Japanese is the language of Japan and the adjective for the country and its people. Learn Japanese, Japanese food, a Japanese company.
It is always capitalised, and the singular and plural are the same: one Japanese, two Japanese. The language is written in three scripts used together — hiragana and katakana, which are syllabaries, and kanji, which are Chinese characters. It is unrelated to Chinese despite sharing those characters. Note that Japanese has an elaborate system of politeness levels built into its verbs, which has no equivalent in English.
1adjectivejapaneseBelonging to Japan or its people.
“The Japanese railway system runs to about twenty seconds.”
2nounlanguageThe language of Japan.
“She's learning Japanese so she can read manga in the original.”
japanese is a nationality or language.
New Latin
japonensis
Portuguese
japonês
English
Japanese
English, today
japanese
Japanese comes from Japan + -ese. From Japan + -ese after the model of earlier Portuguese japonês, New Latin japonensis, French japonais, etc.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
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