Is kanji and furigana the same thing? if not could you tell me the difference?

Question

Is kanji and furigana the same thing? if not could you tell me the difference?

Answer 1

Kanji are characters borrowed from China.

Furigana are little bitty hiragana placed above the kanji so you know how to pronounce the kanji.

Here is an image of the kanji with furigana.

The big "letters" are kanji (except the black one) and the little bitty ones on top are furigana.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co...

Answer 2

The first answer hit it on the head.

Answer 3

No, Kanji and (HIRA)gana are not the same thing.

Kanji are derived from chinese characters, it conveys a meaning, but it isn't an alphabet. It takes years to learn to read Kanji fluently.

Hiragana is just like an alphabet system but is made up of syllables and not just single letters.

Furigana is just little hiragana by Kanji to help those not good at kanji read it better.