Hiragana and Katakana explained

Hiragana and Katakana (together known as “Kana”) are simple, 50 character (4 of which are obsolete so most sources list 46), syllable based writing systems that should be one of the first things that all persons studying Japanese should learn. Hiragana and Katakana might seem similar but there are many important differences that separate them. Hiragana is written in a more cursive manner while Katakana is more angular. Katakana is used to write foreign and loan words such as names of persons, places and products while hiragana is used to write particles, nouns, suffixes, adjectives grammatical verb endings etc. All sounds in the Japanese language are covered by the “mora” written out in Kana. Technically Japanese can be written entirely using Kana that is why Kana is the first writing system taught to Japanese children as well as foreigners wanting to learn Japanese. Please remember to install Japanese language support on your PC so that you may view the Kana characters.

Hiragana Examples
にほん – Japan
みどり – Green
さかな – Fish
しお – Salt
じしょ – Dictionary
Katakana Examples
ジャマイパネセ – Jamaipanese ^_^
アイスクリ-ム – icecream
アニメ – anime
ジャマイカ – Jamaica
コーヒー – coffee

I will be posting more and more katakana and hiragana example of words in the future. As you can see I have not posted any Romanized words or “romanji” as you should be studying or already know the Hiragana and Katakana charts I posted.