What is Furigana?
We already know that the Japanese language has several types of characters (hiragana, katakana, and kanji).
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Basically Furigana is an information, written in hiragana / katakana about the pronunciation of a word. There are thousand of kanji character in Japanese. And not all people are able to read them. They might know the word though. Not to mention that one kanji can be read with many different ways.
Based on the target audience, the publisher will add the appropriate furigana to the kanji so that readers do not mispronounce words. In most cases, furigana will be used for unusual kanji or names and will be listed in hiragana.
Sometimes, foreign words will also get a furigana, written with katakana to inform the reader about the pronunciation. Check out this example below.
Furigana is especially helpful when you start learning Japanese! It will make you able to look the word in the dictionary much easier (else, you will need to analyze the radical). Most of children book will have simple kanji and furigana. And that’s the kind of book you need to have at first.
By the time you’re able to read the 漢字 kanji, you need to get a book with much less furigana to practice your reading. Most of material (game/comics/book) for elementary level or higher will be good. The higher the level of material, the furigana will only used on very uncommon words.
And that is the kind of book you need to have first. You will need to practice reading books with furigana before you can read kanji.
Most materials (games/comics/books) at the beginner level and above are good. The higher the level of material, the more furigana will be used only for very rare words.
Thank you for reading! ありがとう。 Namu Shinnyo ■
