{"id":2897,"date":"2014-10-06T16:25:56","date_gmt":"2014-10-06T15:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/?p=2897"},"modified":"2014-10-06T16:25:56","modified_gmt":"2014-10-06T15:25:56","slug":"language-of-the-week-japanese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/language-of-the-week-japanese\/","title":{"rendered":"Language of the Week: Japanese"},"content":{"rendered":"

As it was the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday, we have chosen Japanese as our Language of the Week.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, our thoughts and good wishes go to Jules Bianchi for his full recovery following his crash on Sunday at Suzuka.<\/p>\n

Though in many respects I\u2019m a complete petrol head, I have never found Grand Prix very interesting to watch, lap after lap, rarely exciting in my book.\u00a0 However, when I started to research the history of the Japanese Grand Prix, I found some interesting facts:<\/p>\n

Surprisingly it is the only circuit that crosses over itself in a figure of eight and therefore runs both clockwise and anti-clockwise.<\/p>\n

The fastest lap ever recorded at the Suzuka circuit is 1:30.54 minutes and was set by Kimi R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen in 2005. \u00a0To put this into perspective, since the track is 3.387 miles long, if a Cheetah could run at its fastest for further than 1500ft, it would take it approximately 2.7mins!<\/p>\n

When looking to learn Japanese it can appear very daunting because of the characters. However, it is one of those languages which is much easier to speak than write.\u00a0 Unlike the majority of languages, nouns do not have genders and there is also no differentiation between singular and plural. Personally, we love both these facts. There are also no pronunciation or tones.<\/p>\n

Here are a few fun facts about Japan:<\/p>\n