• Content Assistant (1 position available)
• Summer Intern (1-2 positions available)
• Trial Writer (1-5 positions available)

Although it’s probably best if you just head on over to our Tofugu Jobs Page to learn more, here is a quick summary of the three positions:

Content Assistant

This is the biggest position available right now. Essentially it comes down to content and being able to produce a lot of it… without sacrificing quality. The content you will be assisting with includes but is not limited to: video, articles, guides, reviews, and social media. This means we are looking for someone who has experience in both writing and film, with an emphasis on writing.

We are currently looking for someone to fill this position on a part time basis with potential for full time down the road, should the shoe fit. Please take a look at the Content Assistant section on our jobs page for more information.

Application Due Date: March 23, 2014

Summer Intern(s)

Every summer Tofugu runs an internship with the sole purpose of giving all you poor Japanese Studies majors hope (just a little bit). A couple bits of good news for this summer in particular. First, we’re posting this announcement up nice and early. This time we’ll be catching all you early-summer colleges in time. Second, it’s going to be the first summer where we pay our interns hourly (in the past it was either a living/education stipend or nothing at all). So, you know, you might be able to eat food and get off the streets.

The internship will have a set curriculum to it with several goals from our end, but we’ll also be attempting to focus part of the internship on your own interests and future dreams as well. If you’re interested in learning the “Ways of the Fugu” in a mostly educational sort of way, please consider applying for the Tofugu Internship.

Application Due Date: May 1, 2014

Trial Blog Writer(s)

Occasionally we are looking for new writers to bring into the fold. But, there’s a trial period to find out whether or not you’re reliable and consistent enough. This position is that trial.

If you consider yourself a writer and would be interested in writing articles for Tofugu, please take a look at the Trial Writers section of our jobs page.

Application Due Date: March 23, 2014

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If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments below and I’ll try to get back to them. Good luck to everyone who applies!

The goal of this article is to help you to understand Japanese letters. It will take a little more research and studying to be able to write a letter in Japanese, but I think I’ll be covering the difficult part. After reading this article, I want you to understand things like the relationship between you and the person you’re writing to, the format of a Japanese letter (both vertical and horizontal), how to write the address on the envelope, as well as the concept of “set expressions.” This will give you the tools to write a letter, make things less confusing, and eventually get you to the point where you should be able to piece together a Japanese letter on your own (resources included in the last section of this article).

Let’s get straight into the first thing you must think about even before you pick up that pen and paper keyboard and monitor, relationships.

Relationships: AKA Who Are You Writing To?

In Japanese, hierarchy is much more important than in many other countries. You have the senpai-kohai relationship. Then you have teacher vs. student, boss vs. minion, older people vs. younger people, and the list goes on and on. On top of this, relationship statuses change when you’re asking for a request, but this (and many other things) will depend on how close you are to the other person. Relationships, your closeness, and where you stand in the hierarchy of said relationship dictate how you act and speak with that other person. Of course, this carries over to letters as well.

I am going to simplify it a bit for you though. In general, there’s going to be three types of letters. They are:

Informal: Friends, Senpai, People below you

Neutral: Teachers, Friends you are requesting something of, Superiors

Formal: People you don’t know, Superiors you are requesting something of

You may have noticed some patterns here. Informal relationships are people of a similar age, aka people who are on the same hierarchy level as you. Then, there’s neutral (which is really just regular-polite level) which has teachers and other superiors whom you have at least a moderately close relationship with, though friends that you are requesting something of get bumped up to this rung (because you have to be nice if you’re asking for something). Lastly, there’s formal, which includes people you don’t have a close relationship with (people you don’t know), as well as superiors that you’re asking something of. Asking something of someone automatically bumps them up to the next rung, as a rule of thumb.

Of course, as long as you stay in the Neutral or Formal levels, you’ll probably always be okay, so that’s what I’ll be sticking with in these articles as well. Informal is informal, and doesn’t really need to follow so many of the rules that I’ll be laying out here during this series.

The Materials

Now that you know who you’re writing to, it’s time to figure out what materials you need to use. I think a lot of this is just common sense, but just in case it isn’t, I’ve summarized and simplified a list provided by the (excellent) textbook, Writing Letters In Japanese.

• In general, white stationary without any pictures is most preferred.
• Business letters are usually written horizontally via a word processor.
• Personal letters to superiors should be written vertically on white stationary (hand written).
• For superiors, use a white envelope.
• Write in pen, using black or blue ink.
• Don’t write with pencils or markers.
• Postcards should only be used in informal occasions, or occasions in that call for postcards (like New Years).

Once you’ve figured out your materials (based on who you’re writing to), it’s time to learn how to use these materials. Sadly, not all of it is as simple as you might think. There are rules, Smokey!

Japanese Letter Formatting Rules

I will cover two types of letter: Vertical and Horizontal. This refers to how you’re writing your text. Does it go up to down or does it go right to left? Depending on which one you choose, there are a few differences you need to take note of.

Vertical Letters

These are the most personal. I suppose you’re putting a lot more work into this kind, because in general you’re writing them out by hand. Horizontal rule letters feel a little colder and less personal, though I think that’s changing. Usually, though, you can’t go wrong with a vertical letter, as it’s the standard style for letter writing in Japan.

As you can see there are various parts, and the positioning of each is important.

Opening: The opening word  consists of a set word, kind of like the word “Dear…” that goes at the beginning of English letters. In Japanese, this would be 拝啓 (はいけい) or 前略 (ぜんりゃく). These actually pair with the closing section, so be careful!

Set Expression #1: Right at the beginning of the letter there should be a set expression. This could be one of many predetermined topics or phrases, which are usually about weather, the season, health of the addressee, and so on and so forth. Certain topics will have certain opening set expressions as well, but we’ll go more into that later.

