Page 8 - Japanese Character Writing for Dummies

» In many places throughout this book, Japanese terms appear in two forms: as Japanese
scripts (like what you would read if you were in Japan) and as romanized forms of words
(which appear in italics so you can easily find them in the text). The official term for roman-
ized Japanese is rōmaji (rohh-mah-jee). Although, in many cases, it is easy to figure out how
to pronounce rōmaji, when you are not sure of the pronunciation of a rōmaji sound, refer to
Table 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4.
» Following each Japanese term, its meaning or English equivalent is provided within a pair of
parentheses.
» Conventionally, in kanji dictionaries that are written for English speakers, the pronunciation
of Chinese origin is printed in uppercase letters, but the words of Japanese origin are writ-
ten in lowercase. We will follow that convention in this book.

Note: Grammar points are not covered in this book, but you can learn more about Japanese
grammar in Japanese For Dummies!

Foolish Assumptions

This is an exercise book for writing Japanese kanji. We created this book assuming the following:

» You know a little Japanese, but you never had time to study kanji characters.

» You do not know anything about Japanese, but its written form fascinates you.
» You have already done some Japanese writing, but you have forgotten it and want to prac-
tice more.

» You are interested in calligraphy.

Icons Used in This Book

The following icons will appear periodically in the book to highlight important points to help
you succeed in your mission of mastering kanji.

This icon will point out particularly important information to commit to memory.

Be on the lookout for this icon to get helpful pointers on how to form the characters with the
greatest ease and efficiency.

This icon flags some of the most common mistakes that people tend to make.

2 Japanese Character Writing For Dummies