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      How to Use This Dictionary

      This book is designed to serve as a quick language reference for business people dealing with the Japanese. It is particularly useful for those who must rely on their opposite party’s English-language ability or the ability of their interpreters. There are times when one may wish to verify for oneself that certain crucial points are indeed being understood correctly. The Japanese Business Dictionary enables even those with little or no experience with the Japanese language to access specialized vocabulary––vocabulary that will allow them to get to the point immediately.

      Of course, being able to pronounce the word or phrase correctly is also of great importance. To help achieve this goal, Japanese words and sentences in this book have been rendered in both standard Hepburn romanization and the author’s time-tested phonetic system. One may use either system to attain correct pronunciation.

      The Japanese language is based on combinations of only six key sounds, making it a fairly easy language to pronounce. These six sounds are the basis for an “alphabet” of some one hundred syllables that make up all the words in the Japanese language.

      While there is only one way to pronounce Japanese properly, there are several ways to write it: using characters imported from China over 1,000 years ago; using one of the two phonetic scripts called kana (kah-nah), devised by the Japanese to supplement and sometimes replace the Chinese ideograms; or using more familiar Roman letters called romaji (roe-mah-jee) in Japanese.

      The most widely used romanji system for transcribing Japanese was developed in the late 1880s by an American missionary, Dr. James Hepburn, soon after Japan’s opening to the West. There are other Roman letter systems for writing Japanese, but Dr. Hepburn’s was designed specifically for English speakers, and is therefore based on English phonetics.

      All except one of the approximately one hundred syllables in the Japanese “alphabet” are based on five (romanized) sounds: a, i, u, e, and o––pronounced ah, ee, uu, eh, oh. The sixth base sound in the Japanese language is represented in English by the letter “n” and is pronounced like “n” in the word “bond.” As mentioned above, all Japanese words are made up of syllables consisting of combinations of these six basic sounds. The Japanese word for book, for example, is made up of two syllables, ho and n or hon,

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