Language Article | An Introduction To The Japanese LanguageMore Than Articles

An Introduction To The Japanese Language

The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of glyphs: Chinese characters, kanji, and two syllabic scripts, hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet, romaji, is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when inputting Japanese into a computer. The Japanese language is thought to be related to the Polynesian and Altaic language families. What this all boils down to is that the "Japanese" are in fact quite a mixed group. Their language is multi-notational or, if I may say so, multi-lingual (e.g., Buddhist, Chinese, Japanese poem, military chronicles), which puts it at a different dimension to the English language, which has been integrated into one notation.

The Japanese language is also agglutinative; which means it forms words by putting together basic elements, called morphemes. Morphemes retain their original forms and meanings with little change during the combination process. This particular language is one of syllables. Inherent in the spoken language is the degree of politeness used to address others of different social status.

It is spoken all over the mainland of Japan, in some parts of Korea, Taiwan and China. The language of Japan is very similar to the other oriental languages like Chinese and many words are even borrowed from the Chinese dictionary.

The Japanese language is what's known as an amalgam of original Japanese, ancient Chinese, and Western words pronounced in a Japanese manner. It is no wonder that Japanese is a very difficult language to learn. It is a language of words and characters. It is spoken very much as it is written with each word standing alone with its own meaning. The Japanese language is the sixth most spoken language in the world. It is a unique language since no definitive link with any other language can be established with Japanese.

The Japanese language is indispensable for foreigners living in Japan. Many language schools offer Japanese classes to foreign nationals living in the Prefecture as well as in the Hokuriku area who wish to improve their Japanese language abilities.

The language is relatively easy to learn, as well as its grammar rules, which are quite straightforward. Learning to speak the language is not very difficult and you can get the hang of it quite quickly and easily. Although some believe the Japanese language is indeed challenging, it is truly worthwhile to learn. More and more people are taking an interest in Japanese culture, such as anime, Japanese pop music, Japanese dramas, manga, kanji tattoos and so on.

The most popular Japanese language learning programs treat their courses as cumulative, so that later lessons will expect you to understand previously introduced material. It's difficult to remember everything at once, so it is very important that you continually go back and review past lessons and past vocabulary lists.

About the Author

Julie Landry is a fluent Japanese speaker that has written a popular Rocket Japanese Review on her site. Learn to Speak Japanese is a site dedicated to helping people learn Japanese. You can learn more about Rocket Japanese there.

Author Profile: JohnWL23

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