The U.S Department of State rates Japanese as a Category IV (scale of I to IV) language of difficulty for English natives to study, recommending that a student needs 2,200+ hours of study to become proficient. If one were to study at least 1 hour per day, that is approximately 6 years of study.
The vast differences in grammar, pronunciation, and writing are reasons for why it takes so much time. Another factor for why it is so difficult is because English and Japanese are not in the same language family.
■What Language Family is Japanese in? 日本語って何語族に分類されるの?
English is an Indo-European language family, the family which comprises most languages in Europe, the Middle East, and India. When a speaker of English tries learning any of these other Indo-European languages, they will generally spend far less time to become fluent than with Japanese.
Japanese is in its own language family called "Japonic," which is comprised of Japanese and other minority languages spoken in the Japanese archipelago. In principle, any native speaker of these other languages will find Japanese or another Japonic language to be far easier to learn than English. In fact, all speakers of these minority Japonic languages happen to be fluent in Japanese. These languages are not thought to be related to other languages in the region, but they have been heavily influenced by Chinese in vocabulary.
For English speakers, there is no shared culture to make learning any easier as is the case for Chinese and Korean learners. Even with the saving grace of there being loanwords from English, these words only account for about 10% of the most commonly used words.
■The Diversity of Dialects 方言の多様性
There are dozens of dialects in Japanese due to centuries of isolation, but the form that almost all speakers share is known as Standard Japanese (Hyōjungo 標準語). This is the language of instruction and it is mostly based on the speech of Tokyo. Japanese speakers are familiar with a pretty decent amount of dialect diversity as particular dialects are heavily used in media (Ex. Kansai Dialect in comedy).
This famous map of Japanese dialects shows where all the different Japanese dialects and closely related languages are spoken.
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Koko ここ (here) |
Kōkō 高校 (high school) |
Kōko 公庫 (finance corporation) |
Kokō 孤高 (solitary) |
Kokko 国庫 (treasury) |
Kokkō 国交 (diplomatic relations) |
Although SOV is the basic word order, the subject and object may flip if the object is deemed more significant, and a sentence may even lack either or both yet still be grammatical if they are deemed obvious through context. This means that Japanese exhibits five possible word orders: SOV, OSV, SV, OV, and V.
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SOV |
OSV |
クマが漁師の魚を盗った。 Kuma-ga ryōshi-no sakana-wo totta. Gloss: Bear-subject marker fisherman-possessive marker fish-object marker took. Translation: (A) bear took (a/the) fisherman's fish. |
漁師の魚をクマが盗った。 Ryōshi-no sakana-wo kuma-ga totta. Gloss: Fisherman-possessive marker fish-object marker bear-subject marker took. Translation: (The/a) bear took (a/the) fisherman's fish. |
SV |
OV |
クマが盗った。 Kuma-ga totta. Gloss: Bear-subject marker took. Kuma-ga totta. Translation: (A/the) bear took (it/them). |
漁師の魚を盗った。 Ryōshi-no sakana-wo totta. Gloss: Fisherman-possessive marker fish-object marker took. Ryōshi-no sakana-wo totta. Translation: (subject in context) took (a/the) fisherman's fish. |
V |
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盗った。 Totta. Gloss: Took. Translation: (subject in context) took (it/them). |
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TOPIC + TIME + LOCATION + SUBJECT + INDIRECT OBJECT + DIRECT OBJECT + VERB/ADJECTIVE (PREDICATE) |
Of course, you can make sentences without having every piece of information. For example, the following sentence is perfectly grammatical with just a time phrase, subject, and a verb.
今朝地震が起きました。
Kesa jishin-ga okimashita.
Literally: This.morning earthquake-subject.marker occurred.
Translation: An earthquake occurred this morning.
Watashi-wa kyō, eki-de (ø-ga) tomodachi-ni hon-wo agemashita.
Gloss: I-topic.marker today train.station-at (unspoken subject) friend-indirect.object.marker book-object.marker gave.
Translation: I gave a book to a friend at the train station today.
In any language, there are several kinds of phrases. Each one has a "head" and the possibility of a "modifier." The "head" of a phrase is the element that determines the syntactic function of the whole phrase. In "the smart cat," the head is "cat" because "cat" is the word that determines what the phrase means. The "modifier" of a phrase, then, is a word that gives information about the head. In this case, "the" and "smart" are both modifying "cat."
