Japanese was initially written in the Chinese script, known as kanji, imported from China hundreds of years ago. The characters proved to be too complicated for Japanese liking however, and a much simpler and uniquely Japanese system known as "hiragana" developed out of kanji. Although hiragana is quite simple, it doesn't convey meaning in the way that complex characters can, so written Japanese evolved using kanji where it was important to differentiate meaning, and hiragana where simple phonetics would suffice. Japanese grammar differs quite sharply from English, the most notable feature perhaps being the general interchange of verbs and nouns. "I will eat an apple," becomes "watashi" (I); "ringo" (apple); "taberu" (eat). See the difference?
	Most Japanese is written with a combination of kanji and hiragana. Most words have a representation in kanji, although as a simple matter of common practice, there are some words for which kanji is seldom used. Kanji originally evolved from small pictures that literally represented a word or idea, or at least conveyed the meaning visually, so each kanji has its own separate meaning.
	A part from the imported Chinese characters, the Japanese have two phonetic alphabets, one known as "hiragana," and the other as "katakana," Both character sets encompass all sounds in the Japanese language, and there is no difference in pronunciation between the two sets. So what's the point of having two, on top of Chinese characters?! Contemporary Japanese contains many foreign words, much as English does, and these are almost always written in katakana. This may seem strange at first, but it clearly differentiates foreign words, particularly nouns, from native Japanese, which is written in a combination of kanji and hiragana. This system makes written Japanese much easier to read. The five vowel sounds in Japanese correspond to those in English, although they are only ever pronounced one way.
	There are several different ways of saying things in Japanese depending on the level of politeness or formality required, and these social rules are adhered to much more strictly than in English. However, for everyday use among friends the following are just fine.　Basic Greetings→
	Japanese names are often regarded by non-Japanese as hard to remember, although they are usually only two or three syllables. In the past, female names have often ended with the sound "ko," meaning "child." In recent years however this practice has changed substantially, such that these names have disappeared from the top ten list of names in Japan, and names that have western-style pronunciations have increased. 　Top 10 Japanese Names→

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