---
title: Belajarlah! Pakailah! Bahasa Nippon! (Learn! Use! The Japanese Language!)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/belajarlah-pakailah-bahasa-nippon-1942/
description: A Malay youth in a songkok reads aloud from a book marked 'Nippon-go' while three smaller faces in a turban, a bun and a topknot fill the rays of light…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[![Belajarlah! Pakailah! Bahasa Nippon! (Learn! Use! The Japanese Language!)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/belajarlah-pakailah-bahasa-nippon-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/belajarlah-pakailah-bahasa-nippon-1942.jpg)

# Belajarlah! Pakailah! Bahasa Nippon! (Learn! Use! The Japanese Language!)

A Malay youth in a songkok reads aloud from a book marked 'Nippon-go' while three smaller faces in a turban, a bun and a topknot fill the rays of light behind him. The panel beneath repeats 'Learn! Use! Japanese!' in Malay and in Hindustani, with a Chinese line at top left. The tell: several communities are pictured as taking up the language together, an appeal to join a general movement.

- **Date:** 1942
- **Period:** [Second World War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=wwii)
- **Made by:** Japanese occupation administration in Malaya (issuer given on Commons as Government of Japan; sponsor not printed)
- **Region:** [East Asia](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=east-asia)
- **Country:** [Empire of Japan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=empire-of-japan)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [State](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=state)
- **Regime:** [Showa Japan](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=showa-japan)
- **Leader:** [Hideki Tojo](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=hideki-tojo)
- **Audience:** [Foreign public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=foreign-public)
- **Purpose:** [Mobilize or secure compliance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=mobilize-comply)
- **Themes:** [Empire and colonialism](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=empire-colonialism), [Media and information](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=media-information)
- **Event:** [World War II](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=world-war-ii)
- **Techniques:** [Bandwagon](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/bandwagon/)
- **Regime:** [Empire of Japan, 1937 to 1945](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/showa-japan/)
- **Leader:** [Hideki Tōjō](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/showa-japan/#hideki-tojo)
- **Source:** Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- **Source:** [Wikimedia Commons (reproduction credited to New Straits Times, 2017)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Belajarlah_Pakailah_Bahasa_Nippon.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** Public domain (1942-45 occupation poster; Commons tag PD-Malaysia) Japanese occupation administration in Malaya (unknown artist); via Wikimedia Commons.

## Text on the object

Original (Multiple) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
要學要
使日本話吧！

[book cover:] ニッポンゴ

Belajarlah! Pakailah!
Bahasa Nippon!

Sikho! Istemal karo!
Nippon-Go(zaban)!

[red round seal, lower right:] 宣
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
Learn it, use it! Speak Japanese!

[book cover:] Nippon-go (Japanese language)

Learn! Use!
The Japanese language!

Learn! Use!
Japanese language (Nippon-go, 'zaban' = language)!

[seal:] 'announce / proclaim'
```

Languages: Malay, Hindustani in Roman script, Chinese and Japanese. The Chinese lines are vertical columns read right to left. A second line of katakana on the book cover is too small to read and is omitted. Translation is FRAME's own literal rendering, machine-assisted and not verified by a fluent reader.

[← Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant (British leaflet to Italy)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ave-caesar-morituri-te-salutant-pwe-leaflet-1942/) ['A Grã-Bretanha, Defensora da Liberdade' (British poster in Portuguese) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/britain-defender-of-liberty-portuguese-1942/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Consult of the doctors on the grave illness of the Grand Sultan (Consult vande medicijnen inde swaere siekte vanden grooten Sultaen)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/consult-of-the-doctors-sick-sultan-antwerp-1683/) (1683 · Transfer, Bandwagon)
- [Das ganze Deutschland soll es sein. Haut sie auf den Chassepot! (German broadsheet song and caricature, Franco-Prussian War)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/das-ganze-deutschland-soll-es-sein-chassepot-1870/) (1870 · Bandwagon, Name-calling)
- [Boletín nuevo: Noticias importantes (New Bulletin: Important News), Revolución del Parque](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/boletin-nuevo-revolucion-del-parque-1890/) (Jul 29, 1890 · Bandwagon, Name-calling)
- [¡¡Glorias de México!! Porfirio Díaz y Ramón Corral, electos por el voto unánime del pueblo (Glories of Mexico!! Porfirio Díaz and Ramón Corral, Elected by the Unanimous Vote of the People)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/glorias-de-mexico-diaz-corral-1904/) (1904 · Glittering generalities, Bandwagon)
- [La vuelta del desterrado (The Return of the Exile)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/la-vuelta-del-desterrado-vanegas-arroyo-1911/) (1911 · Glittering generalities, Bandwagon)
- [Saludo y felicitación al Señor D. Francisco I. Madero al tomar posesión de la presidencia (Salute and Congratulations to Francisco I. Madero on Taking the Presidency)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/saludo-madero-1911/) (Nov 6, 1911 · Glittering generalities, Bandwagon)
- [The Menace front page, 12 April 1913 (Aurora, Missouri)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/the-menace-front-page-1913/) (Apr 12, 1913 · Bandwagon, Scapegoating). Content note: Anti-Catholic newspaper front page with a skull-and-crossbones emblem labelled 'Temporal Power' and claims of a Roman Catholic conspiracy.
- [Vote Against Woman Suffrage](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/georgia-vote-against-woman-suffrage-1915/) (1915 · Fear appeal, Bandwagon)