Japanese language has four writing systems, each of which is composed of different characters. This may sound like a lot to learn, but every word in Japanese, regardless of which writing system it comes from, is pronounced with some combination of only 46 basic sounds. Sorting out the different writing systems and their uses is an important part of learning Japanese. Here's a brief overview:  Hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, phonetic characters that make up one Japanese writing system. Unlike the English alphabet, each character stands for one syllable, which may include a vowel and a consonant sound. Katakana is also a syllabary, most often used for foreign words or onomatopoeic sounds (like bang or squeak). Together, hiragana and katakana account for the entire range of sounds in the Japanese language. Kanji are Chinese characters that were adopted as a Japanese writing system. Whereas hiragana and katakana are simply phonetic letters, kanji are ideograms, characters which have meaning. There are thousands of kanji characters, with about 2000 in common use.  Hiragana and katakana were derived from these characters. The same 46 sounds that are used to pronounce hiragana and katakana are also used to pronounce kanji. The Latin alphabet is used in Japanese to write acronyms, company names, and other words for aesthetic reasons. Called Romaji ("Roman letters"), Japanese can also be written in Latin letters.  This is not done in Japan, but it is used by beginning Japanese speakers to "spell out" Japanese characters. However, there are many sounds in Japanese which are difficult to express in Latin letters, and many homonyms (many more than English) which become confusing.  Therefore, students of Japanese are encouraged to begin learning Japanese characters as soon as possible, and avoid using Latin letters as a crutch. The 46 sounds in the Japanese language are composed of one of five vowel sounds or a combination of a vowel and a consonant, with the exception of one sound composed of only a consonant. Vowel sounds are not inflected (unlike in English, where "a" in apple vs ace are different). You can start practicing pronunciation by learning how to pronounce each character in hiragana and katakana. See this site for examples of how to pronounce the sounds. Focus on the intonation of the different sounds. Variations on the sounds change the meaning of the words you speak. A long syllable may have a completely different meaning from the same sound made shorter ("o" vs. "oo"). Japanese characters may add marks to indicate that they should be pronounced slightly differently, sometimes changing the meaning of the words they make up. This similar to "s" sometimes sounding like "z" in English.  Hard consonant sounds are pronounced with a hard stop in between two sounds. Long vowel sounds, pronounced by holding the vowel sound for an extra beat, are distinguished from short sounds, indicating a different word. Knowing a few basic grammatical rules will help you start understanding Japanese and creating your own sentences. Japanese grammar is simple and flexible, so it's easy to string words together in a way that makes sense.  The subject is optional and may be omitted. The predicate is always at the end of the sentence. Nouns do not have gender. Most also don't have separate plural forms. Verbs do not change according to the subject (he/she/it). They also don't change according to number (singular/plural, like I/we or he/they).  Particles, which mark words as subject, object, etc., always follow the word to which they relate. Personal pronouns (I, you, etc.) differ according to the level of politeness and formality that is needed in each situation.
تعرف على طرق كتابة اللغة اليابانية. تدرب على نطق الكلمات اليابانية. تعرف على اختلاف الأصوات الأساسية عن بعضها البعض. تعرف على القواعد النحوية اليابانية.