🇯🇵 Japanese #13 Most Spoken Language (126M speakers)

Japanese is topic-prominent and morphologically simple on nouns (no case endings on the word itself) but rich on verbs via suffix chains. Particles mark grammatical roles, subjects are frequently omitted, and politeness levels shape verb forms and vocabulary.

• Mora timing: length matters: o vs ō (こう), double consonant っ, and moraic ん change meaning.
• Pitch accent: not stress. Minimal pairs exist (はし: chopsticks vs bridge vs edge by pitch pattern).
• Particles pronounced oddly: topic は is read “wa”; object を is read “o”.
• Long vowels: おう/おお can both sound like long ō; えい often sounds like long ē.
• Rendaku: compound voicing: て + かみ → てがみ (letter).

• Particles: は topic, が subject, を object, に/へ goal, で location/means, と “and/with”.
• Tense/aspect: “non-past” vs past; progressive/resultative with 〜ている.
• Verb classes: Ichidan (る-drop), Godan (u-stem changes), irregular する・来る.
• Adjectives: -i adjectives inflect (高い→高くない), -na adjectives use copula (静かだ).
• Relative clauses: pre-nominal, no “that”: 昨日買った本 “the book (that I) bought yesterday”.

Tokyo Japanese underpins the standard; Kansai has distinct intonation and vocabulary; Tōhoku, Kyūshū, and Ryukyuan show wider differences. Politeness choice (casual, polite, honorific/humble) varies by region and context.

• Old Japanese → Early Middle (kana invented) → Late Middle → Early Modern → Modern.
• Massive Sino-Japanese loan layer (kan-on/go-on); wave of Western loans in Meiji and postwar eras.

日本語を勉強しています。
にほんご を べんきょう して います
Japanese-ACC study do-TE be (progressive: “I’m studying Japanese.”)

明日、東京へ行きます。
あした、とうきょう へ いきます
tomorrow Tokyo-DIR go-POL (future meaning by context)

いくらですか？ (How much?) • 大丈夫です (It’s okay) • お願いします (Please)

• Keigo tiers: honorific (いらっしゃる), humble (参る), polite (〜ます).
• Counters: objects take classifiers (一人, 二匹, 三本, 四枚, 五冊).
• Script dance: Kanji for content, hiragana for grammar, katakana for loanwords/onoma.