NZ Scholarship Japanese key terms

The Japanese honorific system, split into 尊敬語 (respectful), 謙譲語 (humble) and 丁寧語 (polite) forms. Scholarship candidates must recognise and produce it to judge relationships between speaker, listener and subject.

Respectful language that elevates the person being spoken about, e.g. いらっしゃる, おっしゃる, 召し上がる. Used for superiors, customers and out-group members; misuse for oneself is a common exam error.

Humble language that lowers the speaker or in-group member to show respect to the other party, e.g. 伺う, 申し上げる, いただく. Distinguishing it from respectful forms is frequently tested.

Polite language marked by です・ます and ございます that shows courtesy to the listener without elevating or lowering anyone. It forms the neutral baseline from which keigo choices are calibrated.

The in-group/out-group distinction that governs honorific choice. Family and colleagues are 内 and take humble forms when addressing outsiders; getting this boundary right signals sociolinguistic control.

Short back-channel responses such as うん, そうですね, へえ that show the listener is engaged. In listening tasks, their placement and intonation reveal agreement, surprise or mere attention.

Sentence-final particles like ね, よ, か, な, ぞ that carry the speaker's stance: confirmation, assertion, doubt or emphasis. They often change the intended meaning of a whole utterance.

The grammatical marking of the speaker's attitude: likelihood (かもしれない, に違いない), obligation (べきだ), and hearsay (そうだ, らしい). Reading tasks often hinge on the strength of such judgements.

Expressions of conjecture or inference, such as だろう, かもしれない, はずだ and らしい. Candidates must rank these by certainty to answer questions about how confident a writer is.

Verbs of giving and receiving: あげる, くれる, もらう and their humble/respectful variants. Direction of benefit is easily reversed, so exam items often test who helps whom.

The causative form (〜させる／〜せる), meaning to make or let someone do something. Combined with ていただく it becomes a polite request; distinguishing 'make' from 'allow' depends on context.

The passive form (〜られる／〜れる), used for neutral passives, respect, potential and the adversative 'suffering passive'. Recognising which function applies is essential for accurate reading.

Conditional structures: と, ば, たら and なら. Each has different nuances of natural consequence, hypothetical, sequence and topic-marking, which exam items test through context.

The intransitive/transitive verb pairs such as 開く／開ける and 入る／入れる. Choosing the wrong one changes whether an event happened by itself or was caused, a frequent comprehension trap.

Reading and writing kanji, including on-yomi, kun-yomi and compounds. Scholarship tasks expect accurate production of common jōyō characters in context, not just recognition.

Multi-character kanji compounds whose meaning may not follow from the parts, e.g. 手続き or 世間. Familiarity with common compounds speeds reading and improves writing accuracy.

Words that sound identical but differ in kanji and meaning, such as 機構／寄稿 or 対象／対照. Listening and dictation items rely on context to disambiguate them.

Loanwords written in katakana, e.g. コミュニケーション or リサイクル. Modern texts use them heavily, and their English origin does not always match current Japanese meaning.

English-looking words coined in Japan whose meaning differs from the English source, such as サラリーマン or バイキング. Misreading them as English causes comprehension errors.

Sound-symbolic words like どきどき, ざあざあ, きらきら that describe states, sounds or feelings. They carry tone and imagery, and literary passages often depend on them.

Figurative language including simile (〜のような) and metaphor. Recognising what is being compared, and why, is central to interpreting literary and opinion texts in the reading section.

The central topic or thesis of a passage, as distinct from supporting details. Scholarship questions often ask for the 筆者の主張 (writer's claim), so distinguishing main idea from example is key.

The gist or summary of a text, capturing its argument without detail. Practice in condensing paragraphs trains the summarising skill the writing and reading sections reward.

Conjunctions such as しかし, したがって, つまり, 一方 that signal contrast, cause, restatement or addition. Tracking them maps the logical structure of a passage and locates the writer's conclusion.

Referring words like これ, それ, あれ, その, この that point back or forward in a text. Identifying exactly what a pronoun refers to is a standard reading-comprehension question type.

A paragraph, the basic unit of organisation in Japanese expository writing. Each typically opens with a topic sentence, so paragraph structure guides both reading and essay planning.

The structure or organisation of a piece of writing: introduction, development, conclusion (起承転結 or 序論・本論・結論). A clear 構成 is explicitly rewarded in the writing task.

The three-part essay frame: introduction stating the thesis, body developing arguments with evidence, and conclusion restating the position. This is the safest structure for timed scholarship essays.

An opinion essay in which the writer takes a clear stance and supports it with reasons and examples. Scholarship writing tasks usually require this genre rather than description or narrative.

Persuasiveness: the quality that makes an argument convincing through logic, evidence and appropriate register. Examiners reward it when reasons are specific and linked explicitly to the claim.

Writing style, most basically the choice between だ・である (plain, formal prose) and です・ます (polite). Consistency of 文体 within one piece is expected and inconsistency is penalised.

The ruled manuscript paper used for Japanese composition, one character per square. Knowing its conventions - indenting the first line, vertical writing, punctuation placement - matters for the writing task.

Listening comprehension. Scholarship tasks may include extended monologues, dialogues and news-style speech, requiring note-taking and inference about speaker intent, not just literal detail.

Note-taking while listening: recording keywords, numbers and names in abbreviated form. Effective notes let candidates answer detail questions without relying on memory of the whole passage.

Summarising a spoken or written text concisely in one's own words. It tests whether the main point and its supporting logic were understood, and is a common integrated-skill task.

Understanding cultural difference without reducing it to stereotype. Texts on 集団主義, 建前 and 本音, or 空気を読む require candidates to interpret behaviour in its own social context.

The distinction between the public stance (建前) and true feelings (本音). Recognising when a speaker is being diplomatically indirect is essential for inference questions in listening and reading.

Literally 'reading the air': sensing unspoken expectations and adjusting one's behaviour accordingly. Passages discussing it illustrate indirect communication norms and often prompt opinion responses.

A seasonal word required in haiku, such as 桜 for spring or 蝉 for summer. Literary questions may ask how 季語 sets mood and implies a season without stating it directly.