what is the difference between japanese and english

Full Answer

Is Japanese spoken faster than English?

Well, in certain situations, Japanese is faster at conveying one thing, while English is faster at conveying another thing. It really depends on what you are trying to say. These differences will, in the grand scheme of things, average out to conveying the same rate of information in English, Japanese, or any other language.

Is Japanese easier than English?

Wile Japanese has more loan-words from English, these aren’t so significant that they make a big difference when it comes to learning vocabulary. And while it might be easier to distinguish between Chinese words because of tones, the advantage that this provides isn’t really that important.

Do Japanese people usually speak English?

Working, living, and visiting Japan without speaking Japanese is difficult, yet not impossible. Even though many Japanese people cannot speak English, in cities such as Tokyo and Kyoto, they will have the basic knowledge.. If you are traveling in rural areas, you will most likely be able to find designated English-speaking guides who will take you to these areas without a language barrier.

What languages are spoken in Japan?

Regional Languages of Japan

• Hokkaido Ainu Language. This is yet another native languages of Japan that is still spoken in Japan to date but in great danger of going into extinction.
• Orok Language. This is also a language that is also known as Ulta that is spoken in Japan and it emerged before the Common Era.
• Nivkh Language. ...
• Bonin Language. ...
• Ryukyuan Languages. ...
• Evenki Language. ...

How similar are Japanese and English?

As the above comparisons show, Japanese and English are very similar. Aside from using different writing systems and sounds, Japanese shares many syntactic features with English.

Is Japanese harder than English?

Japanese is ranked by the U.S. Foreign Services Institute as the most difficult language for native English speakers to learn. The institute uses the time it takes to learn a language to determine its difficulty 23-24 weeks for the easiest and 88 weeks for the hardest.

Is English or Japanese easier?

In fact, the US Foreign Service Institute considers Japanese to be one of the most difficult languages to learn for an English speaker (along with Arabic, Chinese, and Korean). While it may take an average learner 30 weeks to master French, it will take approximately 88 weeks for Japanese.

Do most Japanese understand English?

Yet despite this growth, studies estimate that less than 30 percent of Japanese speak English at any level at all. Less than 8 percent and possibly as little as 2 percent speak English fluently.

What is hardest language to learn?

Mandarin Chinese1. Mandarin Chinese. Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons.

What language is hardest to translate?

The Top 5 most difficult languages to translate and whyMandarin Chinese. Mandarin is the primary language spoken in China. ... Arabic. Arabic is spoken in 28 countries! ... Korean. Korean is a language that is believed to not descend from any other language. ... Thai. Thai is the official language in Thailand. ... Hungarian.

Why is English hard in Japan?

The reason Japanese have difficulty with English is because of the limited range of vocalization used in the Japanese language. Unless pronunciations and nuances of foreign languages are learned in childhood, the human ear and brain has difficulty in discerning them.

Should I learn to speak or write Japanese first?

Speaking helps your accent Like other languages, Japanese has a certain accent that most speakers will love to have. However, you will hardly know the accent if you only focus on reading. Learning to speak first will let you understand how you can pronounce different words even before you can read or write them.

Which language is the easiest to learn?

And The Easiest Language To Learn Is…Norwegian. This may come as a surprise, but we have ranked Norwegian as the easiest language to learn for English speakers. ... Swedish. ... Spanish. ... Dutch. ... Portuguese. ... Indonesian. ... Italian. ... French.More items...•

Is Tokyo English friendly?

Tokyo is definitely the place where English in Japan is most ubiquitous. In addition to bilingual signage in the Tokyo Metro, JR Lines and in popular areas like Asakusa and Shinjuku, a large percentage of people in Tokyo speak some English, even those who don't work in foreigner-facing professions.

Can I go to Tokyo without speaking Japanese?

So, can you travel in Japan without speaking Japanese? Sure you can. It big cities and at major landmarks and popular tourist sights, you'll be just fine most of the time.

Can I speak English in Japan?

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Why is Japanese easier than English?

First of all, Japanese pronunciation is so much simpler than English! All five vowels in Japanese already exist in English, so that's one barrier out of the way. Moreover, Japanese words are pronounced exactly the way they are written, so there's no need to search up the dictionary every time you see a new word.

Why is Japanese so difficult?

The Japanese language is considered one of the most difficult to learn by many English speakers. With three separate writing systems, an opposite sentence structure to English, and a complicated hierarchy of politeness, it's decidedly complex.

Why is Japanese grammar so hard?

Japanese makes extremely heavy use of particles to form the grammar. In some respects these are similar to prepositions in English, but far more widely used. For example, the logical structure for the sentence, “I will read a book in the library” is: I [particle] library [particle] book [particle] read.