Content: This is where you actually write your letter and say the things you want to say. Notice how this is the only non-predetermined section out of so many? It’s weird.

Set Expression #2: After you finish saying what you want to say, it’s time for another set expression. This will usually be about the addressee’s health or good wishes for them.

Closing: This is like “sincerely…” in English letters. Unlike that, however, it is paired with the opening. 拝啓 goes with the closing greeting 敬具 (けいぐ). 前略 goes with the closing 草々 (そうそう). No mixing and matching.

Date: This is written a little lower than the text to its right. Use the Japanese numeral system for vertical letters.

Your Name: This is where you write your name. Put it down to the bottom of the column.

Addressee’s Name: This goes to the left of the date and your name, but higher than the date, and lower than all the text to the right.

PostScript (Optional): This is the P.S. portion of the letter. In Japanese, this is 追伸 (ついしん) or 二伸 (にしん), and is written to the left of the addressee’s name, lined up with the main text. This is a little informal, though, so don’t use it if you can help yourself.

As you can see, there’s a lot to consider even before you write any content. Luckily, horizontal letters are a lot simpler.

Horizontal Letters

Generally used in business sorts of situations, horizontal letters are mostly typed out and a lot simpler.

See? Much simpler.

Date: Goes in the top right. It’s written using Arabic numerals since it’s being written horizontally. １２月２５日, for example.

Addressee’s Name: This is where you put the name of the person you’re writing to. As with all letters, don’t forget their name honorific!

Set Expression #1: Here’s where the first set expression will go.

Content: This is where the content of your letter will go.

Set Expression #2: One more set expression for the addressee’s well being and health.

Your Name: This is where you sign your name, horizontally. Might be good to sign it with a pen instead of with the word processor, just to be a little more polite.

Horizontal letters are easier, but they can be considered rude if you send them in the wrong situations. Of course, email is a whole other thing (it’s all horizontal there), and I think it’s causing the mindset to shift a bit on this. Still, though, vertical is the default go-to for writing letters (especially by hand), so be sure learn about it even though this one is easier.

Envelopes And Addresses

The address system in Japan is quite different from America and much of the rest of the world. You’ll want to know about that before sending a letter, otherwise it may not get to the desired location (that being said, the Japanese postal system is baller). Once you know the address, though, there are some rules as to where you should be putting the mailing address, return address, and stamp.

Vertical Envelopes

This is the tall type envelope which you will often see in Japan. It’s good for vertically written letters, as you can crease your letter parallel to the lines you’re writing.

As you can see there are a few different things compared to the envelopes you might be used to. First off, you’ll want to put the postal code in boxes provided. Then, on the front of the envelope, you’ll want to put the address on the right side (written vertically) and the addressee’s name on the left, written in slightly bigger letters than the address to help differentiate. On the flap side of the envelope you should write the return address. Your name and address should go on the left side in the same format as the addressee’s name and address (though size isn’t going to matter as much), and your postal code should go in the boxes if they’re provided.

Horizontal Envelopes

With horizontal envelopes, there are a couple ways to do it.

1. You can turn the envelope sideways so it’s taller, and write the address in the same way you’d write it with a vertical envelope.
2. You can write things horizontally. Just like the vertical envelope, the addressee’s address goes on the front, with their address on top and their name written bigger below. If the boxes for the postal code are posted vertically, turn the envelope and write it in the direction they’re printed (horizontally). On the back of the envelope (flap side) you can put your address and name at the bottom.

A lot of the rules carry over from vertical envelopes, so this should be a little easier. So what about when you’re sending a letter to Japan?

Sending Letters To Japan From Overseas

When you are sending a letter to Japan from outside of Japan, you can write the address in romaji (though Japanese is preferred, if you can), and write it in the format that’s normally accepted in your country. Just be sure to write “JAPAN” at the bottom of the addressee’s address so they know to send it there!

Opening Set Expressions

This is perhaps the most difficult section of all when it comes to writing letters in Japanese. Luckily, these are set expressions, meaning you can just look them up, use them, and gone on with your life. The tricky part comes when you have to come up with some of your own (in certain specific situations), though we’re going to just ignore that for now.

The first set of set expressions is the one that comes before the start of your actual content. It generally has to do with weather, the season, or health of the addressee. There are expressions for each month, season, as well as different opening greetings for various inquisitions on the addressee’s health. Here are some examples, though there are many more set expressions worth knowing (or knowing where to find, which I’ll go over at the end).

January:

寒さひとしお身にしみる今日このごろ…
In this time of piercing cold…

新春とは申しながら、まだまだ寒さが続いておりますが…
While it is the New Year, the cold continues.

Spring:

春の日うららかな今日このごろ…
In this time of beautiful spring days…

日本はあたたかくなっているころでしょう…
I guess it must be getting warmer in Japan…

August:

厳しい残暑が続いておりますが…
The oppressive heat continues to linger…

December:

今年も押し迫りましたが…
This year is drawing to a close… (used after Dec 20)

Health Related:

いかがお過ごしていらしゃいますか？
How have you been?

私もおかげさまで元気にしております…
Fortunately I am doing well (thanks to your help)…

Writing A Reply To A Letter

お手紙ありがとうございました…
Thank you for your letter…

These set expressions are only a drop in the bucket. There are at least several set expressions for each month, season, and situation, and there are probably more out there. The thing about set expressions is you are expected to write with said set expressions, otherwise your letter isn’t going to come off as polite. While creativity is encouraged in Western letters, using some set expression rules is more important in Japanese, which makes things both harder and easier.

Closing Set Expressions

After your main content you have to go back into set expressions. There are fewer of these, but it’s still basically the same thing as the opening ones. Here are some examples:

Making A Request

どうかよろしくお願い致します。
Kindly look after this matter for me.

