1. Japanese Writing System 日本の文字
ひらがな
カタカナ 漢字

2. History
Until Japan came in contact with China, it had no writing system of its own. Japanese was a spoken language only. The Japanese adopted the Chinese writing system to express their spoken language in writing.
Kanji = 漢字　＝Chinese (Han Dynasty) characters

3. Hiragana & Katakana Both hiragana and katakana derived from Kanji.
Kanji=based on meaning
Hiragana/katakana=based on sound
加ーーー＞かーーー＞カ

4. What do you think they mean?山　
mountain 川
river 魚
fish 女
woman

5. What do you think they mean?雨
rain 馬
horse 手
Hand 目
eyes

6. What do you think they mean? (combination)
男 (田 rice field, 力 power)
men
明　(日 sun, 月 moon)
bright
休　(人 person, 木 tree)
rest
好　(女 women, 子 child)
like, likable

7. What do you think they mean?田
rice field 木
tree 林
small forest 森
big forest

8. Hiragana ひらがな Invented by women who were denied higher education
Hiragana developed from man’yogana, Chinese characters used for their pronunciations, a practice which started in the 5th century.

9. Katakana カタカナ
Katakana was developed in the early Heian Period from parts of man'yogana as a form of shorthand.
The word katakana means "fragmentary kana," as they are derived from components of more complex kanji

10. Katakana

11. How many are there? Kanji: 50,000 but you only need to learn 2,000
Hiragana: 46
Katakana: 46

12. Modern Japanese texts Combination of three
Kanji: nouns, verbs, adjectives
Hiragana: parts which do not convey the major message in the sentence
Katakana: words of foreign origin, names of foreigners, sounds

13. 学校＝kanji で＝hiragana ピザ＝katakana
学校でピザを食べた。
学校＝kanji
で＝hiragana
ピザ＝katakana