Japanese

How to spell japanese

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce japanese

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does japanese mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to Japan, its people, or its culture.
2. nounThe language spoken in Japan.

Japanese in a sentence

• adjective

  The restaurant serves traditional japanese cuisine.

• noun

  He spent two years learning japanese before moving abroad.

• adjective

  She collects antique japanese pottery from the 1800s.

• noun

  The contract was translated from japanese into English.

Where does japanese come from?

Language of origin: Other

This word joins the country name Japan with the suffix -ese, which English uses to mark where something or someone comes from, as in 'Chinese' and 'Portuguese'. The suffix descends from the Latin -ensis, meaning 'belonging to' or 'originating in', and reached English through Old French -eis. The name Japan itself travelled a long way: it goes back to a Chinese reading of the characters for the country, something like 'Cipangu', which Marco Polo recorded, and which Portuguese traders later passed into European languages as 'Japão' in the sixteenth century. From there English settled on 'Japan', and the adjective and noun 'japanese' grew naturally from it. The spelling trap is purely the suffix: the ending sounds like 'neez' but is written -ese, and the word always keeps a single 's', never a 'z'.

How the word is built

• Japan (the country name)
• -ese (suffix marking origin, nationality, or language)