Language, Individual & Society, Volume 10, 2016

Abstract: The paper deals with the topic of learning and teaching the language which does not belong to any of classical language families. That is the reason why it is extremely difficult to master many of its pitfalls by means of the languages a student/teacher can usually rely on when learning/teaching other languages. These pitfalls concern, among many others, for instance the huge problem of kanji (Japanese characters), their transcription, reading and writing; particles wa and ga which in Japanese present an individual grammatical problem of theme and rheme, accumulation of several verbs or adjectives, onomatopoeic expressions with no existing equivalents of translation, Japanese anglicisms, an honorific language keigo and its demanding usage, word paddings, numeratives, disputable expressions like mono no aware, natsukashii, nasake nai etc. The paper provides, except the summary of several most searing ambits of Japanese based on personal experiences, also some potential approaches concerning learning and teaching Japanese.