In modern Japanese, principally refer to kanji used phonetically to represent native or borrowed words without regard to the underlying meaning of the characters. This is similar to man'yogana in Old Japanese. Conversely ateji also refers to kanji used semantically without regard to the readings.

In modern Japanese, principally refer to kanji used phonetically to represent native or borrowed words without regard to the underlying meaning of the characters. This is similar to man'yogana in Old Japanese. Conversely ateji also refers to kanji used semantically without regard to the readings.