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 Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 8:47 pm
Vajrabhairava He, thanks. Without some sign that somebody is actually reading this, there would be no reason to keep doing it. That's why I decided to post, to let you know that at least I am reading this...
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Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:28 am
Vajrabhairava ・The only other difference is that in Katakana, long vowels are writtenwith a ー instead of repeating the vowel. Example: リモートコントロール - rimouto contorouru *NOT: リモ ウトコントロ ウル I always thought they did the ー thing in both. Nice to learn something new. ^ ^ Incidentally, how odd would it look to a native speaker if somebody spelt out words in hiragana instead of using the kanji?
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Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:48 am
:B すごい！
。＿。I hope I Used that right xO
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Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 2:02 pm
Phrozen Wishes :B すごい！ 。＿。I hope I Used that right xO Yup, right! So then for today, ...an introduction to Kanji Kanji, basically are Chinese characters. Quite a long time ago, Japan took them from China, and started using them, simple as that. A historian can get into the details and reasons for it, I'm not worried about that. They approximated the Chinese pronunciation with Japanese sounds, but completely ignored the tones of Chinese. So, just as Chinese has many words that sound the same but are distinguished by tone, there are many kanji with similar or the same readings. If you know Chinese, some of them may be familiar to you. They dont look exactly the same though, both China and Japan have had changes to simplify their writing systems over the years, but they are still about 95% percent the same, apperance-wise. Over time, the phonetics of both languages has changed, but there are still quite a few that have some obvious similarities. Now then, how they work. Kanji are basically pictures that represent something. It could be a thing, idea, concept, and at times really vague and abstract. Many of them are little pictures of the thing or idea they are meant to represent. Many more complicated kanji are made up of many simpler ones. For example: 山 - やま - yama - mountain. Can you see it? 木 - き - ki - tree. Maybe a dead tree.. 森 - もり - mori - jungle. See, a bunch of trees makes a jungle! Each Kanji usually has at least two ways to be read, the On Yomi, or Chinese approximated pronunciation, and the Kun Yomi, the Japanese pronunciation of the character. Some of them have just one way to be read, others 3 or 5, which can cause some confusion about which one to use. The rule basically goes: If the kanji is on its own, it is read with the Kun Yomi. 中 - なか - naka - middle, inside 国 - くに - kuni - country 人 - ひと - hito - person Kanji are often put together to make more complex words. This way, out of the thousands of kanji, there are endless permutations used to make tens of thousands of words. When two or more Kanji are together in a compound , they are read with the On Yomi. 中国人 - ちゅうごくじん - chuugokujin - chinese person. The Chinese call them selves the "middle country", so therefore, 中国. Adding "人" to the end of a country name means a person from that country. The On Yomi of 中 is "chuu", and for 国, koku. But in Japanese, when words are stuck together the first sound often changes to make it easier to pronounce. So therefore, "chuu" + "koku" = "chuu goku", China. The On Yomi of 人 is "jin", and because it is compounded with other Kanji, that is how it is pronounced. Unfortunatley, those rules only apply about 75% of the time, and there are many irregularities. You basically have to learn the proninciation of each word separatley, you can always guess the meaning, and you can almost guess the pronunciation, but they are so often irregular, there is n guaruntee you are right. As you learn more Kanji and get more familiar with how they work, the easier it will get to guess correctly. And belive me, you will come across TONS of kanji you don't know how to read. There are about 2000 kanji you need to know for basic literacy. That is nothing compared to the maybe 10000 that there are, so be grateful. When I give a Kanji for a word, I will put it, it's pronunciation in Japanese and/or English letters, and the meaning. I won't give a kanji and list all of it's readings and compounds, just the one in the particular context. I find that that way makes it much easier to remember the pronunciation for the right time. My theory is, don't study Kanji, study vocabluary, and just learn the Kanji that go with the words. It's just too troublesome to take one Kanji and sit there and memorize all its little bits, and have to remember when to use them. Also because of the irregularities, it's almost a futile effort. If you are really serious about learning Japanese, I'd reccomend getting a Kanji book or at least finding a decent website to help. There are specific ways for kanji to be written that I can explain like this, so you're on your own. Just write them as you see them in the way that makes the most sense to you of you have no alternative. I'll enlarge more complex kanji so you can see how to write them. 終わりました。 Also, if anybody botheres to try and change those words into hiragana and Katakana, here is how they should be written, In case you want to check yourself. watashi - わたし、ワタシ anata - あなた、アナタ kore - これ、コレ sore - それ、ソレ are - あれ、アレ desu - です、デス neko - ねこ、ネコ inu - いぬ、イヌ tabemono - たべもの 、タベモノ (None of those words are ever actually written in Katakana, but its good practice to try.) Next lesson, some basic grammar! Hooray grammar!