Give My regards

奥様に宜しくお願いします
Please give my regards to your wife.

Good Health

お寒さの折からお体をお大切に
Please take care of yourself since it’s cold.

Request A Reply

お返事を待ちしております
I look forward to your reply.

I think closing set expressions are a little simpler than the opening ones, but they’re all basically the same thing and you’ll see the same ones over and over a lot.

Where To Go From Here?

So as you can see, writing letters in Japanese is a big ordeal, though once you learn all the rules and do a little practice it’s not all that bad. In fact, it’s very set in stone, meaning that as long as you follow the rules you’ll be able to write a great letter in Japanese.

The next step, I think, is to take a look at examples. Writing letters in Japanese definitely takes an intermediate or advanced knowledge of the language, so if you possess said knowledge and want an English textbook, I’d recommend Writing Letters In Japanese. It contains plenty of example letters as well as lessons going over all of them to help you get your letter writing skills up to snuff. Alternatively, if you’re fairly advanced in Japanese, the Japanese website Midori-Japan’s 手紙の書き方 will do the trick. This site includes many example letters for many different and often specific situations as well as a list of set expressions that you can pull from. Basically, everything you need to template out a proper Japanese letter.

I hope this article and those sources help you to get started writing letters in Japanese! It’s a crazy letter writing world over there, but once you get your foot in the proverbial letter-writing door it become easier. I want to write more on this topic soon, including examples for plenty of different letter-writing situations, but we’ll see if it’s next week or a week in the future to come. Writing letters in Japanese is a huge topic, as I think everyone has come to understand so long as you’ve read to this point.

Sources:
Writing Letters In Japanese
About.Japanese.com
Japaneseteachers.net

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In all of the articles, essays, posts, and books I’ve read, I’ve noticed that there are a few traps that people regularly fall into when they talk about Japan. These few cliches have bothered me more and more over the years as it’s become increasingly apparent that they’re borderline harmful.

I don’t want to criticize others too much because Lord knows that I’ve done some pretty crap writing, but I really want to acknowledges these cliches so that we might get past them.

“Weird Japan”

A lot of people talk about Japan as “weird Japan,” a place where all the people are strange and do wacky things and nothing makes sense. I wrote about the dangers of focusing too much on “weird Japan” last year, but a few things have happened recently that make me want to bring it up again.

Last year, one of the more reported-on stories about Japan was about a small group of people in Tokyo. These people took body modification to the extreme by injecting saline into their foreheads to make what essentially looked like a giant bagel on their face.

It’s definitely a weird and interesting phenomenon, but the way that most outlets reported on this was sadly predictable and really disappointing.

It’s a new trend! Everybody’s doing it!

There were maybe a handful of people doing this in Japan, but lots of Western media outlets were quick to declare these “bagel heads” a “trend” in Japan, as if everybody and their grandma were sticking needles into their foreheads and letting the saline flow. Those kooky Japanese people!

More recently, Kotaku wrote about a hair salon in Osaka that created a hairdo that looks like a tomato. The author stresses that this hairdo is “not mainstream” and it’s hard to imagine that more than a few people in Japan have this haircut.

As if on cue people have begun declaring this one-off hairdo as “Japan’s Newest Hairstyle Craze.” What a weird country! People style their hair to look like a tomato!

There are certainly weird things that happen in Japan, but taking individual occurrences and pretending that they’re some kind of new, national craze is really disingenuous.

Instead, focus on the larger societal and cultural differences that actually set Japan apart from the rest of the world. As one Tofugu commenter so eloquently said:

After a while, it’s not weird [in Japan] in the obvious ways. It’s actually way weirder than that.

Going to Extremes

As you start to get interested in Japan, you’ll start to meet people who are really excited about the country. Isn’t Japanese food great? Aren’t Japanese toilets cool? Japanese culture is the best. I want to move to Japan!

On the flipside, there are plenty of people who love to gripe about Japan. As somebody who has trouble writing a lot (my essays for school were always under the minimum word count), I’m still blown away that Kotaku ran a 15,000 word rant about what sucks about Japan.

Neither perspective paints a complete picture.

Sure, there’s a lot to like about Japan, but there’s plenty that should cause concern, too. For me, things like Japan’s its flawed legal system, and its high suicide rate make me see Japan in a different light.

Raging against Japan isn’t helpful, either. For the most part, the bad things Japan have some sort of twisted logic behind them that fits them into a bigger context. It isn’t always something you have to like or agree with, but understand why the bad things are bad is incredibly helpful to seeing the bigger situation.

I think there’s a lot of value in a more nuanced approach. It’s not always exciting as going to the extremes and won’t elicit as strong of an reaction from people; but I think that through moderation, you’re a lot more accurate and learn more.

I won’t pretend like I know the One True Way to Talk About Japan, and I hope that people call me when my writing isn’t accurate or is misleading. But I think that these are things that really plague the dialogue about Japan and, once we get past these tired tropes and cliches, we can learn a lot more.

Bonus! Our wonderful illustrator Aya has whipped up a high-res wallpaper version of her illustration for this post, which you can find here.

I like to think that I have a decent grasp on the English language but, as any longtime Tofugu reader knows that despite my best efforts, I still make a ton of typos, weird grammatical errors, and even leave some sentences unfinishe

These spelling mistakes might make you a bit frustrated.

If it’s so easy to mess up in your native language, it should come as no surprise that misspellings in Japanese are common, especially for people just learning Japanese.

Characters That Look Similar

In English, it’s generally pretty easy to tell one letter apart from another. Unless somebody has awful handwriting, each letter is pretty distinct from another.

Not always the case in Japanese. There are a lot of characters that look alike in each of the forms of Japanese writing.

