Script guide › East Asian
How to recognize Japanese
Japanese is one of 3 languages in Grafle's East Asian group. Here's what it looks like, where you'll see it on signs, and how to tell it apart from its lookalikes.
Spot it fast
- Curvy, simple kana (の, し, す, は) woven between denser kanji — spot the simple curves.
- The character の alone almost guarantees Japanese.
What Japanese looks like
すべての人間は、生まれながらにして自由です。
こんにちは、お元気ですか？
桜の花が美しく咲いています。
East Asian scripts: Dense square characters (Chinese, Japanese kanji) or tidy syllable blocks built from circles and lines (Korean).
Where you'll see it on signs
- Japan
Easy to confuse with
- Chinese (Mandarin) — Pure dense characters = Chinese. Simple curvy kana (の, し, は) woven between characters = Japanese.
- Korean (Hangul) — Hangul: circles and straight strokes in neat syllable blocks — its circles are full-size letter parts. Japanese: dense kanji mixed with curvy kana like の and は; its only circles are tiny accent marks at a kana's top-right corner.