Japanese language

The Japanese language (Kanji: 日本語; Hiragana: にほんご; nihongo) incorporates two writing systems: Chinese characters known as kanji and a pair of semi-alphabetic syllabary called kana. Its grammar is similar to the Korean language. It is an SOV language.

Grammar

Particles

In Japanese, particles function as prepositions. They are more accurately called postpositions, though. They come after the noun they are being applied to.

For instance: 私は魚をヘアロドさんに上げた。 Watashi (ha) wa sakana (wo) o Hearodo san ni ageta.

The particles "wa", "o" and "ni" all come AFTER the noun. The sentence above translates to "I gave fish to Harold"

The particle wa is the topic marker. This is a foreign concept to English speaking people. Take this sentence, "Zou wa hana ga nagai desu." The topic is "zou", elephant. The particle ga shows that "hana", nose, is the subject of the sentence. The sentence roughly translates to "As for elephants, their noses are long." There is added confusion though. In the sentence "Watashi wa Ichiro desu" you would expect it to translate to "As for myself, am Ichiro" when in truth it means "I am Ichiro".

• は Wa: Topic (Boku waIchiro da)　[written as ha]
• が Ga: Subject (Zou wa hana ga nagai desu)
• を O: Direct Object (chiizu o taberu)　[written as wo]
• に Ni: Indirect Object (Tanaka-san ni hanasu)
• へ E: Destination Indicator (Tokyo e!) [written as he]
• で De: Action Indicator (Niigata dewa sakana o taberu)
• の No: Possession Indicator (Watashi no kamera)
• と To: Connector (Ashita boushi to undou gutsu o motte kite kudasai) [used for complete lists e.g: "The four gospels are Matthew to Mark to Luke to John."]
• や Ya: Connector (Gakkou ga hajimattara, pen ya nooto ya jisho ga hitsuyo desu) [used for incomplete lists e.g: "The four gospels include Matthew ya Mark."]
• も Mo: Includer (Watashi mo miru!)
• か Ka: Question marker (Ima wa nan ji desu ka)

Gender differentiation

Japanese is one of the few remaining languages were one's gender plays an important role in speech, with certain conjugations, forms, particles and even words restricted to one sex or the other. In particular, casual male speech is generally rougher than casual female speech and less polite. A good example is the word for "I", of which there are many, the vast majority exclusive to one gender or the other (those who use the opposite gender's pronouns receive odd stares in response). In this aspect, the Japanese language is far more conservative than the English language with regards to feminism.

See:

• Japanese and Korean
• Pronouns in Japanese
• List of Particles