While Japanese has curvy shapes, it doesn’t have complete circles within the characters as Korean does. Korean has an alphabet, just like the English language. However, the written language combines 2 or 3 letters into a single character representing the syllable of a word. So you’ll also see strong vertical or horizontal lines separating the letters. [2] X Research source
Chinese characters are extremely detailed. Strokes don’t cross outside the square perimeter of any character, giving a line of script a consistent, uniform appearance. In contrast, Japanese has a more open and airy style of script. While Korean characters are orderly and regimented, they aren’t quite as dense or complex as Chinese characters, with a lot more open space.
For a quick shortcut, look for the character “の. " Neither Korean nor Chinese have a character that looks anything like “の. " It’s typically pretty easy to remember and spot. If you see this character in a passage of writing, it’s most likely Japanese writing, even if you notice a few Chinese characters. Japanese also uses Katakana. To spot Katakana, look for straight lines. One of the most recognizable Katakana symbols is シ and ツ, which look like smiley faces. If you see either of these, you are looking at Japanese text.
If Japanese is written vertically, the columns are read from top to bottom starting at the top right-hand corner of the page. However, if Japanese is written horizontally, it is read from left to right, just like European languages. [6] X Research source Look for line spacing to figure out if the script is written vertically or horizontally. Horizontal text will have space between the lines, while vertical script will have space between columns. Japanese comic books and magazines use vertical writing, so they’re read from right to left. This is why the spine of the book is on the right. [7] X Research source
Even if you can’t read the script, you should be able to identify characters blocked together into words. Think about how you would tell what were words if you were looking at written Greek or Russian.
Occasionally, you’ll see Chinese script with a question mark or an exclamation point. However, if you also see other punctuation marks, such as commas or periods, you’re likely looking at Korean script.
