Ch 1 · Lesson 1Japanese · Chapter 1 · Lesson 1 · Introduction
How Japanese works
Three scripts, the verb at the end, and little words that do the work English gives to word order. You never have to type Japanese here: romaji is always accepted.
The short version
- Japanese is genuinely hard for English speakers. The Foreign Service Institute puts it in its hardest category, at about 2,200 classroom hours. Much of that is the writing system, not the grammar.
- You never have to type Japanese here. Every typed answer accepts romaji, long vowels optional, because a keyboard test is not a Japanese test.
- The verb goes last, and small particles say who did what.
,,anddo the work English gives to word order. - No plurals, no articles, and politeness is built into the verb. We teach the polite
and ます forms first, because they are safe with anyone.
Lesson 1 of 29 in this chapter