Hiragana

Hiragana is how pretty much everybody starts learning Japanese and at first glance, there’s a little to get confused about. Initially characters like め and ぬ, or れ, わ, and ね can throw you for a loop.

Katakana

After you’ve conquered hiragana and move onto its angular brother, katakana, things get a little trickier. It seems like everybody has trouble with the ツ, シ, ソ, and ン.

Kanji

Everybody whines and complains about kanji, and part of that comes from the abundance of kanji that look like each other. With thousands and thousands of kanji, it’s not surprising that a few resemble each other. Kanji like 万 and 方, or 牛 and　午 might throw a wrench into things.

With time and experience though, you learn to recognize the differences between all of these characters. There are a lot of hints that’ll help you along the way (strokes, context, mnemonics), and in no time, you’ll be able to see the differences.

Short Sounds and Long Sounds

I can think of a few times in English when a short and a long vowel sound makes a difference in meaning, but the differences aren’t usually that pronounced. They might just indicate past and present tense, like with “fed” and “feed.”

But in Japanese, long sounds and short sounds make a huge difference, and it doesn’t help that a lot of romanized Japanese just sort of ignores these differences.

When somebody talks about the capital of Japan, they write “Tokyo”; when they say good morning, they write “ohayo.” In both cases, the romanization ignores the long sounds and can trip you up when you’re writing in actual Japanese.

We’ve harped on the downsides of romaji before, but it’s worth emphasizing it again because it could mess up your writing!

Big つ versus Small っ

The small っ plays a unique role in Japanese. A little っ (also called a sokuon 促音) creates “double consonants” which, like short and long vowels, can entirely change the meaning.

(You can learn how to pronounce the small っ here)

It’s something that might be confusing or frustrating once you start learning Japanese but, like other writing mistakes, you learn to recognize it pretty quickly. Not only do you keep an eye out for its size, but you also start to learn the words that use the small っ.

Have you run into one of these problems when writing Japanese? What trips you up the most? Let me know in the comments!

So, kanji hates women. Sure. But, perhaps the kanji-creators of old were victims of their very misogynistic time. I can’t say that sexism and misogyny in kanji is “right,” but I can see how it ended up happening. Want to see for yourself?

Kanji Made By Men, For Men

Nowadays a lot of these kanji are just words. It’s kind of like how the English word “Woman” has the word “Man” in it. Most people don’t actually care about it that much. That being said, I went through a lot of kanji today in order to bring you this ultimate list of misogynistic kanji. They will surely be a bit controversial, so please don’t get angry (aka “woman slave heart”), noisy (aka “woman woman woman”) or hateful (aka “woman concurrently”) at me. I didn’t create these kanji, and the people who did are long dead, probably because of their recklessness (aka “dead woman”).

女: Woman

This kanji isn’t particularly interesting on its own, but it’s important to look at first, because it always plays a role in the misogynistic kanji to come, appearing over and over again. Although I’m not putting every 女 kanji in this list (there’s a lot of them), I would like to tell you about a pattern I noticed: Kanji that have 女 in them tend to be about something negative, about getting married, about being a female of some kind (daughter, niece, etc) or about looking pretty. Already a bad start, I’d say. Let’s see what those sexist Chinese monks came up with.

奴: Manservant, Slave

This kanji consists of a woman (女) and the “again” radical (又). I suppose when you’re a woman again, you’re a slave (man or lady). It’s like a demotion to a slave level, aka the level of women. Strangely, this kanji’s meaning also extends to the words “dude” or “guy.” Now we know why it has a slight derogatory meaning.

妄: Reckless, Delusion

This kanji is made of “dying” (亡) and woman (女). So, when women who die are being reckless and delusional. They need to be safe and calm so that they can take care of the children. Much better to keep them safe in the house, right? Right? *segue!!*

安: Cheap, Contented, Relax, Safe

This is a woman inside of a roof. A woman safe inside the house. When a woman is safe within a house, she costs a lot less and you (the man) can go out and do your manly things while feeling relaxed and contented that there’ll always be a meal ready for you when you get home.

好: Pleasing, Like

While she’s at home being safe, it’s good if the woman (女) has a child (子). Us men like (好) this. It helps us to feel 安 that you won’t go out and do anything 妄.

奸: Mischief, Rudeness

I’m not sure I can bring myself to believe that the parts of this kanji mean what I think they might mean… but I guess I can’t put it past a couple of horny old monks whose job it is to come up with new kanji. This is a “dry woman” … I’ll let you come up with your own interpretation on why a “dry woman” would cause mischief and/or be rude.

妓: Geisha, Prostitute

This kanji is woman (女) plus support (支). A “support woman” is, apparently, a prostitute. So, thank you prostitutes. Thank you for all your support, support women.

妬: Envy, Jealous

The kanji for woman (女) and stone (石) combined into one. Perhaps this means a “strong woman?” Ha! No, of course not. “Stone woman” instead means “envy” or “jealousy.” Stay away from them stone women.

姓: Surname

Woman (女) and life (生) combine together to mean “surname.” Since women don’t get to carry on their surname (that’s the family name), it becomes apparent that this kanji is suggesting that a woman’s life is to the surname of her husband. She’s kind of a lifelong 奴 (servant) to the surname, if you will, whether it’s her father’s or her husband’s.

孥: Slave, Servant, Wife And Children

You remember slave right? Now it’s a slave (奴) to the child (子). This still means “slave” or “servant,” but a third meaning has been added in to this kanjis as well: “Wife and Children.” So, a woman is a slave to her child. When you think about the relationship between Asian moms and their children, this kanji actually starts to make sense…

帑: Money Repository

Your lady slave (奴) now has a cloth (巾). This is your money repository. At best, this could mean a safe place to store your money (Japanese wives traditionally take care of all the money stuff at home). At worst this could mean your lady is super expensive, and she’s like a black hole where your yen never sees the light of day again once it gets past the event horizon of her money bag. I’ll let you decide this one.

