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Japanese: Languages
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Japanese is a pro-drop language, meaning that the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. In addition, it is commonly felt, particularly in spoken Japanese, that the shorter a sentence is, the better. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness and tendency towards brevity, Japanese speakers tend naturally to omit words from sentences, rather than refer to them with pronouns. In the context of the above example,
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[One] difficulty of the Japanese language is the fact that a person's speech can vary depending on the situation and the person, one is talking to. A student of the Japanese language has to get familiar with Japanese society and customs in order to understand the detailed rules of the different levels of speech.
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Since most relationships are not equal in Japanese society, one person typically has a higher position than the other. This position is determined by such factors as social position, age, job, etc. The person in the lower position will use the polite form, whereas the person in the higher position will use the plain form. Humble language is used when talking about oneself or one's group, while the honorific language is used to describe the interlocutor and his/her group.
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Some Japanese consonants have several allophones, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the twentieth century, the phonemic sequence
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Japanese lacks true pronouns like those found in Indo-European languages. Rather, there is a subset of nouns called daimeishi that unlike true pronouns take modifiers and do not constitute a closed class (new daimeishi can be added and old ones can go out of use). Personal daimeishi are seldom used because Japanese sentences do not always require explicit subjects, and because names or titles are often used where pronouns would appear in Indo-European languages such as English.
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Japanese uses 4 different ways of addressing people: kun, chan, san and sama. Kun is somewhat condescending, chan is used for intimates and children, san is the universal mode and sama is deferential. However, getting hierarchies and politeness levels right is difficult and you need a lot of additional information (context) about your conversational partner and some insights into the working of Japanese language and culture.
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