Learning Japanese — frequently asked questions
36 questions people really ask when learning Japanese, with answers that stand on their own. Where there is more to say, the link comes underneath — not instead of the answer.
Getting started
Where to begin, how long it takes, which Japanese to learn, and what the levels mean.
How should I start learning Japanese?
In three steps that overlap rather than follow one another. First hiragana, because it writes every sound of the language and all of its grammar; then katakana. Alongside them, from the very first week, whole sentences in the polite style — 私はサムです。イギリスから来ました。よろしくお願いします。 — which the furigana let you read before you know a single kanji. And with them a first stock of words and the particles は, を, に and で, which do the work that word order does in English. Learn the scripts on their own and you have nothing to say; skip them and you cannot read anything you are given.
What do N5, N4, N3 and N2 mean on this site?
They are the steps of a scale that learners of Japanese widely use to describe their level, from N5, the first, to N1, the highest; this site goes as far as N2. The site is not connected with any body that sets or marks examinations. Since 2010 no official lists of words, kanji or grammar have been published for these steps, so where a word or a grammar point sits here is this site’s own judgement — and the yardstick is stated openly: not how difficult something looks, but from what point you cannot get by without it. 冷蔵庫, fridge, has three kanji and sits at N5, because every kitchen has one; 欠く, to lack, is short and sits at N2, because ない and 足りない cover the same ground for a long time. As a rough guide only, N2 corresponds to about B2 on the European scale in reading and listening; there is no official equivalence between the two, and speaking and writing are not what the N-steps describe.
Why does this site stop at N2?
Because N2 is roughly the point at which ordinary adult Japanese — notices, letters, articles, conversations at normal speed — becomes readable and followable with a dictionary to hand, and that is what this pair was built to get you to. Beyond it, what a learner needs is mostly volume: many more kanji compounds, set phrases and written styles, met again and again in real texts. A site of explanations and word lists adds less per page there than reading does. It would rather cover the levels it has properly than spread itself thinly over one more.
Is Japanese hard for English speakers?
It is long rather than hard, and the length sits in particular places. The pronunciation is manageable, and the grammar is more regular than English: there are two truly irregular verbs, する and 来る, a handful of small exceptions, and no endings for person or number at all. What takes time is everything an English speaker cannot borrow: almost no shared vocabulary beyond the katakana loanwords, sentences built in the opposite order, a writing system learnt character by character, and the levels of politeness. None of it is beyond anyone. It is simply a language in which you cannot coast on what you already know.
How long does it take to learn Japanese?
There is no honest figure in hours, and a page that states one as a fact has taken it from somewhere it should not have trusted: it depends on what you already know, how often you practise and what you mean by having learnt it. Three things can be said. The first weeks go on the scripts, so the start feels slower than with a European language — and that time is well spent, because everything after it is read rather than guessed. Speaking and understanding usually run ahead of reading, because kanji keep arriving word by word for a long time. And short, regular practice beats occasional long sessions, above all for kanji, which fade quickly when they are not seen again. Measure progress by what you can do — order a meal, follow an announcement, read a notice — rather than by the calendar.
Which Japanese should I learn — and what about dialects?
Standard Japanese, based on the speech of Tokyo: it is what the news uses, what every book is written in, and what is understood everywhere in the country. Regional speech differs a good deal — in words, in verb endings and in pitch — and the best known is the speech of the Kansai region around Osaka and Kyoto, with ほんま for ‘really’, あかん for ‘no good’ and めっちゃ for ‘very’. People from the regions usually switch towards the standard with strangers, and nobody expects a learner to speak dialect. Learn the standard, and pick up the local words of the place you live in.
Kana and kanji
The three scripts, the readings above the kanji, and how to type Japanese at all.
Should I start with hiragana or with kanji?
