Japanese Characters

Long time ago,Japan didn't have any characters.

The oldest literature says mythology was handed down from mouth to mouth.

About 5th century,people from China taught us Kanji.

But Japanese and Chinese are different languages,so we made Katakana and Hiragana.

Katakana were made by priests and scholars to read sacred books.

Katakana were made from a part of Kanji.

The other side,Hiragana were made by ordinary people but they must be high grade,to use for daily life.

Hiragana were made from running style of kanji.

Japanese people didn't throw kanji away.

We chose beauty and feeling of sight rather than complication,

so nowadays we have 4 kinds of characters (Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, Romaji) .

At Japanese elementary school, we learn hiragana first.

After that we learn kanji and katakana.

Hiragana and katakana don't have meaning, they only show sounds.
They are phonetic symbols. So is it easy for you to read?

Only kanji have their meanings.

I think when Western people learn Japanese,it is better to learn kanji with hiragana than hiragana only.

Hiragana 2/20