I’m vaguely aware there’s something like 3 alphabets kanji, hiragana, and katakana. I also read that katakana is used for foreign words, but for some words there is a way to use all 3 alphabets. I guess im more so wondering what would be the appropriate use for each, so F.E, mint. I found a kanji and katakana but also maybe hiragana way. 造幣局 ミント みんと
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Japanese had a spoken language first. They imported the written language from their neighbor, China. This is where Kanji come into play, and why Kanji can be hard to *properly pronounce*. In Chinese you combine characters to make new words, but you still pronounce the characters the same. Japanese had different oral language words than some Chinese words, so those combinations get read completely differently. The writing system is obviously not without faults.
So, Katakana was devised by monks and introduced as a supplemental writing system taking radicals from Chinese characters. It was only taught to men.
Japanese women *also* wanted to write, so they made Hiragana to fulfill the same need as Katakana, taught that to their kids, and Hiragana takes over since more people learned it, and now Katakana is basically used for loan words.
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