Here's why:
* Kana (hiragana and katakana): These syllabaries represent syllables, not individual sounds. Each kana character corresponds to a specific combination of consonant and vowel.
* Kanji (Chinese characters): Kanji are logographic, meaning each character represents a word or morpheme, not a sound. However, kanji also influence pronunciation, contributing to the overall syllable structure.
So, while Japanese uses logographic kanji for many words, it also relies on syllabic kana to represent sounds and grammatical particles. This makes it a partially syllabic writing system.