1. Writing Systems:
* English: Uses a single alphabet (Latin script) with 26 letters representing sounds (phonemes). It's a phonetic system, though not perfectly consistent (e.g., "ough" has multiple pronunciations).
* Japanese: Employs three main writing systems:
* Hiragana: A phonetic syllabary, with each character representing a syllable (e.g., あ, い, う, え, お). Primarily used for grammatical particles, native Japanese words, and to represent sounds not easily written with kanji.
* Katakana: Another phonetic syllabary, mostly used for foreign loanwords, onomatopoeia, emphasis, and in some specific contexts. It's visually distinct from hiragana, but functionally similar.
* Kanji: Logographic characters borrowed from Chinese, each representing a word or morpheme (meaningful unit). A single kanji can represent a complex concept. Thousands of kanji are used, though a smaller subset is necessary for everyday literacy.
2. Word Order:
* English: Primarily Subject-Verb-Object (SVO). "The cat (S) sat (V) on the mat (O)."
* Japanese: Primarily Subject-Object-Verb (SOV). "The cat the mat on sat." (猫はマットの上に座った - neko wa matto no ue ni suwat-ta). While the word order is different, the meaning is clear due to grammatical particles (like は -wa and に -ni).
3. Sentence Structure:
* English: Relies heavily on word order to convey grammatical relationships.
* Japanese: Uses grammatical particles (postpositions) attached to words to indicate their grammatical function (subject, object, etc.). This allows for more flexibility in word order, though SOV is most common. Sentences often end with the verb.
4. Space and Punctuation:
* English: Uses spaces between words and punctuation marks (periods, commas, etc.) to separate phrases and clauses.
* Japanese: Traditionally uses minimal spacing between words, relying more on context and grammatical particles to define word boundaries. Punctuation is used, but often less frequently than in English.
5. Reading Direction:
* English: Reads left to right, top to bottom.
* Japanese: Traditionally reads right to left, top to bottom (in vertical writing), although left-to-right, top-to-bottom is now common, especially in horizontal writing.
6. Cognitive Processing:
* English: Reading primarily involves decoding phonetic representations to access word meanings.
* Japanese: Reading involves recognizing both phonetic (hiragana, katakana) and semantic (kanji) units, requiring a more complex and multifaceted cognitive process. Kanji recognition requires memorizing thousands of characters and understanding their multiple meanings.
In short, the differences are fundamental and far-reaching. Learning Japanese requires mastering multiple writing systems and understanding a different grammatical structure. It's not just a matter of learning new words; it's about learning a completely different way of representing and processing language.