Japan has a unique and fascinating language.
Japanese has three alphabets: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana is a phonetic alphabet comprising 46 characters used to write words with Japanese origins. Katakana is a phonetic alphabet with almost the same characters as hiragana but is used to write foreign borrowed words. Kanji is made up of over 2000 characters and is used to convey whole words or phrases.
Japanese has honorifics, special words to differentiate between male and female speech and show respect to different people. These honorifics are often used along with normal words to modify their meaning.
Japanese has a wide variety of dialects that vary greatly in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. The dialects are so varied that a person from one part of the country may not be able to understand a native speaker from another part of the country.
Japanese has a polite language that includes longer phrases and modified grammar to show respect. These polite formulas are used when people meet, during conversations, and when people part.
Japanese has two types of syllables, open and closed. Open syllables consist of one consonant followed by a vowel, while closed syllables consist of one vowel followed by a consonant.
Japanese does not have the verb conjugations most European languages have. Rather than modifying the verb, Japanese uses auxiliary words to communicate tense and other information related to the verb.
Japanese is an agglutinative language that uses a system of small words or fragments to form longer words. These fragments can be combined to express complicated ideas with a simple construction.
Japanese has a polite pronoun known as "san," which is added after the name and honorific of a person the speaker is talking to. This polite pronoun is used in both written and spoken communication.
Japanese has four writing styles: formal, semiformal, informal, and very informal styles. These styles range from extremely polite to quite casual, so a person must choose the style of writing based on the context.
Japanese has a gendered language, where different words are used for male and female subjects. In addition, some suffixes are only appropriate for male or female speakers and can indicate people's social status.