With hiragana, then katakana, and only then kanji on purpose. Hiragana writes every sound of Japanese and all of its grammar — particles, verb endings, the small everyday words — so once you can read it, every sentence on this site is open to you, with the furigana doing the rest. Katakana comes next, because it writes the borrowed words on every menu and every sign. Both are a short, finite job. Kanji are the opposite: they come next and keep coming, and they are best learnt not as a separate list of characters but inside the words you are learning anyway. 駅 is worth learning with its kanji from the start, because you will see it on every station.
Do I have to learn kanji?
To speak, no; to read, yes. Plenty of people hold conversations in Japanese without reading a word of it, because kanji are a way of writing the language, not part of its grammar. But adult Japanese is written with them, and kana alone is not a real alternative: Japanese uses no spaces, so a sentence in hiragana alone runs together into one long string, and many words sound alike — 科学, science, and 化学, chemistry, differ only on paper. Kanji are what make a page readable at a glance. The way to manage them is to learn them inside words, to recognise them before trying to write them, and to let the furigana on this site carry you until you no longer need them.
Why does one kanji have several readings?
Because most kanji came from China together with a Chinese-derived pronunciation — the on reading — and were also used to write native Japanese words, which kept their own pronunciation — the kun reading. 山 on its own is the native word for a mountain; in 富士山 the same character is read さん. A rough rule helps: a kanji standing alone, or followed by kana as in 食べる, usually takes its kun reading; two or more kanji together, as in 食事, usually take their on readings. Some words follow neither — 今日 and 大人 are read as a whole — which is why a reading is learnt with the word and not with the character.
What are furigana, and how do I switch them off?
Furigana are the small kana printed above a kanji to show how it is read. Japanese children’s books use them throughout, and ordinary publications add them to rare characters and unusual names. On this site every kanji in every Japanese sentence carries them, so nothing has to wait until you know the characters. To switch them off, press the button marked ‘Furigana’ in the header at the top of the page; press it again to bring them back. Your browser remembers the choice on this device, so it stays the same from page to page. A good habit is to read a sentence with the furigana off first and switch them on only to check: reading a kanji yourself is how it sticks, and glancing up at the answer every time is how it does not.
What is katakana for?
Katakana writes the same sounds as hiragana in a different, more angular shape, and its main job is words and names from other languages: コーヒー, テレビ, ロンドン. It also writes many sound words, the names of animals and plants in scientific writing, and words a writer wants to make stand out, much as English uses italics. Learn it straight after hiragana. It is everywhere — on menus, signs and packaging — and it is the one script in which an English speaker has a head start, once the changes that English words go through on the way in are familiar.
Should I learn Japanese through romaji?
Only for the first few days, and for typing. Romaji — Japanese written in the Latin alphabet — is handy for explaining a sound, and this site uses it now and then for exactly that, in italics. As a way of reading it is a dead end: Japanese is not written in it, the systems disagree with one another (tsu or tu, ō or ou), and a learner who reads romaji is always translating twice. Hiragana is not much more work to learn, and from the moment you can read it, romaji only slows you down.
How do I type in Japanese?
With an input method editor, or IME, which every current computer and phone already has: add Japanese as a keyboard in the system settings. You then type the sounds in Latin letters, the IME turns them into hiragana as you go, the space bar offers kanji spellings to choose from, and Enter confirms. Typing nihongo gives にほんご, and the space bar turns it into 日本語. A few keys are worth knowing from the start: nn for ん before a vowel, a doubled consonant for the small っ (kitte gives きって), wo for the particle を, the hyphen key for the long mark ー in katakana, and x or l before a vowel for a small kana on its own. On a phone, the flick keyboard laid out in kana rows is quicker once learnt. One side effect is useful: the IME only offers the right kanji if you have spelt the word exactly, so it quietly tests whether you know that おばあさん has a long vowel and おばさん does not.
With no spaces, how can I tell where one word ends?
