The Japanese language is an agglutinative language. There is debate as to what language family it belongs to, and if its related to any other language. Japanese has relatively few sounds. There is no R sound or L sound in Japanese. There is a sound that sounds similar to the two but is neither. This is why there is confusion over the R and L sound. Japanese, like English, is a language that tends to borrow from other languages. For instance the word for bread is Pan(バン). TThis word was borrowed from the Portuguese. It is also the exact same word as bread in French, and Spanish. There are many such examples in Japanese.
The Japanese language uses three writing systems. Japanese publications use a mix of kanji and kana. Chinese characters, called kanji (漢字) are used as well as kana. There are two types of kana: hiragana and katakana. They were developed by simplifying kanji characters. Kanji can have several ways to be read and the meaning is what is important. Kana has no meaning attached to it. They are syllabic sounds and are always read the same way. Hiragana is used for words of Japanese origin. Katakana is used for foreign words. For example: Crystal is writtenクリスタル; and cat in Japanese can be written ねこ. The kanji for cat though is 猫.