The complete guide to learning Japanese
Japanese language
It is the official language of Japan, spoken by more than 130 million people. It is often classified as an isolated language, but some classify it as an Altaic language, but this information is not confirmed. Japanese is written from left to right and top to bottom (although Japanese was written from right to left like Arabic at one time).
There are two writing systems for the Japanese language: Kanji, which are characters taken from the Chinese language that express whole words. Before World War II, there were more than forty thousand characters, but the United States forced Japan to reduce their number to a little more than two thousand.
The second branch of kana is katakana, which are characters with different shapes from the hiragana characters, but they are pronounced exactly the same and are usually used to write words of non-Japanese roots, most of which are foreign words from the English language.
The language of the technological and cultural planet that we all know.. and the first anime language in the world.. that distinctive Asian language full of art and strangeness and new ideas full of art, strangeness and new ideas.
I don’t think that one of us needs a greater motivation to learn it than attending Japanese anime or getting to know the culture of that special people
Fun facts about the Japanese language
- It is of interest to many linguists because it is considered one of the isolated languages, as it is not affected by other languages, and there are those who classify it as an Altaic language.
- It ranks third in terms of its presence in the global online content after English and Spanish.
- The Arabic learner may find some strangeness in the Japanese writing method, due to the fact that it is written in two ways, from left to right and from top to bottom.
- It is noticeable when listening to Japanese sentences that the pronunciation is fast, as research has proven that a Japanese speaker can pronounce 7.84 syllables per second, making it one of the fastest languages in the world.
- There are no conjugations for verbs and the nouns do not change in the case of plural or addition, which makes it easier to learn.
Japanese language identification card
We’ll start with some general information about it
- Number of native speakers: 126 million speakers.
- Number of speakers as a second language: about one million speakers.
- Percentage of global speakers: 2.7%
- Online content percentage: 2.6%
- Number of letters of the alphabet: 46 basic letters.
- Word count: about 157,000 words.
- How to write: There are two ways to write Japanese, one called Kanji and the other called Kana.
Universities with a Japanese curriculum:
Kyoto – The University of Tokyo – Tohoku – Tokyo Institute of Technology – Kyushu
- Japanese language proficiency certificate:JLPT .
Japanese language learning resources
Distinguished learning platforms
busuu – Duolingo – Guide to Japanese – tofugu
Youtube channels
Learn Japanese
JapanesePod101.com
Learn Japanese From Zero!
Japanese Ammo with Misa
How do I practice Japanese
It is necessary to have multiple sources in studying the language, and here we offer you a variety of sources to delve into the Japanese language
Japanese TV stations
Ntv – Fujitv – Tokyo
Japanese newspapers and magazines
CanCam – Nikkei Trendy – Aera – Sports Graphic Number – Popeye
Japanese movies and series
Battle Royale – Spirited Away – Okuribito Tokyo Story
Japanese singers
Namie Amuro – Utada Hikaru – Kyary Pamyu Pamyu – AKB48 – Bump of Chicken – Arashi
Japanese writers
Kenzaburō Ōe – Banana Yoshimoto – Haruki Murakami – Ryū Murakami – Natsuo Kirino – Shintarō Ishihara –Kenzo Kitakata
Japanese books and novels that we recommend to read
Kamisama 神様 – Tuki Wo Kakeru Shoujo 時をかける少女 – After the Quake – Kirakira Hikaru きらきらひかる – Kitchen
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