6. 01. A bit of
JAPAN
• Island country located
in East Asia, situated in
the Pacific Ocean.
• “The Land Of The Rising
Sun”
• The population is
around 125 million
people as of 2023.
• A cultural superpower
7.
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12. 01. History of Japanese
- The Japanese language has a long
history spanning over 2000 years.
- 4 main stages:
• Old Japanese (approximately the 8th
century)
• Early Middle Japanese (from the
8th century to the 12th century)
• Late Middle Japanese (from the
12th century to the 16th century)
• Modern Japanese (from the 16th
century onwards to present)
20. Modern Japanese
• In the 16th century, romaji - a system
of writing Japanese using the Latin
alphabet.
• Following the end in 1853, the flow of
loanwords from European languages
increased significantly.
• Since 1945: has seen many loanwords
and borrowed words from other
languages.
23. Used to write
nouns, verbs and
adjectives (about
2000 characters).
Linguistic
features
kanji
Used to write
native Japanese
words (46 basic
characters plus +
combinations).
hiragana
24. Used to write
loanwords and foreign
words (46 basic
characters plus +
combinations).
Linguistic
features
katakana
Used to write
Japanese phonetic
sounds. (It’s rarely used
in native writing).
romaji
25. “Watashi wa ringo o tabemasu” means “I apple eat” or “I eat
an apple”
Linguistic
features
The word order (is): subject-object-verb (which is)
- different from English SVO (subject-verb-object)
structure.
26. • No grammatical gender for
nouns, articles or plurals in
Japanese.
• Pitch accent system: two levels –
high and low. The pitch pattern
of a word can change its
meaning.
• Polite and formal expressions:
has complex systems of
honorifics to reflect social
relationships and hierarchies.
Speech levels: polite, formal,
02. Linguistic
features
27. • Unique counting system:
with different words used for
different types of objects.
• Distinctive sounds: Japanese
has only 5 vowel sounds (a, i,
u, e, o) and a limited number
of consonant sounds.
0 2 .Linguis t ic
f eat ur es
29. 03. The popularity
of Japanese
• Approximately 128 million people
speak Japanese worldwide as of
2021.
• The majority of Japanese speakers
are located in Japan
• There are also significant populations
of Japanese speakers in other
• One of the ten most
spoken languages in
the world.
44. • HelloTalk: a language exchange
app that connects you with native
Japanese speakers.
• Duolingo: provide quick and
immersive Japanese lessons
based on pictures and intuitive
learning.
• italki: an app that connects
learners to Japanese tutors for
one-on-one lessons.
