"Japan" is written using kanji as 日本.

Most people usually pronounce this as にほん (nihon). But there are times when にっぽん (nippon) is used instead.

(If you can't read the characters in にほん or にっぽん, that means you don't know hiragana yet. You can learn hiragana for free a lot of different ways, such as by using a free trial at NativShark [ https://nativshark.com/ ], searching for some videos or apps that teach it, or just printing out this [ https://www.niko.blog/kana/ ] free sheet of them and carrying it around until you learn them all.)

When in doubt, you can just use にほん, but if there is a specific proper noun that uses にっぽん, that's the reading you should use.

For example, 日本橋 can refer to にほんばし (an area in Tokyo) or にっぽんばし (an area in Osaka).

You may often hear にっぽん in newscasts and other official settings. This is likely influenced by the fact that the national public broadcasting organization in Japan NHK has adopted にっぽん as their standard pronunciation for the country's name. They established this as their chosen pronunciation about a century ago!

Another time you might want to use にっぽん is when cheering for Japan's national team in a sport or something. Presumably this is done because it has a more "classic" or "old-school" ring to it than にほん.

As for why we call the country "Japan" in English, linguists believe it derives in part from the Portuguese recording of the Early Mandarin Chinese or Wu Chinese word for Japan: Cipan (日本), which is rendered in pinyin as Rìběn (IPA: ʐʅ˥˩pən˨˩˦), and literally translates to "sun origin". Guó (IPA: kuo˨˦) is Chinese for "realm" or "kingdom", so it could alternatively be rendered as Cipan-guo. The word was likely introduced to Portuguese through the Malay: Jipan.

The first account of the country's name in Western texts was by Marco Polo, who referred to it as "Cipangu". The first time the country appeared on a European map was in 1457.

You'll notice that the kanji for 日本 are 日 (sun) and 本 (origin). This is why Japan is commonly referred to as "The Land of the Rising Sun". And if you look at their flag, it has that big red circle in the middle, right? That circle is commonly referred to as 日の丸 (ひのまる // lit. sun's circle).

Why isn't the circle yellow, then? Well, if you watch kids in Japan drawing pictures, you're sure to eventually come across a sun that is colored red, not yellow, as this is common in Japanese culture.

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The NativShark (https://nativshark.com/) lesson on the pronunciation of "Japan" can be found here: https://app.nativshark.com/lessons/ni... .

You can view NativShark lessons with a free account. If you decide to study with it, it's a simple solution to go from zero to a rather impressive level of proficiency in the language. (I'm one of the company's founders, so of course I think it's great. ^_^)

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The entire video we explored can be viewed here:    • 【雑談で差をつける7つのルール】雑談は「第3の会話」／信頼関係の築き方／ラ...  

The language we broke down was:

で、そもそもなんですけど、日本人って雑談は…下手なんですか？
So, in the first place, are Japanese people just… bad at making small talk?

日本人がよくやるのは、こう、ハイコンテクスト、あの、な日本語で会話し合うので…
Japanese people often speak “high-context” Japanese with one another, so…

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