Japanese is a difficult language to learn, especially for those brought up on English, which itself is very complicated. There are many differences between the two. First of all, Japanese is actually made up of three different alphabets: Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. These three alphabets are used together all the time so you have to know all three to understand the language. When you see Japanese written using English letters, that is called Romanji or Romaji because English letters are based on the Roman alphabet. Writing Japanese in Romanji can help when you're first learning it.

Another important difference is how Japanese is written. Unlike English which is written horizontally and read left to right, Japanese is written vertically and read top to bottom, right to left. Japanese books have their front covers on what we would consider the back of the book. Viz comics produces their translated Dragonball Z manga in this style with arrows at the top of page to guide those unfamiliar with the format.

A third important difference is that the Japanese put no spaces between any of their words. Sentences are separated out only by their version of a period. They also use commas to separate fragments of sentences and sometimes, often in Anime, they use tilted exclamation points and question marks. In daily language however, exclamation points and question marks are not needed because they actually have words that perform the same function. To turn a statement into a question, all you do is add the word "ka" to the very end. "Yo" at the end acts as an exclamation point. For example:
Watashi-tachi wa ikimasu = We are going.
Watashi-tachi wa ikimasu ka = Are we going?
Watashi-tachi wa ikimasu yo = We are going!!!
This is a very basic sentence of course. Watashi or Watakushi is the polite form of "I" or "me." To make it plural, add "-tachi" which basically means "and others," so literally "I and others" or "we." "Wa" is a partical which does nothing other than identify "watashi-tachi" as the subject of sentence. "Ikimasu" is the verb "to go." In Japanese the verbs always come at the end of the sentence unless they are followed by "ka" or "yo" or another similar particle. Particles always come after the word they modify, unlike English where our signifying particles "a" and "an" and "the" come before the word.

In Japanese, all syllables in a word are given equal stress. No syllable is said louder or more strongly than another. This can be confusing, especially when you're new to the language, and can be difficult to do at first. So, rather than saying wah-TAH-shee, you would say wah-tah-shee. To give a particular sound in a word more emphasis than another, you would repeat the sound. For example, the English word "butter" puts emphasis on the first syllable, "bu." In Japanese, you would write it "baata," adding another A for emphasis on that vowel.

Also, as in English, there are silent letters. These are most often "u" and "i." But rather than being completely dropped as in English, they are gently whispered so that they almost sound dropped but really aren't. The difference is very subtle. An example of the "u" would be the above "ikimasu." Rather than pronouncing it ee-kee-mah-sue, you would say ee-ke-mahss. That's why Bulma's Japanese name is written Buruma. When you say Buruma, the second u almost vanishes making it sound like Burma or Bulma. Same with Yamucha which when said sounds like Yamcha and Kuririn which sounds like Krirrin or Krillin.

This brings me to another somewhat confusing difference between our languages. Japanese makes no distinction between Rs and Ls. They are the same thing in Japanese. This may completely confuse an English-speaker but if you've ever taken Spanish, you know that they roll their Rs so it makes a flip sound in their mouth and sounds almost like a soft D. Japanese is the same way. It's a difficult trick to learn, but if you practice saying names like Buruma and Serru (Cell), trying to make them sound like Rs and Ls at the same time, you'll get the hang of it after a while. My favorite example is a Canadian Blue Beer commercial. The bear goes into a bar where there are 4 Japanese men. He says "blue" and they all say "blue" only it sounds more like "brew." Then he says "close enough" and they all say "crose enough!" I about died laughing, but that is what it sounds like.

One thing that is somewhat the same in English and Japanese is the politeness factor. In English we have our rules about what words are polite and appropriate for which occasions. The Japanese have strict rules about the formality of their language. For the pronoun "I/me," there are many words in Japanese. As I said, Watashi or Watakushi is formal, with women usually saying Watashi and men saying Watakushi. "Boku" and "Ore" also mean "I/me" but are very informal and generally used only by men when they are with their familiars, friends, and family. Many words, even though they refer to the same thing, change completely depending on the situation's degree of formality, those saying it, and those to whom it is said.

