Think of the Japanese vocabulary as a way to communicate professionally within the martial arts environment. Every professional field has its own jargon that outsiders do not always understand. Take the military for example. When Doctors say, Myocardial infarction, other Doctors know exactly what they are talking about but most other people do not know that they have just used the professional term for heart attack. It can be said then that the use of Japanese terminology is one of the things that we all have in common no matter which martial art we study, and it is one of the things that unite us as professionals in our field.
Japanese pronunciation is relatively simple to master.
Just pronounce the vowels as shown in the chart below. There is no stress accent in Japanese but there is a pitch accent. These pages are not meant to be a complete work on Japanese vocabulary or a dictionary. Keep in mind that not all translations are literal translations. For maximum results you should have copies of the Sei Shin Kan Nihongo Study Guide Series Manuals Vol.