Japanese writing traditionally uses a combination of three different scripts, or moji.
Kanji
The Japanese adopted these Chinese-style characters around the fifth century A.D. Each kanji character conveys a particular meaning and, depending upon the context, can have various pronunciations. While the characters at first appear similar to Chinese, many have evolved in sound and style, and the meaning can actually be quite different in Japanese.
Hiragana
A flowing, cursive style originally used by women where each character represents a syllable. For example, Karate would be written with three characters: KA-RA-TE. On their own Hiragana characters do not represent any meaning,
just the sounds.
Katakana
Originally considered men's writing, Katakana script has more angular strokes. Like Hiragana, the characters represent only sounds and individually do not convey meaning. These days Katakana is mainly used to write foreign words and names.
