Facts About Japanese Language

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Facts About Japanese Language Universal Translation Services 2021


The Japanese Language Japanese is an East Asian language that has 128 million native speakers. It is primarily spoken in Japan, where it is known as Nihongo. Although Japan does not have an official language, Japanese is recognized as the national language of the country. The oldest attested stage of the language is known as Old Japanese. It further developed into two middle varieties until Modern Japanese was born.

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Facts About the Japanese Language

Each language is unique in some way; Japanese is no different. Here are some interesting facts about Japanese:

1. Relationship with Other Languages Japanese belong to the Japonic language family. Over the years, linguists have grouped it into various other language groups. But none of the theories about the relationship of Japanese with other languages turned out to be true. Although Japanese and Korean have a few similarities, they are not related in away. Many people assume that the language of Japan is related to Chinese, which is also incorrect. However, a significant percentage of Japanese vocabulary has been Universal Translation Services 2021


2. Writing Systems Japanese has a complex writing system. The primary system of writing the language is known as kanji. Along with kanji, the writing system also uses two syllabic scripts known as katakana and hiragana. Latin script and Romanization of Japanese characters is very limited. When it comes to numbering, the writing system gets even more confusing for non-natives. The numeral system relies on Arabic numbering. But Chinese numerals are also used for writing numbers alongside Arabic numbering. Latin script is sometimes used for advertising or writing acronyms. Universal Translation Services 2021


3. Levels of Formality Formality is very important in all the East Asian languages, including Japanese. There are three levels of formality in Japanese: casual, polite, and formal. Whenever you talk to someone, the verbs are conjugated according to your relationship with them. It is very important for the people of Japan to use the right tone when talking to someone. People don’t like to be talked to in a casual tone if you are not friends with them. The most difficult to master is the formal tone, which has multiple levels.

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4. Plurals and Articles The things that make the Japanese language easier to master are the lack of plurals and articles. You don’t have to add the sound of ‘s’ or ‘es’ to make plurals, like the English language. Neither do you have to think of the Japanese word for ‘are’. Another difference between Japanese and English is the fact that the former does not have articles. You don’t have to worry about adding ‘a’ or ‘an’ before an object. You can easily make sentences with verbs and objects. In fact, you can even make sentences in Japanese with only verbs. That is also how it become easy to provide accurate J Universal Translation Services 2021 apanese translation without complexity.


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