How to Write Japanese Sentences
- 1). Write sentences for newspapers and novels in "tategaki" style. The words that make up the sentence should be written in vertical columns that begin on the right side of the page.
- 2). Write sentences for academic texts requiring the use of formulas, foreign language textbooks and web pages horizontally, from left to right. Referred to as "yokogaki," this writing style is also used when typing on text on the computer.
- 3). Determine which writing style is appropriate for communications such as postcard and handwritten letters. Formal messages call for the vertical style, while casual messages can be written horizontally.
- 4). Understand that modern Japanese is written with a combination of three character types. "Kanji" refers to a group of symbols adopted from Chinese. Referred to as syllabaries, "hiragana" and "katakana" are the two other character types, denoting the sounds of syllables (see Resources).
- 5). Use "kanji" to write the parts of the sentence consisting of Japanese root words and basic language elements like nouns, verbs and adjectives. Choose "hiragana" characters when writing grammatical elements such as particles, conjunctions and the inflecting parts of verbs. Use "katakana" characters for writing sentence parts made up of foreign words borrowed by Japanese.
- 6). Make sure that the sentence structure consists of a subject, followed first by the object and then the verb. The predicate, which consists of a verb or verbal form, must be at the end of the sentence. Additional grammatical elements such as indirect object or adverb should precede the predicate.
- 7). Keep in mind that the Japanese do not use question or exclamation marks. Instead, particles placed at the end of a sentence express emotion (see Resources). For example, substitute a question mark with the particle "ka", which should be placed between the last word of the sentence and the period.
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