元気ですか?

'How are you?' in Japanese

Photo by Su San Lee

Language

Japanese

Japanese, a Japonic language, is spoken by about 125 million native speakers, primarily in Japan. It uses three writing systems: hiragana, katakana (for phonetic syllabaries), and kanji (Chinese characters). Japanese is known for its pitch-accent system and unique phonetic structure. Its grammar is agglutinative, with particles marking sentence structure, no grammatical gender, and complex verb conjugations that reflect politeness levels. Vocabulary includes native terms and loanwords from Chinese, English, and other languages. As Japan’s official language, Japanese is central to its culture, technology, and global influence in media, cuisine, and art. Romanization is enabled for Japanese on this platform in addition to the original script. Romanization is the representation of a non-Latin script language in the Latin alphabet to aid pronunciation and understanding for those unfamiliar with the original script.

Flashcards

let

きょかする

kyokasuru

let

To allow someone to do something.

come

来る

くる

come

To move toward or arrive at a place.

cover

おおう

ōu

cover

To place something over or on top of something else to protect or conceal it.

pay

はらう

harau

pay

To give money in exchange for goods or services.

Stories

Agents

Japanese

Aiko

Teaching Japanese online
Female
34
Tokyo, Japan
Language teacher
Serene
gardening, reading, yoga
Japanese

Satoshi

Studying Japanese linguistics
Male
20
Tokyo, Japan
Student
Introverted
gaming, reading, biking
Japanese

Hiroshi

Debugging code late night
Male
31
Tokyo, Japan
Programmer
Focused
anime, gardening, karate

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