Mostly from the change of script. Kanji carry the content words and hiragana the grammar around them, so in 私は毎朝駅まで歩きます the eye picks out the content words by their shape, and the particles は and まで mark the joins between them. Katakana stands out in the same way. That is one more reason kanji help rather than hinder, and it is why books for small children, written almost entirely in kana, put in the spaces that adult text does not need. The Japanese comma 、 falls where a reader would pause, not where English grammar would put one.
Do I need to write kanji by hand?
That depends on what you need Japanese for, and it is a decision you can make later. A great deal of everyday writing in Japan happens on a keyboard or a phone, and a learner can read, type and manage daily life with recognition alone. Writing by hand does two things for you, though: it makes you look closely enough to tell similar characters apart — 待つ and 持つ, 右 and 石 — and many people find it helps them remember. If you do write, learn the stroke order from the beginning. It is not a formality: it is what keeps handwriting legible, and what lets a handwriting search find a character you cannot type.
Grammar
The points at which Japanese most often trips up an English speaker — politeness included.
Why does the verb come at the end of the sentence?
Because Japanese puts the verb last as a rule and marks the role of each word with a particle instead of with its position. English relies on order: ‘the cat sees the dog’ and ‘the dog sees the cat’ are different sentences. Japanese says 猫が犬を見ています, and 犬を猫が見ています means the same, because が and を say who sees whom wherever they stand. What does not move is the verb. It closes the sentence, and it carries negation, tense and politeness with it — 行きます, 行きません, 行きませんでした — so the last word decides whether something happened at all. Listening to the end is a habit worth forming from the start.
What is the difference between は and が?
は marks the topic: what the sentence is about, often something already known. が marks the subject of a particular verb or adjective, often the new information. 私は学生です says ‘as for me, I am a student’. Asked だれが来ましたか, ‘who came?’, you answer 田中さんが来ました — never with は, because the person is exactly what was asked for. English has no single equivalent; it does the same work with stress and with ‘a’ and ‘the’, which is why no one rule covers every case. Start with two that always hold: a question word never takes は, and its answer takes が; and what you like, want, can do or have takes が — 猫が好きです.
Should I speak politely or plainly?
Politely, until you have a reason not to. Japanese verbs and adjectives come in two styles: the polite です/ます style — 行きます, 高いです — and the plain style — 行く, 高い. The polite style is for anyone you do not know well, for older people, at work, in shops and offices; the plain style is for family, friends, children, and people who have started using it with you. Erring on the polite side is never an offence, only a little distant; plain forms with a stranger can sound rude or childish. That is why this site teaches the polite style first. You still need the plain forms early, because they are not only casual speech: they are the forms that go inside longer sentences, in front of a noun or of と思います, whichever style the sentence ends in.
What is keigo, and do I need it?
Keigo, ‘respectful language’, is a layer above the polite style, and it has two halves. Honorific language raises the other person by using special verbs for what they do: いらっしゃる for coming, going or being, 召し上がる for eating and drinking. Humble language lowers yourself and your own side: 参る for going, いただく for receiving or eating. You will hear it from the first day — every shop greets you with いらっしゃいませ, and station announcements are full of it — so learn to recognise it early. Producing it matters most at work, on the telephone and in writing to people you do not know, and it is the last part of politeness a learner needs to use actively. Nobody expects it from a beginner; the plain です/ます style is always acceptable from someone who is still learning.
Why does Japanese leave out ‘I’ and ‘you’?
Because a Japanese sentence needs no subject when the situation already makes it clear, and saying it anyway sounds heavy. 行きますか is a complete question, ‘are you going?’, and 行きます a complete answer. The word for ‘you’, あなた, is particularly awkward: said to someone whose name you know, it can sound distant or even rude. Use the name with さん instead — 田中さんも行きますか — or leave the person out altogether. The politeness of a verb and the verbs of giving and receiving often show who is doing what without any pronoun at all.
Does Japanese have plurals, articles and a future tense?
