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So you want to learn Japanese?

Archive: 29 posts

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/graphics/flags/large/ja-lgflag.gif

So you want to learn Japanese?

じゃ… 日本語を話しいたいますか。

I decided to write this up as I wanted to refresh

myself on what I know and teach some others the basics of the language.

Keep in mind this is only to teach the minimun basics, if you want to get to more advance stuff pm me or research on your own time.

Littlebigplanet tends to have a pretty active part of the community that is Japanese and some may be

wondering what the level description says, etc. You could learn from other online sites but

I'm here to offer a 1 to 1 teaching for free!

I'm not claiming to know it all, but I know the basics well enough to teach it. Also I guess

it makes me more credible since I've been to Japan? Keep in mind this would be for people

that know nothing. Knowing a few words doesn't count. So refrain from going

"KAWAIII DESUDESU~ SENPAI NOTICE ME!!!" as I will be offended. It may not be

a walk in the park but it will be a lot of fun! In any case if you think you are up to the

challenge by all means continue reading.

Ah! You took the bait! That's

great! I'm extremely happy you are interested in this subject. It's a serious passion of

mine and means a lot, but it's time to get to work. So the big question is...

What is Japanese?

Japanese; when you first hear this word you are scared. Learning a new language is hard, but

learning an Asian language is even harder, and this is the hardest. Arguably more so than

Chinese. This language is an agglutinative, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a

pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-

accent. Don't worry it's not that bad Before we begin. No you're not aloud to use google

translate.

So Let's get started!

Romaji

Romaji is a term that you will see for the first two chapters. It's writing out the sound of

a japanese sound in english characters. For now we will use it, but just don't get used to

it and use it as a crutch. It looks something like this. Try saying the phrase highlighted

in red.

nihongo wa sukidesuka?

日本語は好きですか。
Nihongo wa sukidesu.

Kanji

漢字

Kanji is why I became interested in Japanese, Although borrowed from the

Chinese

It is what makes Japanese what it is. In the Japanese dictionary there

are about 2000 of these bad boys. Don't fret! It's much easier than you think! Kanji are

made up of what are called radicals. Parts and pieces of the a feeling or idea that form the

word.

http://ahasensei.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/kanji-image-6.jpg

So if you're wondering what this is suppose to mean and why these 3 radicals are suppose to

mean cat. Let me explain. Kanji is a photographic system of writing. So Imagine the animal

radical as a tail and it's sticking through the grass in the rice fields. This is basically

what Kanji is suppose to do. The More advance the more intricate a image you have to see is.

http://lexyleksono.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/dsc01198a.jpg

Hiragana

平仮名
ひらがな

The first alphabet so to speak, comprised of about 85 characters roughly. It's what

form Kanji, this will be expanded upon once you start the Hiragana chapter.

Katakana

カタカナ

This alphabet is the alphabet for foreign words. All words that are not of Japanese origin

are put here normally. This means that words like "Computer" are translated to コンピュ

ーター or Konpyuuta. From what I've seen only nouns are translated. This alphabet is identical

to Hiragana besides all the symbols.

Hiragana

This is what many will argue is the main alphabet in Japanese. While Japanese is
comprised on mostly Kanji, Hiragana is what builds those. So In essence I'm giving you the
building blocks here. It's comprised of 5 vowels and 45 consonant vowel unions. So this will
require you to memorize the characters. For some reason this alphabet is considered
girly due to the curvy characters. Compared to the manly sharp katakana. I think this
is absolute nonsense, but the Japanese people can be strange to us sometimes.

The first set is vowels. They start the alphabet and will make a chart. We will call this
the Hiragana Chart.

http://www.exploringtokyo.com/images/hiragana-chart.gif

You most likely already started trying to say some of these! Hold up there as this is not
all of them, there are modified characters that go along with these but that is later in the
chapter. A challenge we will face because we are not face to face is pronunciation. I've
developed a somewhat broken Japanese Accent but you just have your Accent! Thus we will have
to work together for you to pronounce them in a Japanese way!

Anyway Looking at the chart above this lets start with the first line. Since Hiragana and Katakana are alphabets there is not much for me to talk about, you need to memorize these plain and simple.

あいうえお

These are the vowels that make up Japanese! You're growing up so fast! So try to memorize

these quickly. It also helps if you have some flash cards. I will bold sounds that don't go

with the pattern in the alphabet. You'll see what I mean.

