PREFACE
Japanese is the language spoken by over 95 million people in the islands of Japan and by several millions more in Korea, Formosa, Ryuukyuu, Manchuria, and the Pacific Islands. The Japanese language is not closely related to any other language in the world. It is considered to be an independent language. The common notion that Japanese and Chinese are related comes from the fact that the Japanese people write their language with characters adopted from Chinese. Actually, Japanese is no more similar to Chinese than it is to English.
The Japanese spoken in different parts of Japan is not all of one kind. Speakers in different parts of Japan use different dialects of the language just as Americans do in different parts of the United States. The dialectal differences, however, are fast disappearing because Japan adopted one variety, the speech of educated persons in Tokyo as the standard in 1872, and has used it in teaching in all schools throughout Japan since then. This so-called standard Japanese is the language taught at this school. If you learn it, every Japanese will understand you, and most Japanese will be able to use it in talking to you.
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