Japanese Kanji: People

This is a basic introduction to writing Japanese Kanji. This video focuses on kanji to describe people:
人 - hito - Person
男 - otoko - Man
女 - onna - Woman
親 - oya - Parent
子 - ko - Child
父 - chichi - Father
母 - haha - Mother
友 - tomo - friend



This video was produced by Stan Fairbank ( http://www.stanfairbank.com/ ) for the Learn Japanese Podcast ( http://Japanese.libsyn.com )

http://www.stanfairbank.com/

Category:

Education

Tags:

• japanese
• japan
• kanji
• japanese kanji
• chinese kanji
• people
• learn Japanese
• Japanese podcast
• write Japanese

[missdinamit]

chichi also means tits XD

[franziiii]

If one can write all these words in hiragana why is it necessary to write them in Kanji too? When do you use hiragana and when do you use Kanji?

[CrissySnow]

@shiroi201 yes usually it looks like this

〈笑〉　You say something funny and end it with that

例えば＞＞＞油虫大嫌いよ〈笑）　Its how they end with lol something like that



[shiroi201]

@CrissySnow so shime is the "hahaha" of japan? XDDD sounds weird XD

[HemlocksChannel]

@franziiii The reason why we use kanji is because there are no spaces in Japanese and just writing in hiragana would be confusing.Also,hiragana is used to write words that have kanji that are extremely difficult or are seldom used.Hiragana is also used to write particles.

[jcindass89]

@missdinamit indeed it does!

written in katakana though. there is no TI in katakana, so instead they use chi.

[xSRGDarknessx]

This doesn't say everything that you need to know for those words.

When you're talking to/about your mom you would use 'Okaa-san' お母さん. And with your dad, you would use 'Otou-san' お父さん. You only use 'Chichi/Haha' when you're refering to someone elses mom/dad.

I'll give an example from Lucky Star.

'Izumi chichi' It says, 'Papa Izumi'. The speaker was talking about a friend's dad. If she was talking about her own dad she would have said 'Otou-san' (Dad), or 'Watashi no otou-san' (My dad).

[CrissySnow]

@shiroi201 shime 

[chomray1]

@franziiii because kanji are the phonetics that the japanese use, similarly in the English language we use "sh" and "ch". the japanese use kanji, to shorten their sentences, and make them more efficient to read. i hope this helped :)

[shiroi201]

if haha is mother how do japanese write laughter? XDDDDD for example when they chat? XD

[franziiii]

@seg162

Thank you. And I thought I was asking a "stupid" question. Since I asked this question, I researched very much into this and now I can tell the difference between Kana and Kanji.

[seg162]

@franziiii You might have received an explanation already, but this is just in case.

Being a beginning self-teacher of Japanese, I've asked myself the same question. Yes, they can be fully pronounced in Japanese, so hiragana can be used. Hiragana actually IS used for the younger ones who have yet to learn kanji. Children's books barely have any kanji. However, kanji contracts what could take several hiragana symbols into one symbol, for easier reading. Yeah, it's a pain in the ass, but it works