Introduction

INTRODUCTION Overview of text Description of the Japanese Language I. Japanese Language II. Writing System (overview) III. Speech Sound IV. Sound Unit V. Writing System VI. Sentence Structure 1 I. Japanese language Japanese is a language spoken by people in Japan and some descendants of the Japanese who have immigrated to communities in countries around the world, for example Brazil, Hawaii, Northern California, and North Sydney. II. Writing System (Overview) Japanese is written using a combination of hiragana, katakana, and Chinese characters (kanji). All Japanese writing scripts were derived from Chinese characters over 1000 years ago. Hiragana and katakana are characters that have been simplified tremendously and stripped of meaning. They are syllabaries, which represent the sounds of the Japanese language. Kanji are ideograms, used to write words. There will be a more detailed section on kanji later in this introduction, in addition to the kanji sections found in each paragraph. In general, each of the scripts is used as follows: Category Appearance Usage hiragana “curvy” All sounds in Japanese; typically used for particles, inflectional endings (“conjugations”) of verbs, adjectives and the like, and some words that are typically not written in kanji katakana “angular” While katakana can be used to write all sounds in Japanese, it is typically used to write borrowed words, and onomatopoeia kanji Chinese Characters Kanji are generally used to write words, such as nouns, and the roots of verbs and adjectives The Japanese syllabaries hiragana and katakana consist of 46 characters each, consisting of vowel sounds (-a, i, -u, -e, -o), consonant plus vowel sounds, and a syllabic –n. Diacritical marks (the “ten-ten”, or “small circle”) may be added to make “voiced” sounds. Finally, “glides,” or sounds with –ya, -yu, and –yo, in words such as “Tokyo” or “Kyoto” are indicated in writing with “small –ya, -yu, or –yo” following hiragana in the –-i line. See Section V in this introduction for a detailed introduction to hiragana, katakana and kanji. III. Speech Sound All human language consists of two basic categories of sounds, consonants and vowels. Consonant sounds are the sounds created with friction in the mouth. The initial sounds [p] and [b] in the following words, pig and book, are created by the friction between the lips and the exhalation of air from the lungs. What makes [p] and [b] sound different is the state of vocal folds; the vocal folds do not vibrate when [p] is pronounced and the vocal folds vibrate when [b] is pronounced. Those sounds produced by the vibration of vocal folds are called voiced sounds, whereas the sounds produced without vibration is called voiceless sounds. Vowels are sounds created without any friction in the mouth. The inventory of Japanese speech sound is smaller than English (23 consonants and 5 vowels in Japanese vs. 26 consonants and 12 vowels in English), which is to say that the Japanese language lacks some sounds that exist in English. 2 Many Japanese native speakers find it difficult to produce consonant sounds such as the ones in the initial position of the following words, think, they, victory, rabbit since these sounds do not exist in their native language. By contrast there are very few sounds in Japanese that pose problems for native speakers of English, but take the time to work on your pronunciation. IV. Sound Unit Words in any languages are formed with a certain sequence of consonants (C) and vowels (V) and can be organized into an abstract sound unit called a syllable. For example, the English word “stripper” composed of two syllables, “strip” and “per”. English syllable structure can be quite complex, including syllables with CCCVC as the structure, as you can see in the e example “striper.” The first syllable starts with three consonants [s-t-r], followed by a vowel [i] and then another consonant [p] at the end). In contrast with English, the Japanese syllable structure is very simple, having only three patterns, V (vowels by themselves, as in the the syllable of the word atama—head), CV (in words such as Toyota, which consists of three CV syllables) and a consonant by itself. (This syllable structure is restricted to the so-called syllabic N (as in Honda or pen, or the syllabic beat that appears with so-called “double consonants.) V. Writing System (A detailed introduction) The Japanese language is written using a combination of hiragana, katakana, and Chinese characters (kanji). All Japanese writing scripts were derived from Chinese characters over 1000 years ago. Hiragana and katakana are characters that have been simplified tremendously and stripped of meaning. They are syllabaries, which