Japanese has a reputation for being impossible. It is not impossible. It is slow, and almost all of the slowness is in one place.
The grammar is regular, the sound system is small and friendly, and there are hardly any irregular verbs. The writing system is what takes years. Know that going in and you will budget your effort properly.
How hard, honestly
The US Foreign Service Institute, which trains diplomats, ranks languages by how long English speakers take to reach working proficiency. Japanese sits in its hardest category.
| Language | FSI category | Class hours |
|---|---|---|
| Spanish | I | 600-750 |
| Russian | III | about 1,100 |
| Japanese | IV | about 2,200 |
That figure assumes full-time study with teachers. It does not mean you cannot hold a simple conversation in months. You can, because the spoken basics are far easier than the reading.
Three scripts, and why kana first
A Japanese sentence mixes three writing systems:
| Script | What it writes | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Hiragana | grammar endings, particles, native words | |
| Katakana | loanwords from other languages | |
| Kanji | the core of most nouns, verbs, adjectives | |
Hiragana and katakana (together, kana) are syllabaries: each symbol is one sound, and there are 46 basic ones in each. Kanji carry meaning and number in the thousands.
So the order is fixed. Learn hiragana first, because it can spell every word in the language. Then katakana, which is the same sounds in a squarer hand. Kanji arrive one word at a time, and this site prints the reading in small kana above each one, so a kanji you have not learned never blocks a sentence.
The verb goes last
English runs subject, verb, object. Japanese runs subject, object, verb:
| Japanese | Romaji | English |
|---|---|---|
。 | Watashi wa kōhī o nomimasu. | I drink coffee. |
。 | Watashi wa hon o yomimasu. | I read a book. |
。 | Watashi wa Nihon ni ikimasu. | I go to Japan. |
Whatever else happens in the sentence, the verb waits for the end. That includes questions, which simply add after the verb.
Particles do the work of word order
In English, "the dog bit the man" and "the man bit the dog" differ only in order. Japanese tags each noun with a small particle after it instead, and the particle says what the noun is doing:
| Particle | Romaji | Job | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| wa | the topic | |
| o | the object | |
| ni | where to, whom you meet | |
| de | where it happens | |
| no | of, 's | |
Two of them are spelled one way and said another: is read wa and is read o when they are particles. The particles lesson takes them one at a time.
No plurals, no articles
There is no word for "the" or "a", and nouns do not change for number:
。- I am a student, or we are students, or they are students.。- I read a book, or the book, or books.
Context does the work. Japanese also drops the subject whenever it is obvious, which is most of the time, so 。 on its own is a complete and natural sentence.
Politeness is grammar
Japanese verbs, and the です that means "is", come in a plain form and a polite form, and you pick one every time you speak:
| Plain | Polite | English |
|---|---|---|
| | eat |
| | go |
だ | | is a student |
This course teaches the polite ます form and です first. Plain forms are for friends and family; polite forms are safe with everyone, and a learner who is too polite is forgiven at once.
Sounds, and pitch
Japanese has five vowels, said short and clean, and few consonants English lacks. The real trap is length: a long vowel or a doubled consonant can change the word, as in (chotto, a little), where the small っ makes a pause.
Standard Japanese also uses pitch accent: some words are distinguished by where the pitch falls, not by stress. It is worth hearing, and the audio here models it, but no exercise marks it.
Typing: never required
You never have to type Japanese here: every typed answer accepts romaji, long vowels optional. konnichiwa counts, and so do arigato and arigatou. Particles and verb forms are mostly picked from tiles anyway, because choosing out of four is a better test than spelling it.
What this course is
The first chapter is the hundred commonest words of everyday Japanese, from and to , taught in order of how often you will meet them. Alongside them, five short grammar lessons:
- Hiragana and katakana, the two charts.
- は and です, the basic sentence.
- Particles を, に, で and の.
- The ます form of every verb in the chapter.
A hundred words is a start, not a conversation. It is enough to introduce yourself, ask where the toilet is, and read the kana on a menu.