With over 128 million native speakers, Japanese is one of the world’s most commonly spoken languages - it ranks ninth overall.
It has a unique writing system. In fact, most Japanese text uses a mixture of kanji, which are characters that originate from the Chinese language, and kana, which are characters that correspond to sounds. This means that, if you learn Japanese, there will be parts of the Chinese language that you will understand too and, as the grammar is similar to Korean, this too will be another language that you can start to recognise.
Perhaps you are interested in the culture of Japan and want to learn the language to help you to understand it more; it’s a challenging language to learn, but very rewarding! Japan is also the third largest economy in the world, so it could be extremely useful should you choose to work for companies that have connections with the country. There are a lot of career prospects for those that have an additional language under their belt, particularly those that are less commonly taught in Europe, such as Japanese.
Although it isn’t really a subject offered at GCSE or A-level in the UK, it’s a great choice to learn in your spare time or even for a course at university (whether standalone or as part of a joint honours degree). We can cover all aspects of the language at INICIO, giving you an all round knowledge of Japanese, allowing you to converse, listen read and write. We would be happy to help you with pronunciation too; this can often be tricky for students, but our native Japanese tutors are here to give you all of the hints and tips that you need to succeed.
Whatever the reason, we can help to bring out your passion for the language!
We have Japanese tutors who can offer sessions both at our studio or online, so just let us know what works for you!