姑: Mother-In-Law

In Asian dramas, the mother-in-law is almost always an evil hag (don’t worry, sometimes they come around after the protagonist good-for-nothing son-in-law does something right). In this kanji, it’s not quite that bad, though. This is a woman (女) plus “old” (古). Just an “old woman”… though you’d think they could have come up with something a little nicer. I don’t think mother-in-laws like being called “old women.” I’m pretty sure the creator of this kanji had a mother-in-law he didn’t really like…

怒: Angry

A slave lady (奴) plus a heart (心). Obviously the men weren’t totally clueless. They could tell the ladies get pretty angry when you treat them like slaves.

姻: Marry, Matrimony

Speaking of slavery, when you combine the kanji for woman (女) and “be associated with” (因) you get a word that means marriage. My theory is that someone wanted to use 囚 (captured) instead 因, but then the wife saw so he got in trouble and then had to switch it to 因. Anyways, marriage is “being associated with a woman.”

姦: Noisy, Wicked, Rape

Not one woman. Not two women. No. There are three women. What happens when you have three women together? They get really noisy. C’mon ladies.

Secondly, this kanji means “wicked” too. I guess when a few women get together, it’s time to get suspicious of their actions?

Lastly, this kanji also means rape too… which is absolutely terrible and probably makes this the worst kanji of all time. Seriously, though. There were some sick kanji-creators out there.

倭: Yamato People (Submissive People)

I wrote about the naming of the Yamato People (Japanese people) a while back. Basically, China used this kanji to name the Japanese a long time ago. It pretty much means “submissive ladylike dwarf people,” though you’ll have to read the whole history to find out why.

恕: Excuse

What’s in a woman’s (女) mouth’s (口) heart (心)? It’s to make excuses. The true words that come from a woman’s heart are just excuses. “So that’s why dinner isn’t ready, Natsumi??? What a terrible ‘woman’s mouth heart!’” Really kanji? C’mon.

案: Expectation, Suggestion, Worry

You have a woman in her house (安) standing on top of a tree (木) looking down on everyone telling them their suggestions and worries. Sounds familiar? This is basically the kanji for “helicopter mother,” if you ask me. They just didn’t have helicopters back then, so she’s standing on a tree instead.

娶: Arrange A Marriage

You’re taking (取) a woman (女). Could be worse, I suppose. Still, you don’t see anyone “taking a man” instead. It’s always the ladies that get the short end of the stick when it comes to kanji.

婬: Lewdness

The woman (女) is clawing (爪) the king (王). Perhaps this is talking about all those misbehaving queens that you hear about in stories. No good comes from nasty queens in folklore stories, Japanese or Chinese. I suppose this is why this kanji means “lewdness.”

嫌: Hate

When you have a woman (女) concurrently (兼) with anything (apparently), you get hate. It’s a mystery as to what you can have at the same time as a woman that will make this hate, but I’m sure someone had something in mind way back in the day.

嫉: Envy, Jealous

Wow, another kanji that means “envy” or “jealous.” Instead of being a stone lady (妬), this time it’s just a “rapid lady” (女=woman, 疾=rapidly). I’m guessing this is suggesting that women get envious or jealous very quickly… sounds like every jdrama / kdrama / cdrama I’ve ever seen.

楼: Watchtower

This kanji has a woman (女) carrying rice (米) on her back. There’s a tree (木) there too, which I’m guessing is the watchtower. I’m thinking you can guess who is in the watchtower by now, right?

媼: Grandma

This woman (女) has captured (囚) someone with a plate (皿). Perhaps this is a relatively nice kanji, actually. Maybe grandma’s cooking is so good that she’s captured you. Good ol’ grandma’s cooking! All she’s good for is cooking now, though. Too old to carry rice around the fields under the watchful watchtower eye of the man.

嫐: Flirt

Two ladies (女), one dude between them (男). Why not add three or four more ladies while you’re at it, wishful-thinking-monk?

嬲: Ridicule, Tease

So, when there are two guys (男) around one lady (女) it’s no longer flirting. Now it’s ridiculing and teasing… at least they got the “apparently most guys were jerks during the kanji-creation period” thing down right in this kanji.

餒: Hunger, Spoil

When a woman (女) has clawed (爪) at the food (食), everyone hungers and/or the food spoils. Sure, blame the food problems on the ladies.

孀: Widow

The women (女) who rain (雨) on each other (相) are the widows. I suppose they’re just crying so much that their really nice husbands have died in battle… or, perhaps they’re crying buckets of joy because apparently every man alive during this time was a complete jerk. I’ll let you decide.

男: Man

Now it’s high time to look at “man” (because, men are #1 in the kanji world, duh!). This kanji consists of a rice paddy (田) and power (力). Who’s the power on the rice field? That’s the dudes, of course. Look at our big muscles. *flex flex*

勇: Courage

Courage consists of the kanji for man (男) and the マ radical, which is an obsolete radical that means “person.” Basically, the kanji for “courage” is “person that is a man.” Because, uh, we’re not afraid of anything… that’s right. We’re MAN PEOPLE.

金玉: Testicles

Golden (金) balls (玉). That’s what testicles are made out of. GOLD. I guess a dude’s reproductive organs are so valuable that they’re being compared to a very expensive metal. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a “Cash For Balls” program going on during the Meiji Era. As everyone’s favorite super villain loved to say: “I like… teeeesticles gooooolllld.”

There’s not as many interesting kanji that have to do with dudes (especially when you compare it with 女), but even with just these two you can see the difference in how they’re treated. Generally, men-related kanji are awesome (or neutral), and women get the shaft. It’s obvious who was coming up with these kanji, though you’d think they’d actually try a little bit more… then again, maybe not.

