The first thing that a foreigner encounters in Japan is the language. More often than not, it begins with a problem with the language, problem in making conversation with the Japanese people, problem in reading the road signs, problem in understanding the announcements you hear if you travel by train. And that is by no means the end of the list. The percentage of Japanese who are at home with English is extremely less. Some others can manage a conversation in English with the help of sign language. The best recourse that a foreigner has is to pick up some commonly used phrases. It is also useful to get familiar with the Japanese scripts. Yes, I mean scripts, in the plural. There are three scripts in common use in Japan. So where does one begin.

Among the three prevalent scripts in Japan, Kanji is the most well known. It is a pictorial script and, if I may phrase it so, the alphabet contains pictorial symbols rather that letters like we have in Hindi, English or several European languages. In fact, the other two Japanese scripts, Hiragana and Katakana do have letters that make up their alphabet. With each Kanji pictorial symbol is associated a sound. To give you a sampling, here is how you would "spell" some of the sounds associated with the Kanji symbols in English: miya, kyo, juku, shine, hara, tachi, kawa, kita, higashi, minami. For example, Tokyo is `spelt` using two Kanji symbols. The first symbol sounds like To and the second symbol sounds like Kyo.

Kanji can be easy and difficult at the same time. It is easy, because one just has to recognize symbols, something that comes easier to us rather as compared with reading the letters of the word, and then try to make out its pronunciation. And there cannot be two pronunciations !! Compare reading Shinjuku as two symbols as opposed to nine letters. For a person who has just arrived in Japan, and wants to be mobile, it is essential to recognize names of the various places. And Kanji is very much suited to it. You do not have to know the complete alphabet. Just remember a few pictorial symbols and it is easy to get around. And if you wish to drive, it becomes easier and faster to read the road signs.

But then there are two sides to a coin. On the flip side, there are too many symbols. About 20,000 of them. What can be bewildering is that a Kanji symbol can mean more than one thing at the same time, or rather have more than one sound associated with it. For example, there is this symbol that can sound like kami, you-a, gami and ju. Even an average Japanese does not know all the symbols, or all the different sounds associated with each particular symbol. Even so, I have found it very useful to recognize a few symbols and it has enhanced my mobility.

The fact the Kanji is a pictoral script adds another dimension to it. Usually, with a script language like Hindi or English, if you can read a script, it usually follows that you can write using that script. But not with Kanji. Kanji is like pictures. You can recognize a picture ( which is like reading kanji), but it does not follow that you can draw that picture ( which is like writing the kanji ) !! So the number of kanji you can read is not the same as the number of kanji you can write !! In fact, this is one of the problems faced by Japanese people who use their computer extensively. The computer provides the kanji and the user just needs to select it. So most of the time, the average Japanese is selecting the kanji to be incorporated in his document rather than writing it. Kanji writing involves use of particular strokes to produce the necessary kanji character. To write a kanji, one needs to remember the stroke order, some of which are particulary complicated. Extensive computer use causes the users to forget the strokes and their order and thus leads to a loss in the ability to write all the kanji.

The other two scripts are Hiragana and Katakana. It is quite common to combine Hiragana and Kanji. So do not be surprised to find signboards written with a mixture of Hiragana and Kanji symbols. The letters that make up the Katakana alphabet are suited for "spelling" foreign language words. English is the most prominent foreign language one finds here. Katakana is a phonetic language, like other Asian languages, with a particular sound associated with each letter. Understandably, given the limited number of letters ( and their associated sounds ), you do not always get the best fit for a language like English, which is not phonetic. So SHAMPOO is spelled as SI-YAN-POO and ICE-CREAM as AI-SA KU- RIM. So next time you hear a Japanese calling ice-cream as ai-sa ku-rim, you know why !!

An interesting aspect of this language, and one similar to Sanskrit or Hindi, is the use of a half letter. For example, the N in SI-YAN-POO is a half N, if I may say so. It means that the sound of N is not stressed but has yet to be pronounced. Try reading SI-YAN-POO in this light and it sounds more like shampoo !!

Another interesting situation arises because the Japanese language does not have a sound like R, L and V. The Katakana alphabet has a letter that has a sound that is somewhere between the R and the L. They use it for the sound of both R and L. We have a similar sound in Sanskrit. This is the sound associated with a letter in the Sanskrit alphabet that appears like the letter "S", rotated counter clockwise by 90 degrees. The Hindi alphabet does not have such a sound, although it is present in the Marathi language.

As a result, Load and Road, end up being spelt similarly, when using Katakana. And STORE is spelt and pronounced as SU-TO-A.

And of course, VIDEO is pronounced as BIDEO and VITAMIN as BITAMIN. Reminds you of Bengali !!

NOTE: Marathi and Bengali are Indian regional languages.