So it’s a way to pronounce a word like for example u would pronounce さん or 三 as “San” but is there a time where’d u use phonetics in writing that’s not just for helping pronounce the word; like from what i have under stood u use 3 for casual – kanji for formal – hiragana to spell it out, so is there any time where’d u have to use phonetics instead of any of those or just in general? Or is it just for understanding purposes?
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This is so strangely phrased that I can’t understand the question you’re asking. What do you mean by “phonetics”? Kanji usage doesn’t necessarily indicate formality, either. How long have you been studying Japanese?
The only time English phonetics is used to explain how to pronounce Japanese is when teaching English speakers who might actually understand phonetics.
To explain more: phonetics exists because of sentences like: Reed was told to read the red book, but he’d already read it.
Japanese doesn’t have that problem.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean, but let me try. Kanji can be written in kana (usually katakana, but also hiragana) **for emphasis**.
> 絶対行かない！
> Zettai ikanai!
> I’m absolutely not going!
The above could be written:
> ゼッタイ行かない！
This is *roughly* the equivalent of using bold in English.
> I’m **absolutely** not going!
You are stressing the fact that you are **absolutely** not going. This can indicate that the intonation changes to stress the word in bold.
In English, you would probably pronounce distinct syllables with greater stress. In Japanese, you would either lengthen the ‘e’ (zeeettai!), or stress the double ‘t’ (zetttai!).
Please let me know if this helped. 🙂
I know there’s a few words in Japanese that have outdated Kanji. Like people write ある instead of 有る, or ありがとう instead of 有り難う. I’ve also seen the word for cell phone (携帯、けいたい) written as ケイタイ. The rule of thumb I’d go with is to just stick with the first one you learn. Also, if you’re writing for children who may not know a certain kanji, it’d be well advised to avoid Kanji or use furigana with it so they can sound it out.