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Finding A Reliable Japanese Language Course

When trying to learn Japanese, you should try to find a language program will train students in all fields of language study. These four skills are usually known as: speaking, reading, listening and writing. The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji, and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana and katakana. The Latin alphabet, romaji, is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer.

The best language learning courses should consider the integration of in-class learning with the extra-curricular life of students as an essential part of successful language learning. Among opportunities for students to experience such integration is a program that pairs interested students at the third year level and above with visiting Japanese researchers and their families for cultural and linguistic exchange. Most programs will offer five proficiency levels and appropriate courses for students to progress from beginner to advanced level.

The Japanese language requires additional endings which are not required and do not exist in Chinese. Therefore in modern Japanese, kana, particularly hiragana is used typically for inflectional, postpositional and other endings. Japanese is a language of consonants and vowels. There are only 7 letters that are not a consonant and then a vowel, for example, "ka," "wa," "ju." These are all consonant-vowel letters.

Chinese on the other hand has no separate written phonetic alphabet. The Japanese added to the kanji collection their own phonetic alphabet, called hiragana, around 700AD. Chinese words are only one or two syllables, and they can use a character for each syllable, but Japanese words frequently have many syllables, especially inflected words. So the Japanese developed symbols from the kanji , called kana, to indicate sound without meaning, the way the English alphabet does.

Kanji has a meaning in each and is equivalent to a word. They can combine and can make idioms indicating various meanings. Kanji is extremely difficult to read and although romaji is being used more widely, kanji is still the most common. Therefore, the only avenue left is to learn it.

Kanji, hiragana, and katakana frequently appear in the same sentence. Along with kanji and kana syllabaries, the Latin alphabet is sometimes utilized for such elements as names of organizations. Kanji, hiragana, and katakana are all used together to represent the spoken language.

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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