日本語

Learn Japanese: the complete guide

Japanese has about 124 million native speakers and is written in a mix of kanji, hiragana and katakana. It is not tonal but has pitch accent, uses subject-object-verb order and builds politeness into its verbs; FSI puts it in its hardest category.

The short answer

Japanese is written with hiragana, katakana and kanji, has no lexical tones and uses verb-final grammar with politeness levels. This guide covers scripts, grammar, tools and the JLPT, with a step-by-step roadmap.

Native name

日本語

Family

Japonic

Script

Kanji + Hiragana + Katakana

Tones

Not tonal

Word order

SOV

Native speakers

124 million

FSI category

FSI class hours

2200

Romanisation

Modified Hepburn

Kungfucius difficulty

5 / 5

こんにちは konnichiwaHello

ありがとうございます arigatō gozaimasuThank you

Your first week

Learn hiragana this week and katakana next week, and stop reading rōmaji the moment you can. It is a crutch that bites.

Biggest hurdle

Kanji with several readings each (2,136 jōyō kanji)

Best first resource

A kana mnemonic chart plus Jisho.org (dictionary)

Kungfucius says: Three scripts, one verb at the end, and a politeness system that judges you silently.

Everything on this language

Japanese 日本語How hard is Japanese, really?How hard is Japanese, really? Kana, kanji, grammar and politeness rated honestly, with FSI hours and the parts that are easier than you might expect.Japanese 日本語Hiragana & katakana: learn kana fastLearn hiragana and katakana fast: 46 basic characters each, mnemonics, the order to learn them, and how long it really takes to read kana fluently.Japanese 日本語How to learn kanjiHow to learn kanji: how many you need, readings (on and kun), components, SRS tools like WaniKani, and why reading real Japanese matters most.Japanese 日本語Survival Japanese phrasesSurvival Japanese phrases for travel and daily life: greetings, polite requests, restaurants, trains and hotels, with kana, kanji, romaji.Japanese 日本語How to check into a hotel in JapaneseHow to check into a hotel in Japanese: phrases for reservations, passports, deposits, Wi-Fi and checkout, with Japanese script, romaji.

Varieties & dialects

standard variety · 日本語JapaneseStandard (Tokyo-based) vs regional dialects such as Kansai-ben, which differ in pitch accent, copula and vocabulary.

Mistakes learners make

Grammar · CommonDifficulty with Classifiers/Measure WordsUsing the wrong measure word, or none, when counting nouns in Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Vietnamese. Mandarin alone has dozens in common use.Pronunciation · Very CommonDifficulty with PhonemesFailing to hear or produce sounds that do not exist in your native language. English speakers struggle with Mandarin zh/z/j and ü, Japanese long vowels, and the Korean three-way consonant contrast.Grammar · Very CommonDropping ArticlesLeaving out 'a' and 'the' when speaking English, common among speakers of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian, whose languages have no articles. The reverse problem for English speakers is overusing 一個 (一个) yí ge in Chinese.Vocabulary · CommonFalse FriendsWords that look or sound familiar but mean something else. Between Chinese and Japanese, shared kanji words are a minefield, and Japanese katakana English is its own trap.Grammar · UncommonIgnoring Evidentiality MarkersFailing to mark how you know something (seen, heard, inferred) in languages where grammar expects it. Korean and Japanese use endings for hearsay and inference that English leaves to words like 'apparently'.Pragmatics · CommonIgnoring Pragmatic/Politeness LevelsSaying something grammatically correct but socially wrong, too blunt or too casual. Japanese keigo and Korean speech levels make this the signature intermediate mistake.Grammar · Very CommonIncorrect Preposition UsageUsing the wrong preposition because prepositions rarely map one-to-one between languages. Chinese uses coverbs (在 zài, 給 gěi, 跟 gēn) and Japanese uses postpositional particles (に ni, で de), which confuse English speakers.Pronunciation · Very CommonIncorrect Stress/RhythmPutting stress on the wrong syllable or using the wrong rhythm. English is stress-timed; Japanese is mora-timed and Mandarin syllable-timed with neutral tones, so English rhythm leaks in.Grammar · CommonIncorrect Use of Gerunds and InfinitivesUsing '-ing' where 'to' + verb is needed or vice versa ('I enjoy to swim'). An English-learner problem; the Japanese parallel is choosing between の no and こと koto to turn verbs into nouns.Grammar · CommonIncorrect Word Order in QuestionsForming questions with the wrong structure. English inverts and adds 'do'; Chinese keeps statement order and adds 嗎 (吗) ma or leaves the question word in place; Japanese adds か ka.Grammar · Very CommonL1 Sentence Structure TransferCopying your native word order into the target language. English speakers put the time, place and verb in the wrong slots in Chinese, and the verb anywhere but last in Japanese and Korean.Grammar · CommonLack of Noun/Adjective AgreementFailing to make adjectives agree in gender or number with nouns, a European-language problem. The Asian twist: Chinese, Japanese and Korean adjectives never agree, but Japanese has two adjective classes (i and na) that learners mix up.

When you feel like giving up

“If you feel like you’re losing everything, remember that trees lose their leaves every year, yet still stand tall and wait for better days to come.”

Kungfucius

Keep reading

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