How to Write Using Japanese Syllables
- 1). Use hiragana script to write words native to Japanese. Hiragana is a more curved script than katakana.
- 2). Look up the Japanese translations of English words in the Japanese-English dictionary and write them as hiragana by consulting the hiragana chart.
- 3). Use katakana to write words that are foreign to Japanese. Katakana are more angular than hiragana.
- 4). Reproduce the phonetic sounds of foreign words as closely as possible using the existing Japanese syllables. For example, the word "ice cream" in English would sound like "aisu-kuriimu." According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Japanese syllables end in either a vowel or the letter "n."
- 5). Write the line of script from top to bottom, moving from the right side of the page to the left if you want to emulate the traditional Japanese manner. Write from left to right, top to bottom to reproduce modern Japanese.
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