What is Japanese Haruka Ouchi Japanese Speakers The

What is Japanese? Haruka Ouchi 日本語 にほんご ニホンゴ

Japanese Speakers ● The number of Japanese speakers= 125 million+ ● the 9 th largest number ● Spoken in the Japanese archipelago & 1. 5 million immigrant mainly living in North/ South America ● a lot of dialects: different words/ accent

Sound System ● 5 vowels ● 15 consonants + unique sounds ● each letter is counted as one sound (mora)

Alphabet system unique letters: use ゛or ゜ がぎぐげご ぱぴぷぺぽ coordinated letters with small letters にゃ にゅ にょ kanji = 漢字 大内 遥

Grammatical Info ● Different order with English ● Subject doesn’t matter ● many way to say “I” ● No gender but some words are used depend on the gender 俺はかっこいいぜ あたしは美しいのよ

Idioms ごまをする grind the sesame = compliment someone to get benefit へそで茶を沸かす make tea with belly button = very funny

Pragmatics ● Avoid assertion o The Japanese language does not like to assert sentences 「明日お休みをいただきたいので すが…」 “I am thinking I would like to be absent tomorrow but… “ 「遊びに行かない？」「ちょっと …」 “Do you want to hang out? ” “Ah…”

Personal Understanding Of course, there is no language which is useless. Honestly, however, I think the Japanese language is less important than other languages like English, Chinese, Spanish and so on in terms of global economy because the Japanese language is rarely used as an international language. However, the Japanese language has a lot of interesting ideas based on their culture. I used to use Japanese language without thinking deeply. However, through the study abroad, I had many opportunity to think about my language. I realized that the Japanese language is a pretty attractive language.

References Encyclopedia Britanica http: //www. britannica. com/ Japanese Idiom List http: //kotowazashuu. web. fc 2. com/ Masamune, Mineko. “On The Pragmatic Structure of Japanese. ” Hokuriku University Bulletin 27. (2003): 91 - 98