Kana are basically the print and cursive alphabet of Japanese, a phonetic syllabary system. The other two are hiragana and katakana, collectively called kana. Kanji are Japanese characters, and one of three writing systems in Japanese. You need to know kana before learning kanji. And by the time we’re done, you’re going to be on your way to reading and writing in Japanese like a pro.Ī note before we begin: If you haven’t learned the kana yet, click here and read this article first. I’ve got all this and more covered below.
Japanese kanji translator how to#
You’ve learned how to read and write the Japanese alphabet, called kana.
Japanese kanji translator Offline#
Kanji to see the various ways it can be written.įeel free to print and/or save these Kanji pages for personal, offline use.Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Handwriting written in a language that you don't understand. Reading mei is like trying to read someone's sloppy Sometimes confused and find it difficult. To learn how to translate date inscriptions, go to theĭon't be disheartened or too frustrated if you can't translate the signature easily. If both sides of the nakago are inscribed, the reverse side is normally a date inscription stating See the gendai swordsmith page for more details. Many WW II era swords were machine made or only "partially" forged but may still bearĪ mei. Smith's given name and may be followed by saku (made this).Īlso, please be aware that for WW II era swords, a signature is no guarantee that the blade is hand forged.
The last characters in a long mei will normally be the Next may be the smith's family or clan name such as Taira, Fujiwara, Tachibana or Minamoto. That may be followed by an honorary title such as kami or daijo. the second character is commonly shu, followed by the character ju or kuni meaning "resident of". There may be the place of residence (province) - usually two characters ( In longer signatures (reading from the top down), If there are three characters, the third will usually be saku, The signatures on Japanese swords vary in style and complexity. It is hoped that the following tables may aid in translating the signatures of swordsmiths. Reading the mei (signatures) of Japanese swords is a very difficult task even for experts. It is hoped that this will not cause excessive confusion. These pages ignore accent and diacritical marks thus tou is found as to, etc. Normally there are several possible Kanji for a single Romanji (English) syllable and vice versa, there are normally several ways a given Romanji (English) syllable can be rendered in Kanji.
These pages contain only a few hundred of the more common Kanji found on sword tangs. There are literally thousands of Kanji characters which were used by swordsmiths toĬarve their signatures (mei) on the tangs (nakago) of the swords they made.
TRANSLATING JAPANESE SWORD TANGS - Kanji A to G
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