Vowels
Standard Japanese has five vowel phonemes, i.e., sounds that make a difference in word meaning: /e/, /e/, /a/, /o/, /u/. Vowels can be short or long. Vowel length makes a difference in word meaning, e.g., ojisan 'uncle' and ojiisan 'grandfather.' Other Japanese dialects may have as few as three and as many as eight vowel phonemes. Two features of Japanese vowels are worthy of mention:

• The Japanese /u/ is not rounded like English /u/, where the lips are protruded (or pursed). Rather, the lips are compressed, leaving a space between them for the air to escape.
• The vowels /i/ and /u/ are devoiced in voiceless environments, e.g., kutsu 'shoe.'

Consonants
Japanese has the following consonant phonemes.

The Japanese consonant /r/ sounds like something between an [r] and an [l]. It is produced by lightly placing the tip of the tongue in the back of the upper teeth when pronouncing an [l].

In native (non-borrowed) Japanese words, the dental consonants /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/ undergo regular mutations before the high vowels /i/ and /u/.

Rhythm and stress
Mora is a unit of sound that determines syllable weight which in turn determines stress or timing in some languages. Japanese words are made of morae, each with the same approximate time value and stress (loudness). The Japanese mora may consist of either a vowel or one of the two moraic consonants, /N/ and /Q/. Here are some examples (Wikipedia):

Click here to learn more about Japanese pitch accent.

Click here to listen to some basic dialogs in Japanese.
Click here to watch short videos in Japanese.

One of the most salient characteristics of Japanese grammar is the notion of politeness. There are three main levels of politeness levels in spoken Japanese: the plain form, the simple polite form, and the advanced polite form (honorific and humble).

Since most relationships are not equal in Japanese society, one person typically has a higher position than the other. This position is determined by such factors as social position, age, job, etc. The person in the lower position will use the polite form, whereas the person in the higher position will use the plain form. Humble language is used when talking about oneself or one's group, while the honorific language is used to describe the interlocutor and his/her group.
Click here to learn more about Japanese honorifics.

Noun phrase

• Japanese nouns are not marked for either number or gender. When necessary, number can be expressed by indicating quantity or adding a suffix. in a small number of native Japanese words, plurality can be expressed by reduplication, e.g., yama 'mountain,' yamayama 'many mountains.'
• There are no articles.
• Politeness is marked by o- for native native Japanese, and go- for Sino-Japanese nouns, e.g., plain form for 'money' is kane, the respectful form is o-kane, the plain form for 'rice' is meshi, the respectful form is go-han.
• Grammatical functions of nouns are signalled by postpositions (often referred to as particles), e.g.,

Pronouns
Japanese lacks true pronouns like those found in Indo-European languages. Rather, there is a subset of nouns called daimeishi that unlike true pronouns take modifiers and do not constitute a closed class (new daimeishi can be added and old ones can go out of use). Personal daimeishi are seldom used because Japanese sentences do not always require explicit subjects, and because names or titles are often used where pronouns would appear in Indo-European languages such as English.

There are three series of demonstratives:

• The ko- (proximal) series refers to things closer to the speaker than the hearer, e.g., kore
  'this one.'
• The so- (mesial) series for things closer to the hearer, e.g., sore 'that one.'
• The a- (distal) series for things distant to both the speaker and the hearer, e.g., are 'that one over there.'
• With do-, demonstratives turn into interrogatives.
• Demonstratives can also be used to refer to people.

Verb phrase
Japanese adds suffixes to stems to represent different verb forms.

• There are six stems: imperfective, continuative, terminal, attributive, hypothetical and imperative.
• Verbs have two marked tenses: past and nonpast (the difference between present and future is not marked in conjugation).
• Voice and aspect are indicated by means of conjugation.
• The plain form in Japanese is characterized by the dictionary form of verbs + the da form of the copula. In the simple polite level, verbs end with -masu, and the copula desu is used. The advanced polite level frequently uses special honorific and humble verb forms. The honorific suffix -san 'Mr., Mrs. or 'Ms. should not be used to talk about oneself or someone from one's own group to an external person.
  Click here to learn more about Japanese verb conjufation.

Syntax
The normal word order is Japanese is Subject - Object - Verb. Although various permutations of sentence components are possible, the verb must always be in the final position. The basic sentence structure of a Japanese sentence is topic-comment. Note that the particle wa attaches to various components of the sentence to topicalize them.

Borrowings
Japanese vocabulary abounds in borrowings from other languages. Japanese borrowed extensively from Chinese when they adopted the Chinese orthography. Linguists have sometimes likened the impact of Chinese writing on Japanese to the effect of the Norman conquest on the English language. Japanese words often have synonyms, one of them from Chinese, the other from Japanese. Words of Chinese origin (Sino-Japanese) are called kanga. They often appear more formal to Japanese speakers, just as Latinate words often sound more formal to English speakers. It is estimated that up to 60% of Japanese vocabulary consists of Sino-Japanese words.

Japanese has also borrowed a number of words from Portuguese in the 16th century, e.g., pan 'bread,' Iesu 'Jesus.' With the reopening of Japan in the 19th century, Japanese borrowed from Dutch, German, French, and most recently from English. Since the basic syllabic structure of Japanese is Consonant + Vowel, It is imposed on loanwords by inserting vowels between consonants, for example the English word 'strike' becomes Japanese sutoraiku. Loanwords exist alongside native words, e.g., the word bypass can be rendered into Japanese are mawarimiti (native Japanese), ukairo (Sino-Japanese), or baipasu (English borrowing).

Click here to learn more about loanwords in Japanese.

Onomatopoetic words
Onomatopoetic, or sound symbolic, words are very frequent in Japanese, e.g., wan-wan 'bow-wow,' yoboyobo 'wobbly,' doki-doki 'fast heartbeat.' Onomapoetic words are often used in conjunction with regular words that have a general meaning, e.g., waa-waa naku 'weep,' meso-meso naku 'sob,' oi-oi naku 'whimper.'