The following content is extracted, refined, and consolidated from Japanese From Zero! - Introduction.

Japanese characters

WHAT ARE THESE STRANGE LETTERS? The Japanese language uses a set of symbols called hiragana (to spell Japanese words), katakana (to spell foreign words), and kanji (to represent entire words or names).

Japanese punctuation facts

HERE ARE SOME QUICK FACTS about Japanese writing to help you get started.

UPPERCASE/LOWERCASE
In English, we learn to write both A and a, but in Japanese, あ is always あ no matter where you find it in a sentence. There are no upper and lower cases in Japanese.
QUESTION MARKS
Written Japanese doesn’t (normally) use the question mark punctuation (?). Instead the hiragana か (ka) is placed at the end of a sentence to indicate a question.

Example

Nan desu ka. = What is it?
Both are questions, but in Japanese, using ka does the trick.

PERIODS (or “What’s that funny-looking circle?”)

Example

Kore wa hon desu. → converted to hiragana becomes → これは ほんです。

This punctuation mark 。 does exactly the same job as the period in English.

SPACES
Japanese normally doesn’t contain spaces. We have added spaces to make sentences easier to read for you.