(In Japan)What is the most popular type of Japanese?

[Cayla]

Hi. I noticed that in Japan, people either speak Haragana, Katakana, Kanji, or
Japanese. What do most people prefer to speak? All I really know is that
either Haragana, kanji, or Katakana is a mixture of chinese and japanese. (I think its Kanji.)

[JohnBraden]

They are not languages they speak. They are writing methods and they use all three at the same time. Hiragana is a phonetic "alphabet" for Japanese words. Katakana is a phonetic "alphabet" for non-Japanese words. Kanji is the Chinese-based writing method where a character stands for a word. In a sentence, you can run into all three writing methods all mixed in.

Japanese people speak Japanese....

[Cayla]

Originally Posted by JohnBraden

They are not languages they speak. They are writing methods and they use all three at the same time. Hiragana is a phonetic "alphabet" for Japanese words. Katakana is a phonetic "alphabet" for non-Japanese words. Kanji is the Chinese-based writing method where a character stands for a word. In a sentence, you can run into all three writing methods all mixed in.

Japanese people speak Japanese....

Oh, ok. I think I got confused. Thanks.