Contents

• Tools to help to learn Japanese
• Kana 50on

Tools to help to learn Japanese

• Kana Kanji translation program.
  Kana is Japanese phonetics characters like alphabet. The number of Kana characters is 50, but some of them are not used nowadays. There are many Kana Kanji translation programs that translate phonetics to Kanji. SKK is my favorite, but it is just one of them. The name Kanji comes from Chinese dynasty Kan (or Han). (202 B.C.-A.D. 8 and A.D. 25-220) Ji means character, so `Kanji character' means `Chinese character character' like some common mistake that Mt. Fujisan means `Mt. Mt. Fuji'.
  • SKK: Simple Kana Kanji input method on emacsen
    • On Emacs skk openlab
    • Windows IME skkime
  • Kanna Kanna on Unix/Windows
  • Windows IME (Japanese mode)
• Morphological analysis (including Kanji to Kana conversion) program. If you don't know how to read Japanese text, these program help to how to read them. Their input is Japanese (with Kanji) text and the output includes Kana text (phonetic alphabet).
  • kakasi Kanji Kana Simple inverter program. kakasi means scarecrow in Japanese.
    • Unix source
    • Windows binary
  • Chasen
  • MeCab

かな50音(50 On)

Next tables have basic Japanese phonetic characters (alphabet/Iroha). Inside the parentheses, I put the reading in Latin characters, but they are not canonical Japanese Romaji (Roman writing). The Japanese government also confuses about the Japanese writing system by Latin characters. It seems the ministry of Education and the ministry of foreign affair have different opinions.

I write my name Yamauchi Hitoshi, and it is one of the ways of writing. Unfortunately, I have already published some papers in this way, therefore, it is hard to change it anymore...

ゐ(wi) and ゑ(we) were used before, but nowadays only the people in some region (e.g., southern part of Sikoku) use this pronunciation (ゐど(井戸 (wido))). I heard a story about y series (yi, ye) also existed before.

Nowadays, Hiragana is used to write for words Japanese origin, and Katakana is used for the words origin from other countries. Historically, Katakana is for the formal writing and man used them, Hiragana is used by woman. Both writing have own atmosphere, so, they made interesting effect if you know Japanese. E.g., 「私はワタシと旅にでる．」 The meaning is somewhat "i and I travel together." (I use the capital letter and the lower case letter to express the difference.) The same meaning, the same pronunciation, but the atmosphere is changed.

The origin of both system are Chinese characters. For example, あ and ア come from 安，い and イ come from 伊.

The number of characters is basically 50, however, there are variations:

• Sei-on (清音) basic 50 characters. (Sei means clean, on means sound.)
• Daku-on (濁音) with Daku-ten (濁点, ゛). ex. は and ば (Daku means stagnate, ten means point.)
• Han-Daku-on (半濁音) with Han-Daku-ten (半濁点，゜). ex. は and ぱ (Han means half)
• Soku-on (促音) small つ (っ).
• You-on (拗音).

More details see Wiki pedia 50 on