あ "ah"
い "e"
う "uu"
え "ehh"
お "o"

か "ka"
き "key"
く "kuu"
け "keh"
こ "ko"

さ "sa"
し "shi"
す "suu"
せ "seh"
そ "so"

た "ta"
ち "chi"
つ "tsu"
て "te"
と "to"

な "na"
に "knee"
ぬ "nuu"
ね "neh"
の "no"

は "ha"
ひ "he"
ふ "hfu"
へ "hey"
ほ "ho"

ま "ma"
み "me"
む "muu"
め "meh"
も "mo"

や "ya"
ゆ "yuu"
よ "yo"

Something to note is how the Japanese pronouce R's. It's not like english r's. It's almost

like a L sound. This is the reason Japanese people have such a hard time with english L's
http://youtu.be/V2wzUuGm7yw?t=1m

ら "ra"
り "ri"
る "ruu"
れ "reh"
ろ "ro"

を is never used for words and is pronounced "o" but it's important to learn "wo" either way. This is used solely for grammar purposes.
わ "wa"
を "wo"
ん "nnn"

You've finished the first section of Hiragana! Congratz! However you didn't learn them all. Hiragana and Katakana have what I like to call a modifier but it has a name. It's called the dakuten and handakuten marker. This changes the sound of a character for example.

か

It's ka, easy enough, but when I add a dakuten...

が

It becomes "Ga!"

Now I know what you're thinking, man did I just open a can of worm, don't fret! It's not too difficult!

Second Line Modified

が "Ga"
ぎ "Ge"
ぐ "Guu"
げ "Geeh"
ご "Go"

Third Line Modified

ざ "Za"
じ "Ji"
ず "Zu"
ぜ "Ze"
ぞ "Zo"

Fourth Line Modified

だ "Da"
ぢ "Ji"
づ "Zu"
で "De"
ど "Do"

Sixth Line Modified

ば "Ba"
び "Bi"
ぶ "BFu"
べ "Be"
ぼ "Bo"

Sixth Line Modified again

ぱ "Pa"
ぴ "Pi"
ぷ "PFu"
ぺ "Pe"
ぽ "Po"

Wow! Went through all of those characters rather fast didn't we? We need to hurry up and conclude Hiragana. Before we can really talk about getting start the nitty gritty. You need to know all or atleast most of Hiragana and Katakana. So Sorry if this is a tad boring!

The final topic in Hiragana is another form of modifying a character sorta This is called a Yōon. You might be thinking. Oh no! more to memorize and I'm afraid so. You need to know all this Hiragana and Katakana before we can really begin. I'm sorry.

http://drmoku.com/wp-content/themes/moku/images/image15.png

A Yōon is a way of using the eighth line to modify a character to turn it into a new sound. I can't really tell you why, It just is.

Example

理由 (read as りゆう ri-yu-u) "reason; motive; pretext"
竜　(read as りゅう ryu-u) "dragon"

That's it! You completed Hirgana! You should have all characters memorized (I hope)

Time to move onto Katakana

Katakana

Welcome to Katakana!
This should be much shorter than Hiragana because I am not describing everything. Katakana is used to say foreign words in a Japanese way, even if it's not english!

Katakana is just copy paste of Hiragana except it has all new characters. Katakana is considered more "manly" than Hiragana because the characters are sharper and less curvy.

http://joshuasslice.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/katakana.png

You see, It works exactly the same as hiragana. This also applys to Modifying characters as well! I know this a super sort section but we need to hurry into nouns and grammer. (This post box looks like spaghetti)

Katakana only makes nouns. No verbs will be in Katakana As far as I Know. So there really isn't much to talk about here, besides memorize it.

Basic Words

Ah! You've made it to words! I'm so proud of you! Here I will teach you a few nouns to start you off! However I will only some words that I use a lot because I feel like they will be the most useful to you. Before we get started I should state that I will not delve into this too deep. You have the knowledge to do that yourself now!

Also note Romaji shall not be used after this point.

ねこ --> Cat
わたし --> I,Myself
ごはん --> Rice,Dinner
あつい --> Hot
にほんご --> Japanese
すき --> Like
たべもの --> Food
じょうず --> Skilled, Good at
へた --> Poor
へや --> Room
ピザ --> Pizza
きれい --> Beautiful, Clean
おいしい --> Delicious!
おとこ --> Male
クラス -> Class
おんな --> Women
しゅくだい --> Homework
たべる --> Eat (VERB)
みる --> Look (VERB)
いき --> Go (VERB)
する --> Use (VERB)
つくる --> Make,Create (VERB)
いる --> To Exist (VERB)(SIGNIFICANT)
ある --> To Exist (VERB)(SIGNIFICANT)

That should be enough to move onto basic grammer.