What Dogs We Were!

I imagine that almost every language has plenty of examples of sexism (prolly against the ladies… sorry ladies!) in them, just because things weren’t particularly fair thousands of years ago when languages and writing were developing. Japanese / Chinese just so happens to have an extremely easy way to look up the etymology of the kanji, making it easy to pick all these out and lay them out for you, probably making it seem worse than it actually is (at least when comparing with other languages out there).

But, like most languages, these words have been around a long time. Now they’re just words, and their original misogynistic meaning is very diluted and unimportant, meaning you’re not a horrible person if you use the word 安い (cheap) in your day-to-day life.

Besides how terrible some of the meanings of these kanji are, I’m also hoping you can take away something else. See how easy it is to figure out the meanings of kanji by breaking them up into radicals? I just looked up one radical (女), and was able to find out so much about how ancient China / Japan thought about women. You could do similar research on other radicals/kanji, for example 田 (rice paddy), 中 (middle) or 力 (power). There’s a lot that can be learned about via kanji radicals – they’re not only a tool for remembering and learning kanji (which is what we’re doing with our work on WaniKani). They give you a peek into the culture and history of China / Japanese as well.

So, I hope you learned something other than “getting three women together means ‘noisy’ in Japanese.” Are any of these your particular favorite? Does something make you “a slave woman’s heart”? No “woman mouth hearts” not to speak up and get “triple woman” if there’s something you want to say in the comments. Oh, but please be nice and don’t “two guys around one girl” anyone. That’s just “a woman clawing at a king” if you ask me. I “woman with a child” nice comments.

On TextFugu, I recently rewrote and improved the “reading and writing hiragana” chapter (feel free to check it out, it’s free), improving it a lot. The idea was to create a step by step process that anybody could use to learn hiragana so that they could move on to the “good stuff.” There were a few goals with this:

1. Make learning hiragana simpler.
2. Create a step-by-step process that anybody could follow.
3. Take the “mystery” out of learning hiragana (especially hard for self-learners).

After coming up with everything and writing it down, I thought it would be useful for readers of Tofugu as well, so I’m posting up a slightly modified hiragana how-to guide for all of you to enjoy as well. If you’re just starting to learn Japanese, or haven’t started yet, this is one of the first things you want to do. There’s no better time than now, right?

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Before You Get Started

For this guide, I’ll be combining several resources. The idea is to take from the best and ignore the rest, organizing for you a great set of resources that will help you to learn how to read and write hiragana (and ultimately allow you to learn Japanese). Before you get started, there are a few preliminary steps I think you should take. They’re optional, technically, but they’ll really help you learn hiragana a lot more effectively and quickly, in the long run.

1. Read about the various Japanese alphabets.

If you knew there was more than one Japanese “alphabet” (okay, fine, they aren’t technically alphabets, but that doesn’t matter much), then maybe you can skip this step. If you didn’t know this, then you should do some reading so that you understand more about what it is you’re about to learn. If you don’t do this, it would be like learning the English alphabet without knowing the letters spell words. With so many Japanese “alphabets” this reading is pretty important.

There’s two ways you can do this:

1. Read some really in depth articles about hiragana, katakana, kanji, and romaji on wikipedia (this is the more complicated option).
2. Read about the Japanese “alphabets” on TextFugu (simpler, quicker, but not as in depth).

I don’t know which one you want to do, but to be honest either is probably fine. Personally, I’d go with the simpler one (#2), just because you only need to know some background info, not become a PhD in Japanese linguistics.

After you’ve gotten the background info on the various Japanese writing systems, you can move on to the next step.

2. Learn The Pronunciation

For me, I think learning pronunciation and understanding how the “patterns” of hiragana work are important to do before you learn to read and write. If you spend some time on this first, you can then associate this with the reading and writing that you learn a little later. Learning the pronunciation of hiragana before you learn hiragana will help you build a foundation of better Japanese pronunciation, help you to understand how the Japanese language works, and ultimately speed up your hiragana learning in the long run (I think it will, anyways).

1. Hiragana pronunciation can be looked at on TextFugu as well (another free chapter)

After you’ve gone through this, you’ll be ready to start learning the reading and writing parts of hiragana.

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The Hiragana How-To Guide

Before you start, I want you to think back to your days of when you learned how to read/write own native language. This will help you to readjust any unrealistic expectations. Most likely, it took you years to get comfortable with English (or whatever you grew up with). Despite this, you’re going to be able to learn hiragana much faster. It’s going to be hard, and you should expect to be perfect in one, two, or even three weeks. It’s a process, and the more you practice the better you’ll end up getting at it, just like anything (as long as you practice the right things, whoops).

1. Download A Hiragana Chart

I’ve actually made a hiragana chart that you can download right here. I think it’s pretty simple, printable, and easy to use. Feel free to use it, give it away, or whatever else you want to do with it. It’s a totally free hiragana chart.

[ilink style="download" url="http://www.tofugu.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hiragana-chart.pdf"]Download Hiragana Chart[/ilink]

You’re going to be using this a lot, so print it out (if you have a printer) and make it handy.

2. Let’s Take A Look At Some Words You Know Already

Despite what you might think, reading and writing Japanese (at least when it comes to kana) is actually really easy. In order to illustrate that, I thought we could look at some words you already know, starting with the word “sushi.”

For the most part, all hiragana characters (or kana) consist of a consonant (a letter that’s not a vowel) and a vowel. If you look at your hiragana chart, you’ll see that there are things like “ka, chi, mu, ra, hu, ji” etc. Although there are some “weird” ones, like “shi, chi, tsu” etc., that are two consonants plus a vowel, you can probably see the basic pattern emerge. Other than this, the only exceptions are “n” (a single consonant) and “a, i, u, e, o” (which are just vowels on their own).