represent the sounds of the Japanese language. Kanji are ideograms. In general, each of the scripts is used as follows: Category Appearance Usage hiragana “curvy” All sounds in Japanese; typically used for particles, inflectional endings (“conjugations”) of verbs, adjectives and the like, and some words that are typically not written in kanji katakana “angular” While katakana can be used to write all sounds in Japanese, it is typically used to write borrowed words, and onomatopoeia kanji Chinese Characters Kanji are generally used to write words, such as nouns, and the roots of verbs and adjectives The Japanese syllabaries hiragana and katakana consist of 46 characters each, consisting of vowel sounds (-a, i, -u, -e, -o), consonant plus vowel sounds, and a syllabic –n. Diacritical marks (the “ten-ten”, or “small circle) may be added to make “voiced” sounds. Finally, “glides,” or sounds with -ya, -yu, and -yo, in words such as “Tokyo” or “Kyoto” are indicated in writing with “small -ya, -yu, or -yo” following hiragana in the –-i line. In addition to the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, the Japanese use kanji (Chinese characters) as part of the orthographical system. At present, there are 2,136 jōyō kanji ( じょうようかんじ常用漢字 regular-use kanji) plus an additional 983 kanji that may be used to write 3 personal names. Kanji are ideographs, representing semantic units, and in Japanese may be pronounced according to their so-called Chinese pronunciation, or their so-called Japanese pronunciation. You will be learning approximately 15 Chinese characters each chapter. A single sentence may contain all of the writing forms; some may even have roman letters used to write words or expressions. Look at the sentence below: try to determine which elements are hiragana, which katakana, and which are Chinese characters. 私はコンピューター科学の先生です。 Watashi wa (particle) Konpyuutaa kagaku no Sensei desu. As for me (topic), I am a computer science instructor. Familiarize yourself with the layout of the hiragana chart as you memorize the hiragana. The layout itself is a memory aid. The chart shows a grid of 5 base vowels plus the 10 base consonant combinations. Notice that some boxes are empty, meaning the sound/symbol combination doesn’t exist in modern Japanese. More complex sounds are indicated with diacritical marks or hiragana combinations, as we will see later in the Introduction. Your teacher will probably refer to hiragana in the “k” line, for example, or in the “m” line. 1. Hiragana k s t n h m Y r w n a あかさたなはまやらわん i いきしちにひみり u うくすつぬふむゆる e えけせてねへめれ o おこそとのほもよろを In general, Japanese pronunciation is relatively straightforward. Vowels are pronounced like vowels in Spanish or Italian, and consonants have almost the same value as in English, though most are not enounced as forcefully as in English. The charts below provide the hiragana symbol, its common Romaji equivalent, its pronunciation, and some English words that contain sounds with the approximate pronunciation. The chart will also identify key similarities and differences if they exist. The Japanese sound system is as follows: Vowels あ [a] Sounds like [a] in “father”, but shorter い [i] Sounds like [i] in “beat” or “eat,” but shorter う [u] Sounds like [u] in “boot” or “oops,” but shorter, and the lips aren’t rounded え [e] Sounds like [e] in “pen” or “west” お [o] Sounds like [o] in “horde” or “go,” but it is shorter and the lips are rounded The base vowel sounds can be combined with the following consonant sounds: [k], [s], [t], [n], [h], [m], [y], [r], and [w], and with the following voiced consonants: [g], [z], [d], [b], 4 and [p]. The remaining hiragana indicate syllables consisting of these consonant + vowel combinations, or with additional more complex combinations. k-line か [ka] Sounds like [k] in “cat” or “karate” き [ki] Sounds like [k] in “key” or “keep” く [ku] Sounds like the [k] in “coo” or “coop” け [ke] Sounds like [k] in “kept” こ [ko] Sounds like [k] in “coat” [k] sounds in Japanese are like the [k] in English, but are a little lighter, articulated a bit further forward in the mouth, and in the case of く and こ without rounding the lips. s-line さ [sa] Sounds like [s] in “sake” (rice wine) or “sat” し [shi] Sounds like [shi] in “sheep” or “she” す [su] Sounds like the [su] in “soup” せ [se] Sounds like [se] in “cent” or “septic” そ [so] Sounds like the [so] sound in “soap” or “soak” In general, the [s] sounds are like English, but notice that there is a soun change when an [s] sound comes before an [i] sound. Then it is pronounced like the English word “she.” Articulate the sound further forward in your mouth, and don’t aspirate the initial sounds as much.

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