In my report on Japan, I will display different ways of speaking and writing Japanese. 'Speaking and Writing Japanese' shows simple ways of correct pronounciation, and basic writing habits you can practice. Japanese is a very difficult, and for some, confusing language to learn. Since there are four ways of writing Japanese, it takes years to learn all the symbols and especially Kanji which has over 40 000 characters. Here now is my report on the Japanese language.
Although a casual neighbourhood chat appears to be quite simple, it is much harder than it looks to learn, even for a Japanese person. Usage of slang occurs quite often in the Japanese language and will easily throw a learner off track. It takes much time to master. A good way to start a chat, is to talk about the weather. (Ii tenki desu ne), is a way of saying 'beautiful weather isn't it. (Iyana tenki desu ne) is a way of saying "terrible weather isn't it". Even from these two phrases, you could have already learned a few Japanese words. 'Iyana' is one, meaning terrible, 'Ii' is another meaning beautiful, and 'tenki' which means weather. Facial expressions and gestures are very important in a Japanese conversation. If they are used wrongly, it could send a wrong message to the person you are speaking to. A tone of voice is also very important and more often than not means more than the actual words. Since Japanese ca be so confusing, it is important to tell a Japanese person if you have absolutely no idea what they are trying to say. Here is how to pronounce some basic Japanese phrases:
As most of you know, there are four ways of writing the Japanese language. Ther names are Hiragana, Katakana, Romaji, and Kanji. Katakana and Hiragana each have 50 symbols while Romaji has 26 (our alphabet) and Kanji over 40 000. Every year Japanese students take a test at the end of each shool year. The test involves memorizing, writing and giving definitions to over 200 Kanji symbols. The test plays a large role in the grade. Although it is only necassary to know 50-100 basic Kanji symbols for reading newspapers and magazines, it is helpful to know many to keep up with the highest literacy rate in the world, which is in Japan!
Formal, polite and traditional greetings are all an important part of Japans culture. Slang is never used in greeting another as it can be in places such as North America. The most common and traditional greeting in Japan is the bow. The lower the bow is, the more polite the greeting. It can be confusing for a Canadian visitor to understand the customs and concepts of these greetings. Here is some ways of politely greeting a Japanese person:
Unlike most countries, Japanese people are rarely invited over to their friends houses. However, this is beginning to change as the younger generation starts to take demand on Japanese traditions. When you are visiting a Japanese home, it is important that you know how to speak good polite phrases. At a Japanese dinner, gifts are often given out. Since the Japanese follow a strict rule that everyone who gives must be repaid, it is also important thqat proper terms are used. Here is how to speak some of them:
If you compare the English language to the Japanese, it would be like comparing black to white. They are hardly even remotely related. The Japanese language has many oral sounds such as 'Tsu' and 'Kyo' that the English language does not. But if you take the English language for example, it has such sounds as in the word 'aren't' that is impossible for a Japanese person to pronounce. One similarity between the two languages is that they both have words with more than one meaning. English has the word 'to', which has 3 meanings, but Japanese has the word 'desu', which has numerous meanings such as what would be in English it, is, or the. The differences continue into Japanese literature. Not only do the Japanese characters have no visual relations to the English alphabet, but there sentence structure is different both orally and written. One Japanese character can mean an entire sentence in English, or vice-versa. Orally, it is also almost completely backwards. Another difference in Japanese literature is, if you take a glance in a Japanese book you would notice something. It is written up and down compared to English side to side. The Japanese language is spoken at a remarkably faster pace than English, words are lengthier and sounds are different. Overall, I can't count the differences. Thank you for reading my report.