Japanese lessons

The Japanese language is very different from English, French, Spanish, German, or any other Indo-European language. Japanese is also different from other Asian languages. Even if the Japanese language borrows its writing system from the Chinese language, Chinese and Japanese sound completely different. In many ways, the Japanese language can be complex and subtle, often integrating a cultural aspect that foreigners may have a hard time understanding.

Trying to learn Japanese without paying attention to the culture of the country is hardly possible. You will notice many such cases as you improve your Japanese skills.

The goal of this Japanese course is to meet the needs of as many people as possible. Some want to learn how to write Japanese kanji, while others only want to learn how to speak the language. How you'll learn Japanese is not as important as why you are here. The reason is personal, and so is the source of your motivation, which you'll need to keep alive to continue studying. This website is here to help you put your knowledge into practice as much as possible through its grade system and statistics, in order to activate your knowledge instead of just reading passively. Even if you read ten grammar books, do you think you will ever be able to speak Japanese? A language is something natural, you need to make it yours by practicing it. It is by no means a collection of lessons that you need to recite by heart. Practice, practice always.

The interactive exercises on this website will let you put into action all that you can learn. Do as many exercises as possible. Don't think that reading the lessons is enough, and just assume that you have understood everything clearly. Understanding a lesson is useless if you don't activate your knowledge. Lessons are only a tool that you need to use to make the natural language yours.

And as our Chinese friends say, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" (Tao Te Ching, Verse 64). So let's start our journey with that first step.

In English, we use the Latin/Roman alphabet. However, the Japanese use three systems:

• Hiragana
• Katakana
• Kanji

You must understand that you don't have the choice of which one you want to use, because all of those writing systems can be used in the same sentence! Even if you only wish to speak the language, you need to understand the differences amongst the alphabets and how they are used.

Hiragana

Hiragana is what one could call the Japanese alphabet. There are 46 basic forms in modern Japanese with which you can transcribe any Japanese sound. In fact, each form is a syllable of the language (ku, fu, mi, etc.).

This writing system can be used in several situations:

• if no kanji exists for the word (we'll see together soon what a kanji is). For instance the particle まで(made = until) has no equivalent in kanji.
• if you don't know how to write the kanji for the word, or if the kanji is so rare that most people may not be able to read and understand it.
• whenever a verb is used as an auxiliary (grammatical stuff, don't worry you'll understand later).

Hiragana look like this: に(ni) - さ(sa) - つ(tsu) - ほ(ho). They can easily be recognized by their rounded form.

Katakana

Katakana is very similar to Hiragana, since it is a kind of Japanese alphabet too. For each Hiragana, a Katakana exists. Nevertheless, Katakana is used in completely different situations.

Here are some situations very common for Katakana:

• if the word is borrowed from a foreign word (there are MANY of them). For example ネクタイ (nekutai = necktie, the Japanese word comes from the English word).
• if the word is an onomatopoeia (a word whose pronunciation imitates what it represents). Example ワンワン (wanwan = dog barking), リンリン (rinrin = phone ringing).
• to create a particular effect such as softening or emphasizing the meaning of a word.

Katakana look like this: ニ(ni) - サ(sa) - ツ(tsu) - ホ(ho). They can easily be recognized by their sharp form.

Kanji

Kanji are the third Japanese writing system. Literally Kanji means "Chinese Character". If you compare a Japanese and a Chinese text, you'll notice that the characters look much the same. While some of them are exactly alike, others are a little different because of the distinctive historical evolution of each country. As China was a prestigious nation in antiquity (Silk Road), Japan imported their writing system.

There are many Kanji, and they constitute one of the main difficulties of learning Japanese. Moreover, each Kanji can be read in different ways depending on the word it forms. Mastering them takes much time and patience.

When leaving school, a young Japanese person knows about 2000 Kanji. A grown-up knows about 3000 to 4000 of them. A Japanese literature teacher can know as much as 7000 Kanji! For each Kanji, you'll have to learn :

• the stroke order (how to draw the Kanji)
• its different pronunciations
• its meanings

Kanji look like this : 中国 (China)　日本 (Japan).

