Japanese Language and Grammar Essentials

Vocabulary and essential terminology extracted from the Japanese introductory lecture notes, covering script classifications, grammar principles, pronunciation rules, and common expressions.

Shushin

A Japanese word that means where you are from or your place of origin.

Dakuten

Also called Tenten; a mark consisting of two diagonal lines placed on the upper right corner of a Hiragana character that makes the consonant of the syllable voiced.

Hane

A brush-flick or upward release stroke executed when writing Japanese characters.

SOV Word Order

Subject-Object-Verb; the fundamental sentence structure used in the Japanese language.

Subject Prominent Language

A language classification, such as English, where the subject is slightly more essential to the sentence structure than other components.

Topic Prominent Language

A language classification, such as Japanese, where the primary focus of each sentence is the topic rather than the subject.

Arigatou gozaimasu

A polite phrase meaning thank you, used immediately after receiving kindness or a favor from someone.

Arigatou gozaimashita

The past-tense form of thank you, used when the action or favor being thanked for is completely completed.

Gojuuon

The traditional system of ordering Japanese kana, equivalent to alphabetical order in English.

Romaji

The representation of Japanese text using Roman letters, commonly used for beginners.

Hiragana

The core Japanese phonetic alphabet, consisting of 46 characters representing individual syllable sounds, used for functional words and grammatical endings.

Katakana

A Japanese phonetic script representing the same syllable sounds as Hiragana, primarily used for foreign loanwords.

Kanji

Logographic characters adopted from Chinese that represent whole concepts or words rather than individual phonetic sounds.

On reading

The reading or pronunciation of a Kanji character derived from its original Chinese pronunciation.

Kun reading

The reading or pronunciation of a Kanji character derived from native Japanese words.

Pitch Accent

The pattern of high and low intonation used when pronouncing a Japanese word to distinguish between words with identical spellings.

-san

An honorific suffix attached to another person's name corresponding to Mr. or Mrs., which should never be used with one's own name.

Desu

A Japanese copula equivalent to am, is, or are in English; it can follow nouns or adjectives but must never be placed after a verb.