Why learn Japanese?

Japanese is an important business language in Asia, and Japanese culture is popular around the world in the form of anime and music. There are over 125 million native speakers of Japanese, mostly in Japan. Many people also learn Japanese because they enjoy a challenge!  Whatever your reasons, learning Japanese will allow you to gain a new perspective on the world through the lens of Japanese culture. 

Is it difficult to learn Japanese?

Several things make Japanese a challenge for English speakers. The order of sentences is completely opposite, with verbs at the end of the sentence. Other aspects of grammar are also very different from English. The three different writing systems take some work to learn as well. Japanese is one of the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn, but people take on the challenge and succeed every day. You could be one of them! 

Fun facts about Japanese

• Japanese is written with three different writing systems: Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Kanji uses Chinese characters, using symbols to represent ideas. Hiragana and Katakana are both syllabaries, which means each symbol represents a syllable. 

• The only foreign language taught in Japanese middle schools is English.

• Japan has influenced the English language, giving us many borrowed words like tsunami, karaoke, tycoon, and futon.