Introduction to the Japanese Language

Reading

Read this to get started:http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese_Phrasebook/Greetings_and_farewell Read the introduction to the Japanese language on Wikibooks to familiarize yourself with the language.

Discussion

Leave any questions or comments here.

Words to Know

•  Kanji : Chinese ideographic characters
• Kana: The syllabaries used to write Japanese words and particles using characters that represent syllables. The two syllabaries are called hiragana and katakana
•  Rōmaji : Romanized Japanese https://eduessayhelper.org/blog/education-japan.html

Quiz

1

  How would you write, "Cats eat mice" in Japanese? (Use rōmaji.)

2

 English is an SVO (Subject Verb Object) language. What kind of language is Japanese? (Answer is possible with three letters or all written.)

3

 What is the name for people of higher status and lower status (lowercase, comma deliminated)

4

 How many general-use characters set forth by the Ministry of Education should one know in order to be literate in Japanese?

5

 What is the name of the group of general-use characters set forth by the Ministry of Education one should know in order to be literate in Japanese (lowercase)?

6

 What are the names of the two syllabaries that make up the writing form Kana (lowercase, comma delimited)?

Learning Activites

• Research more about the Japanese language and improve the Wikipedia entry on the Japanese language
• Add more questions to the above quiz

Project: Introduction to Japanese

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