Japanese is a great language to learn, but it can be difficult, especially for native English speakers. That being said, you can make the learning process much easier by understanding three important differences between English and Japanese. This article will discuss those differences.
Formality
In English, it's perfectly acceptable to speak the same way to everyone, within reason. For example, you would say the phrase "Good morning," to your spouse, your boss, your pals, and to a complete stranger. Things are quite different in Japan. There, you must speak differently to different people, based on their age and their relationship to you.
To illustrate, I'll discuss the following Japanese morning greeting:
"ohayo" (informal) or,
"ohayo gozaimasu" (formal)
When you get up and see your kids and your spouse, you would say, "Ohayo." When you arrived at your office and saw your boss, on the other hand, saying that could get you fired! To your boss, you must use the more formal, "Ohayo gozaimasu."
What about your colleagues? To most of them, you would speak formally, saying, "Ohayo gozaimasu." To the ones you have developed close relationships with, though, you could drop the formality and say, "Ohayo." When speaking to strangers, always use the more formal version.
How important is this? Very! Speaking informally to strangers, superiors, or those older than you is quite rude. To get a better understanding, imagine that you have a teenage daughter.
Now imagine that she brings a teenage boy home for dinner. This boy comes into your home, approaches your elderly father, and says, "Hey gramps, what's up." What would you think about his manners? I suspect that while you may not throw him out right then and there, you probably wouldn't have him back either. Learning how to speak Japanese with proper formality will ensure that you do get invited back!
Word Order
In English, we order our sentences in the following way:
Subject + Verb + Object.
As an example, let's look at the simple sentence, "I love you." In this sentence, the verb is "love." The subject is "I," and the object is "you."
Therefore, we write the sentence. I (subject) love (verb) you (object). Japanese sentence structure is a bit different. In Japanese sentences, word order is as follows:
Subject + Object + Verb
Our sample sentence would look like this (Romanized).
Watashi wa (Subject [I]) anatao (object [you]) aishiteru (Verb [love]).
Understanding this one fundamental difference between English and Japanese will greatly increase the speed at which you learn Japanese grammar--remember it.
Subject and Object Markers
This is fairly straightforward. The Japanese language has subject and object markers, and the English language does not. Using these markers correctly can be quite challenging. Here, though, I will just give you the basics.
Let's look at the sample sentence, "I ate Japanese food." The markers we will use, in Romanized form, are "Wa" and "Wo."
English word order: I ate Japanese food.
Japanese word order: I Japanese food ate.
Japanese word order with markers: I wa Japanese food wo ate.
"Wa" marks the subject "I," and "wo" marks the object "Japanese food." As you get deeper into the Japanese language, you'll learn more about how these markers can be used to make subtle changes to sentence meanings. For now, though, just be aware that they are there, and try to use them properly when speaking.
Summary
Mastering the Japanese language can be challenging. We can make it far less difficult, however, by comparing it directly to the English language. Remember the difference in word order, the use of subject and object markers in Japanese, and the various formality differences between the two languages and you will have great success learning the Japanese language.
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