Keep in mind I don't intend to write a dictionary haha!

So you're ready for grammar, I hope you're ready for a bumpy ride! Haha, just kidding. Japanese has grammar that is far easier than you think.

So let's start!

NO GOOGLE TRANSLATE

http://animebasket4u.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/tumblr_lj0gftj1gu1qit92oo1_500.gif?w=558

Trust me, when you get a better grasp of the language, then you may use google translate. It's too easy for it to become a crutch and will impair you for a long time.

Declaring!

You declare something in every sentence you write. In English you typically declare something before you say what is is. Example would be…

The apple is red

See how we declared what it is before you knew what I was declaring? This is typical in English and, well, you can go ahead and toss that idea out the window.

https://muhigh.missouri.edu/exec/data/courses/6632/public/lesson01/L01_word_order.jpg

In Japanese it is flipped. So you declare the subject for what it is. In english it would look like…

The apple red is

When I first saw this, it blew my mind. When I first started learning Japanese, I was extremely closed minded to other cultures and I assumed all grammar was the same! Silly me!

When you finish declaring you will use…

です

です is normal for sentences to declare, I'll call this the declare marker. In some of the practice sentences that you all posted below, you correctly used です, but did you know that is not the only declare marker? Japanese culture is often leaked from the language and their strong sense of death and being alive is used in declaring something.

This could easily turn into verb conjugation, so for now, don't question why this is.

| ある | いる |

These two verbs declare something is… well, something.

THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT

いる is for things that are ALIVE animated
ある is for things that are NOT ALIVE not animated

Now to use them, assuming you don't mix these up, and trust me you don't.

You would turn them into a "ます" form. Don't worry I'll briefly explain forms. For now use "ます" since it is the basic form.
So if you are using ある for example, you would drop the る and add ります. So the ""ます"" form would be "あります"
For いる you would also drop the る, but instead of ります, you would just add "ます." Thus, it would make "います"

Let's make a sentence.

The Food is Delicious!

In Japanese it could look like…

たべものはおいしいです。

Breaking it down and assuming you don't know the particles. (It's next)
You can see that I said…

Food Delicious IS.

It makes sense, doesn't it? However, we need to use the other two. Let's say you want to say something where we are talking about something that isn't alive. For this example, lets say there is an apple in my room.

In my room there is an apple!

Simple enough. However, in Japanese it could look like…

へやでりんごあります

You can see in that in the room there is an apple! Simple enough, but let's use いる!

Let's say that I want to say there is a cat in the room. Assuming that the cat is alive, we could copy the first part of the previous sentence, "へやで" and then add in cat! Then finishing up with the いる in masu form! Let's see if you can do this in your head. Click the next spoiler to see if you got it right!

へやでねこいます。

Did you get it? I hope you did!

Keep in mind there is more to this topic, but this is enough to get you by! Keep in mind you can also use a verd to declare as well, you would put it in a ます form and end it there.

This concludes Declarations.. です.

Ah the this is one of the most interesting subjects in Japanese grammar.

For basic grammar, we will be forming sentences and using what are called

Particles

No, no not particles in a game, silly. Particles declare parts and pieces of a sentence. In English, it kinda would look like…

Plane IN America GOING TO Food SUBJECT Like.

Haha. It looks silly, right? Well this is pretty much how basic sentence structure will look like.

Let's start with the most basic..

は

Look's familiar, doesn't it? Outside of grammar, this is pronounced "ha", but in grammar, it is called "wa". The reason is just because. Haha

は is used to declare something in a sentence as the topic, so for example, let's use our knowledge from the previous section to make a sentence. Let's make the sentence let's say that "this is delicious"

.

So I'll help you out since I haven't covered positions of space in this thread

(sorry)

Assuming that "This" is これ, how would I form the sentence? I'll let you attempt to form the sentence in your head. It would be structured as…
This (TOPIC) Delicious (DECLARE)

Did you get it? The answer would be…
これはおいしいです。

が

Remember this character? It's か with a dakuten.

