Welcome to Gaia! ::

This is the default section of the guild.
You may speak English here to ask about grammar, vocabulary, and stuff like that. Romaji is allowed, but I really don't recommend it. And if you insist on using romaji, do NOT use macrons! I swear, if you write something like "Ākādo" instead of "a~ka~do", I'll cut your fingers off. Macrons have absolutely no place in the Japanese language and they teach you things the wrong way. "Ākādo" could be "aakaado" or "a~ka~do". The katakana is supposed to be アーカード, not アアカアド. The latter is wrong. This is worse when you get to things like "Ōsaka" - that could be "oosaka", "ousaka", or "o~saka". It's おおさか, not おうさか or おーさか - those would be incorrect kana writings, and your pronunciation would be off, too. Though おお and おう sound similar, they aren't the same.

Besides, I've always known something like ā to sound like it does in say, play, rain, fame, plate, etc. This is confusing to English-speaking persons as they would not think that ā would be pronounced as fall, brawl, dog, father, etc.

Not to mention there are so many different ways to romanize... Some people believe spaces should be excluded since Japanese don't use spaces, or people use spaces in different places. Some write "si", "ti" and "tu" to keep consistency in "sa shi su se so" and "ta chi tsu te to". Some write "dzu", some write "jya"...
Let's get one thing straight. Romaji exists to allow people who are familiar with Roman characters but not Japanese characters to be able to pronounce the words. Writing "si" instead of "shi" is just plain stupid. Someone with no knowledge of Japanese would obviously pronounce "si" like the English word "see" rather than as "she" - the romaji is thusly useless in every way. Besides, the Japanese can actually write and say something like "ti" (like this ティ - note the small ィ). For example, in the name "Tina". That's an odd thing to pronounce for the Japanese since "ti" isn't normally a part of the Japanese language, but that's how it works. "Ti" is "ti", not "chi". DO NOT romanize "chi" as "ti" or I will kick you out of the guild.
Really, Romaji is just stupid. Like any training wheels, they should be removed as soon as you can ride on your own.

Anyhow, there are other guilds for the first steps, so I recommend looking them up first. Here are a couple:

The Japanese Student Guild
http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/?guild_id=2764
They seem to have a few serious members and some explanations on basic stuff. It looks like it's mostly a weeaboo guild, though. They talk about how they love Japan, love sushi, want to go to Japan, and other typical stuff like that.

Japan 101 Guild
http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/?guild_id=7764
The description makes it seem pretty useful for beginners. It's hidden, though, so I can't really say much.



http://japanese.about.com has lots of free lessons, too. Their forum has people who can speak Japanese on a higher level, and some of them have even been to Japan. If you're really stuck on something, that's the place to go to get a good answer. Remember, this guild is about speaking in Japanese for practise and to improve a bit - you aren't here to learn the language from scratch.