The vast majority of Japanese speaking people is naturally located in Japan, but there are also many Japanese immigrants in United States, Brazil, Australia and Argentina. Because of Japan's influence in Asia many locals in the countries learn the language, especially in China, South Korea and Taiwan.

Japanese uses 3 writing systems: kanji, hiragana and katakana. Kanji are Chinese characters borrowed into Japanese a long time ago. There are about 2000 of them in common use. Hiragana and katakana are both syllabaries used for writing Japanese. Kana is a general term for hiragana and katakana.

People learning Japanese may want to take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, commonly known as JLPT, as a proof of language capabilities. There are 4 levels, level 4 being the beginner level and level 1 the highest.

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