が is used to declare something in a sentence as the subject. If you are referring to multiple objects you should use this particle. So for example, Let's make a sentence that says, "I like Apples" The structure of the sentence would be…

Apple (SUBJECT) Like (DECLARE)

Did you get it? The answer would be…
りんごがすきです。

に

Ah the ever power に!

に is used to declare something in a sentence as a goal of movement. It's like saying to basically. So for example let's say I'm going to class.

Class (Goal of movement) + いきます

Did you get it? The answer would be…
クラスにいきます

の

My の! I love you の.

の is to make whatever before it possessive of whatever is after it. It's as simple as that. Let's make the example "My homework".

Me (Possessive) + Homework (Declare)

Did you get it? The answer would be…
わたしのしゅくだいです。

を

The を is a very powerful particle.

を is normally described as a particle that puts "the" in front of whatever you said but that really isn't a good way to describe it, it is more of a particle that showing it is the direct object of the sentence. This can be incredibly important for a sentence that has が in it. Maybe you want to talk about a specific dog in a pack of dogs? It can prove to be very useful.

For the example sentence let's say you ate the cat.

Cat (Direct Object) + たべました。

Did you get it? The answer would be…
ねこをたべました。

で

In this thread で would be useful.

で is used to say "in" It's as simple as that so would say a noun then で and then it would be in that noun. It also referred to as the Location marker.

For the example sentence let's say you looked at homework in class. You will have to use 2 particles.

Class [Location] Homework [Subject] + みます

Did you get it? The answer would be…
クラスでしゅくだいがみます

と

I love と and で.

と is used to put together two or more nouns. It's kinda messy but it's basically "and".

For the example sentence let's say you like LBP1 and LBP2.

LBP1 [AND] LBP2 [DIRECT OBJECT] LIKE [DECLARE]

Did you get it? The answer would be…
LBP1とLBP2を好きです。

This bag of worms should stay closed till you master Hiragana, Katakana, and the basic grammar and nouns. Before you even think about learning Kanji you need to have a strong footing or your foundation will collapse.

Do you want more? I'll add more if there is interest!

Hope you enjoyed! Man this took a while to write up.

Edit: Oh No! After I posted it the text jumbled

All pictures belong to their respective owners. I hold no responsibility what you do with this knowledge

2014-08-03 20:47:00

Author:
mattman111

Posts: 188

Oh man, I don't know how I'm going to do it this way... I'm just trying to learn how to understand/speak with sounding/writing it out (Didn't know that was Romaji though, thanks =D)

I got to say though that this is a very clever tutorial for those interested in learning both the written and oral part of the Japanese language. I'll still check this out, but you kind of lost me after the Radical section because I'm not sure how to fully see what each character represents.

2014-08-03 21:15:00

Author:
Raku

Posts: 292

I got to say though that this is a very clever tutorial for those interested in learning both the written and oral part of the Japanese language. I'll still check this out, but you kind of lost me after the Radical section because I'm not sure how to fully see what each character represents.

Sorry, I might of went too in depth in the introduction for Kanji

. Also I don't think I will go over any writing in this. I would need to explain stroke order and how significant it is and how if your writing looks bad you're bad.

http://www.japanesecalligrapher.com/bjc/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/spirit-stroke-order.jpg

For the Radicals, Most are made up of the same pictograph style. For example when you look at 艹 you should imagine grass. If that doesn't answer your question please elaborate and I will try my best to answer to the fullest degree.

2014-08-03 21:22:00

Author:
mattman111

Posts: 188

Oh my! Awesome tutorial. I started learning japanese a few weeks ago. こんいちわわたしは Swagos です

2014-08-03 21:37:00

Author:
SwagosPuntos

Posts: 237

Oh my! Awesome "tutorial" lol. I started learning japanese a few weeks ago. こんいちわわたしは Swagos です

こんにちは! どうぞよろしく

Thank you for reading.

2014-08-03 21:45:00

Author:
mattman111

Posts: 188

I attempted to translate the basic words to Romaji

Watashi - I, Myself
Gohan - Rice, dinner
Atsui - Hot
Nihongo - Japanese
Suukey - Like
Tabemono - Food

How did I do?

2014-08-04 01:32:00

Author:
Raku

Posts: 292

I attempted to translate the basic words to Romaji

Watashi - I, Myself
Gohan - Rice, dinner
Atsui - Hot
Nihongo - Japanese
Suukey - Like
Tabemono - Food

How did I do?

