Japanese Pronunciation

The Japanese language has only 5 vowels: a, i, u, e, o. They are terse vowels, pronounced clearly and sharply. If one pronounces the vowels in the following sentence one will have their approximate sounds. Please note: the "u" is pronounced with no forward movement of the lips. Ah (a), we (i) soon (u) get (e) old (o).

How to write Hiragana : a Example: (asa) --- morning

How to write Hiragana : i Example: (inu) --- dog

How to write Hiragana : u () Example: (umi) --- sea

How to write Hiragana : e

Example: (eki) --- station

How to write Hiragana : o

Example: (okane) --- money

Characteristics of Japanese Grammar

Here are some characteristics of Japanese grammar. 1. Japanese nouns have no gender (languages such as French or Spanish do) or number (there is no singular or plural). Senshuu watashi wa hon o san-satsu yonda. --- I read three books last week.

Tsukue no ue ni hon ga arimasu. --- There is a book on the table. Watashi wa inu o ni-hiki katte imasu. --- I have two dogs. Tonari no inu wa yoku hoeru. --- The neighbor's dog often barks. 2.Verb conjugation is not affected by the gender or number. Watashi wa nihon-jin desu. --- I am Japanese. Kanojo wa amerika-jin desu. --- She is American. Kare wa asu nihon ni ikimasu. --- He goes to Japan tomorrow. Karera wa asu nihon ni ikimasu. --- They go to Japan tomorrow. 3.Japanese verbs have only two tenses: the present and the past. Watashi wa maiasa shichi-ji ni okimasu. --- I get up at seven every morning. Otouto wa hachi-ji ni okimashita. --- My brother got up at eight.

Japanese Writing Systems

The Japanese writing system is totally different from English, because it does not use an alphabet. It may be the most difficult part of Japanese to learn, but I think it is also fun and interesting. There are three different types of writing scripts in Japanese. 1.Kanji 2.Hiragana 3.Katakana One writes Japanese using a combination of all three. Roughly speaking, kanji represents blocks of meaning (nouns, stems of adjectives and verbs) and hiragana expresses the grammatical relationship between them (endings of adjectives and verbs, particles). Katakana is used for foreign names, the names of foreign places and words of foreign origin. My article, "Katakana in the Matrix" shows you how kanji, hiragana and katakana are used in a sentence. If you want to learn Japanese writing, start with hiragana and katakana, then kanji. Hiragana and katakana are simpler than kanji, and have only 46 characters each. It is possible to write an entire Japanese sentence in hiragana. For example, many children's books are written in hiragana only. Japanese children start to read and write in hiragana before making an attempt to learn some of the two thousand kanji commonly used.

Japanese Education System Vocabulary

Here are some words to practice related to the Japanese education system.

(gakkou) (youchien) (shougakkou) (chuugakkou) (koukou) (daigaku) (gakusei)

school kindergarten elementary school junior high school high school university student