CocoKaiwa JP 
In Japanese, there are mainly three ways to write. ひらがな(Hiragana), カタカナ(Katakana), and 漢字(Kanji).
What is your question about them?
This article will answer “Why do you have three?” “When should I use which?”and “Which one should I learn first?”.
Let’s take a look at ひらがな(Hiragana) first.
もくじ Table of Contents
ひらがな
About
ひらがな is like alphabets in Japanese, but each letter has a syllable.
ひ is hi, ら is ra, が is ga, and な is na. ひらがな = hi-ra-ga-na
This is the most basically used letters in Japanese. Check out below.
Usage of ひらがな
ひらがな are the most basic letters to form Japanese.
It is mainly used for…
・読み仮名（yomigana）, the little hiragana on top of kanji you see at karaoke, the Internet or elsewhere, or ふりがな（furigana）, kanji transcribed to hiragana to make it readable.
・Postpositional particles like 「は」(“wa” Put after a subject),「が」(“ga” Put after a subject), 「の」(“no” of / ‘s), etc are always in ひらがな.
・Auxiliary verbs like 「です・ます」（“desu・masu” Put to make a sentence polite）,「た」(“ta” did),「ない」(“na-i” not), etc.
・ひらがな part of a verb/adjective/adverb are in ひらがな.
ex. あの山はアメリカ人のケニーさんが所有してい ます。
Literally, “That mountain, an American, Mr. Kenny owns.” All the orange letters are Hiragana.
あの means “that”. は is put after a subject before describing the details of it. の means “’s” or “of” like Kenny of America. さん is “Mr./Mrs./Ms.”
が is put after a subject like は but it is to show that it is the subject of the action/state which is about to be described. (In this case, Kenny is the owner of this mountain.) 所有する(shoyuu suru) means “to own” so the little ひらがな you see at the top is the 読み仮名(yomigana) making it readable. しています means “do/be” or “is doing/being” in a polite form because of ます.
Most of the parts in sentences are in Hirgana!
・Some people’s names. We are commonly named with Kanji but some people have ひらがな names for their own reasons.
・To make it look softer. Kanji looks formal or difficult and Katakana looks foreign or light-hearted.
So, as you could see, ひらがな is the most widely used in Japanese language as its “alphabets”!
カタカナ
About
カタカナ is almost the same but nowadays, it is used for foreign nouns including names. Let’s look at this example again.
あの山はアメリカ人のケニーさんが所有しています。
Now Katakana is in orange. アメリカ(America) and ケニー(Kenny) is how they are written. Tell me how your name is written in Katakana! If you don’t know how, tell me your name in the comment down below and I will tell you how it’s best written in Japanese!
By the way, this is how they are pronounced.
It is not quite far but not the same right? They tried their best to import the foreign words but everything has a limit. lol
This is why there is this song, “Tokyo Bon (Makudonarudo)”. If you are planning to visit Japan, I recommend watching this to be prepared for the Japanese-English environment!
Yeah I like “Blue Sky” too! You feel me, fellas. LOL
Usage of カタカナ
It is mainly used for…
・Foreign nouns. 「ドイツ」(Germany. From a German word “Deutsch”),「インド」(India. Originated in indu(moon in Sanskrit according to the model of Tripitaka)),「エッフェル塔」(Eiffel Tower. エッフェル(e‘feru) is from how it is pronounced in French),「エマ」(Emma),「コミュニケーション」(Communication), etc. We use foreign words(mostly English or German) in daily lives like these down below.
ストレス、リサイクル、ボランティア
These are actually the top 3 of most used Katakana words in Japanese according to MEXT.
・Onomatopoeia. We have a lot of onomatopoeia. Sometimes the imitative words that are verbs in English are naturally translated into onomatopoeia, such as ベタベタする (be-ta-be-ta-suru “be sticky”), ワクワクする (waku-waku-suru “be excited”), etc.
・Names of the animals in terms of biology. Sharks → サメ (sa-me), Monkey → サル (sa-ru), Cow → ウシ (cow/ox/…), and everything else. We have Kanji for those but when we see it as an animal biologically, we use カタカナ and when we see them as meat or we talk about them more culturally than biologically, that’s when we use Kanji.
・Words that are normally written in Hiragana or Kanji but written in カタカナ to outstand them because the word is not used in the normal way. So to say, special cases. ↓
1. Hard to read if it’s in Kanji. 2. The Kanji for the word doesn’t exist or unknown to the writer. 3. Special meanings 4. Emphasis or to make it sound lighter 5. Slangy usages
Lemme explain a little about 3. Special meanings. They are, for example, ヒロシマ and ナガサキ. Both of them are the names of prefectures and cities in them but we do have 漢字 for them (広島 for Hiroshima and 長崎 for Nagasaki) but only when we talk about the war and the A-bombs, we use カタカナ to express that different meaning.
