Photo: Emran Yousof (Unsplash License)
over 125 million ยท 3 writing systems
Language of Japan
Let's explore the amazing language of Japan: Japanese! It's spoken by millions of people and has a rich history and culture. Japanese uses unique writing systems and contains lots of phrases that help people communicate politely. Get ready to learn and have fun with Japanese words and phrases!
Test Your Knowledge
About the Script
Japanese is written using three different scripts: Hiragana and Katakana for sounds, and Kanji for meanings. Hiragana and Katakana look simple. Kanji are like pictures that tell a story.
Script Explorer
Hiragana
A syllabary used for native Japanese words.
Katakana
A syllabary used for foreign words and names.
Kanji
Symbols used to represent full words or parts of words. 20 most common of 2,000+
Phrase Cards
Fun Fact
Japanese speakers pack in a lot of quick little sound-beats called morae -- researchers have clocked Japanese as one of the fastest-sounding languages, even though each beat carries less information than in slower languages like English.
Fun Fact
Kanji characters came from China, and Japan adapted them into its own writing over a thousand years ago -- one of Japan's oldest surviving books, the Kojiki, was written in the year 712!
Cultural Note
In Japan, how you speak can change depending on who you're talking to. There are special ways to show respect.
Vocabulary
In Japanese, you learn Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji to read and write -- and unlike English, spoken Japanese has only five vowel sounds (a, i, u, e, o), which is why kana can spell out any word with the same small set of building blocks.