The head of a phrase in Japanese is said to always follow its modifier(s), meaning that the modifier(s) are to the left of the head. The same is not true in English (ex. "the Japanese book" vs. "the book in Japanese"). In Japanese, this is, "Nihongo-no hon 日本語の本." Nihongo-no means "Japanese" and hon means "book."
When a language places the head of a phrase in the final position and places complexity before it, it is said to be left-branching. A good example of this in English would be "my husband's friend's adorable puppy." When translating this into Japanese, the word order will stay the same.
私の主人の友達の可愛い仔犬
Watashi-no shujin-no tomodachi-no kawaii koinu
Gloss: I-possessive.marker husband-possessive.marker friend-possessive.marker cute puppy
Translation: My husband's friend's adorable puppy
Japanese takes left-branching to the extreme when creating complex sentences. When modifying nouns with other sentences (participle phrases), Japanese still places them to the left of the head constituent of the sentence, and the word order within the modifying constituent too must follow the same left-branching principle.
学校から帰った子供たちが外で遊んでいる。
Gakkō-kara kaetta kodomo-ga soto-de asonde-iru.
Literally: School-from returned kid-subject marker outside-at play-ing.
Translation: (The) children who came back from school are playing outside.
Ex. 食べさせられたくありませんでした
Tabe-sase-rare-taku-ari-mase-n-deshi-ta
Gloss: Eat-causative-passive-want-to.be-politeness.marker-negation-politeness-marker-past.tense
Translation: Didn't want to be made to eat
There is a total of six bases in Japanese. Their names and general functions are as follows:
As grammar is introduced which utilize these bases, their names will be utilized. For now, though, you need to remember them. Once we reach Advanced I, they will be discussed in much greater detail.
One's surname comes before one's personal name. However, one's title comes last. Sometimes, though, people may go by or be referred to by their titles alone.
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三島由紀夫
Mishima Yukio Yukio Mishima |
畑中先生
Hatanaka-sensei Teacher/Sensei Hatanaka |
習近平
Shū Kimpei Xi Jinping |
大阪なおみ
Ōsaka Naomi Naomi Osaka |
伊藤社長
Itō-shachō Company President Itoh |
ラファエル・グティエレス
Rafaeru Gutieresu Rafael Gutierrez |
Japanese speakers anticipate names being constructed differently in other cultures as their goal is to respect you. So, whatever your name is, that is what it is in Japanese, albeit with a Japanese-friendly pronunciation. For those with Chinese or Korean names, the Chinese character spelling of one's name will carry over and it is common to honor the original pronunciation over a Japanese-like pronunciation.
Japanese grammar is rather certain about the predicate (verb/adjective) coming at the end of a sentence. However, there are times when a speaker may wish to state the predicate first and leave the rest of the sentence as an after-statement. This known as inversion. You may see this occasionally in music, poetry, etc.
叶え、私の願いよ。
Kanae, watashi-no negai-yo.
Gloss: Come.true I-genitive.marker wish-exclamation.marker
Translation: Come true, oh my wishes.
Japanese allows for contextually obvious things to be omitted from a sentence. The most famous instance of this is the tendency to drop pronouns such as "I" and "you." Choosing to omit something or not may cause a change in nuance, but failing to omit things when appropriate may cause your speech to sound unnatural.
お名前は何ですか。
O-namae-wa nan desu-ka?
Gloss: Honorific.prefix-name-as.for, what is-question.marker.
Translation: What is your name?
New learners will constantly insert words such as watashi (I) and anata (you) into their sentences even though no actual speaker does this because they are usually deemed contextually obvious.
Speech Register | Speaker-Listener Relationship | Forms of Ex. "To Say" |
Honorific Speech (Sonkeigo 尊敬語) |
The speaker uses this register when wishing to show utmost respect to the listener. The listener's status is significantly higher.
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Osshaimasu Honorific Polite Form Iwaremasu Light Honorific Polite Form |
Polite Speech (Teineigo 丁寧語) |
The speaker uses this register to establish an atmosphere of respect to those deemed equals who are not necessarily close but worth being respected.
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Iimasu Polite Form |
Humble Speech (Kenjōgo 謙譲語) |
The speaker uses this register to emphasize their lower status to the listener and also show utmost respect to the listener.
