Topic: Since I have such an interest in Japan and its culture I thought it would be best to have my project revolve around Japanese, its culture, and history. Although, that does sound like a very broad topic so I am still not too sure if I will just be talking about the language or about everything in general. However, I will still do preliminary research for everything just in case. After my 1st blog entry, I have come to the conclusion that talking about Japanese as in the language itself is more than enough for me to talk about. Thus I will be talking about how the language works and its history. The current topic that I am thinking of is "Why English is a difficult language for native Japanese speakers." where i will be directly comparing English and Japanese to put a spotlight on their differences and similarities.

2. Academic Source: Frellesvig, Bjarke. A History of the Japanese Language. Cambridge University Press, 2010. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=344594&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Summary: This ebook that I have found informs us of the evolution of the Japanese language from its earliest form to the language that people speak nowadays in Japan. The oldest form of Japanese existing from the eighth century AD, the early middle Japanese starting from 800 to 1200, late middle Japanese developing from 1200 to 1600, and then the modern Japanese begins from 1600 and finally, the NJ era which is Japanese of the twentieth century. Old Japanese being the Japanese used during the Nara period. It is said by some that there weren't many drastic changes in the language itself throughout history, the two biggest changes that happened to the language were in the early middle period where they had phonological changes which most likely happened due to their contact with Chinese that changed their way of writing. Then the late middle period where the language had undergone grammatical changes. Another big change that happened was during the Nj era, where the westernization of Japanese began, words would be taken straight out of English and implemented into the Japanese language. For example, the word "cookie" would be pronounced as "kuki" in Japanese.

My Thoughts: I can really tell that Japanese was a language that went under heavy changes due to their contact that they made with countries during different periods. It might not come off as a surprise that a little bit of Chinese might be thrown into Japanese but I'm sure that English would catch people off guard since it is less obvious due to the fact that it is not shown in their writing system. The influence that the west has on Japan should not be taken lightly since as a Japanese learner myself, I can count a massive amount of words that are taken directly out of English and put into Japanese. For example, "cake" being "keki", "table" pronounced as "teburu" and words like "girlfriend" pronounced as "garufurendo" are all highly similar if well pronounced. In other words, Japanese would be a whole lot different if it never came into contact with English.

5. Source: Gregscott. “Japanese Sentence Structure: A Beginner's Guide to Forming Japanese Sentences: FluentU Japanese.” FluentU Japanese | Japanese Language and Culture Blog, 10 Dec. 2020, www.fluentu.com/blog/japanese/japanese-sentence-structure-patterns/#:~:text=When%20it%20comes%20to%20basic,Japanese%20as%20you%20read%20on.

Summary: In this website that I have found, they are directly comparing English to Japanese. Although being very different from English, the Japanese grammar or language is actually not as hard as you would think to get a grasp on. The language is actually not very heavy on its grammar, meaning that not very often do the words end up changing because of either the different tenses, number or aspect. For basic sentence, English has SVO language while Japanese is SOV which basically means "subject-object-verb". However, as I said before, the structure for sentences in Japanese can change. When we compare the two, Japanese's grammar is much more simple than English since there are no plurals no determiners and there are only two tenses. Another reason why Japanese is easier than we think is because formulating questions is very easy to do. Compared to English all Japanese people have to do to ask a question is by adding "ka" at the end of their sentences.

My Thoughts: I completely agree with this source that I found, after learning a quarter of Japanese. I took me about only four months to learn a good portion of Japanese and most of it was relatively straight forward and easy to remember. With that being said, there are still some things that can be tricky for English learners like how particles work in sentences and occasionally disappearing subjects. It might take time for some of us to adjust to such difficulties. This has once again sparked my interest in learning this foreign language once again because it reminds me of how interesting the language is and how it can be fun to try to learn it.

