Certificate [Japanese] From Luther College

There are so many reasons to study Japanese. First - it's not as hard as students think! It's true that the Japanese have a much different system of writing than English or other European languages. However, did they know that new speakers can get by simply by learning 5 vowels, 39 consonant and vowel combinations, and 2 additions? These total the Japanese language's 46 'hiragana' or 'katakana' characters representing Japanese sounds. And in terms of grammar, Japanese nouns have no genders, plural forms, or articles to learn.