Japanese language

It's interesting studying a foreign language and seeing what things are similar and different between the two languages.

Japanese and English are quite different, and I couldn't possibly go into all the differences. But here are some differences which I find interesting:

In English, we have different names for each of the months of the year. However, in Japanese, months are called by their number, for example, 'January' is 1月, literally 'month 1'.

In English, our counting is done in increments of hundreds and thousands.

However, in Japanese, the counting goes like this:
juu (10)
hyaku (100)
sen (1000)
man (10,000)
juu-man (10 ten thousands) (100,000)
hyaku-man (100 ten thousands) (1,000,000)
sen-man (1000 ten thousands) (10,000,000)
oku (100,000,000)

You can see that in Japanese, they don't say 'ten thousand' - 'ten thousand' has its own word, 'man'. Then 100,000 becomes '10 ten thousands'. In Japanese, there's no one word for 'million' as in English; it's like 'a hundred ten thousands'. Instead, the next number to get its 'own' number is one hundred million, 'oku'.

As you can imagine, this makes it difficult for English students of Japanese, and Japanese students of English, to easily translate large numbers!

In Japanese, adjectives can be conjugated. In English, we conjugate the verbs. But in Japanese, you can make some adjectives past tense, conditional, etc.

In Japanese, there are many ways of saying 'and'. For example, if you are giving a complete list of something (there is a book and a CD (and nothing else)), you'll use a different 'and' than for an incomplete list (there is a book and a CD (and maybe other things)). You'll use a different 'and' if something is a direct consequence of something else ('press the button and the light will go on') than if telling a sequence of events ('I went to the shops and bought a cake'). I think I know at least six or seven different ways of saying 'and'.

One thing I found particularly interesting - and which I am realising is used a *lot* - is some verbs can be put after other verbs to change the nuance of intention. (Forgive me if I describe any of this grammar wrongly, as some of it I haven't used much myself.)

For example, take the verb 食べる (taberu; to eat). You can add words, like:
tabete ageta (this suggests you ate as a kind of favour to someone)
tabete kureta (this suggests someone else ate as a favour to you)
tabete shimatta (this suggests it was unfortunate or bad that you ate)
tabete kita (this suggests you quickly went out, ate, and came back)

In English, you don't have to think of things like 'now do I feel a sense of indebtedness?' to change your sentence. But in Japanese, I realise, these words are used often, and it can sound strange if you don't use them. Like if you say 'he helped me' and don't use a verb like 'kureru', it might suggest you don't appreciate it.