Anyway, when I first arrived here, everything just sounded so...well, Japanese! I couldn’t believe that the sounds around me created a real language—something coherent and comprehensible to millions of people. Whenever I tried mimicking the most basic daily expressions, I felt like my tongue was genetically formed to inhibit me from speaking Japanese. I decided to start with the basics and learn the alphabet! That’s when things got messy... I discovered that there were four different forms of Japanese “alphabets”—hiragana, katakana, kanji, and romaji.
The Japanese alphabet is actually a set of phonetic sounds, each represented by a written character. There are 46 characters representing basic sounds and 58 “extra” or “combination” sounds, each having another character to represent it. These 104 sounds and their 208 respective characters make up the hiragana and katakana alphabets. Hiragana characters are used to form words native to the Japanese language/culture and katakana characters are used to represent words and sounds that were introduced to Japanese after it was initially formed (simply deemed “foreign” words).
Kanji is what most people think of when they imagine Japanese. Kanji is the complicated, picture-like stuff and there are—get this—well over 3,000 kanji characters, many with over 20 strokes. Kanji was derived from Chinese and was then “simplified” to create hiragana and again for katakana. However, these three alphabets are used together in written Japanese—a single sentence can (and often does) use all three character sets. Each kanji symbol represents a sound, like hiragana and katakana, but can also represent a combination of sounds. However, depending on the content, placement, and surrounding kanji or hiragana, many kanji characters have five or more different sounds...so even if you learn one kanji sound, the same symbol in another sentence could represent a completely different sound or word... Feeling overwhelmed? I’m honestly trying to explain this as directly and simply as I can, but it’s a bit complicated and it’s difficult to understand until you at least learn hiragana and katakana. Since there are only 208 of these characters to memorize, doing so is realistic; really it is. Plus, while the characters are more complex than Roman letters, they seem incredibly basic when compared to most kanji.
That reminds me! we musn’t forget romaji! Romaji isn’t so much of an actual alphabet as it is a courtesy to foreigners. As the name suggests, romaji is simply the Japanese sound written using Roman letters, so while it is not technically Japanese, the sounds are the same and it is used widely throughout the country. It is thanks to romaji that I have am able to explain these alphabets because I doubt it would have been as clear if I had said that the four alphabets are
ひらがな, カタカナ, 漢字, and romaji!
Phew! Enough of that! Anyway, the point of all this is to explain that Japanese is actually a surprisingly simple language. No, you didn't read that wrong. I meant what it says. Not to destroy the daunting image that has been maintained forever or anything, but Japanese is only impossible on the surface. It’s hard to speak and it takes years to read/write kanji, but the actual language itself is, from what I have seen so far, pretty uncomplicated. Beneath the intricate brush strokes and obscure sounds lies a language without capitalization, pluralization, or intricate sentence constructions. Pronouns (he, she, we, they) and sentence subjects are often optional and articles (a, the, some, any) are nonexistent. Oh, and the same verb form is used for both present and future tenses...! I remember my first daunting days in Spanish class when I learned that not only do articles change for singular and plural words in Español, but that there are masculine and feminine forms for everything; not to mention more verb changes than there are mood swings among adolescent females... There aren’t even spaces in Japanese for crying out loud—well, that one can actually be more confusing than helpful, but still... There are only a few punctuation marks and unlike English, most grammar and pronunciation rules are actually consistent. Ha!
For example, a very common phrase (using romaji to illustrate) is, “daijyoubudesu.” This literally means, “It is all right,” but can be used in many situations. If I want to make this a question, I just add “ka” to the end, but informally, I can ask and answer the same question by dropping “desu” and “ka” and just saying “daijyoubu.” If I want to ask you if you are all right, if something I'm doing/offering is acceptable, or if I'm wondering whether a boy, girl, or group of people is/are okay, all I have to say is, “daijyoubu?” If a boy, a girl, a group of people, or a monkey want to answer affirmatively, the response would be the same as the question, “daijyoubu.” It isn’t necessary to add pronouns or even subjects to the phrase for it to make sense to a Japanese person. See what I mean? It’s a language, and a culture, which prides itself in ambiguity, but even though it’s confusing, it’s simple...or at the very least it’s simply confusing...right?
My favorite Japanese word to say, by the way, happens to be "otokonoko," which (coincidentally) means “boy.” Again, there is no plural form in Japanese, so I can say "otokonoko" for one boy or fifty boys—it’s all the same. Just say it, oh-toe-koh-noh-koh, otokonoko! Ha ha. Otokonoko is my favorite word to say, but my real favorite word is “ne” (pronounced neh). "Ne" doesn’t technically mean anything...but it is used all the time to indicate a shared emotion.
Harmony, called “wa,” is central to Japanese culture and it is very important for a person to feel emotionally and spiritually connected to the people and places around him or her. While there is no direct translation for "ne" into English, it is basically used to express the hope that whoever you are speaking with might share the sentiment you are experiencing/attempting to convey. By adding “ne” to the end of a question, it is like saying, “I want you to share this with me; can you feel what I’m feeling?” Of course, the proper response is to add “ne” to whatever response you give. In fact, “ne” is often the only word necessary to confirm the shared emotion. I love this. Love this.
A couple weeks ago, I visited Yamagata, which is the prefecture (or “state”) next to Miyagi (where I live) and had a “ne” moment. I hiked up a mountain to visit a temple called Yamadera (山寺), which appropriately means, “mountain temple” and was amazed by the beautiful fall colors and nature that surrounded me. Upon reaching the temple grounds, I saw a patch of moss and leaves along the path and next to a young tree. The entire patch was covered in greenery—except for a single tiny, yellow flower near the base of the sapling. There was something delicate and poignant in seeing this solitary blossom standing along the sacred grounds and it struck me profoundly. At this moment, a sweet old woman stopped mid-stride upon seeing the flower. I glanced at her and recognized in her face that she was experiencing what I did when I noticed it. Our eyes met and we smiled; I looked at her and almost whispered, “Ne?” She smiled and nodded slowly. “Ne...” she said softly, looking at me and back at the flower. She repeated it twice more, and then quietly continued along the path.
Language is beautiful, isn’t it? Even so, it’s amazing to me that the most significant connections we feel with others are not really brought about by language at all—they develop from the bonds of humanity. Even if shared by the bridges of language, these incredible moments actually occur when we see the heart of another person and stop to express, “I want you to share this with me; can you feel what I’m feeling?”
...Ne?
Oh Karishasan! Ne!!!!!!!
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