You did great! All of this is spot on. 好き can be spoken as "suukey" or "ski". Both are acceptable.

10/10

http://media0.giphy.com/media/7wLh1wVBQnfHO/giphy.gif

2014-08-04 01:39:00

Author:
mattman111

Posts: 188

You did great! All of this is spot on. 好き can be spoken as "suukey" or "ski". Both are acceptable.

10/10
I'm glad because I already started practicing with those words..

I want to add them to my vocabulary =)

2014-08-04 01:48:00

Author:
Raku

Posts: 292

I'm glad because I already started practicing with those words..

I want to add them to my vocabulary =)

That's great! I'll add more tomorrow, and start the... grammer D:

本当に日本語の文法は怖いですね。

2014-08-04 02:00:00

Author:
mattman111

Posts: 188

Well I look forward to further lessons =)

Sort of offtopic: I just finished selecting colleges courses for this semester and unfortunately I couldn't take the Elementary Japanese (Level One) class I was hoping to take =/

2014-08-04 03:23:00

Author:
Raku

Posts: 292

All I can remember from when I learned some Japanese is:

"Watashi wa Amerikan jin des." (I probably didn't spell that right.)
Translation - "I am an American."

Alternatively:
"Watashi wa enpitsu des."
Translation - "I am a pencil."

2014-08-04 05:51:00

Author:
warlord_evil

Posts: 4193

Watashi (wa) suweden jin desu
Nihongo wa suki desu
Benkyo wo suru desu

I'm Swedish, I like Japanese, I study japanese.

How did I do?

Though I only do it some in my free time.

Edit: Yorushiku onegaishimasu

Second edit: My avatar is from a anime serie called Mushishi which means bug master and I strongly recommend it for people who likes seinen, ?boyish but not for Young people.

Would you mind bringing up when to use ga and (wa) particles for the basic grammar or is it to Deep?

2014-08-04 10:10:00

Author:
Seveni_7

Posts: 109

Would you mind bringing up when to use ga and (wa) particles for the basic grammar or is it to Deep?

I'm going to update the grammar today as well as add some more words. So I'll go over that.

All I can remember from when I learned some Japanese is:

"Watashi wa Amerikan jin des." (I probably didn't spell that right.)
Translation - "I am an American."

Alternatively:
"Watashi wa enpitsu des."
Translation - "I am a pencil."

これは面白いですよ。

2014-08-04 18:59:00

Author:
mattman111

Posts: 188

2014-08-05 07:38:00

Author:
Seveni_7

Posts: 109

Thank you so much for explaining when to use ga. My senpai couldn't explain it to me when to use the correct particles.

And one more thing, would you tip me a way to make so my keyboard types japanese signs? I will try to look it up.
I noticed that I need to train more in katakana
Arigatou gozaimash ita:ninja: there is as curse Word in gozai...
Thank you very much!

Great Job!

To type on your computer you can do either two things.

Edit your computer to type in Hiragana hhttp://www.textfugu.com/season-4/social-learning/9-3/

Or

Open google translate. And type out characters like the previous link does, but doesn't install anything on your computer and possibly mess up registry files.

If you use this method just keep in mind while what comes of the translator may be messed up in English... When a Japanese could understand you completely.

I'm kind of a hypocrite. :cries:

Also I don't see the cuss word? Arigota gozaima****a.

EDIT: OH! An English cuss word. We will have to type in Japanese to get around that, These forums were not designed in mind for Japanese characters.

ありがとうございました。

2014-08-05 12:27:00

Author:
mattman111

Posts: 188

Sorry for the delayed response... Anyway, I attempted to translate the new words to Romaji, but the only one I couldn't figure out was 'Pizza'.

Jiyouzu - Skilled, Good at
Heyta - Poor
Heyya - Room
Keyrehe - Beautiful, Clean
Oeshie - Delicious
Otoko - Male
Onna - Women
Kurasu - Class
Shukudae - Homework
Taberu - Eat
Meru - Look
Ekey - Go
Suuru - Use
Tsukuru - Make, Create
Eru - To Exist (Used for living animated beings)
Aru - To Exist (Used for Inanimate objects (or dead beings?))

Other than missing Pizza, how did I do?

I'll check out the grammar later, but right now I'm exhausted from translating to Romaji.

