Find a Japanese tutor near me in London

Find your Japanese teacher in London

The Japanese language, or nihongo 日本語, is the mother tongue of about 130 million Japanese people but it is not officially the language of Japan by law. According to linguistic experts, Japanese is a language isolate, a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or "genetic") relationship with other languages, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language.

The Japanese Writing System and Grammatical Structure

Learning Japanese will not be the easiest of tasks. Even though learning any new language can be arduous, Japanese is a language very remote from the Germano-Latino hybrid that is English.

You will have to learn Japanese writing system which comprise not one, but four different alphabets or syllabus. Kanji, katakana, hiragana and romaji are all important to master if you truly want to speak Japanse like a native.

The Japanese writing system is the results of a succession of assimilation of the Chinese characters (kanjis) and of Western influences (Arabic numerals and Latin letters called romaji). Linguists estimate that there is more than 50,000 different kanji, each representing an idea and being used to write the root of a word, but it seems that knowing only 2,000 of them will mean that you’re fluent. 46 hiragana and 46 katakana constitute the Japanese syllabus and are used to spell or phonetically describe Japanese phonemes.

Hiragana includes all the words that can be read and written using kanji but you will also have to learn about grammatical particles called furigana and yomigana which are kanas associated to kanjis to indicate the correct pronunciation for the words. Katakanas are also used to describe words of foreign origin.

One thing that you might notice when you start learning Japanese is that it is an atonic language which means that words are unaccented, and syllables are without stress or pitch accent. A number of Japanese phonemes are different from the ones in English and are more similar to the French language: « a » will be the same as in father, « e » will be the same as in bet, « i » will be the same as in meet, « o » will be the same as in story and « u » will be the same as in food. Reading and writing Japanese is commonly done from left to right (yokogaki) but traditionally Japanese has been read and written from top to bottom in columns of texts going from right to left. The yokogaki system reflects the influence of Western society in Japan.

Why Learn Japanese?

Learning a new language is always a good way to gain a deeper understanding of linguistics and to broaden your horizons. Learning Japanese in London may have some unsuspected benefits. When you will start learning Japanese you will quickly realise how rich and intricated the Japanese culture is. Going back more than 2,000 years, the History of Japan and its unique isolationist stand contributed in created a one of kind society with unique cuisine, art, religion and language.

You will certainly have to reach an intermediate level of Japanese if you wish to break off with your London routine and relocate your life to Japan. Very few are the job opportunity in Japan if you do not speak a decent level of Japanese. To remedy this you could always take an intensive round of classes at home.

Once your Japanese in good order, it would be very easy for you to become an English teacher in Japan. Indeed the level of English on the Japanese archipelago has never been amongst the best in the world and the government have been trying very hard to remedy to this though schools programs and business initiatives to promote the English language around the country.

One of the particularities of living in Japan is that most Japanese will never consider you to be a full-time citizen and will often ask you when are you going back home, even though you may have lived in Tokyo for the past 10 years. Do not take offence though as Japanese are never ill-mannered and politeness is one of the pillars of everyday life there.

Our Japanese Classes In London and On Superprof

Superprof has some amazing Japanese tutors based in London but has hundreds more ready to give you online Japanese lessons. Our UK-based teachers will be able to teach you Japanese through Skype or FaceTime. No commute, easier and more flexible scheduling, the perfect combo to learn Japanese easily. Those tutors will be able to:

• Teach you Japanese calligraphy
• Teach you Japanese business etiquette
• Teach you Japanese conversational skills
• Prepare you for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test
• Teach you hiragana, katakana, kanji and everything related to the Japanese writing system

To choose your tutor simply compare all the profiles, their experience, their fees and diplomas.  With regular work and constant focus you should be able to speak Japanese in a matter of weeks.