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The Japanese language is a unique and fascinating language. It's written form consists of various picture image characters called kanji (ex. the character to the left stands for learning). The kanji were imported from Chinese written language to create the base of the Japanese written language. Japanese also contains picture characters called kana, which are two syllabaries derived from kanji. Hiragana is akin to cursive kana, and katakana (Square-looking characters) is akin to italics. Kanji is used more to convey meaning, whereas hiragana are used to indicate functions of words, and katakana is used to emphasize words. Japanese is a language with strong foundation in and connections to the social organization, way of thinking, customs, and habits of Japanese culture. This is evidenced in their preference for polite, and non rude or boasting speech.

A popular form of 'Americanized' Japanese called Romanized Japanese has been used in the U.S. in order to make it easier and faster to learn the spoken language. Romanized Japanese enables one to learn the spoken language without knowing the written format ( i.e. memorizing all of the written characters). This is the method that is utilized by this page, since a lot of people don't have the Asian fonts installed and active.

OK, now that you have some background, it's on to lesson 2.....

Japanese Syllables

1. Short and Long syllables

Short syllables are the Japanese basic unit of pronunciation. But, letters with a bar over them are long syllables. They need to be pronounced for twice as long. For example: Tokyo should be pronounced like To-o-kyo-o.

2. Table of Basic Japanese Syllable Structure

These are the basic sounds that are used to form Japanese words. The left hand column consists of vowels. Each corresponding row consists of sounds utilizing that vowel. These sounds are used to form the words that make up the Japanese language. The consonants below are pronounced pretty much the same as in English, but refer to the next lesson for vowel pronunciation technique. Notice how there is no sound in Japanese equivalent to the English sounds 'l', 'v', or 'r'. Also note that the only consonant that can be written alone is n.

A Japanese Syllable consists of a vowel alone, a combination consonant + vowel, or a consonant + glide + vowel. There are also two types of syllabic consonants, one which is used to double consonants other than n and m in a non-initial syllable, and another (-n), which is used to double the consonants n and m, or can be at the end of another syllable.

Japanese Vowels and How They Are Pronounced

Note: The vowels i and u are often devoiced or whispered when spoken.

Japanese Currency

Japanese Colors