2014-08-06 07:56:00

Author:
Raku

Posts: 292

Sorry for the delayed response... Anyway, I attempted to translate the new words to Romaji, but the only one I couldn't figure out was 'Pizza'.

Other than missing Pizza, how did I do?

I'll check out the grammar later, but right now I'm exhausted from translating to Romaji.

Pizza is an "American" word, So It would be spelled in Katakana.

You need to know katakana, literately it's everywhere in Japan.

Other than that. Great work. Keep it up.

2014-08-06 10:42:00

Author:
mattman111

Posts: 188

Wow! I just began to learn french a couple of months ago but japanese has always caught my attention... I will come back later with more time and read the whole post, it looks highly elaborated! Thanks for creating such an awesome contribution

2014-08-07 04:12:00

Author:
yugnar

Posts: 1478

Thank you much! Ill keep adding more as it rises in popularity.

ありがとうございました

2014-08-07 12:30:00

Author:
mattman111

Posts: 188

2014-08-09 18:26:00

Author:
Raku

Posts: 292

私はPlaystation 4をかいましたでした (私=watashi)
とっても好きです - (好=suki)
The Last of Usはすばらしいです

oki like that then.

ありがとう

2014-08-10 08:08:00

Author:
Seveni_7

Posts: 109

私はPlaystation 4をかいましたでした

All was really good, except this mistake you made (highlighted in red). I should probably do a write up on forms and verb conjugation.
買いました is the past tense verb of 買う. You declared what you were doing with the past tense verb.
However you put でした behind it whichever means you declared it twice, it threw me off. XD

The sentence would of looked something like this in English
With でした
"I did bought the play station."
Without でした
"I bought the play station"

2014-08-10 14:45:00

Author:
mattman111

Posts: 188

All was really good, except this mistake you made (highlighted in red). I should probably do a write up on forms and verb conjugation.
買いました is the past tense verb of 買う. You declared what you were doing with the past tense verb.
However you put でした behind it whichever means you declared it twice, it threw me off. XD

The sentence would of looked something like this in English
With でした
"I did bought the play station."
Without でした
"I bought the play station"

Oh that's embarrassing.

So should I use です or just stop the sentence at かいました?

2014-08-11 18:37:00

Author:
Seveni_7

Posts: 109

Oh that's embarrassing.

So should I use です or just stop the sentence at かいました?

かいました. You can declare with verbs at the ending of the sentence. I'll add that to the post.

It's fine man!

2014-08-11 21:01:00

Author:
mattman111

Posts: 188

I'm confused on declaring...

When do you know to use use Desu, and Masu? Am I missing some other stuff?

Also, you never gave me feedback on this post:

Slowly working on the grammar XD

I have a few things I want to get straight though...

Kore - basically is "This"
Wa (or Ha) - Would be equivalent to"is"
Ga - A way to pluralize things. Like more than one cat is Cats, and more than one bat is bats, etc...
Knee - "To"
No - Form of possession
O - Would be equal to "The"
De - "In"
To - "And"
Hopefully I didn't miss any, or mess up too badly.

If I get this right then I can move on to declaring, and then practice with Romanji (if you don't mind that is ;])

2014-08-12 02:27:00

Author:
Raku

Posts: 292

Slowly working on the grammar XD

I have a few things I want to get straight though...

Kore - basically is "This"
Wa (or Ha) - Would be equivalent to"is"
Ga - A way to pluralize things. Like more than one cat is Cats, and more than one bat is bats, etc...
Knee - "To"
No - Form of possession
O - Would be equal to "The"
De - "In"
To - "And"
Hopefully I didn't miss any, or mess up too badly.

If I get this right then I can move on to declaring, and then practice with Romanji (if you don't mind that is ;])

Kore is correct. You are talking about something Closer to you than the one you are talking to.
Sore (that) is when its Closer to the one you are talking to.
Are (that over there) is when you is talking about something when its neither Close to any of you.

は (ha) is a particle describes what the sentence is about as ga. Desu is more "is"

I Think you are correct in が (Ga)

へ (he/(knee in Mattman-sama's case) is "to" but you forgot に (ni) and that is the same thing but they have their own circumstances and I don't remember when to use (he) or (ni)
(So no real answear here)

の (No) describes possesion indeed. example: watashi (no) inu desu= My dog
in English but japanese order= I (no) dog.