8. Source: Lombardi, Linda. “Why English Is Hard and Japanese Is Easy.” Tofugu, Tofugu, 6 May 2015, www.tofugu.com/japanese/japanese-is-easy/

Summary: This source that I found pretty much is the same as the previous one that I found. Although, this one brings up other points that make it so Japanese appears easier than English and in other languages. For example, they bring out how in French or Spanish they tend to have genders for their nouns such as "Une feuille" which is paper but its gender is feminine. In Japanese, such things do not exist there also are no plurals which makes it much simpler for new learners to remember what to say while forming sentences. While talking about how Japanese is easier, the website also compares Japanese to multiple other languages such as Russian, German and Spanish. While comparing they go over the many difficulties that some of them might share such as words originating from different historical backgrounds that can be confusing to beginners.

My Thoughts: I agree with the fact that Japanese is a relatively straightforward language that people will find more simple to retain. On the other hand, the writing system is indeed harder to memorize and understand due to Japanese having two different historical origins when it comes to their writing. As a result, it can be quite confusing to try and get the hang of it since Japanese has 3 separate kinds of writing system and also different synonyms being used on separate occasion like the word "pig" for example. That being said Japanese is easy when it comes to learning how to speak which is very nice and is a reason why I like studying it. However, the writing system is less welcoming for sure.

9. Academic Source: Akira Miura. “The Influence of English on Japanese Grammar.” The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, vol. 14, no. 1, Apr. 1979, pp. 3–30. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2307/489539.

Summary: In this academic journal, the author talks about how much Japanese has been influenced by English throughout history. The first thing all people notice is that Japanese has words taken directly from English like "cake" being pronounced as "keki". However, there are a lot more subtle changes that English has brought to the language. For example the word orders in sentences and also the usage of pronouns. Japanese people usually tend to use active sentences when communicating. For example, they tend to say "Nobody uses these books at school" rather than "These books aren't used by anyone at school". However, with the changes brought by English, Japanese people tend to use this form more commonly while talking casually. The same goes for pronouns, pronouns are often omitted in sentences, but ever since they came into contact with English the usage of pronouns are more often found in sentences. Japanese people would usually say "Already have done" rather than "I've already done it", so it is clear that English has more impact on the language of the land of the rising sun than we think.

My Thoughts: I'm very surprised by how much Japan likes to take from their neighbors or people they come in contact with. It is shown everywhere in their language or even writing system. They took part of China's writing system and made it their own, took some vocabulary from European languages and implemented those in Japanese and even some of their way of speaking and writing has been changed by other languages. I guess Japanese is really just an accumulation of what they learned from other languages. It is, however still a very beautiful language represented by an amazing culture nonetheless.

10. Academic Source: Nakanishi Kimiko, and Tomioka Satoshi. “Japanese Plurals Are Exceptional.” Journal of East Asian Linguistics, vol. 13, no. 2, Apr. 2004, pp. 113–140. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.20100865&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Summary: So this academic source I found talks about the grammar rules for plurals in Japanese. As we might know by now, Japanese is one language that doesn't have as many rules in grammar than in languages like French or English and the same goes for their plurals. Usually, the languages that like to mark their nouns with plural endings also have to change their verbs and adjectives when they want to specify whether the sentence is singular or plural. However in Japanese, not only do they not have to do that, but they also found ways to indicate plurality through other methods. By using suffixes such as "ra", "doom" and "tati". One example is "tati", that suffix is used to identify not only that a subject is plural but also turns that word into a definite plural word. As in "Otokonoko-ga asonde-iru" this sentence could either mean a boy is playing, the boy is playing, boys are playing or the boys are playing. If we add that suffix "Otokonoko-tati-ga asonde-iru", then it turns the sentence into "The boys are playing". Methods like these are what makes plurals in Japanese interesting and yet easy to remember.

My Thoughts: As a French and English speaker, I am very thankful that Japanese people made it this easy to learn my plural forms. I can not begin to imagine learning a language with plurals being as hard as French. This makes the language easier to grasp and is one of the reasons why I keep studying this language. Although because of this method, sometimes it can be a mouthful to pronounce certain sentences. I guess this is what happens when you replace varying words into suffixes. Because then the suffixes tend to stack the more you try to be precise when you talk."Otokonoko-tati-ga asonde-iru" is a perfect example, it becomes toa sentence with a lot of syllables just to say "The boys are playing".