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Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 2:03 pm
DavidGemmell Vajrabhairava ・The only other difference is that in Katakana, long vowels are writtenwith a ー instead of repeating the vowel. Example: リモートコントロール - rimouto contorouru *NOT: リモ ウトコントロ ウル I always thought they did the ー thing in both. Nice to learn something new. ^ ^ Incidentally, how odd would it look to a native speaker if somebody spelt out words in hiragana instead of using the kanji? Not that odd. Some words are most often written in Kanji, others in Kana, but a lot of it is just personal preference. There is some wiggle room allowed. Too few Kanji, it will look childish. Too many, it will look nerdy and overly complex.
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Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 2:12 pm
Actually, I'll keep going while I have time.
The long explanations are finished, now we can really start learning the language. From now on, in each lesson I will introduce some new grammar, explain how to use it, some new vocab words, and any other notes needed to go along.
First topic, は and です.
"は" is one of the most important words you will ever learn. It's not really a "word", actually. It's called a particle, a little word put after another word to show its relationship in the sentence. The use of "は" when put after a word, shows that that is the topic of the sentence, the thing you are talking about. It's closest english translation is "as for___", but really, there is no english equivalent.
If you learned your Hiragana, you will know that は is pronounced as "ha". But when it is used in this way, is is pronounced as "wa" Whenever is is part of a word, it is "ha". It is only "wa" when it is being used as a particle to show the topic of the sentence.
And the other word,です. You may notice that is is written as "desu". In japanese, u's and i's like to dissapear sometimes. This is one of those times. When this happens, I will try to tell you about it. Eventually, you will just get a sence of when to do it. Whenever you see a す at the end of a word, it is pronounces just "s", the "u" made silent. So then, this word is pronounced basically as "des". It means " is, am, are" and any other present tense conjugation of the English verb "to be". Japanese does not conjugate for person, which is a huge simplification compared to most every language in europe. So, if you are talking about you, your cat, your frainds cat, or his aunts husbands cat, you always use です.
Now, some exapmles of は and です together. In this lesson, I'm going to show you how to say that something is something. The basic way to do this is...
X は、 Y です。
Literally, as for X, it is Y. But a better translation would be X is Y. You can plug any words into this pattern.
I'll use the words I introduced a bit ago to show some examples.
watashi - I
anata - you
kore - this (near speaker)
sore - that (near listener)
are - that (far away from both)
desu - is, am are...
neko - cat
inu - dog
tabemono - food
わたしは、いぬです。 - Watashi wa, inu desu. - I am a dog.
これは、ねこです。 - Kore wa, neko desu. - This is a cat
ねこは、あなたです。 - Neko wa, anata desu. - The cat is you.
あれは、たべものです。 - Are wa, tabemono desu. - That is food.
Notice the "、" after the は. This is the same as the english ",". The sentence is just as correct without it, but sometimes it is there.
If there are any questions about this, go ahead. I the meantime, I'll give you a bit of homework
( By the way, I'm going to give you some simple Kanji right away, the sooner the better. But, be sure to master those Hiragana as soon as you can!)
Use these words, and the previous ones to write the sentences:
人 - ひと - hito - person
木 - き - ki - tree
犬 - いぬ - inu- dog
私 - わたし - watashi - I
口 - くち - kuchi - mouth
手 - て - te - hand
・I am a person.
・You are a dog.
・This is a hand.
・The hand is food.
・A mouth is a cat.
・You are food.
・That is you.
* There are no words like "a" or "the" in Japanese, and no plurals. Saying "a cat" or "the cat" would be the same sentence.
Notice the Japanese period is a little circle. 。
They don't make much sense, but try to figure out how to say them anyway for the sake of practice.
