Japanese phrasebook
Photo: User:Jpatokal. Original uploader was Peirz at Wikitravel Shared., CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Japanese (日本語 nihongo) is spoken in Japan, and essentially nowhere else other than areas of Micronesia, Brazil, Peru, the United States and Taiwan where there is a long-established Japanese diaspora, with sizeable Japanese-speaking expatriate communities in South Korea, China and Singapore. Japanese may be distantly related to Korean, but is entirely unrelated to Chinese, though it uses a large amount of imported Chinese vocabulary. The written form uses a combination of Katakana, Hiragana and Kanji characters which were all derived from Chinese characters.
The Japanese language has several distinct dialects. Standard Japanese (hyōjungo 標準語), which is based on the Tokyo dialect, is taught in schools and understood by all people throughout the country. The slang-heavy dialect of the Kansai region is particularly famous in Japanese pop culture, while the northern Tohoku region and southern Kyushu are famous for their impenetrable dialects. On the southern islands of Okinawa, many of the closely related Ryukyuan languages are spoken, mostly by the elderly, while many locals speak Okinawan Japanese, a dialect that borrows much vocabulary from Ryukyuan languages. In northern Hokkaido, a rare few still speak Ainu.
Pronunciation guideJapanese is not a tonal language like Chinese or Thai. The vowels are pronounced virtually identical to the "Italian way" and there are very few consonants that do not exist in English.
GrammarJapanese sentence structure is very similar to that of Korean, so speakers of Korean will find many aspects of Japanese grammar familiar, and vice versa.
Reading and writingReading and writing Japanese are advanced skills which take years of work to gain much real proficiency.
Phrase listThe Japanese are famously reluctant to say the word "no", and in fact the language's closest equivalent, いいえ iie, is largely limited to denying compliments you have received. ("Your Japanese is excellent!").
Learning moreFor those who want proof of their proficiency in Japanese, there is the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT, 日本語能力試験), which is endorsed by the Japanese government, and serves as the Japanese-language equivalent of…
Sources and licences
- Guide text adapted from the Wikivoyage article "Japanese phrasebook" by its contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikivoyage · Contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Photo: User:Jpatokal. Original uploader was Peirz at Wikitravel Shared., CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons