Although we are going to study Japanese as written texts only, we know that the spoken style appears often in written discourse. In fact some contemporary texts employ a style that gives the impression of the writer talking directly to the reader. (A good example is advertising copy introduced as R4 later.) And even if a text may predominantly follow the written style, direct quotations of spoken language appear frequently. Thus, in order to “read” Japanese we need to understand spoken Japanese as well.

Just as in other languages, it is between the written and spoken styles that the most basic stylistic distinction can be drawn among varieties of the Japanese language. In writing one creates a planned discourse addressed to a reader distant in time and space, while in speaking one normally creates unplanned discourse addressed directly to the partner. Spoken language uses an increased level of fragmentation, and it frequently employs expressions emotionally appealing to the partner, including exclamatory expressions, interactional particles and so on. Discourse organization in casual conversation, for example, is usually less complicated. On the other hand, written language features a prepared presentation of thought, often accompanied by complex sentence structures, sometimes with multiple subordinate clauses into which information is richly packed. Complex discourse organization which spans over a long stretch of discourse is mostly limited to writing.

In addition to the general differences described above, which are common across languages, one particular difference between the written and spoken language in Japanese is worth noting. Japanese vocabulary is of two basic kinds; synonymous words come in pairs of native and Chinese-derived words.