About 4. Emphasis and remission, you can emphasize the word to limit the definition applying to the occasion or what you mean to say. Moreover, because Kanji is used for difficult terms and of its formal use, it can be used to make it more serious (or usual) while you can make it soft with Hiragana and light/less serious with カタカナ!
“Nice” in Japanese is 素敵(suteki) but it looks decent. Thus, not light. So if you want to say it light-hearted, you can write “ステキ.” Likewise, 尊敬 (son-keh “respect”) sounds more serious than リスペクト (risupekuto) like you really are looking up to that somebody or admiring but リスペクト can be like “I recognize you” or something like that too. I hear Japanese rappers say it a lot.
So it’s like writing it in italic or with “quotation mark!” They make it look unusual to mean unusually, something that is not the first definition/usage of a word.
漢字
About
漢字 (かんじ Kanji) is basically from China but there are some 漢字 that were made in Japan such as 働く(hataraku “work”) whose left particle イ means a “person(人)”and the right means “move(動),” and 峠 (toh-ge “ridge point” thus also “crisis”) whose left side means that it’s related to mountains(山), the top right is “up(上)” and the bottom right is “down(下).”
Usage of 漢字
漢字 is everything else than the ones above. For verbs, adjectives, nouns, etc. Anything unless you wanna write it in Hiragana or Katakana for the reasons I listed above. But again, because it is used for difficult terms and its formal use, it can be used to make it more serious/formal/fancy (or usual).
Do you know how to say “impossible” / “I can’t do iiit.” in Japanese naturally?
It’s むり(muri). I wrote with ひらがな but it is usually ムリ or 無理.
In the case of this word, I would say ムリ looks more light-hearted because this is what you would write if you were to take this down if you are saying this to your friends or somebody younger than you.
So, when you say 「あームリ、ムリ、ムリ。」it’s “Oh nooo. I can’t. I can’t.”
However, “無理” looks like meaning “impossible”/“unreasonable” or “I can’t.”（「無理です。」muri-desu）to whom you usually use formal forms. (By the way, this is too blunt. Even if it’s something impossible, you don’t talk to somebody you’re using polite forms(です・ます) this way.) I’m just saying that if you use むり to those people in a jokey conversations, you’re so mad or something like that, you would use です and 漢字 version of this word. This word is normally used with 漢字.
ローマ字 (Rōmaji)
About
As you might have thought, ローマ comes from Rome of Italy but in this case, it means Latin. Latin letters.(alphabets)
It has ā, ī, ū, ē, ō like some Pacific Islands languages but those little roofs are meant to show that the vowel should be prolonged.
No X, L, or Q. V is rarely used, only to express foreign words that have V sound in it.
About more about how to read, write, and type, check this out. ↓
https://jp.cocokaiwa.com/romaji/
Usage of ローマ字
It’s used on keyboards to type in Japanese or on the public road signs so that foreigners can get to the destination.
Which One Should I Learn First?
We have learned that there are 4 writing systems in Japanese but instead, there’s no capital or lower case, or a rule that we have to use Kanji to start a sentence or anything like that. I guess every language has a pain in the ass factor but that’s the fun, eh?
So, which one should come first to learn? I guess you know the answer to yourself already. It’s カタカナ(KATAKANA)!
You might want to start with Hiragana because it’s the most used and more likely to see it more (often) than Katakana but you can always learn it later. What is important in language acquisition, according to psychology of learning, is an adequate amount of constant successful experiences.
So, you can start little with those imported words and your name with Katakana. Our English is bad and it’s also because of カタカナ. But it means, conversely, it is perfect for foreigners to learn Japanese pronunciations!
Therefore, learn Hiragana, and then Kanji because there’s a long way to go. So, I suggest we start little and see how it goes first.
About using Rōmaji, I also suggest using it when it’s urgent but the new words are not being registered well. If we rely on it so much, we might get dependent on it and it will be harder to get out of that comfort zone. Like one of our toxic exes. Haha No…?
About how to write Rōmaji, check out this post!
https://jp.cocokaiwa.com/romaji/
OK, if you want to ask something, please feel free to write down in the comment section down below! ↓↓↓
Also, Tell me your names so that I can suggest your カタカナ names closest to the pronunciation!
バイバーイ！(Bye-byeee)
