Japanese is SOV, Subject, Object, Verb. This is quite alien to English speakers, as most Indo-European languages are SVO, Subject, Verb, Object. Korean, Mongolian, and Turkish appear to be related to Japanese. But there are several others as well.
Subject Object Verb - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Starting simply, "I speak Japanese" is Nihongo-wo hanashimasu. By the way if you own a Mac you can probably type Japanese just using system software. Go to System Preferences, go to International, and turn on Kotoeri.
日本ごを 話します
I don't speak Japanese is Nihongo-wo hanashimasen
日本ごを 話しません
The kanji "hanashi" 話 is often used for words dealing with expression. The left hand radical is a mouth (square box at bottom) with words coming out (4 horizontal lines above the box) -- "kotoba" or word 言. The radical to the right is "shita" 舌 tongue, which is the character for "1000" over the square box that means "mouth."