| A similar system in use in Japan at about the same time, known as man'yogana, eventually evolved into hiragana, one of the syllabaries used to write modern Japanese. |
| Each kana, as these two systems are called, is a separate phonetic syllabary and each hiragana character has a corresponding katakana character. |
| If someone wants to send a message in kanji, he works first in hiragana or katakana. |
| A practical reason is that text full of minimally simple hiragana strokes looks like a carpet pattern, hard to read quickly. |
| In modern written Japanese, kanji, hiragana, and katakana are combined. |
| There is also two sets of Japanese syllabary: hiragana and katakana, that have only pronunciation and no particular meaning. |
