Communication between any two people in Japan is heavily influenced by aspects such as age, sex, relationship and relative status. The Japanese generally have an aversion to assertiveness and seek to avoid embarrassment to themselves and their interlocutor.

The Japanese language reflects the importance of interpersonal relationships in the society. Other languages, of course, have ways of expressing degrees of formality in a relationship or situation. But the Japanese have more ways, than most, and they take them very seriously.

The Japanese language reflects the importance of interpersonal relationships in the society. Other languages, of course, have ways of expressing degrees of formality in a relationship or situation. But the Japanese have more ways, than most, and they take them very seriously.

Alphabet: The Japanese writing system is complex. It uses three main scripts: Kanji (characters of Chinese origin), Hiragana and Katakana. Traditionally, Japanese is written and printed in columns from top to bottom and from right to left. Books start ‘at the back’. Modern Japanese is written or printed in the same order of words on the page as English.

Phonology: Japanese has 5, pure vowel sounds that may be short or long. The syllable structure is simple, generally with the vowel sound preceded by one of approximately 15 consonant sounds.

Grammar – Verb/Tense: Japanese tense and voice are conveyed through changes in the verb form, as in English. What is different is that Japanese has no auxiliary verbs, so, predictably, the formation of the progressive/perfect tenses and questions or negation in the simple tenses cause problems for learners.

Vocabulary: A large number of English words are used in Japanese. This may help some learners with their acquisition of English vocabulary.

The important differences between English and Japanese are the politeness requirements, sometimes called levels of language, or politeness level.

INTRODUCTION

General Features of Japanese 

1.Parts of Speech

The Japanese Language is comprised of verbs, adjectives, nouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and particles.

2.Word Order

A predicates always comes at the end of a sentence. A modifier always before the word and phases to be modified.

3.Predicate

There are three types of predicate in Japanese: noun, verbs, and adjectives. A predicate inflects according to whether it is affirmative or negative and non-past or past.

Adjectives are divides into two types according to their type of inflection. They are called い (i) adjectives and な(na) adjectives. In Japanese words do not inflect for person or number.

4.Particle

A particle is used to show the grammatical relation between words, show the speaker’s intention or to connect sentences.

5.Omission

Words or phrases are often omitted if they are understood from the context. Even the subject and object of a sentence are often omitted.

Japanese Script

                There are kinds of letters in Japanese: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji  (Chinese character). Hiragana and Katakana are phonetic representation of sound, and each letter basically corresponds to one or more (a unit of sound) kanji convey meaning as well as sounds.

In Japanese script, all three types of letters are used together. Katakana is used to write foreign names and borrowed words from foreign languages.  1945 kanji letters are fixed as essential for daily used. Hiragana is used to write particle, the inflectable parts of words, etc. Other than these three types of letters, Romaji (Roman letters) are sometimes used for the convenience of foreigners. You may see romaji at stations and on signboard.

Below are examples of four types of script.

山田　さん　は　ABC　スーパー　へ　行　きます。

Pronunciation of Japanese

Japanese has 5 vowels and approximately 15 consonants, all of which make up 104 syllables. Each combination stands for each syllable. These syllables that are represented by Hiragana or Katakana syllables.

ひらがな　カタカナ　漢字

Ex:          I am going to Amerika                    私はアメリカへ行きます

Kanji                      私 watashi,  行 i

Hiragana              は wa         へ e                きます kimasu

Katakana             アメリカ Amerika

HIRAGANA AND KATAKANA

Hiragana

Hiragana is the basic Japanese phonetic script. It represents every sound in the Japanese Language. Therefore, you can theoretically write everything in Hiragana in Hiragana. In Japanese, writing the strokes in correct order and direction is important, especially in Kanji. It also stresses the importance of correctly learning how to pronounce each sound.

Katakana

Katakana is mainly used to write foreign names and borrowed words from foreign languages. It can also be used to emphasize certain words similar to Italic function.