How to speak Japanese

Here at how to speak Japanese I have assembled some basics to help you speak the language. Japanese is actually not as hard to speak as everyone thinks and it is really fun to learn and as you read more and more about the language, especially on pages like this you will, no doubt like myself, be motivated to find books to read, movies to watch or a good course to buy.

Some of the best Japanese language software that I have found is from Transparent Language. The internet has plenty of free resources to aid your learning, so have a good nose around. Eventually though if you are serious about learning to speak Japanese you will want to think about taking a structured course on-line or with a class or group. Working in a group can be valuable when studying a language because you get to listen to the sounds of the words and different peoples pronunciation! If buying an on-line course then make sure that it comes with a comprehensive audio component that helps you to develop your ‘ear’.

Reading and writing is another matter entirely and certainly does take a much greater commitment of time. There are three alphabets after all, which are:

• Kanji – the picture language which evolved from Chinese pictograms.
• Hiragana
• Katakana

Altogether there are thousands of pictograms to learn if you want to be a proficient reader; that’s quite a job if you are short on time. To get by as a tourist though you can memorize many useful phrases and ideas that will get you past the initial blank faces and personal confusion to the point where you can make yourself understood by the people you meet.

The information presented here is in the form of English-Japanese translation, that is, the English version of Japanese words. This makes things easy to learn and recall.
How to speak Japanese is divided into easy categories. Here is a good place to start.

• Basics of how to speak Japanese
• Japanese culture: a intro to Haiku poetry
• Learn Japanese numbers
• Japanese days, weeks, months and years
• Understanding Japanese culture: ideas and sayings
• Japanese religion: Shinto and Zen

Map of Japan at how to speak japanese.com