle, Tokyo, 1997.
Henshall, Kenneth G., A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters. Charles E. Tuttle, Tokyo, 1988.
Maeda, Tomiyoshi. Jōyō kanji saishin handobukku: nisenjūnen kaitei taiō. Tōkyō: Meijishoin, 2011.
Sanseidō henshūjo (ed.). Atarashii kokugo hyōki handobukku. Tokyo: Sanseidō, 2011.
College Board AP Japanese Language and Culture.
http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/ap/sub_japaneselang.html
Dictionary.goo.ne.jp. http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/
Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC. http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C
Jisho.org. http://jisho.org/kanji/radicals/?
Kanjijiten.net.