Kanji
Kanji was invented in China long ago (can't remember the exact dates) and brought over to Japan in the 14th century (I think...). Kanji characters are pictographs, symbols that represent a whole thing or idea as opposed to a single sound like our letters. It is the root of the language, much like many of our root words come from Latin and Latin-based languages. The original characters were based on pictures of nature such as the sun, the moon, a tree, a flower, a mountain, etc. At first, these characters looked like what they portrayed but later on the language was refined and these characters were blocked and squared off to create harmony and balance. These basic characters for things in nature are combined with each other to form more complex ideas and concepts. As many as four or five individual characters can be combined together in one character. When the Chinese brought their characters over to Japan, the characters themselves didn't change and are still considered Chinese, but the pronounciations changed to match the existing Japanese language. One aspect of Kanji that can make it difficult and confusing to learn is that almost all Kanji symbols have two or more pronunciations. One will be how it is pronounced when alone and another is when it is combined with another word. An example would be the word "sun" which is also the word for "day." Alone, it is "hi," as in Unmei no Hi (Day of Destiny). But with another word, it becomes "nichi." The word for Sunday, as in the day of the week, is "Nichiyoubi." Here, "nichi" means "sun" and "youbi" means "day of the week." It actually is a coincedence that the English "Sunday" and the Japanese "Nichiyoubi" both mean the same thing. Weird huh?
Click here for a chart of common Kanji symbols. (not up yet)


Hiragana
Hiragana, then, is the rest of the language. It is the "and", "but", "therefore", "however", the prepositions, interjections, all the miscellaneous "stuff" of language. "Ka" and "yo" are part of this language. It is the grammatical that completes the language, turning the object or idea expressed by the Kanji into a sentence and then a paragraph. For an example in our language, take the word "returned." Re- is a prefix, -ed a suffix, the root word is "turn." The prefixes and suffixes are like the Hiragana modifying the Kanji root word. It would never be used to write a proper name.
Hiragana letters were developed from Kanji symbols and are, in essence, simplified versions of the original Kanji. Like our alphabet, Hiragana letters stand for specific sounds rather than having their own meaning. The difference being that their consonants never stand alone, with the exception of the "special N," the only consonant ever used by itself and pronounced as a separate syllable in words. All the other letters in their alphabet are either vowels or a consonant and a vowel together. An example is the word "nani." In our language it's 4 letters, in their's it's two, "na" and "ni." For this reason, there are 46 letters in the basic Hiragana alphabet and more if you include composite letters made up of two Hiragana letters. An example of a composite is in the word "kyodai." In this word, the letters "ki" and "yo" are combined to form a single sound, "kyo," with the letter for "yo" being written slightly smaller than "ki."
Click here for a chart of the basic Hiragana alphabet.


Katakana
The youngest Japanese language, Katakana, was created in order to translate foreign words into Japanese. English words that have become a part of spoken Japanese are always written in Katakana, as are foreign names. It is exactly the same as the hiragana pronounciation-wise except that the letters look slightly different. They are blockier and more simplified, and while also based on the original Kanji, are taken only from pieces of it. Therefore, while Hiragana are considered complete, Katakana is considered incomplete. When translating your English name into Katakana, the characters you use depends on how you pronounce your name. My name, Callista, is pronounced kah-LEE-stah. In Katakana it would be written Kariisuta (Ka-ri-i-su-ta), with two Is for emphasis on that vowel.
Click here for a chart of the basic Katakana alphabet.


More to come....

Sources of information:
Introduction to Written Japanese: Hiragana by Jim Gleeson.
Read Japanese Today by Len Walsh.
Teach Yourself: Japanese by H. J. Ballhatchet and S. K. Kaiser.
Illustrated Japanese Characters by Japan Travel Bureau, Inc.