JAPANESE VOCABULARY

Japanese is one of the most important languages in Asia that is spoken by at least 130 million of native speakers which are mainly concentrate in Japan and in the nearby regions. Japanese is also considered, by many people, one of the most difficult languages to learn, despite that Japanese grammar, Syntax and writing could seems difficult for many people, it is important to know that most times Japanese can express complex ideas in a simple way than other languages.

One of the main topics to dominate any language is definitely the vocabulary, and Japanese language could not be the exception. The Japanese vocabulary is made up of four types of words which are:

Sino-Japanese: Also known as the “Sino-Japanese reading”. These words were borrowed from Chinese culture long ago.
Japanese Native: These are the words that were created by the Japanese themselves,
Foreign loan: Words that were borrowed from Europe and China (in modern times).
Hybrids: Foreign words that stems with Japanese endings.

As we can see, Chinese has contributed greatly with the development of Japanese language, providing a writing system and of course a large number of words that still are used. However, Japanese language not only received words from other cultures, it has provided words to other languages like English, that is why we can find Japanese words used in other languages.