Matt Fargo (2 page)

KANJI, which looks very complicated, is a set of “ideograms” imported from China as early as the 5
^th
century. There are thousands of kanji characters, and many of them can be pronounced in different ways, depending on context. Good luck. Fortunately, teachers say you only need to know 1945 kanji characters for complete Japanese literacy. Most of the others are only used to represent the names of specific places and people, so you can think of them as corporate logos and only learn to recognize the ones you need. For example:

ROMANJI, the Roman (English) alphabet, is now spreading to Japan because of globalization. You’ll encounter it in Japanese slang, especially for writing abbreviations and acronyms of American words and high-tech terms.

You’ll find complete lists of hiragana and katakana characters, along with the basic kanji characters, in the front or back of most standard Japanese-English phrasebooks. Study them and challenge yourself to relate them to the words and phrases in this book. I hereby promise that anybody—even Americans—can learn to read hiragana and katakana in about a week, if sufficiently inspired.

Japanese grammar may be mind-boggling, but at least the words are easy to pronounce. Once your tongue gets used to the basic syllables, you should be able to read out loud from this or any other phrasebook well enough so local people can understand you.

Japanese has the same five vowels as English, and almost all words end with a vowel or an “n.” Each vowel has only one pronunciation:

Sometimes, when reading Japanese words written in the Roman alphabet, you’ll see a vowel with a straight line (a macron) above it, like “ā” or “ō.” This doesn’t change the pronunciation or emphasis, it only means the vowel is drawn out longer. So “ō” means “Ohhh . . . ,” not “Oooo ....” In addition, the spaces between romanized Japanese words are totally arbitrary. Try to let the syllables flow at a relatively even pace.

Consonant sounds in Japanese are pretty much the same as in English, and there are fewer of them (though many Japanese characters represent combinations of consonants). The consonants that Americans tend to have trouble with are:

But if you blow your pronunciation of these letters, people will still be able to understand you. They’ll just make fun of your American accent behind your back.

The most important point to remember is that every syllable in Japanese words gets equal emphasis. It’s “ka-wa-sa-ki,” not “KA-wa-SA-ki.”