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Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 1:27 pm
の This hiragana is read as "no". It is one of the most useful particles, and has many uses, which I will explain. The most basic use is to show possesion. To use it to say that something belongs to something else, use the form. XのY の goes after the thing doing the possesing, similar to the English 's. For example: 私の猫 - watashi no neko - My cat. あなたの犬 - anata no inu - Your dog. これは私の食べ物です。 - Kore wa watashi no tabemono desu. - This is my food. The equivalents of "mine", "yours" and words like that are just 私の - watashi no, あなたの - anata no, and on like that. Example: これは私のです。 - Kore wa watashi no desu. - This is mine. それはあなたのです。 - Sore wa anata no desu. - That is yours. In English, we can stack words together almost however we want without much trouble. But in Japanese, you stick の between the words to show the relationship between them. For example, in English you can just say, "japanese teacher" But in Japanese: 日本語 - にほんご - nihongo - japanese language 先生 - せんせい - sensei - teacher You cannot slap them together into 日本語先生, you need to stick a の inbetween. So the correct way would be, 日本語の先生. You will need to do this often. Some other examples: 英語 - えいご - eigo - english + 本 - ほん - hon - book = 英語の本え - いごのほん - eigo no hon - and english book 猫 - ねこ - neko - cat 写真 - しゃしん - shashin - photo 猫の写真 - ねこのしゃしん - neko no shashin - Literally, "the cat's picture", but it could also mean "a cat picture", which you would probably say as "a picture of a cat". At times like that, you need a context to help you know which meaning it is. There are many other uses for の, but these are the most basic and simple ones. Since i was talking about how to say "my___" and "your___", you might be wondering how to say things like "his", "hers", "ours" and words like that. To learn that, first you need to learn about something else. Personal Pronouns Personal pronouns are words like "I", "you", "he",or "they". In Japanese, there are many of them, and they change and get more or less popular fairly often. Even though there are so many, they not used very often, for a few reasons. Here's a list of many of them: 私 - わたくし - watakushi - I. Rather formal. Not used that much. ・私わたし - watashi - I, male or female. Pretty neutral, can use this at any time without much worry. ・僕 - ぼく - boku - I, masculine, a bit less formal, but okay in most situations. Girls who want to convey a tomboyish image will also use this. 俺 - おれ - ore - I, masculine, pretty rude, unless you are talking with close freinds or people you dont like. ・あたし - atashi - I, femenine. Sonds pretty girly. ・あなた - anata - You, no gender. Japanese tend to avoid using the word "you" as much as possible, and replace it with the name of the person, or leave it out and let context take care of it. If you have to say you, use this. あんた - anta - You, a bit rude. Gives the feeling you are mad at the person you are talking to. It seems to be used more by women that men. ・お前 - おまえ - omae - You, rather rude, except among close freinds. 手前 - てまえ - temae - Very rude, never use it. In fact, its basically never heard outside of manga and anime by "manly" charachters. If you say this, people will probably just laugh and say you have been watching to much anime. ・彼 - かれ - kare - He ・彼ら - かれら - karera - They, masculine or neutral. ・彼女 - かのじょ - kanojo - She 我我 - われわれ - wareware - 我, ware, is an old word for I. Here, wareware or I I, is used to mean we. Even though ware is old and never used, you will still occasionally hear wareware. ・私達 - わたしたち - watashitachi - We. Watashi, I, plus tachi, a pluralizer, makes watashitachi, us. Tachi can be placed after words of thisg that are people, like student, teacher, and other words to make them plural. But ot for normal nouns, there are not plurals really besides those in Japanese. ・僕ら - ぼくら - bokura - Us, said by a male speaker. The ら (ra) make it plural. 俺ら - おれら - orera - Us, but a more casual and "manly" sounding version. ・あなたがた - anatagata - You, plural. お前ら - おまえら - omaera - You, plural, pretty rude/casual. There are many more, but that is most of them. At this point, you don't need most of those, but i put a little "・" next to the ones you probably should know. Japanese has a system of politeness, where certain words are more polite or casual sounding, and you change your way of speaking depending on who you are talking to. For example, you could use 私 or even 僕 among coworkers or elders, but if you use 俺、you will be seen as pretty darn rude. However, it would'nt be as bad to use it among close freinds or people you know very well. Basically, the the older of higher class of person, the more polite you should talk, and the better you know the person, the more casually you may talk. There will be much more about this politeness later, when I introduce verbs. And to answer the original question with our new words: 彼の - かれの - his 彼女の - かのじょの - hers 私たちの - わたしたちの - ours. 終わり。 (done) By the way, how is everyone doing with Hiragana? I'd like to quit writing it out in english letters as soon as possible.
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Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 10:32 pm
Vajrabhairava By the way, how is everyone doing with Hiragana? I'd like to quit writing it out in english letters as soon as possible. I think it'll be good to let us get used to reading Hiragana by not giving us the English. By the way, I'd just like to tell you that I find this thread very helpful. I think it's easier to understand than most websites that teach Japanese.
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 5:43 am
On the Ha part, Would that be written like 'Watashi (ha) BLAHBLAHINSERTJAPANESEHERE' >_>?
Yeah.. That is the only part that confused me.
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 8:00 am
Phrozen Wishes On the Ha part, Would that be written like 'Watashi (ha) BLAHBLAHINSERTJAPANESEHERE' >_>? Yeah.. That is the only part that confused me. Yeah, pretty much. It's just pronounced differently, that's all. I think I'm keeping up OK so far, though I still need to consult charts for most of the hiragana - I'll probably be able to memorise them more if I use them a bit. Maybe I'll try writing my name in them (or as close as I can get, anyway - the "vi" could be tricky) or something... (Yes, even though non-Japanese is supposed to be done in katakana. See? I'm learning. mrgreen )
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 12:57 pm
Phrozen Wishes On the Ha part, Would that be written like 'Watashi (ha) BLAHBLAHINSERTJAPANESEHERE' >_>? Yeah.. That is the only part that confused me. What exactly is the question? sweatdrop I guess I'll try to answer. Yes, put the thing you're talking about, put は after that, and all the rest comes after.
