What is hiragana and katakana?
The Japanese reading and writing system is a mixture of three “alphabets”—hiragana, katakana, and iconic kanji characters adopted from Chinese. Hiragana and katakana are “syllabaries”—meaning each character represents a sound or syllable—the building blocks of words. For example, the word ‘kimono’ in Japanese has three syllables: ki-mo-no, and each syllable corresponds to a character on the hiragana chart.
The cursive-style hiragana characters are primarily used for native Japanese vocabulary and grammatical elements, and the more boxy, modern-looking katakana characters are primarily used for loanwords, onomatopoeia, and scientific names, and so on. All three writing systems are integral for learning Japanese, and it’s recommended that beginner learner of Japanese start by memorising the hiragana and katakana charts.
Hanging these prints in a convenient area of your home or office will be a great way to keep motivated and prepare you to move on to the next steps of your Japanese journey!
What is a riso print?
These prints use risograph technology, a method of printing developed in Japan in the mid-1980s. It can be described as a mix between screenprinting and photocopying. The risograph process produces prints with extremely vibrant, crisp inks, and sometimes these inks overlap during the printing process to create interesting and unique details.