を (spoken o or spelled in romadji wo) is not "the". を (wo) binds an object with a verb
Example:Hirigana=わたしはたべものをする
Kanji=私は食べ物をする (Same sentences but with kanji too)
and romaji= Watashi (ha) (spoken wa) tabemono (wo spoken o) suru

Watashi(wa)tabemono(o)suru (doesn't end with desu because suru is a verb and mattman-sama explained that to me)
This means: I make food
Watashi = I
watashi (wa)= its about you (or something, not sure)
tabemono=food
suru=make (is a verb)
tabemono (wo) (spoken o) suru= make food

in English but japanese order: I (wa) food (o) make.

I dont remember "de" but I Think there was Another "and" than "(to/と

"

I did my best here and I hope you understand.

かいました. You can declare with verbs at the ending of the sentence. I'll add that to the post.

It's fine man!

Oh alright then I'll Think about that next time.

2014-08-12 08:36:00

Author:
Seveni_7

Posts: 109

I'm confused on declaring...

When do you know to use use Desu, and Masu? Am I missing some other stuff?

Also, you never gave me feedback on this post:

Desu simply means 'is' and is usually used after a noun in a sentence.

Examples:

'Kore wa neko desu'
This is a cat

'Watashi mo tabemono desu'
This is my food.

Masu is used after a verb to make it sound polite.

'Watashi mo tabemono wo tabemasu.'

taberu means 'to eat'

'Neko wa nomimizu wo nomimasu.

nomu means to 'drink'

This is where it gets tricky though. Japanese verbs have different stems based on the ending of the variable. However, I am going to leave that for a different time. This is probably complicated enough as it is right now.

Some tips for learning Japanese:
1. Use flashcards to learn Katakana and Hiragana.
2. After learning both alphabets, stay away from romanized words. It is important to use Hiragana and Katakana in sentences.

I am going to stop here for now.

2014-08-23 16:14:00

Author:
Godzilla

Posts: 224

Thank you for the tips =)

Right now I'm kind of at a low point... I understand I should probably learn to read and write. Also other programs emphasis that I probably should too, but uh... People weren't kidding when they said Japanese was hard. Of course there were the others that said they picked it up easier... Currently frustrated, but I won't give up (I already made it this far).

Signed up for some different sites (quizlet and Japanesepodcast101 (just doing the 7Day trial)... Nice to see some overlap, but why are numbers and counting so different? Just adds to the frustration XD

I got more words and phrases I need to practice.

(phrases from JPC101)
Hajime mashi te - Nice to meet you.
Watashi wa, [Name] desu. - I'm [Name].
Yoroshiku onegai shimasu. - It's a pleasure to meet you.
Jamata - See you later
Genki Desuka - How are you?
Genki Desu - I'm fine
Genki - Healthy, Fine, Energetic
Desu - As to be
Maa Maa - So so
Saiaku - Bad, The worst
Sumi masen - Sorry, Excuse me
Gomen nasai - I'm Sorry
Uso - A lie (you kidding, no way)
Sugoi - Amazing, Terrific (wow)
Arigatō gozaimasu - Thank you. (formal)
Before you eat
Itadakimasu - I will start eating (express graditude for the foot)
After you eat
Gochisosama - Thank you for the food.
Gochisosama deshi ta (more polite way)

Hikooki - Airplane
Karenda - Calender
Suoso - Aquarium

2014-08-24 03:32:00

Author:
Raku

Posts: 292

Desu simply means 'is' and is usually used after a noun in a sentence.

Examples:

'Kore wa neko desu'
This is a cat

'Watashi mo tabemono desu'
This is my food.

Masu is used after a verb to make it sound polite.

'Watashi mo tabemono wo tabemasu.'

taberu means 'to eat'

'Neko wa nomimizu wo nomimasu.

nomu means to 'drink'

This is where it gets tricky though. Japanese verbs have different stems based on the ending of the variable. However, I am going to leave that for a different time. This is probably complicated enough as it is right now.

Some tips for learning Japanese:
1. Use flashcards to learn Katakana and Hiragana.
2. After learning both alphabets, stay away from romanized words. It is important to use Hiragana and Katakana in sentences.

I am going to stop here for now.

Thank you for this. I've been so busy I haven't been checking up on the post. XD
Do you think I should do a write up on verb conjugation? Once someone starts learning the Te~ forms and Ta~ forms, Things start getting complicated.

2014-08-25 01:07:00

Author:
mattman111

Posts: 188

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