See Our NEW Japanese Language Store!
Browse thousands of top language learning books, DVDs, Videos, Flashcards and more.
Japanese (日本語 nihongo) is spoken in Japan, and essentially nowhere else. The language is distinct from Chinese and Korean, although the written form uses Chinese (kanji) characters, and is not known to be related to any other language.
Japanese generally employs a subject-object-verb order, using particles to mark the grammatical functions of the words: 私がハンバーガーを食べる watashi-ga hamburger-o taberu, "I-subject hamburger-object eat". It is common to omit subjects and even objects if these are clear from previous context.
Verbs and adjectives conjugate by tense and politeness level, but not by person or number. There is no verb "to be" as such, but the polite copula desu can be used in most cases: John desu ("I am John"), Ringo desu ("This is an apple"), Akai desu ("It is red"), etc. Note that the exact meaning will depend on the implied subject!
The good news is that Japanese has none of the following: gender, declensions or plurals. Nouns never conjugate and almost all verbs are regular.
Reading and writing Japanese are advanced skills which take years of work to gain much real proficiency. Japanese themselves use three different writing systems of various complexity, two of which (hiragana' and katakana) are syllabic and relatively easy to learn with 50 characters each, but the clincher is the set of over 2000 Chinese characters known as kanji. The set of hiragana characters is illustrated below.
Japanese is not a tonal language like Chinese or Thai, and is comparatively easy to pronounce.
Japanese has both short and long vowels and the distinction is often important. In romanized Japanese, long vowels are marked with a macron, so that ō represents "long O".
Hiragana characters (ひらがな)
a
i
u
e
o
あ
a
い
i
う
u
え
e
お
o
k
か
ka
き
ki
く
ku
け
ke
こ
ko
s
さ
sa
し
shi
す
su
せ
se
そ
so
t
た
ta
ち
chi
つ
tsu
て
te
と
to
n
な
na
に
ni
ぬ
nu
ね
ne
の
no
h
は
ha
ひ
hi
ふ
fu
へ
he
ほ
ho
m
ま
ma
み
mi
む
mu
め
me
も
mo
y
や
ya
ゆ
yu
よ
yo
r
ら
ra
り
ri
る
ru
れ
re
ろ
ro
w
わ
wa
を
(w)o
ん
n
g
が
ga
ぎ
gi
ぐ
gu
げ
ge
ご
go
z
ざ
za
じ
ji
ず
zu
ぜ
ze
ぞ
zo
d
だ
da
ぢ
ji
づ
zu
で
de
ど
do
b
ば
ba
び
bi
ぶ
bu
べ
be
ぼ
bo
p
ぱ
pa
ぴ
pi
ぷ
pu
ぺ
pe
ぽ
po
ky
きゃ
kya
きゅ
kyu
きょ
kyo
sh
しゃ
sha
しゅ
shu
しょ
sho
ch
ちゃ
cha
ちゅ
chu
ちょ
cho
hy
ひゃ
hya
ひゅ
hyu
ひょ
hyo
gy
ぎゃ
gya
ぎゅ
gyu
ぎょ
gyo
j
じゃ
ja
じゅ
ju
じょ
jo
by
びゃ
bya
びゅ
byu
びょ
byo
a あ/ア
like 'a' in "father"
i い/イ
like 'i' in "machine"
u う/ウ
like 'oo' in "hoop"
e え/エ
like 'e' in "set"
o お/オ
like 'o' in "rope"
n ん/ン
short 'n' at the end of a syllable, pronounced as 'm' before 'b', 'p' or 'm'.
Note that "u" is often weak at the end of syllables. In particular, the common endings -desu and -masu are pronounced as "des'" and "mas'" respectively.
k かきくけこ
like 'k' in "king"
g
like 'g' in "go"
s
like 's' in "sit"
z
like 'z' in "haze"
t
like 't' in "top"
d
like 'd' in "dog"
n
like 'n' in "nice"
h
like 'h' in "help"
p
like 'p' in "pig"
b
like 'b' in "bed"
m
like 'm' in "mother"
y
like 'y' in "yard"
r
like 'r' in "row" (actually a sound between 'l' and 'r', but closer to 'r')
w
like 'w' in "wall"
ch
(t before i) like 'ch' in "touch"
sh
(s before i) like 'sh' in "sheep"
ts
(t before u) like 'ts' in "hot soup"
f
(h before u) like 'f' in "far"
j
(d before i) like 'j' in "jar"
Japanese uses certain hiragana characters as particles which mark the grammatical function of a word or phrase in a sentence. Some hiragana are pronounced differently when used as a particle.
は (topic marker) is pronounced wa
へ (direction marker) is pronounced e
を (direct object marker) is pronounced o
Avoid placing too much emphasis on particular words or syllables. Japanese does have stress and intonation, but it is significantly flatter than English. Mastering word stress is a more advanced topic and neglecting it at this point should not interfere with meaning. Just trying to keep your intonation relatively flat will make your attempts to speak Japanese more comprehensible to local listeners. When asking questions, you can raise the tone at the end, as in English.
| 