So, knowing that kana pretty much consists of a consonant sound and a vowel sound, let’s figure out how to spell “sushi” in hiragana. It’s quite easy.

The word “sushi” consists of two separate kana: SU + SHI. Take a look at your hiragana chart and see if you can find the kana for both of these (su & shi). What are they? Just for the sake of letting things sink it, go ahead and copy the characters “su” and “shi” in order to write the word “sushi” out. All you have to do is copy them off the chart, we’ll be really learning them in a bit.

This image is taken from the hiragana chart we’re using, and I’ve circled the correct characters. Now, on the sheet they aren’t in the correct order, but when you write out す (su) and し (shi) together, you get すし (sushi). Writing in hiragana really is that simple. It’s amazing, right?

Now, unfortunately, there is a kanji for this word as well (寿司 = すし = sushi), but you don’t need to worry about that at all right now. We’re focusing on hiragana for the time being. Let’s take a look at another word, karate.

This word is often mispronounced as “karadee,” but if you use your knew found knowledge of hiragana pronunciation you’ll realize how karate is actually pronounced. Let’s write it out in kana.

Take the word “karate” and break it up into its individual kana parts (I’ll give you a hint, there’s three parts). Find those three kana on your hiragana chart and write the word out. Pronounce the three individual kana to find out the correct pronunciation of the word karate. Did you get it right?

When you write “karate” out in hiragana, it comes out to からて. This is the hiragana for KA + RA + TE. Totally different from “karadee” that most people end up saying everywhere else.

After taking a look at these, are you starting to understand how hiragana is used to write things in Japanese? Do you also understand how kana in hiragana are pronounced (consonant + vowel, etc)? Good, let’s move on to the actual process of learning to read and write hiragana.

3. Learning to Read & Write

Before you get started, you should make sure that you have a Smart.fm account. This is what we’re going to use to drill the individual kana to help you learn them. We’ll be using it quite a bit in this guide, so it’s best you get an account now so you’re ready.

First 10 Hiragana: あいうえ、おかきくけこ

1. Study your first ten hiragana using Smart.fm – あ、い、う、え、お、か、き、く、け、こ. You’ll have an option of studying these either 5 at a time or 10 at at time. I’d recommend choosing 5 for now, until you get better. Here’s a quick screencast going over how you should use Smart.fm to study your hiragana.

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7keQJIpJXZE']

Essentially, you want to…

1. Write the kana down every time you get it right (or wrong)
2. Use the pronunciation audio that’s available to you on Smart.fm
3. Only study 5 at a time
4. Let Smart.fm tell you when you’ve learned something (usually it’s pretty good at that)

2. Go to Drag n’ Drop Hiragana, and only drag the first ten hiragana (a-column and ka-column) into the right spaces. By only doing these ones, you’ll have to find the right hiragana amongst all the other hirgana (helping you differentiate them) and secondly force you to remember what they look like. Try this twice (refresh to restart) and see if you can do it faster the second time!

3. After you feel good about the first 10 kana on Smart.fm, it’s time to put some of that into practice. Complete this worksheet and try to cheat as little as possible.

[ilink style="download" url="http://www.textfugu.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hiragana-1-10.pdf"]First 10 Hiragana Practice[/ilink]

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Hiragana 11-20: さしすせそ、たちつてと

Of course, it’s important that you review the kana you just studied while you’re learning your new kana, so we’ll make sure to do that here.

1. Start by writing out the ten kana that you know and try to do it from memory (starting with あ and ending with こ). If you had to peek it’s not the end of the world. Write out the romaji next to / below / above them for reference.

2. Now write out the ten new kana (sa-column and ta-column) along with the romaji. These are the kana you’re about to study.

3. Go ahead and open the Smart.fm Master Hiragana list again. Since you finished the first 10 kana on there, you should be able to do the next ten now. Do them in groups of five, just like before until you’ve completed up until と (to). Remember to follow the steps from before where you write out the kana each time you get it right or wrong.

4. Visit RealKana and check the four columns of hiragana that you know already. Click on the katakana tab and uncheck anything that’s checked (you don’t want to learn katakana yet). Now, hit the practice tab and go through the practice a few times, until you feel good about reading the kana.

5. After you feel fairly decent about the first twenty kana (especially the new stuff) complete this worksheet to really solidify that knowledge.

[ilink style="download" url="http://www.textfugu.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hiragana-11-20.pdf"]First 20 Hiragana Practice[/ilink]

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Hiragana 21-30: なにぬねの、はひふへほ

You’re actually past the halfway point for the “main” hiragana now! Just keep going, you’re making good progress!

1. Write down your ten new hiragana on your piece of paper with the other hiragana, so you can have them for reference.

2. Log on to Smart.fm, and complete the next ten hiragana (na-column and ha-column). As always, be sure to write down the individual kana every time you get it right or wrong, so you can practice writing. If you need help with stroke order, you can always use the stroke order guide on the hiragana chart page.

3. After feeling okay about the next ten, complete this work sheet, which helps you practice reading and writing the individual kana.

[ilink style="download" url="http://www.textfugu.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hiragana-21-30.pdf"]First 30 Hiragana Practice[/ilink]

4. Visit RealKana and check the four columns of hiragana that you know already. Click on the katakana tab and uncheck anything that’s checked (you don’t want to learn katakana yet). Now, hit the practice tab and go through the practice a few times, until you feel good about reading this kana (you should be pretty good, actually!).

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Hiragana 31-46: まみむめも、やゆよ、らりるれろ、わを、ん

You’re almost there! In terms of the “main” hiragana, this is the last of it. After this, you’re just learning things you already kind of know (like dakuten and combo hiragana), which means you’re pretty much all the way there. Just a few loose ends to tie up after this.