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 1:04 pm
DavidGemmell Phrozen Wishes On the Ha part, Would that be written like 'Watashi (ha) BLAHBLAHINSERTJAPANESEHERE' >_>? Yeah.. That is the only part that confused me. Yeah, pretty much. It's just pronounced differently, that's all. I think I'm keeping up OK so far, though I still need to consult charts for most of the hiragana - I'll probably be able to memorise them more if I use them a bit. Maybe I'll try writing my name in them (or as close as I can get, anyway - the "vi" could be tricky) or something... (Yes, even though non-Japanese is supposed to be done in katakana. See? I'm learning. mrgreen ) For the "v" sound, they usually substitute it with a "b" sound. Actually, there is a way to write the "v" sound, but I didn't put it, because it isn't used very often. To make the v, put the little '' on the ウ karakana (u), and the vowel you want after it. ヴァ - va ヴィ - vi ヴ - vu ヴェ - ve ヴォ - vo I think I'll keep writing the pronunciation in English for a while, but eventually I'll quit and let you deal with it on your own. After about 2 days of stumbling through it, you'll know alot more than if I had just told you.
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Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2006 1:17 pm
今日のトピックは。。。 (todays topic...) Adjectives! If you paid any attention in english class, you should know that an adjective is a word that adds description to another word like green, fat, stinky, or hot. There are two types of adjectives in Japanese, commonly called い (i) adjectives and な (na) adjectives. You'll see why shortly. い Adjectives These are the "true" adjectives of Japanese. They have their own set of conjugations and forms, as opposed to the な adjectives which conjugate and act similar to nouns. I hope I didn't give you the idea there are no conjugations in Japanese, because there are, lots. But don't be discoraged, they are all simple and easy to learn, and after learning 5 or so basic ones, any others will be simple. After I introduce verbs, then we will really start getting into conjugations. So then, back on topic. They are called い Adjectives because they all end in い. Example: いい - ii - good あつい - atsui - hot つまらない - tsumaranai - boring おいしい - oishii - delicious さむい - samui - cold They can be placed before or after a noun in the same way as english. さむいねこ - samui neko - a cold cat. ねこはさむいです - neko wa samui desu - the cat is cold. な AdjectivesSimple enough, right? Now, the な adjectives. They are called that, because when they are out before a noun, a な is stuck inbetween, similar to the の between words I showed you before. Thats because many of the な adjectives used to be or are nouns, but over time, have become adjectives, and for some reason, the sound changed from の to な. That is why い Adjectives are the "true" adjectives, and these are not. When I am giving you a new な adjective, I'll put な in parentheses after it so you know what it is. Have some! きれい (な) - kirei (na) - clean, pretty エレガント (な) - ereganto (na) - elegant すてき (な) - suteki (na) - nice, attractive な adjectives can be used the same way as い Adjectives , but notice the な when they are placed before a noun. きれいなねこ - kirei na neko - clean cat ねこはきれいです - neko wa kirei desu - the cat is clean ~ And that's it for today! Short lesson, eh? There is much more to be covered about conjugations and tenses though, but I wont force that on you until after we've gotten started with verbs. After that, there will probably be one or two big lessons about all the different tenses, conjugations and politeness levels of the verbs, nouns and adjectives. So be ready! Try putting some of the words I've given you in the past with adjectives. Here's a list of some common ones by the way. あいらしい - new あつい - Hot あまい - Sweet いそがしい - Busy いたい - Painful おおきい - Big ゆうめい (な）- Fame かんぺき （な） - Flawless; perfect だいじょうぶ （な） - allright, okay And lets see if you can figure out how to read these on your own!
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Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 2:14 pm
日本語！ biggrin
Let's see...
私はデイブです。
私の犬のなまえはザッコです。
ザッコはいい犬です。
ザッコはきれいな犬です。
I think I'm picking it up pretty well so far. smile
Keep going, this is fun!
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Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 7:24 pm
Dave 日本語！ biggrin Let's see... 私はデイブです。 私の犬のなまえはザッコです。 ザッコはいい犬です。 ザッコはきれいな犬です。 I think I'm picking it up pretty well so far. smile Keep going, this is fun! Yup, all correct! Hooray! I assume you are male besause of your profile. If you really are, you could probably use 僕 and it would sound more natural. But 私 is just as correct.
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