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An Introduction to
the Japanese Language
Saturday, June 17, 2006Kazumi Takahashi
Characteristics
5 vowelsa - /a/; i - /i/; u – /u/; e - /e/; o - /o/
Romanized Japanese words: mine, MikeSOV topic first, verb final, and everything else falls betweenlike Korean
post-positional grammatical markers topic, subject, direct object, indirect object,
instrument, direction, place of action, among others
e.g.) Yoshi reads the bible at 10:00 at home today. Yoshi-wa kyoo uchi-de seisho-o yomimasu.
pitch accent
So… what is pitch accent?
(as opposed to) stress accente.g.) dictionary
⇨ dic ·tion · ary dic ·tion · ary
two pitches- high and lowhigh pitch can continuesome well-known Japanese words
Toyotato ・ yo ・ takaraokeka ・ ra ・ o ・ keHondaho ・ n ・ daNissanni ・ s ・ sa ・ n
Writing Systems
There are three sets of letters and characters, each with its own function
Hiragana 46 letters in modern Japanese, each representing one sound
Katakana46 letters in modern Japanese, each representing one
sound
Kanji “Chinese characters”each character represents meaningOn-reading
approximation to the sound representation of the character at the time of its importation
Kun-readingJapanese original readings of the character based on its meaning
Let’s read Hiragana
か み さ ま ka mi sa ma
あ な た a na ta
あ い し て お ら れ ま す a i shi te o ra re ma su
“God loves you.”
かみさま○ あなた○ あいしておられます
かみさま -topic あなた -direct object あいしておられます
かみさま -wa あなた -o あいしておられます
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