First let me say I collected these things, from the net and around and also from my pen pal and a professor in this area. (He checked it over, but didn't give me anymore tips) so some things are a combination of a few things and are NOT all mine. I do not guarantee everything is correct, even though it was checked over, if you find any mistakes in info, do e-mail me!
Remember that Japanese is from a ENTIRELY different language group.. it is not of Romantic origin. (i.e. from Latin). Rather seems to be a combination of a few languages, including the Mongolian root (where it seems the majority of the grammar comes from.. this is a pure guess though).
Word order
This is a Subject object Verb language Meaning that our sentence:
*The Dog sees the Park.*
Would appear as:
*Dog park sees.*
Unlike French and many other languages the words do not have articles in front of them or gender attached unless purposely associated with the word as in *female dog*.
ex. *Le chien vais au park.*
(English word for word, literal) The (male form) dog goes to the (male form) park.
In that case the dog is assigned a male form, even if it is a female dog. (French is weird that way) the park is also masculine. (Don't ask me how.) But in Japanese it would be:
*Dog park goes* (appearing word for word in English) (easy, right?)
The Japanese prefer NOT to use the word I in their sentences. Rather they will drop it. The best way to see this is to hear it and take a course!
Japanese words are BOTH singular and plural!
e.g. As in English: Like one sheep, two sheep, three sheep, etc. NOT as in one cow, two cow_S_, three cow_S_.
I don't care if you think it should be that way. It is a foreign word and foreign words follow foreign rules. (there's one less letter for you to type, ne?) and better to get it right the first time than have to fix it!
Japanese has a past, a present, but no future!
Bad joke.. But It's true. The Japanese language has a past tense, and a present tense, but they have no future tense.. so much for that..
Written Language
kanji- Chinese characters used in Japanese writing
kana- Japanese syllabary (hiragana; katakana)
hiragana- Japanese syllabary for native words
katakana- Japanese syllabary for foreign words
furigana- Usually found over kanji and in hiragana. It is used in primarily little children's books to read the kanji. Ironically it also has been reported to make some of the adults lazy about their kanji as well!
romaji- Japanese written in our alphabet, phonetically for the table I took the first letter of each minus kana and kanji to represent each system and added Romaji=R
- First for spelling there are several ways to spell the translation, but I would go with the one in the actual manga and if possible anime.
(Sailor Moon fans: look at volume 11, Japanese manga a few, pages in. You'll find basic stats and romaji) I, would note that the only consonant alone is n, all others are accompanied by a vowel of some sort too, so you can always check your spellings that way too. (Though some kanji make some exceptions, and not all romanizations are consistent.)
- Japanese names go FAMILY NAME FIRST!
So if your doing an anime or manga page please specify style. I use the Japanese way. It makes more sense when translating names, but I don't care either way, just specify up front.
- A lot of people seem to confuse Korean, Chinese, and Japanese in writing.
Japanese
Japanese is primarily made up of three written languages: kanji, hiragana, and katakana. When it is written in our alphabet it is called romaji.
Korean
Korean started off with Chinese characters (as Japanese did) until the 15th century. Hangul is the written language of Korea, but was limited and very slow. It was associated with the lower class and used for educational purposes. It was developed under the supervision of Sejong in the Cho (long o) sun dynasty. (he wanted everyone to be able to learn). It was studied and not hacked together by a bunch of scolars and is said to be one of Korea's finer achievements. (The flag is also up on that scale too) Hangul did not predominate until after World War II. Hangul is completely phonetic, unlike English (like the spellings of rough and through are not an issue). Each symbol carries one and only one sound. There are three positions for Korean letters and are placed accordingly. (which will be detailed in my Quest for Asia page, in this same kind of breakdown I'm doing for Japanese.) They all read the same way and the pronunciations don't change. But this is very convenient since it is no fail to read and no extra characters to remember. (so much so that Korea has the highest literacy rate in the world in one study it measured at 95 percent and is reportedly the most phonetic of any written language.)
(Note: in South Korea there is something very much like kanji. It's called hanja. Hanja was originally from China, but was adapted. It tends to be very box-like. It's very rare, but it also is preserved in South Korea because of the sense of class it gives. In North Korea it's entirely absent. Like kanji every character in hanja has to be learned. Though it should be noted kanji and hanja are NOT the same.)
Chinese
Chinese is partially phonentic (in a round about way) and partially not (long explanation, say two or three pages worth on how this does work). Plus there are different dynasties that had different ways of writing characters. Boggles the mind doesn't it? You have to learn each dynasty and each character, but is standard from Han era onward.
Pronunciation table and tips:
I tried my best to provide most of the pronunciations with the kana, but some of them escape the english language, or are not clear.
Vowels
| vowel | words in english closest sounding to |
| a | the *a* in *father* |
| e | the e in *get* |
| i | the *ee* in *feet* |
| o | the *o* in *fort* |
| u | the *oo* in *food* |
Notes on vowels:
the *u* in su tends to sound very soft or not at all. The most you will hear of the vowel is the occasional >ss as in Prince_ss_, with less emphasis
The I sound is very faint and is often whispered especially with shi, chi, hi, ki, and pi. Often it is so soft that it sounds like it has been dropped, but it hasn't.
Certain Constant combinations not clear
| Consonant combinations | words in english closest sounding to |
| ch | the *ch* in *chair* |
| g | the g in *get* |
| ts | the *ts* in *footsore* |
- L's and R's are pronounced so they are blended in Japanese
(but not in Chinese, and I don't know that much about Korean, per say). The Japanese lack the L sound. The L is pronounced closer to an R than an L, but not exactly the same either. The best tip is the tongue should be pronouncing an *r* but as you are doing it roll the long back and then forward.
It you still don't understand get a subtitled tape like Tenchi Muyo in Love. You could attempt it by trying to make this sound like "sailor" without betraying the sounds in the spelling "sera". Another is try "Harluka". Only smooth it out a bit more.
- In Japanese usually no particular syllable is stressed more than the other.
e.g. (mahn-ga) not (mahn'-ga) or (mahn-ga'
fu sounds more like an h than an "f".
e.g. My parents once told me (remember I'm Korean) that I have a hard time saying coffee and pronouncing my f's. To pronounce this character, narrow the gap between the upper and lower lips rather than bringing the upper teeth to the lower lip.
the *y*'s are part of one syllable rather than two. It should glide.
e.g. so Tokyo. Is not Tohoh-ky-ohoh, but rather Tohoh-kyohoh two syllables instead of one. Make it glide.
A single n is nasal.. (we should have no problem with that) but an n combined with a vowel is like the *n* in *know*. All singular *n*'s are usually notated n' *ahem* as in Ten'ou *ahem* in the Hepburn system.
Double consonants should be pronounced with a break in them, like the *ck* in *Bookcase* for the syllable *kk*
The best way of course to learn the Japanese language is to listen to it even if you don't know what the words mean.