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Characteristics of The Japanese Language

The document provides information about characteristics of the Japanese language. It states that Japanese is relatively easy to pronounce, with only five vowels, and that nouns and verbs are not affected by gender or number. It also notes that Japanese only has two tenses: present and past. Additionally, it provides tables of Hiragana and Katakana characters with their pronunciations.

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June Costales
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824 views5 pages

Characteristics of The Japanese Language

The document provides information about characteristics of the Japanese language. It states that Japanese is relatively easy to pronounce, with only five vowels, and that nouns and verbs are not affected by gender or number. It also notes that Japanese only has two tenses: present and past. Additionally, it provides tables of Hiragana and Katakana characters with their pronunciations.

Uploaded by

June Costales
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Characteristics of the Japanese Language

Do you still think Japanese is a difficult language to learn? I would say "No!". Of course, it is a
little hard to master all Japanese writing, but for speaking it is not as hard as you think. Here are
some facts.
1. Japanese is easy to pronounce. It has only five vowels.
2. Japanese nouns do not have gender, and rarely, number aspects. With most Japanese
nouns, number is not an issue. The same word is used for one or more than one. For
example, "hon" can mean "a book" or "books" and "kuruma" means "a car" or "cars."
3. Verb conjugation is not affected by the gender or number. The same verb is used no
matter what the subject is.
o (Watashi wa bideo o yoku mimasu.) --- I watch
videos often.
o (Kare wa terebi o yoku mimasu.) --- He watches TV
often.
4. Japanese verbs have only two tenses; the present tense and the past tense. The present
tense refers to habitual action or the future. The past tense is used for actions completed
in the past. It is also equivalent to the English present perfect or past perfect."
The differences between English and Japanese
Introduction: Japanese seems to exist in a language family of its own, although
some linguists believe it may be related to Korean and Turkish. It is spoken as a
mother-tongue by the 130 million people in Japan and by expatriates across the
world.
There are very significant differences between Japanese and English, particularly in
sentence structure, which make it hard for most Japanese ESL students to acquire
English at the same rate as, for example, their German or Swedish peers.
Alphabet: The Japanese writing system is complex. It uses three main scripts: Kanji
(characters of Chinese origin), Hiragana (a syllabary*) and Katakana (a syllabary).
Modern Japanese also uses the Latin script in advertising, or for company names
and neologisms such as DVD.
Grammar - Other: Japanese has a Subject-Object-Verb word order; 'prepositions'
follow the noun and subordinating conjunctions follow their clause; other particles
(for example, to express interrogation) follow the sentence. All adjectival phrases,
no matter how long, precede the noun they modify. In all these aspects Japanese is

different from English. Mistakes in the production of correct English syntax are not
surprising.
A syllabary is a set of symbols that represent syllables. In the case of Japanese (the
syllable is usually consonant sound followed by a vowel sound). Hiragana is used
mainly for inflections and katakana is used to transcribe foreign words. Kanji, the
Chinese logographs, represent the word roots. Hiragana is used by children as they
learn kanji. They have to learn in total about 2000 kanji characters before leaving
school.

Hiragana Tables
Audio of each character is provided on the Hiragana First Step.
SeiOn (Basic characters)

ka

sa

ta

na

ha

ma

ya

ra

wa

ki

shi

chi

ni

hi

mi

ri

ku

su

tsu

nu

fu

mu

yu

ru

ke

se

te

ne

he

me

re

DakuOn (Combination 1 - voiced consonant)

ko

so

to

no

ho

mo

yo

ro

o (wo)
-

ga

gi

gu

ge

go

za

da

ji (zi)

ji (di)

zu

zu (du)

ze

de

zo

do

ba

bi

bu

be

bo

YoOn (Combination 2 - contracted sound)

kya

sha

cha

nya

hya

mya

rya

kyu

shu

chu

nyu

hyu

myu

ryu

kyo

sho

cho

nyo

hyo

myo

ryo

bya

pya

byu

pyu

byo

pyo

gya

ja

gyu

ju

gyo

jo

Katakana Tables
Audio of each character is provided on the Katakana First Step.
SeiOn (Basic characters)

DakuOn (Combination 1 - voiced consonant)

ga

gi

gu

ge

go

ka

ke

ki

ku

ko

sa

se

shi su


ta

so

chi tsu te

to

na

ne

no

za

ji (zi)

zu

ze

zo

ha

he

da

ji (di)

zu (du)

de

do

ma mi mu me mo

ba

bi

bu

be

bo

ya

yo

pa

pi

pu

pe

po

ra

re

ni
hi

nu
fu

ri

yu
ru

ho

ro

wa -

o (wo)

YoOn (Combination 2 - contracted sound)

kya

kyu

kyo

sha

shu

sho

cha

chu

cho

gya

gyu

gyo

nya

nyu

nyo

ja

ju

jo

hya

hyu

hyo

mya

myu

myo

rya

ryu

ryo

Katakana New Method


Since an increasing number of foreign words, some new methods have been used in order to
make the sound as close as possible to the original sound of foreign words.

fa

fi

fe

fo

fyu

wi
we

wo

va

vi

ve
vo

ti type T E X I press F7
che di type D E X I press F7
du type D E X Y U press F7

tsi
she tu type T O X U press F7

tse
je You can input the small vowels, , and small

by typing X before a vowel or YA YU YO.


tso
tsa

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