Nihon jin (Japanese) language

Konnichiwa

For this semester, I'm learning Japanese Language 1 and it has been both fun and challenging to me. From learning the "haragana" to the pronunciation of words. There are some characteristic which I have observed from the Japanese language . For example the order of the Japanese vowels, the silent "u" and the long vowel.

In English, the vowels are in this order:
"a e i o u"

In Japanese, the vowels are in this order:
"a i u e o"

I also notice that Japanese Language has a lot of silent /u/ sounds. For example:
i) journalist - janarisuto  (ja-na-ris-to)
ii) athlete - supotsusenshu (spots-sen-shu)
iii) Australia - osutoraria (os-to-ra-ria)
iv) France - furansu (fran-su)

For the long vowel, it is represent by the line above the letter such as ō or ū. How it is used is shown below:
i) teacher - kyōshi (kyoo-shi)
ii) good morning - ohayō (o-ha-yoo)
iii) thank you - arigatō (a-ri-ga-too)
iv) bank clerk - ginkōin (gin-koo-in)

However, this is just my first week in Japanese class but there are probably more examples and reasons why the Japanese language are structured like that. Hopefully, I'll get used to these changes.