Chinese characters were imported from the Chinese continent by way of the Korean peninsula, and people started to use Chinese prose and Manyo-gana (a form of syllabary used in the Manyo-shu or Collection of Myriad Leaves), which fitted Chinese characters to their own spoken language.
中国大陸から朝鮮半島を経由して漢字が輸入され、漢文と、自分たちの話し言葉に漢字を当てはめた万葉仮名が使われるようになった。