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Mōshiagemasu Super Humble Polite Form Mōshimasu Humble Polite Form |
Plain Speech (Jōtaigo 常体語) |
The speaker uses this register to friends and family to express a close relationship. Plain speech forms also exist for the speech registers above for grammatical purposes. This is also viewed as the basic register of any conjugation.
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Yū Plain Form |
Vulgar Speech (Bubetsugo 侮蔑語) |
The speaker uses this register to degrade the listener.
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Iiyagaru Vulgar Form Nukasu Vulgar Alternative |
There are 12 unique parts of speech in Japanese that are either independent words (jiritsugo 自立語) or ancillary words (fuzokugo 付属語). Independent words are those that can stand alone. Ancillary words, however, are those that cannot stand alone. Parts of speech can be categorized as either one or the other as well as by their ability or lack thereof to conjugate.
The one part of speech that is completely foreign to English learners is "particles." Though they denote some grammatical function, some functions marked in Japanese don't match up well with English function words.
There are six main types of particles: case, parallel, conjunctive, final, adverbial, and bound. Particles may be categorized differently depending on how they're used, so if you see the same particle in a different part of a sentence, it will certainly have a different function.
Hiragana ひらがな and Katakana カタカナ are both known as Kana syllabaries. The purpose of these systems is to write out sounds phonetically. They express the same sounds, but their histories and semantic roles are different (See Lesson 3 and Lesson 4). Each syllabary has a set of 48 basic characters, and from there a small number of add-ons to represent all other morae.
Chart Note: The table to the left illustrates the origins of Hiragana ひらがな characters and he table on the right illustrates the origins of Katakana カタカナ characters.
The Jōyō Kanji (Jōyō Kanji 常用漢字) List, a list the Japanese Ministry of Education made to create a literary baseline. As of 2017, there are 2,136 such characters. Additional characters are designated as Jimmeiyō Kanji 人名用漢字 for name-use, of which a total of 862 exist as of 2017.
In addition to there being thousands of Kanji, most Kanji have more than one kind of readings--known as ON and KUN readings--and can have more than one of each. This results in having to learn how to read each word on an individual basis.
■ Character Simplification 漢字の簡略化
Kanji 漢字 were simplified after World War II. The old forms of characters are called Kyūjitai 旧字体 whereas the new forms are called Shinjitai 新字体. The old forms are still prevalent in names and older publications before the 1960s. Most speakers generally recognize them.
Meaning | Traditional | Simplified | Meaning | Traditional | Simplified |
Yen |
圓 |
円 |
Learning |
學 |
学 |
Curriculum Note: To learn more about what Kanji 漢字 have been altered in Japanese, see Lesson 362.
■Japanese-Made Kanji 国字
Japanese speakers have also created their own Kanji 漢字 over the centuries. Some have even made their way back into Chinese like the character for "to work": 働.
Curriculum Note: To learn more about these Japanese-made Kanji 漢字, see Lesson 360.
Example | Meaning | Example | Meaning |
PR (Piiāru)
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Public relations
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OL (Ōeru)
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Female office worker
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CD(Shiidii)
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CD
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Tシャツ (Tiishatsu)
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T-shirt
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LGBT (Erujiibiitii)
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LGBT
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PM2.5 (Piiemu nii ten go)
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Fine particles (PM 2.5)
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Japanese was once void of any punctuation. However, due to contact with Western languages, Japanese has borrowed and adapted many punctuation marks.
The Period | The Comma | The Exclamation Point | The Question Mark | Quotation Marks |
。 |
、 |
! |
? |
「」
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Native | Sino-Japanese | Loan |
Yama 山 (mountain) |
Kazan 火山 (volcano) |
Doa ドア (door) |
Mizu 水 (water) |
Genki 元気 (lively/well) |
Zubon ズボン (pants) |
The spoken language is full of colloquialisms, filler words, and undertones that are difficult to express in the written language. The written language, on the other hand, is characterized as being formal and often void of colloquialisms and filler words. However, the use of alternative spellings thanks to the existence of Kanji enriches it. Archaic expressions and grammar are also more common in the written language.
Although it is important to know how to speak Japanese, it is also just as important to read and write Japanese as mastery in the written language is essential to being a functionally native-like user of the language.