Hello! I'm Sayaka from NihongoDekita. Hi everyone. This is Sayaka from NihongoDekita. Today in this video, you are going to learn
10 facts about Japanese you should know before you start learning. Now, you might be already in the process of
learning. However, you might find some information still
useful. So, stay with me. Now, without any further do, let's get this
started. Ok let's get right into it. Fact 1. We can't talk about Japanese without talking
about the types of characters, right? Well, in Japanese we have 3 different types
of letters. And they are hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Let's take a look at this example sentence. Now you don't need to be able to read this,
but can you spot 3...3 types of characters here? Ok so the first one, hiragana, is this. And there are 46 basic letters that represent
Japanese phonetic sound. And it is used for function words, conjugation
endings and Japanese origin words. Now second one, katakana, is this. And katakana also has 46 basic letters and
represent Japanese phonetic sound. But the usage is... bhhh... usage is different
from hiragana, because it's used for foreign loan words. For example, chokoreeto, chocolate. Kamera, camera. Kiiboodo, keyboard. And the last one, kanji, is this as you can
see the most complex one. And kanji has both meaning and sound. So each kanji has a meaning. And there are thousands and thousands of kanjis
but don't worry about it for now. If you are just starting, I'd recommend starting
from learning hiragana and katakana. Fact 2. In Japanese, depending on who you are talking
to, we change our speech style. For example we have informal, and formal. And there are more, but don't worry about
it for now. Informal...speech...is used...for...friends,
family members and someone younger than you. And formal speech is used for someone older,
stranger and someone who is in higher position, in, like socially. It might sound difficult, but don't worry. We're gonna cover this all together. And it's not as difficult as you think. We can do this. Fact 3. In Japanese, the sentence structure is a little
different. In English, the word order is, subject, verb
and object. But in Japanese, it is subject, object and
verb. For example, "I eat chocolate"is, "watashi
wa chokoreeto o tabemasu." "I watch NihongoDekita" which you should,
is "watashi wa nihongodekita o mimasu." Ta-da! And this is just the beginning of Japanese
language, and there are more beautiful stuff to know. So hang on. Fact 4. Japanese question sentences are really easy
to make. You don't need to change up the word order. You just need to add "ka" at the end of the
sentence. For example, "Jun goes to a party." in Japanese is, "Jun wa paatii ni ikimasu." Now "does Jun go to a party?" then, "Jun wa
paatii ni ikimasu ka?" Just "ka." And informal speech, you just raise the tone
at the end. Um... let's just watch a clip, shall we? Taberu? Un! Ok did you hear the tone went up at the end? Taberu? Taberu? Taberu means to eat. Now did you notice something else from the
clip? Yes, this is fact number 5. I said "taberu?" but I meant "do you want
to eat this?" And where is "you" and "this", right? In Japanese, you can omit nouns in subject
and object positions, if it's obvious in the context already. For example in the clip, I was talking to
her, so I didn't have to say "do you". Because it's obvious that I was directing
the question to her. And it was also obvious by holding the orange,
I was talking about this. So I didn't have to say "this" or "orange." Ta-da! Fact 6. In Japanese, you don't need to distinguish
singular or plural. Simply because we don't have them. Yay! For example, an apple, and apples are the
same "ringo." A hamburger and hamburgers are the same, "hanbaagaa." A notebook, and notebooks are the same "nooto." Ok fact 7. In Japanese, you don't need to memorize if
it's feminine or masculine word like European languages, such as Spanish, Italian, French,
German and so on. I'm currently learning Spanish but it's driving
me crazy. And it's so difficult. But you don't need to do that in Japanese. Because, again, we don't simply have them. Yay! One less thing to do. Fact 8. This is gonna be a good news for you because
we don't have noun-verb agreement or noun adjective agreement. What I mean by noun-verb agreement is that...
for example in English, I do, she does, we do, it does. Depending on the subject, the verb conjugation
changes. But it doesn't happen in Japanese. In Japanese, no matter what subject you use,
the conjugation doesn't change. Yay! Ok last 2 facts are going to be the best news
that you are gonna hear in this year. This is such an over exaggeration I'm so sorry. but anyways. Ok. Fact 9. In English, there's a lot of verb tenses. For example, I will go, I am going to go,
I go, I went, and so one. But in Japanese, we have only 2 verb tenses. Yes! And they are past tense and non-past tense. What I mean by non-past tense is, if you were
to say "I go" in Japanese is "watashi wa ikimasu." And it also means "I will go." And how do you distinguish if you are talking
about the future or the present? It depends on the context, or you could simply
add the time words. For example, tomorrow, "ashita" and then you
can make "watashi wa ashita ikimasu." So that you know that you are talking about
the future, tomorrow. By the way, the past tense is "watashi wa
ikimashita." OK you are doing great, and this is the last
fact, and this is going to make your life much easier, I promise. So, shall we start? Fact 10. In English, there are a lot of irregular verbs. And as I was learning English as a second
language, I struggled with this a lot. For example, to make a past tense, you just
simply add "-ed", but it's not always the case. You have like slee-slept, see-saw-seen, and
then when I saw this read-read-read, spelled the same but pronounced differently, I was
like "Oh my god no." But this is not me ranting about English. I love languages, but anyways. In Japanese, we only have 2 irregular verbs. Yes, yes yes yes. And they are "to come", "kuru" and "to do",
"suru." Ok you've made it to the end! Congratulations and thank you so much for
watching till the end! I hope it was useful for your learning journey. And I believe you can do it, we can all do
it, and you know, let's learn Japanese language together. If you liked this video, please give it a
thumbs-up, and if you haven't already, please hit the subscribe button and turn on the notification
bell, if you want...ugh...if you don't want to miss any of my video. Thank you very much for watching. And I will see you in the next video. Matane! Mitekurete arigato!
