Japanese Language WebQuest

Name .................................................. Date ............................

Instructions: Run off a copy of this WebQuest and write your answers as you work on the computer. You will be given points according to your answers, most of which will be found as you press on certain links or on the Japanese Language Web Page. Ready?

Japanese Language Background

1. Background: The Japanese language belongs to the "Altaic" language family, which means it is related to

..............................., Mongolian, and ................................. This language combined with the languages

of the Pacific Islands, called ........................................... languages. Most of the modern vocabulary (words)

are ........................................, over .............%.

Word order in sentences: Japanese constructs sentences in a subect-object-............... structure. (Japanese is

an ..S..-........-...... language which means the verb comes at the end of the sentence.)

Speaking Japanese

Here are some phrases of Japanese. Try to match them with their meanings.

___ 1. Ohayo-gozaimasu.	A. Good afternoon.
___ 2. Konnichiwa .	B. Good morning.
___ 3. Konbanwa.	C. Good bye.
___ 4. Ima nanji?	D. Good evening.
___ 5. Arigato.	E. Thank you.
___ 6. Sayonara.	F. I'm sorry.
___ 7. Gomen-nasai.	G. What time is it?

Writing in Japanese - About Japanese Writing

There are .................... basic types of writing in Japanese: katakana, ................................,

........................................ (Chinese characters), and .................................... (which is

letters from the Roman ............................. that we use in English).

Which is the first writing system taught to children in Japan? ......................................

1. Kanji is the most complicated script in Japanese. It was first brought to Japan by

............................... monks more than 1200 years ago. There are .............................. of Chinese characters, each one representing a different idea. (An educated person needs to know about 3,000 characters to read a Japanese newspaper.) Kanji is used for place names, like Tokyo (which means "Eastern Capital"), people's names,

most ......................., as well as verb and adjective stems.

This type of writing required years of study and men of the upper class in Medieval Japan were trained in kanji.

2. Hirigana (Japanese syllable writing) has ........................ basic hiragana characters.

All sounds in the Japanese language can be expressed with just hiragana.

Hirigana was used by people in the Heian period of Japan (794 - 1192) to write novels, tales, and diaries. It could be learned more quickly than the Chinese characters, and it was used by women as well as men.

Lady ........................... Shikibu wrote the first important novel of the world in these characters,

The Tale of ..............................

This is the writing for "ma" in hiragana. Where does the writing begin?

a. from the top - the down stroke

b. across - the top horizontal line going from left to right across

c. from the bottom going up

This is the writing for "se" in hirigana. Which of the three strokes is the last one written?

a. down - the long stroke down and to the right

b. down - the shorter stroken which hooks to the left

c. across - the nearly horizontal line going across

3. Katakana

Composed of ................... basic yet very distinctive characters, katakana can be used to express any sound in the Japanese language. (These characters are simplified versions of Chinese characters, but they have sounds, not meaning.) In the character for the sound "Ho", the first stroke is

[a] down (top to bottom)

[b] across (left to right)

[c] across (right to left)

[d] up from the bottom

 

"Ho" "Bo" What is this sound? ............

 

4. Romanji - This type of writing uses Roman letters like those we use for writing English. Students in Japan must really study four different types of writing! Here are some words that you can read in Japanese: Toyota, Nintendo, Mitsubishi, Seiko. Sound familiar?