Author Archives: Stephanie F. Magnusson

How To Study Japanese

Asians say that it are the Westerners who do things backwards, with horizontal instead of vertical script, running top to bottom. Left to right is the norm for Westerners, but for the Japanese it’s right to left. This is the standard used in nearly each manner of publication, although the Japanese have adopted Western style for computer show and scientific journals. People from Western democratic cultures will discover it odd that the Japanese use different ways of referring to at least one depending on the class of the one talking or spoken to. The use of vocabulary, grammar, and tone of voice, cannot only reveal one’s social class but the gender of the speaker as well.