No articles at all, almost no plurals, and no separate future. 本があります can mean ‘there is a book’, ‘there is the book’ or ‘there are books’; the context settles it, and a number or a word such as たくさん adds the detail when it matters. A few words for people take たち — 子どもたち, the children — but that is not a plural ending for everything. As for time, Japanese verbs divide past from non-past: 行きます covers both ‘I go’ and ‘I will go’, and 明日 or the situation tells you which. What Japanese marks instead is what English leaves to tone: politeness, and whether something is finished or still going on.
What is the te-form, and why is it everywhere?
It is the verb form ending in て or で — 食べて, 読んで, 行って — and on its own it does little more than link actions: ‘and then’. Its importance lies in what attaches to it. 食べてください is a request, 食べています describes eating now or as a habit, 食べてもいいですか asks permission, and 食べてしまいました says it is all gone, perhaps to somebody’s regret. A large share of everyday grammar is the te-form plus one more word, so time spent learning to build it quickly — the sound changes of the う-verbs are the part to drill — pays back on almost every page after it.
Why are there four ways to say ‘if’?
Because と, ば, たら and なら each say something slightly different about how the two halves connect. と is for what always follows: このボタンを押すと、ドアが開きます. ば puts the weight on the condition itself and is common in advice and set phrases. たら is the all-rounder of speech, and it also means ‘when’ for one particular event: 駅に着いたら、電話してください. なら picks up what the other person has just said: ‘if it is sushi you want, then …’. When in doubt, たら is right in the most situations; the others are best learnt one at a time, as you meet them.
What do ね and よ at the end of a sentence do?
They show how the speaker places the information between themselves and the listener. ね looks for agreement or shares a feeling — いい天気ですね, ‘lovely weather, isn’t it?’ — and works much like an English question tag. よ tells the other person something they may not know — この店は日曜日も開いていますよ, ‘this shop is open on Sundays too, you know’. Without them speech is correct but flat; with too many よ it can sound insistent, rather like starting every sentence with ‘actually’. よね combines the two: you think so, and you are checking.
Why are there different verbs for giving and receiving?
Because Japanese marks the direction of a gift relative to the speaker. あげる is giving outwards, from me or my side to someone else; くれる is someone giving to me or my side; もらう is receiving, seen from the one who receives. English uses ‘give’ for the first two alike, which is why 友だちが本をくれました and 友だちに本をあげました are the pair learners mix up. The same verbs attach to the te-form for favours — 手伝ってくれました, ‘helped me’, with a note of thanks built in — and that is how Japanese puts gratitude inside the sentence rather than adding it as an extra word.
Why are there different words for counting things?
Because Japanese counts with a counter attached to the number, chosen by the kind of thing being counted: 本 for long, thin things such as pens, bottles and umbrellas, 枚 for flat ones such as paper, tickets and shirts, 匹 for small animals, 人 for people. With some counters the sound of the number changes — 一本, 二本, 三本 — and that is the part to learn by ear. Two things make life easier: the native series ひとつ, ふたつ, みっつ works for most objects up to ten, and the two irregular forms for people, 一人 and 二人, are needed every day.
Words and sounds
Which words come first, what to make of borrowed ones, and how to say them.
Which Japanese words should I learn first?
The ones every sentence leans on: これ, それ, あれ and どれ; the question words 何, だれ, どこ, いつ and どうして; numbers, days and times; the verbs ある, いる, する, 行く, 来る and 食べる; and the set phrases that open and close every encounter — すみません, ありがとうございます, お願いします. With these and a few particles you can already ask, answer and get things done in a shop or at a station.
How many kanji do I need?
There is no single honest number, and which ones matters more than how many. Japan has an official list of kanji for general use, which schoolchildren work through over the whole of their schooling and which newspapers largely keep to; that is a long-term horizon, not a starting target. What helps a learner is that the commonest kanji make up most of what appears on a page, so the first ones you learn, taken in words you actually use, repay far more than later ones. Learn them as parts of words: 電車, 電話 and 電気 share their first character, and each new word makes the next one easier to read.
