mostly grammar and kanjis (I know this is a short explanation, but thats how it is)
Kanji and katakana help. Until you start learning those, you can separate after the particles (joshi).
Ifyouthinkaboutityoudontreallyneedspaces.
Did you struggle to read the above? (Hopefully not) because you know all the words. Once you start to learn a bunch of vocabulary, particles and verb forms (Basically just become familiar with the language) you won’t need spaces as your brain will just know when words start and end relative to the particles in the sentence.
Patieclrs and patretns. at smoe piont you wlil konw waht craerhcats can from a wrod and whcih can’t and which of tohse mkae ssnee gevin the ctoexnt.
Its all about reading practice. The most obvious thing is a comma, hiragana or katakana after words. But sometimes there are multiple kanji next to each other, or kanji mixed with katakana that still make up a real word.
So, in the end its just about practice and reading a lot.
Once you start learning hiragana, katakana and kanji you’ll learn how the words fall into place. Especially when wa, o, ni, and e are common particles. Also, usually hira and kata are not in the same word, and lots of verbs start with a kanji and end with a verb ending you’ll learn. Knowing sentence structure really helps. Hope your learning goes well!
Others have already made a very good point that you dont really need spaces to read sentences cause you already know all the words, this is 100% true.
Another “hint” though is that hiragana, katakana and kanji may help you distinguish where one word starts and where it ends cause theyll inevitably be alternating themselves. Kanji are generally* word starters, so are katakana. Hiragana on the other hand, can be anything and can be anywhere: at the start, in the middle or at the end of a word, also, all particles are hiragana.
Example from jisho:
>子猫がテーブルの下でミルクを飲んでいた。
>The kitten was drinking milk under the table.
In order:
>子猫 – kitten (all kanji)
>が – (hiragana, all particles are hiragana)
>テーブル – table (all katakana, usually theyre whole words, there are exceptions of course)
>の (hiragana particle)
>下 – under (kanji)
>で (hiragana particle)
>ミルク – milk (all katakana, its own word)
>を (yet another hiragana particle)
>飲んでいた – was drinking (kanji starter with a hiragana conjugation, just like most verbs)
Notice how it switches word for word from kanji to hiragana to katakana and so on? Thats the closest thing to spaces well ever get in japanese. I hope it makes sense though, good luck man!
Think kanji like spaces like everyone is saying “ouyncnaudnersntadthsi” might not be the best example but kanji is the “spaces”. You’ll get used to it with time
When I was studying Japanese in college, one of our teachers explained why the word wakaru (to understand) uses the kanji 分, which means to divide. She said when you don’t know a languge, it all just seems like a run on stream of sounds. Once you understand it, you know where to break the sounds up.
Long answer short, you’ll know where to divide things when you learn more.
10 comments
mostly grammar and kanjis (I know this is a short explanation, but thats how it is)
Kanji and katakana help. Until you start learning those, you can separate after the particles (joshi).
Ifyouthinkaboutityoudontreallyneedspaces.
Did you struggle to read the above? (Hopefully not) because you know all the words. Once you start to learn a bunch of vocabulary, particles and verb forms (Basically just become familiar with the language) you won’t need spaces as your brain will just know when words start and end relative to the particles in the sentence.
Patieclrs and patretns. at smoe piont you wlil konw waht craerhcats can from a wrod and whcih can’t and which of tohse mkae ssnee gevin the ctoexnt.
Its all about reading practice. The most obvious thing is a comma, hiragana or katakana after words. But sometimes there are multiple kanji next to each other, or kanji mixed with katakana that still make up a real word.
So, in the end its just about practice and reading a lot.
Once you start learning hiragana, katakana and kanji you’ll learn how the words fall into place. Especially when wa, o, ni, and e are common particles. Also, usually hira and kata are not in the same word, and lots of verbs start with a kanji and end with a verb ending you’ll learn. Knowing sentence structure really helps. Hope your learning goes well!
Others have already made a very good point that you dont really need spaces to read sentences cause you already know all the words, this is 100% true.
Another “hint” though is that hiragana, katakana and kanji may help you distinguish where one word starts and where it ends cause theyll inevitably be alternating themselves. Kanji are generally* word starters, so are katakana. Hiragana on the other hand, can be anything and can be anywhere: at the start, in the middle or at the end of a word, also, all particles are hiragana.
Example from jisho:
>子猫がテーブルの下でミルクを飲んでいた。
>The kitten was drinking milk under the table.
In order:
>子猫 – kitten (all kanji)
>が – (hiragana, all particles are hiragana)
>テーブル – table (all katakana, usually theyre whole words, there are exceptions of course)
>の (hiragana particle)
>下 – under (kanji)
>で (hiragana particle)
>ミルク – milk (all katakana, its own word)
>を (yet another hiragana particle)
>飲んでいた – was drinking (kanji starter with a hiragana conjugation, just like most verbs)
Notice how it switches word for word from kanji to hiragana to katakana and so on? Thats the closest thing to spaces well ever get in japanese. I hope it makes sense though, good luck man!
Think kanji like spaces like everyone is saying “ouyncnaudnersntadthsi” might not be the best example but kanji is the “spaces”. You’ll get used to it with time
When I was studying Japanese in college, one of our teachers explained why the word wakaru (to understand) uses the kanji 分, which means to divide. She said when you don’t know a languge, it all just seems like a run on stream of sounds. Once you understand it, you know where to break the sounds up.
Long answer short, you’ll know where to divide things when you learn more.
Doing word-particle sets really help! Check out the pdf guide on [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/fhiash/we_made_a_manga_in_really_easy_japanese_that_is/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) post, it explains it very well
( [link to directly download the pdf](https://crystalhuntersmanga.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/japanese-guide-1-3-v8-4.pdf))