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Writing Japanese requires a mix of Kanji and Hiragana, usually some Katakana
as well. I have read that some Kanji characters can be replaced with Hiragana
characters for easier writing.  

My question is: can all Kanji characters be replaced? Can I write Japanese
only with Hiragana or only in Katakana and be fully understood?
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2012-06-05T20:35:32.010
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2020-07-07T14:44:32.980
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kanji hiragana katakana
Can Hiragana or Katakana stand alone?
Kanji can always be replaced with hiragana, for example

  * if the writer cannot recall the correct kanji, or
  * the intended reader is likely to have a limited knowledge of kanji (eg children), or
  * the kanji for the word is not in general use, or
  * pretty much any reason you want.

The use of katakana, however, is usually reserved for borrow words, emphasis
and so on.

So writing using only hiragana is both valid and understandable, with the
caveat that in many cases doing so will make your writing very awkward
reading, and can introduce ambiguity into your writing, for example in the
case of homophones (words that share the same pronunciation but generally
different kanji).

Compare the following two ways of writing the same well-known sentence:

> 庭には二羽鶏がいる  
>  にわにはにわにわとりがいる

I think all Japanese speakers would agree that the kanji version is much
easier reading and much clearer than the hiragana-only version.

Writing using only katakana will be more awkward to read because it is not
generally expected for Japanese words to be written in katakana, and for the
same reason would probably be considered invalid, except in certain
circumstances like to put emphases on pronunciation. If you did decide to
write this way for some reason, however, it would be just as understandable as
writing in only hiragana as the two characters sets have a one-to-one
relationship.
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2012-06-05T20:48:35.963
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2012-06-05T20:53:59.043
2012-06-05T20:53:59.043
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"The Tale of Genji", which is regarded as Japan's first novel, in all
hiragana. Wikipedia mentions that modern day Japanese have difficulty
understanding the book as sometimes there's two or more possible meanings for
what's written, though.
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2012-06-05T21:23:25.500
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2012-06-05T21:23:25.500
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Yes, all Kanji characters can be replaced by hiragana, by katakana, and by a
mixture of them. However, as other answers show, two sentences with Kanji may
map to the same single sequence of hiragana or of katanaka. Such a sequence is
understandable, but may be understood as multiple meanings.

For example, in old days (probably around early 20th century), Japanese
telegraphy messages were all written only with katakana, as far as I know from
movies. Even more, it seems to have been customary to omit the dots and
circles (゛,゜) and commas and periods (、,。) to save the number of characters. A
famous message is

> ハハキトクスクカエレ

which may be written with Kanji as

> 母危篤。すぐ帰れ。

which means "Your mother is dying. Come home in a hurry." I think people did
understand this kind of katakana-only messages. For more examples, please see
[電報
Wikipedia](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%9B%BB%E5%A0%B1#.E7.A4.BE.E4.BC.9A.E3.83.BB.E6.96.87.E5.8C.96.E3.81.B8.E3.81.AE.E5.BD.B1.E9.9F.BF).
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2016-07-23T02:40:21.690
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As a minor addendum to other answers, there is another problem with writing in
kana only: reading speed.

For someone who has knowledge of the relevant kanji, reading the kanji version
isn't just a way around homophones and ambiguity, it is actually faster.

The reading speed difference gets bigger as your reader's level goes up and
the more you stick to 'conventional' kanji assignments.

I am not a native speaker, nor anywhere near, but I notice my reading speed
drop significantly in 'all kana' situations, probably by a factor of 2-5. That
factor has continued to increase with my literacy level, so I imagine a native
speaker would suffer quite a serious slow down.

This is consistent with some research that suggests fluent readers dont really
read individual characters.. they recognize whole words or even phrases at a
time based on visual components that are distinctive combined with contextual
predictions. If you use an unconventional spelling, eg all kana or unusual
kanji, you change the visual form and the reader is less likely to 'shortcut'
recognition, perhaps causing a 'stumble' where they have to read more closely.
(Intentionally causing such stumbles is a valid technique, and may partially
explain why kana are sometimes used for emphasis)

Your readers will thank you if you make the effort to learn to write to the
conventions they are used to.
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2016-07-23T06:55:18.700
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2016-07-23T06:55:18.700
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It is actually possible to write anything in Japanese using only Hiragana and
Katakana which are the phonetic systems. Kanji are ideograms, so they do not
represent specific sounds but ideas. In Latin languages, kanjis would be like
the root meanings of the words.

Lets see for example the following 2 words in English:

  * God

  * Theology

If we decompose this words into their roots it would be:

  * "God" means "God"

  * "Theos" also means "God" in the original Greek, and "log" means "to speak", which in turn [developed into the English suffix -logy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/-logy#:%7E:text=%2Dlogy%20is%20a%20suffix%20in,%2D%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B3%CE%AF%CE%B1%20\(%2Dlogia\).&text=The%20suffix%20has%20the%20sense,%5Ba%20certain%20subject%5D%22.) that means "the study [of something in particular]". Therefore, "Theology" means "the study of God/Religion".

Well, with this example in mind, in Japanese they will use the same kanji to
say "God" and to say "Theo", because the kanji by itself represents the idea
of "God". Depending on the context, the sound will change to fit the natural
variations of spoken language.

That's why when learning Japanese, it is important to learn first the phonetic
systems (Hiragana and Katakana) and after that climb to kanjis which are way
more complex.
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2020-07-03T07:42:40.110
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