Sometimes the Kanji pronunciation is given using small Hiragana characters on the top or bottom of the Kanji. This is often the case in books or TV programs for children. Those small reading indicators are called Furigana.

Roomaji

There is one last way to write Japanese: Roomaji. This is not exactly a Japanese writing system, because Japanese people don't use it. Roomaji is rather a writing system for foreigners as it uses the Roman letters to write Japanese. We all know some of them: Suzuki, Honda, Kanji, Sushi, etc.

Of course, using Roomaji may help you learn how to speak the language faster. But that approach is not advised, because it will prevent you from finding a good dictionary (most of them only exist in Hiragana and Kanji). That is why you should at least learn the Hiragana and Katakana characters. The first lessons will present the texts in Roomaji to make your first steps here easier. But progressively, Roomaji will disappear, so get into a good habit now. In the exercises section, you'll find interactive tools that will help you learn Hiragana and Katakana. This can even be a starting point for learning the language because it will help you out a lot in the lessons coming up.

The following points are examples of some differences that may exist between English and Japanese. We are not giving a grammar lesson here, but just simply giving you a quick overview of the language.

• plural and singular don't exist in Japanese. There is no difference between "cat" and "cats". But the way you can figure out whether they're talking about one thing or many things can sometimes be expressed with some words using certain suffixes. For instance: Kodomo (a child) / KodomoTACHI (group of children).
• verb conjugation has only one form for all personal pronouns (tabemasu = I eat, you eat, she eats, etc.)
• the verb is often placed at the end of the sentence or clause (as in German sometimes).
• verbs can only be conjugated in present or past forms. The future tense is expressed using the conjugation of the present tense.
• there are two sorts of adjectives. One sort behaves like nouns, and the other sort behaves like verbs! (in other words adjectives can be conjugated!)
• a Japanese sentence is articulated by particles that supply information about the role of each word or group in a sentence.
• politeness is expressed in different ways, and in different degrees, and is one complex aspect of the language
• Japanese is said to be an agglutinative language. A verb can be modified by adding an auxiliary that will itself be modified by another auxiliary for example.
• there are only 2 irregular verbs in Japanese!! (good news, right?).

As we've seen, the Japanese culture is tightly rooted in the Japanese language. It is not possible to learn the language without learning the culture.

Most of the lessons contain a section dedicated to a cultural aspect of Japan. This information will help you avoid misunderstandings, understand people's behavior better, and stop you from behaving rudely without even realizing it (don't worry, Japanese people are very open-minded towards foreigners).

Illustration by Makushiro. Click here to see his work.

The Matsumotos will be your host family in Japan. They live in a beautiful Japanese-style villa on the outskirts of Tokyo. Before you meet them, to make your first encounter easier, take a look at some information about them:

HIROSHI: The father of the family, Hiroshi is 48. He is an employee in a computing company. He enjoys watching baseball on TV, cycling, jogging and fishing with his son Takuya.

KEIKO: The mother of the family, Keiko is 41. She is a part-timer in a supermarket. When she is off, she enjoys cooking and looking after her garden and her kids.

AYUMI: She is the elder daughter. She has been studying in Tokyo for two years, and is now 20 years old. Like many girls her age, Ayumi likes listening to music, especially J-Pop, watching Dorama (Japanese TV series), and going shopping with her friends. Always good-humored, she often looks after her younger brother when her parents are out or busy.

TAKUYA: 8 years old, he's the brat of the family! Soccer, video games, mangas, playing with friends: that could be a summary of Takuya's life. Even if he might seem a little shy at first, Takuya is quite out-going and nosy. That often leads him to get into mischief. If you want to learn a few slang words, just spend the week-end with him!

CHIRO: She is the 3-year-old female dog of the family. Chiro is an Akita Inu.