Question of the Month
A Student Asked
“Why do some words have kana in them and others don't? I'm just curious why two different writing styles are combined and wouldn't it be more efficient to have just one written language?”
We Answered
“The short (and only real) answer is: That's just how it is, and it will likely never change.
The longer answer is (over-simplified history with some conjecture for good measure): When they first started writing things down in Japanese centuries ago, it was written using ONLY Chinese. The interesting thing is that it was also READ in Chinese. Which meant that everyone who wanted to read or write technically needed to learn CHINESE. Eventually, people wanted to be able to read and write ACTUAL Japanese, so katakana (and shortly thereafter, hiragana) were created. But KANJI was also used because being able to represent meanings as well as sounds was super useful for a language like Japanese which has a very limited number of sounds, and thus THOUSANDS of homonyms.
Katakana is now used for foreign loan words, because many loan words contain sounds that simply are not a part of the “actual” Japanese language. They are sort of... forced sounds. Katakana helps separate those out a bit.
Also, Japanese verbs and adjectives conjugate, which is difficult to show with only kanji. Thus, Japanese uses hiragana for verb and ใ adjective endings, and we have things like ใงใ in hiragana to allow us to show conjugation.
Many learners suggest Japanese switch to using only hiragana, which sounds like a great idea! Until you see sentences like this:
ใฏใฏใฏใฏใฃใฑใใฏใใฆใใใ
or
ใใใใใใใใใใฎใใกใ
With kanji, these all become decipherable (though the second one is used as a tongue twister haha)
ๆฏใฏ่ใฃใฑใๆใใฆใใใ(Mom [topic] leaves [object] sweeping.)
and
ๅญฃใๆกใๆกใฎใใกใ(Japanese plums and peaches are both types of peach.)
 ”
Problem of the Month
A few students have expressed frustration at being unable to understand the immersion section stories in Lesson 1 immediately after having finished the Lesson 1 grammar stream lesson.
While an understandable issue, it’s also completely intentional! We decided to place the “Immersion Section” lesson where it is in the Genki 1 and 2 lesson structure because we felt it was a good idea for students to attempt at least a few immersion stories WHILE going through each lesson, breaking up each video with stories.
If you find that you are completely at a loss with one story, skip to the next one! If you find you are completely at a loss with ALL the stories, keep going through the videos and come back later. You’ll find within a lesson or two, you’ll have no problem understanding the stories you struggled with before.
Also, always remember that we are happy to answer questions you have about the Japanese in the stories (and about the stories themselves)! Drop them in the comments on the specific story you are struggling with!
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