Is it hard to study in Japan?

In general, studying in any country as a foreigner is never an easy task, and Japan is not different FROM OTHERS. Therefore, it is not strange for people to struggle with studying in Japan. Nonetheless, when compared to many other countries, it is not really difficult to study in Japan as a foreigner.

How many people speak Japanese?

Japanese is an East Asian language spoken by about 125 million speakers, primarily in Japan, where it is the national language.

What is the Japanese writing style?

Traditionally Japanese is written in vertical columns from right to left. However Japanese texts can also be written in western style, that is, in horizontal rows from top to bottom. Both writing styles exist side by side in today’s Japan.

Why is it so hard to pronounce "l" in Japanese?

The reason why they find these two sounds difficult is because they do not exist in the Japanese sound system.

How many sets of characters are there in Japanese?

The Japanese writing system consists of 3 different sets of characters:

What does the Japanese name mean?

As a curiosity, the kanji characters of the word used for “Japan” mean “sun-origin.” To observers in China, the sun rising from the East seemed to rise from Japan, which is at the eastern most part of Asia. For this reason Japan is known as “The Land of Rising Sun.”

How many words are there for the word "I"?

For instance, there are more than five different words for the English word I, which are used depending on the context. For formal situations, a honorific language level (keigo) is still in common use. Again, in your teaching you will need to explain how in English there is a more subtle way of showing formality.

Does Japanese have accents?

Japanese also makes heavy use of homophones‏‎, that is, words that are pronounced the same way, but have different meanings. In the writing system Japanese also makes a fair of use of accents .

How many people speak Japanese?

The Japanese language, also known as Nihon-go, is spoken by over 125 million people who live in the island state of Japan. In its indigenous form, the language is known as either Nihon or Nippon. This language took shape in the early part of the 20 th century based on the dialect spoken in some parts of Tokyo, the capital city of Japan. At present, this common language is used for educational purposes and mass communication. The language is actually understood throughout the country.

How are Japanese vowels pronounced?

Vowels are actually pronounced as mophthongs. This is different from English yet some of the vowels such as /u/ are pronounced as their Spanish counterparts. The vowels of Japanese language have a phonemic length that is distinctly short or very long.

What are the four dialects of Japan?

There are four major dialects in the whole of Japan (Iwasaki, S. 1). These dialects are the Eastern, Western, Kyushu, and Ryukyu dialects. The eastern dialect includes a population of 12 million people of the Tokyo dialect. This dialect is found from the eastern to the north eastern parts of the largest island of Honshu and the northernmost island of Hokkaido.

What are the facts about the origin of Japanese?

These facts include the phonological simplicity of Japanese compared to other Altaic languages. Japanese language is characterized by simple phonological systems. It can also be described as a language with an Altaic superstratum and elements of an Austronesian substratum. This language can also be described as an amalgam with the Altaic and Austronesian stocks that are equally mixed.

What kingdom took control of Japan?

The background of the Japanese language cannot be complete without some explanations of the Yamata Kingdom which appeared in the present day Nara region of central Japan. This kingdom took control of Japan. From this time on, the cultural influence that Japan received from the Yamato, a Chinese Kingdom cannot be overemphasized.

Why is the adoption of Chinese characters into Japanese important?

The adoption of the Chinese characters into the Japanese language was especially important because it chartered the future course for the written tradition in Japan. Thus, the language uses both phonetic and semantic values whose origin is Chinese (Iwasaki, S. 3).

Why do people speak different languages?

Language is therefore a purely human method of communication that is free of instincts. It is through language that human beings can communicate ideas, emotions, and desires by way of a system of voluntarily produced symbols (Syal, P. & Jindal, D. 4). Different people in the world speak different languages. One of the reasons is because of geographical factors and difference in culture.

Friday, March 11, 2011

In my article, The Truth behind English Conversation Classes, I mentioned that one possible way to teach Japanese people English involves comparing the grammars of the two languages. To people who do not know any Japanese, this probably is not particularly helpful advice.

Differences between English and Japanese Grammars (Gillian)

In my article, The Truth behind English Conversation Classes, I mentioned that one possible way to teach Japanese people English involves comparing the grammars of the two languages. To people who do not know any Japanese, this probably is not particularly helpful advice.

Word Order in Japanese

Word Formation in Japanese

• Japanese is an agglutinative language and uses suffixes added to the root of a word in order to change the meaning of that word. Whilst English does this to a certain extent, it is much more common in Japanese. This is especially noticeable with verbs‏‎; however this does actually make conjugating‏‎ Japanese verbs relatively straightforward, especi...

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Pronunciation in Japanese

Japanese Writing

Formal and Informal