1. Write down your new hiragana on your piece of paper, along with the romaji, for reference.

2. Log on to Smart.fm and finish out the hiragana until ん (n). There’s more than this on Smart.fm, but that’ll come soon enough. Make sure you’re writing down the hiragana you get both right and wrong. Once you’ve finished it up until ん, move on to the next step.

3. Go to RealKana, and this time only check columns な, は, ま, や, ら, & ん. You’re learning more this round, so I want you to focus it a little more on recent kana. Here’s an image to show you what to check (make sure you uncheck the katakana columns in the katakana tab too, if you need to).

Go through these a couple of times until you feel comfortable with them.

4. Complete this worksheet, which focuses on ま through ん columns.

[ilink style="download" url="http://www.textfugu.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/hiragana-ma-n.pdf"]Hiragana ま – ん[/ilink]

5. Head on back to Drag n’ Drop Hiragana. In theory, you should be able to complete the puzzle now (rather than just little bits of it). How fast can you get it done? Record your times and see if you can get done in under three minutes.

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Dakuten: がぎぐげご、ざじずぜぞ、だぢづでど、ばびぶべぼ、ぱぴぷぺぽ

In theory, these should be easier than what we’ve been doing so far. You already know the main characters (which dakuten use) and all you have to do is know what little symbol to put next to them (hint: usually it’s a quotation mark). That being said, I’m going to give you more things than normal to study in this section. You should be better at studying hiragana by now, and you should also know the symbols above (minus the dakuten part). I won’t say this section is easy, but it should be easier.

1. Start up Smart.fm and work through the dakuten hiragana. You should finish on ぽ (po). As always, keep writing these things out as you do them whether you get a card right or wrong.

2. Complete this worksheet. This worksheet’s goal is to help you remember what a column will change to when dakuten are added to it. Focus more on remembering that “S” goes to “Z” or “T” goes to “D” rather than focusing on individual kana.

[ilink style="download" url="http://www.textfugu.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/dakuten.pdf"]Dakuten Practice[/ilink]

3. On RealKana, let’s practice dakuten hiragana as well as the original kana from which the dakuten came. Check the か, さ, た, は, が, ざ, だ, ば, & ぱ columns. Here’s an image to illustrate:

Make sure you uncheck any katakana columns that might be checked as well. Go through the drills like this until you feel pretty comfortable telling them apart. Can you write them out on your own now? If I said things like…

What do “K-sounds” turn into?

Answer: “G-Sounds”

What do “H-sounds” turn into (two answers here)

Answer: “B & P Sounds”

What do “D-sounds” turn back into?

Answer: “T-Sounds”

What do “Z-sounds” turn back into?

Answer: “S-Sounds”

Could you answer all these questions? If not, be sure to drill RealKana a little bit more so you can learn the differences. Really, just learning these differences is the secret to learning dakuten, so if you can do that, you can do dakuten :)

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Combination Hiragana: きゃ、しゃ、ちゃ、にゃ、ひゃ、みゃ、りゃ、ぎゃ、じゃ、ぢゃ、びゃ、&　ぴゃ Columns

Sometimes, certain kana can be written smaller. When placed next to another kana, it can modify the way it sounds. Don’t worry, though, because the modifications actually make a lot of sense. For example:

き + small ゃ = きゃ (which sounds like kya). It’s almost like saying KIYA, but you drop the “i” sound. KYA!

There are other “combo-hiragana,” but these are the main ones, and the most important for you to know right now. Combo-kana will get a little crazier once we hit katakana, but for now it should be fairly straight forward, especially after you drill them for a bit.

1. Fire up your good buddy Smart.fm again. By now, you should be through the dakuten, and ready to study the combo-hiragana, starting with きゃ, きゅ, and きょ. Since you already know all the characters being used (you just have to remember that the y-column kana are “small”) feel free to study ten at a time. The goal is to get to the end of this list, actually and finish out everything that Smart.fm has to offer. Like I said, though, these should be one of the easiest sets (even though its the longest) for you, and drilling through it should be more about reviewing kana you already know.

2. Let’s practice writing them. Remember, the やゆよ for these are small ゃゅょ. If you don’t write them small, they are just regular sized, and pronounced normally. It’s the difference between:

きや (kiya)　vs　きゃ (kya)

Those are two different sounds and you can’t switch them out with each other. The difference is important! Use this worksheet to practice:

[ilink style="download" url="http://www.textfugu.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/combo-hiragana.pdf"]Combination Hiragana[/ilink]

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At this point, you should feel fairly good about almost all the hiragana. You don’t need to be perfect, nor do you need to be at 100%. That’s definitely not expected at this point. It’ll take a while before you read hiragana nice and fluidly, but luckily there’s going to be plenty of opportunity to practice as you continue to study Japanese (now in hiragana!). Well done!

Where To Go From Here?

Well, there’s plenty of things to do, but I’d round out your hiragana reading & writing career with some lessons on hiragana’s long vowels and the small tsu. That right there will make sure you know just about everything you need to know about hiragana, then all that’s left is more practice.

By learning hiragana, though, you’ve opened up a ton of new resources from which you can study Japanese. If you don’t know hiragana, you’re really limited in what you can do. If you do learn it (like you just did, in theory), there’s so much more available to you now, whether it’s various Japanese textbooks, blogs, websites, or whatever. Hiragana will open doors for you.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial, and I hope you found it useful as well. If you’re thinking of learning Japanese, this isn’t a bad place to start, and I think this guide lays everything out pretty simply and easily. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions!

P.S. If you wish this tutorial was 140 characters or less, you should follow Tofugu on Twitter.

P.P.S. If you want to read a more in depth guide to learning hiragana, you’ll want to check out the first six chapters of TextFugu (all are free).

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