Japanese

Japanese translation services

Classification

Japonic

Script

Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji (Chinese character) writing systems.

Text direction

Left-to-right

Speakers

122 million

Other names

Official language

Japan

Interesting Fact

Colour idioms are common in Japanese: an outright lie would be called makka na uso (deep red) and someone suffering would be said to be aoiki toiki, or "sighing with blue breath”.

Profile

Japanese is spoken by over 125 million people around the world. Japanese is often called a language isolate as it has no genetic relationship with other languages, although it does borrow heavily from Chinese.

Japanese is written with three writing systems that are used simultaneously, namely kanji, hiragana and katakana. Whereas kanji are characters of Chinese origin, hiragana is used to write words that can’t be expressed with kanji and katakana is used primarily to write foreign words.

Honorifics in Japanese society are important:

Teinigo (“Polite language”) used on TV and most often first taught to students learning Japanese,

Sonkeigo (“Respectful language”) used when talking about superiors but not about oneself, and

Kenjōgo (“Humble language”) used when referring to actions of oneself when talking to a superior.

 

For more information contact us here: Japanese Translation Services.

Services offered for this language

Translation / Transcreation / Subtitling / Localization / Adaptation / Copywriting / Authoring / Proofreading / Revision / Editing / Translation quality assurance / Terminology / Linguistic validation / Glossary creation / Dubbing / Voice-overs / Transcription / Typesetting / Simultaneous interpreting / Consecutive interpreting / Conference interpreting / Telephone interpreting / Public service interpreting / Interpreting equipment hire / Foreign language consulting

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