Japanese

Introduction

Japanese is a language spoken in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is related to the Japonic-Ryukyuan languages. Its relationships with other languages remain undemonstrated. It is an agglutinative language and is distinguished by a complex system of honorifics reflecting the hierarchical nature of Japanese society, with verb forms and particular vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and a person mentioned in conversation (regardless of their presence).

Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been influential.

The Alphabet

The Japanese language is written with a combination of three different types of scripts: modified Chinese characters called kanji (漢字), and two syllabic scripts made up of modified Chinese characters, hiragana (平仮名) and katakana (片仮名). The Latin alphabet, rōmaji (ローマ字), is also often used in modern Japanese, especially for company names and logos, advertising, and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Western style Indian numerals are generally used for numbers, but traditional Sino-Japanese numerals are also commonplace.

The verb

Japanese verb conjugation is the same for all subjects, first person ("I", "we"), second person ("thou", "you") and third person ("he/she/it" and "they"), singular and plural. The plain form of all verbs ends in u. There are very few irregular verbs.

Grouping of verbs

Group 1: ~ U ending verbs

The basic form of Group 1 verbs end with "~ u". This group is also called Consonant-stem verbs or Godan-doushi (Godan verbs).

• hanasu （話す） - to speak
• kaku （書く） - to write
• kiku （聞く） - to listen

Group 2: ~ Iru and ~ Eru ending verbs

The basic form of Group 2 verbs end with either "~iru" or "~ eru". This group is also called Vowel-stem-verbs or Ichidan-doushi (Ichidan verbs).

Iru ending verbs

• kiru （着る） - to wear
• miru （見る） - to see

Eru ending verbs

• akeru （開ける） - to open
• ageru （あげる） - to give

Group 3: Irregular verbs

There are only two irregular verbs, kuru (来る) 'to come' and suru (する) 'to do'.

Sample verb: 歩く

Click verbs to conjugate them in the table above!

• 歩く aruku (to walk)
• 書く kaku (to write)
• 聞く kiku (to listen)
• 着く tsuku (to arrive)

External links

• Verb Conjugations Archives(approve sites)
• Wikipedia:Japanese_verb_conjugations
• All about verbs(approve sites) Japanese verb groups