Welcome to Gaia! ::

*prodigy

But yeah, i'd be surprised if anybody's dealt with all that already. Nice work, I'll save the important bits so I can look through them later... wink

I've been pronouncing the a like in cat, not like in father... is that still right?

はい、typoですよ。教えてありがとう。

Be carefull about those darn irregulars everyone! I still make "kuru" into "kiru" without thinking about it all the time.

る verbs:

僕は猫をみない。
あなたは僕の犬をたべた！ gonk
木はこまなかった。

polite:

私は猫をみません。
あなたは私の犬をたべました！
木はこまませんでした。

Also, for the issue of whether or not to use kanji, I say keep 'em comin'! But maybe just introduce the kanji (with hiragana for the pronunciation, of course) when listing new vocabulary, and then for exercises, etc. write the words out in hiragana instead of using the kanji so it's easier for us (well, not all of us... I personally find kanji easier to read than hiragana, but that's because I'm already familiar with a lot of the characters from Chinese, so I'm probably the exception) to learn the new grammatical concepts and such without constantly having to refer back to the vocab list to remember what the kanji means or how it's pronounced. I can't speak for everyone else, though, so for all I know, other people might prefer the kanji like me.

が、と、で、に


Particles are the little words of Japanese that show the relationship of a word in the sentence. There are many of them, and don't think that these are all of them. They always come after the word they are affecting.

These are not all of them, they are just some basic ones you should be familiar with.

が

This one may be a bit tough. It has a lot of cross over with は, and its very easy to mess them up. Japanese kids figure it out in about 2 years, but you and me will still make mitakes with it for years to come.

が is similar to は because they both are used to show what the subject of the sentence is, the thing that is being talked about. But, with some subtle differences.

・One of the most common ways が is used is in combination with は in the form, ’___は, ___が___です。’ In this case, が could be considered the "secondary topic" of the sentence, because now it is being used to comment on the thing already mentioned with は. I bet that dosent make much sense, but after a few examples you will understand.

あなた - you
髪 - かみ - hair
短い - みじかい - short

あなたは、髪が短いです。 - You're hair is short/ You have short hair.


像 - ぞう - elephant
鼻 - はな - nose
長い - ながい - long

像は、鼻が長いです。 - The elephants nose is long/ the elephant has a long nose.


First the main subject is mentioned with は, and then the sort of less main subject is put with が, to give more information about the main subject. Now notice that the meaning of these sentences is a bit loose, but still conveying the same basic meaning. They could also be written as ’あなたのかみはみじかいです。 or ’ぞうのはなはながいです。’and still be correct. But the "___は, ___が" way is more natural in Japanese, and is used more often.


・Another use of が is to talk about something not yet mentioned. Example:

ひとがきました。ひとは、たべます。 - A person came. The person eats.

Because this person has not been mentioned before, が is used to show that it is new information. After this person has been mentioned though, はis used, because the person is old information that has already been mentioned.


・が is sometimes used in place of は to show emphasis. Imagine you are arguing with someone about who will go to the store. You finally get tired of the argument and say, "I'll do it".

私 - わたし - I
行く - いく - go

私は行きます。 - I'll go. ("I" being emphasized.)

If は was used, it would just mean "I go" with no extra shades of meaning.


That's not all of the uses, but most of them.


と

と basically means "and". But also can mean "with". If you think about it, its not that hard to figure out why that would be.

・As "and"

猫 - ねこ - cat
犬 - いぬ - dog
人 - ひと - person
食べた - たべた - ate

私は猫と犬と人を食べた。 - I ate a cat, a dog, and a person. (Maybe said by some sort of monster?)

In english we don't put "and" till the end of the list, but in Japanese you should put it between all the words in the list.


・As "with"

私はあなたと行く。 - I will go with you.

Just put と after the thing doing whatever "with" the subject.


で

・One use of で is to show where something is done. IN this case, it loosley corresponds to the english "in" or "at". Example:

公園 - こうえん - park
歩く - あるく - walk

公園で歩く - (I) walk in the park.

図書館 - としょかん - library
本 - ほん - book
読む - よむ - read

僕は図書館で本を読みます。 - I will read a book at the library.

・Also, it is used to show what is used to do an action. Example:

えんぴつ - pencil
書く - かく - write

えんぴつで書いた。- (I) wrote with a pencil.

晩ご飯 - ばんごはん - dinner
フォーク - fork
食べる - たべる - eat

フォークで晩ご飯を食べませんでした。 - I didn't eat dinner with a fork.


に

に is used as for the english "to", to show the inderect object of a sentence, ansd other things.


・As "to"

私は公園に行った。 - I went to the park.
図書館に来ました。 - I came to the library.


・Inderect Object

This is something inderectly affected by an action.

私 - わたし - I
手紙 - てがみ - letter
書く - かく - write
お母さん - おかあさん - mother

私はお母さんに手紙を書きました。 - I wrote a letter to mother.

The thing the verb is being done to is the letter, so it takes を. Then, the mother is being secondarily affected by writing the letter because she gets it, and the action is in a sense being done "to" her, so mother gets the に.

That example isn't too bad, but its not always quite as obvious.

黒板 - こくばん - blackboard
答え - こたえ - answer
学生 - がくせい - student

学生は黒板に答えを書いた。 - The student wrote the answer on the blackboard.

The student actually writes the answer, but the blackboard gets it written "on" it.





Thats it for now. All of those have more uses, but those are the most common. The japanese particles have a lot of overlap with littl english words like "to", "in", "on", "at", but they rarely correspond perfectly, and you have no choice but to try and remember when a certain partice means which one of the corresponding english word.


・About 行く - いく - go

I forgot to include this with the other irregular verbs. Its noｔ really irregular, just wiht one little difference from normal.

Normally, to change a verb ending with く into the non-polite past form, you change the く to いた. But for 行く, it turns to った in this case.

So use 行った biggrin , not 行いた crying .


終わり。

Really? What sort of tape do you have? I've never heard Japanese pronounced like that. Maybe its just that I cant describe it well enough.

Here:
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/aiueo.wav

Some person saying a,i,u,e,o. That first sound is the "a" you should be using.

i really love this whole fourm I learned a whole buch, before i couldnt see the characters but i read everything so i guess i have to go through it again lol