Can I just use English words in katakana?
Often, but not as freely as it looks. Japanese has borrowed a great many English words, and コーヒー, バス and コンピューター will be understood. Three things get in the way. The sound changes: Japanese adds vowels and has no separate l and r, so ‘strike’ becomes ストライク, and you have to recognise it in that shape. Words are shortened: スマホ is a smartphone, コンビニ a convenience store. And meanings drift: a マンション is a block of flats, not a mansion; スマート describes someone slim; a クレーム is a complaint, not a claim. Some words exist only in Japanese, such as サラリーマン for an office worker. Treat each one as a Japanese word that happens to have an English ancestor.
Is Japanese pronunciation difficult?
Less than in many languages, with two points that need real attention. The sounds are few and clear: five vowels that keep their quality, syllables that nearly all end in a vowel, and an r that sits somewhere between English r, l and d. What English speakers miss is length. A long vowel or a doubled consonant takes an extra beat and makes a different word: おばさん is an aunt and おばあさん a grandmother; 来て is ‘come!’ and 切手 is a stamp. The second point is pitch: Japanese words have a pattern of high and low rather than a stress, and in Tokyo speech it separates pairs such as 箸, chopsticks, and 橋, a bridge. Pitch rarely blocks understanding, so length comes first — and keep English stress out of it: every beat gets about the same time.
Why do so many Japanese words sound the same?
Because a large part of the vocabulary is built from syllables borrowed from Chinese, and Japanese has relatively few distinct syllables to build them with. 機会, an opportunity, and 機械, a machine, sound identical; so do 公園, a park, and 講演, a lecture. In speech the context almost always decides; in writing the kanji do. This is the clearest argument that kanji are not decoration: they carry the distinctions that the sounds have lost.
What are words like ドキドキ and ぺこぺこ?
Sound and mimetic words, and Japanese uses far more of them than English does, in ordinary adult speech. Some imitate a sound, such as ワンワン for a dog barking. Many describe a state or a feeling for which English needs a verb or an adjective: ドキドキします is a pounding heart, from nerves or excitement; お腹がぺこぺこです means you are starving; 雨がしとしと降っています is a soft, steady rain. They are not childish. They are often the most precise way to say something in Japanese, and they are best learnt together with the verb they usually go with.
How do I stop sounding translated?
By learning the phrases that have no English equivalent and using them where Japanese speakers do. いただきます before eating and ごちそうさまでした afterwards; お疲れさまです to a colleague, part greeting and part thanks; and よろしくお願いします, which closes an introduction, a request or an email and asks, roughly, for the other person’s goodwill. Some English habits do not carry over either: ‘I love it’ is almost never 愛しています, and a thank-you to someone who has gone to trouble for you is often an apology, すみません. These are learnt as whole units, not built from their parts.
This site
Where the material comes from, who it is for, and what it is not.
Can I use this site as a complete beginner?
Yes. The grammar begins with hiragana and katakana, every explanation is written in English, every kanji in every Japanese sentence carries its reading, and each topic says which level it belongs to — so you can stay at N5 until it feels secure and move on when it does. You do not need to know a single kanji to start.
Where does the material on this site come from?
Every explanation, example sentence, word list and exercise was written for this site. Nothing is taken from a textbook, a grammar, a dictionary, a flashcard deck or another learning site — not even a list of words for a level, because the selection and arrangement of a list is protected even where the single words are not. That is also why the levels of words and grammar here are this site’s own judgement and say so.
Does this site prepare me for a Japanese exam?
No, and that is a statement of fact rather than modesty. It is not connected with any body that sets or marks examinations, it follows no official syllabus — none has been published for these levels since 2010 — and it does not claim to predict anybody’s result. It explains, gives examples and asks questions. What you practise here helps with any exam, because it is the same language; but if you need a certificate, it comes from an examining body, not from here.