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At first glance, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters may be difficult to tell apart, but there are differences between each of them that can help you. All three are written with characters that are unfamiliar to Western readers, but you do not need to be intimidated by this unfamiliarity. These steps can help you be a lot more sure which of three you are looking at.

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2. Look for simple characters. Japanese writing has 3 main components: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are syllabic systems, while kanji are derived from Chinese characters. Many hiragana characters are curvy, but do not have the neat round shapes of Korean (e.g さっか). Katakana, on the other hand, uses mostly straight or slightly curved lines in relatively simple combinations (e.g. チェンジ ). Chinese and Korean do not use either of these systems. Note that Japanese writing uses a mixture of hiragana, katakana, and kanji in the same text, so if you see either hiragana or katakana or both, you are looking at Japanese. The links below show you full lists of hiragana and katakana characters.


Sample Japanese text with hiragana, katakana, and kanji

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