Learn to Speak Japanese

Japanese is spoken by over 130 million people, most of whom live in Japan. As a major world economic power, Japanese in the past few decades has been a major and prominent language of business and commerce. With many major Japanese companies also having a strong influence in markets in the United States (Toyota, Toshiba etc.), the language can be especially useful to know for those interested in careers in the technology and/or automotive industry.

Japanese is closely related to several different types of languages, but is not directly related to any other major world language. The written language is in fact a combination of modified Chinese characters and the Latin alphabet is also extensively used in Japan, especially in its international businesses for company names and logos and when entering Japanese text into a computer. Japanese has also been heavily influence by loanwords from other languages, including Chinese and more recently English In Japan's past trade relationships, the language also borrowed from Portuguese, Dutch and German because of trade. Unlike Indo-European languages, Japanese sentences require that the verb comes last in the sentences, a structure that can make learning the language for non-native speakers difficult. Also, because written Japanese uses characters rather than the Roman alphabet, learning to both speak and write in Japanese as a native English speaker can be difficult.

There are many ways to learn Japanese. Because of the language's recent usefulness in global business, it shouldn't be too difficult to find a Japanese course at a local community college or private institution. Hiring a private tutor is another option and trying to find a local Japanese conversational group can also help develop your language skills. Of course the best way to learn Japanese is to immerse yourself in it completely. Travel to Japan and learn how to communicate. A few weeks of speaking Japanese on a daily basis is worth a year or more in the classroom. If you can't make it Japan to practice your Japanese, programs like Rosetta Stone can help you learn the basic pronunciation techniques while teaching you grammar and vocabulary.