🌸Japanese Customer : A brief introduction to the 🌸Japanese language

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April 20, 2022

A brief introduction to the 🌸Japanese language

This is a very brief introduction to the structure of the Japanese language

Japanese has five vowels which are A, I, U, E, O

Japanese Word


Okonomiyaki

English meaning

Savoury pancake

Pronunciation

O/ko/no/mi/ya/ki

Written

お好み焼き

Sentence construction

English: 
I am looking for the book

Subject: I

Object: book

Verb: looking 

Japanese: (Watashi wa) hon o sagashite imasu

Subject: I

Object: book

Verb: searching

💥 You will notice the order is different


Scripts

1. Hiragana - 50 symbols

Words of Japanese origin are written in this script, for example:

a, i, u, e o
あ、い、 う、え、お

ka, ki, ku, ke, ko
か、き、 く、け、こ

sa, shi, su, se, so
さ、し, す、 せ、そ

Learn more about Hiragana here 


2. Katakana - 50 symbols

Words of foreign origin are written in this script, 

for example:

a, i, u, e, o
ア、イ、ウ、エ、オ

ka, ki, ku, ke, ko
カ、キ、ク、ケ、コ

English word

Ice Cream

Pronunciation

aisukuree-mu

Written in Katakana as

アイスクリーム

Learn more about Katakana here 


3. Kanji - thousands of Chinese characters

Characters of a Chinese origin are used to convey sounds, words, pictures, and ideas, 

for example:

English Word

Dog

Japanese word

inu

Written in Kanji as



In Japanese, many Chinese characters have more than one  meaning,

for example:

On'yomi 音読み: 

Readings derived from the Chinese pronunciations.

Kun'yomi 訓読み: 

The original, indigenous Japanese readings.

For example:

The character 城 has many meanings

* Onyomi or Chinese reading is JOU which means castle

* Kunyomi or Japanese reading is SEI

* Japanese reading which is Shiro or white

To simplify the Chinese characters in Japan multiple meanings are applied to the same character which reduces the number of characters learners need to memorize but increases the number of meanings one has to remember and try when reading the character.

Learn more about Japanese Kanji here


4. Romaji - This is when Japanese words are written in English characters, for pronunciation, using a dictionary and for teaching non - Japanese.

Writing

* Written Japanese combines the three scripts 
Katakana, Kanji, Hiragana together.

English Sentence:

Do you like ice cream?

Romaji:

Pronunciation

Aisukureemu wa suki desu ka?

Written in Japanese as

アイスクリームは好きですか

Katakana = アイスクリーム

Hiragana = は  きですか

Kanjii = 


💥 Note in Japanese:

There is no spacing between words and the reader must identify the grammar, nouns, and verbs to correctly read the characters and therefore the right pronunciation.

* Japanese is written in columns starting at the top right-hand corner of the page and continuing to the left-hand side of the page.

* Newspapers, books, and magazines are read from the back page to the front page.

🌸 Hope you found this useful! 


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