Japanese is called Nihongo (日本語) in Japan, literally meaning “Japan language.”

The kanji for “Japan,” 日本, literally means “sun origin.”

Japanese uses three writing systems simultaneously: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Kanji are symbolic characters taken from China’s hanzi script. Hiragana and katakana are phonetic, with hiragana typically used for native Japanese words and katakana for foreign words. Though katakana was originally for Buddhist monks and the educated class.

Reading hanzi and kanji isn’t always mutually intelligible, though hanzi was originally designed to unify Chinese writing regardless of spoken language.

Kanji can form words that don’t exist in Chinese (for example, 電話 for “telephone”).

There is no plural form in Japanese. Context within the sentence determines whether it refers to one or many.

The word emoji (絵文字) literally means “picture character.”

Romaji is the Romanized (Latin-letter) version of Japanese writing, mainly used for foreign learners and public signage.

There are over 50,000 kanji letters, though everyday Japanese typically uses about 2,000.

The Japanese word for “I,” watashi, changes based on gender, age, or context (boku, ore, watashi).

There are no articles (a, an, the) in Japanese, which is common among Asian languages.

Word order is usually Subject–Object–Verb (SOV), unlike English’s Subject–Verb–Object (SVO).

The word karaoke (カラオケ) means “empty orchestra.”

The suffix -san doesn’t just mean “Mr.” or “Ms.”, it represents respect and social balance. Sama, for example, conveys a much higher level of respect.

There is no “L” sound in Japanese, which led to racist stereotypes by ignorant people in the West. Similarly, like in Spanish, the “V” sound doesn’t naturally exist and is replaced by “B.”

Many post–World War II Japanese words are English loanwords, such as コンピューター (computer).

Classic vertical writing is still common in books and newspapers.

The oldest known Japanese text is the Kojiki, written in the 8th century.

The language has no future tense. Context or time-related words provide that meaning.

Samurai warriors used speech with entirely different pronouns and grammar compared to modern Japanese.

Written Japanese doesn’t use spaces between words.

The word samurai comes from saburau, meaning “to serve.”

Japan once had a writing reform movement that proposed abolishing kanji entirely.

Japanese doesn’t have direct equivalents for “yes” or “no”, responses often mirror the phrasing of the question.

The Emperor’s court once spoke a distinct version of Japanese called bungo.

The word unko (うんこ) means “poop,” and it’s so beloved there’s a children’s educational book series called Unko Kanji Drill.

“Salaryman English” sometimes produces amusing loanwords, such as manshon (マンション), which means “apartment,” not “mansion.”

Foreigners often learned “thank you” as arigato from the song Mr. Roboto. Another dialectal version is okini.