Learning Japanese

[WanderingKnight]

If "Un! Daijoubu!" is "Yes! I'm ok!," then how do you say you are not ok?

You can just add the desu negative form: "Uun, daijoubu ja nai".

[Xiithros]

All this Japanese is very...um...mediocre.

I would correct most of it, but I'm afraid I'm busy.
But...
First of all...

Desu is equivalent to is/am/are.


Anata is the formal way of saying "you"
Kimi is the informal way. So never say Kimi to strangers, or people you aren't close with. Or those who have higher authority. Or elders...etc.

If you want to say "Do you understand English?"

You can say...

Eigo ga wakarimasu ka?

Eigo=English (language)
wakarimasu=understand
ka=?

wakarimasen=[negative form] not understand

Eigo ga wakarimasen=Doesn't understand English.

Languages:

Eigo: English
Nihongo/Nippongo: Japanese
Furansugo: French
Doitsugo: German
Kankokugo: Korean

If you want to say "American person"

Simply add "-jin" to a country's name.

Amerika-jin: American person
Nihon-jin: Japanese person
Furansu-jin: French person
Kanada-jin: Canadian person (etc..)

Families:

Family: kazoku
Father: otousan
Mother: okaasan
Grandfather: Ojiisan
Grandmother: Obaasan
Older/Elder Brother: Oniisan
Older/Elder Sister: oneesan
Younger brother: Otouto
Younger sister: Imouto
Uncle: Ojisan
Aunt: Obasan

Note*
-The words for Grandmother/Father are not the same as Aunt/Uncle. The words for Grandmother/Father have extended vowel sounds.

Also: "-san" is added to terms when referring to an elderly person to show respect.

Name Suffixes:
-San: Should be used after any name. Unless other suffix is necessary. Saying "Smith-san" is like saying "Mr./Mrs. Smith"
-Chan: Used after the names of small children, especially when it's a girl, however, this can be excepted in certain occasions with a boy. (use this after a friend's name. If it's a girl) (ex: Amy-chan)
-Kun: Is added after the names of boys. Also male classmates at a school. Or pets. (ex: Tom-kun)
-Sensei: added after teachers. Or doctors...professors, etc. Any person of high intelligence/knowledge/philosophy. (ex: Makoto-sensei= Mr/Mrs/Dr. Makoto)

*NOTE**************

Never under any circumstances use a name suffix after your own name, it is considered rude.

So don't say "Watashi no namae wa Bob-san desu." (My name is Bob)

That's not polite. At all.

In Japanese, their sentences follow a "SOV" format or grammar.

SOV= Subject. Object. Verb.

In English, we follow a "SVO" format.

SVO=Subject. Verb. Object.

I'm sure you get the point.

For instance...

If you were to say [in English]

"He eats the apple."

He=subject
eats=verb
the apple=object

In Japanese it would be...

"Kare wa ringo wo tabemasu."

Kare=he
ringo=apple
tabemasu=eats (to eat)

Note*: Japanese doesn't have "articles". Meaning, they don't use a, an, and the.

So "ringo" could mean, "the apples." "apple" "an apple" etc.

Japanese also have PARTICLES. Which are basically sounds they use to label each part of the sentence. They have no meaning.

The particle "wa" shows that the subject of the sentence comes before it.

So... "kare wa" shows that the subject follows "wa". This means the object of the sentence will come after it... Which is ringo (the apple).

Kare wa ringo wo tabemasu
Kare (he)=subject
wa (comes after the subject)
ringo (apple)=object
wo (also a particle, comes after the subject and everything to show the verb comes after it)
tabemasu (to eat/eats/eat)=verb

That should be generically correct. All of it...mostly. Unless I got sloppy with the explaining.

Ehh.

Sorry for interrupting.

[Xiithros]

I hope everyone here knows that the pronunciation of Japanese is quite simple...?

In my explanation above...

"kare" is pronounced "kah-reh".
"ringo" is pronounced "rihn-goh"
"tabemasu" is pronounced "tah-beh-mahss"

the "masu" is not like "mask" without the 'k'. It's somewhat like "moss". With a distinct A sound...ehh i don't know! >.<

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Xiithros

All this Japanese is very...um...mediocre.
...

Hmmm, I'm going to *try* and not flame out here, but did you intend on insulting the whole thread and many people with years of experience in japanese or native japanese? Or were you just picking on a few beginners before the JP 101 introductory fragment?

Most people are just trying to be helpful and yes, some of them may have less than perfect understanding but that line and the very basic intro seemed a bit uncalled for.

[Mayu]

I have learned Japanese for more than 1 year.
I don't think Japanese is very hard.
Maybe some words in Japanese is same that in Chinese, so I think it's easy.
I think Chinese is the hardest language and the second is Japanese.


Ja, min na san, gannbate ne!^-^

[infestedysy]

Originally Posted by Mayu

I have learned Japanese for more than 1 year.
I don't think Japanese is very hard.
Maybe some words in Japanese is same that in Chinese, so I think it's easy.
I think Chinese is the hardest language and the second is Japanese.


Ja, min na san, gannbate ne!^-^

やれやれだぜ。。。ORZ

You know, I find it really pointless to type/learn the romanji version of Japanese. It's just... pointless, really. Just being able to speak and listen to a certain language is rather limiting, and it's really simple to enable winXP to type out Japanese characters, you know.

[WanderingKnight]

You know, I find it really pointless to type/learn the romanji version of Japanese. It's just... pointless, really. Just being able to speak and listen to a certain language is rather limiting, and it's really simple to enable winXP to type out Japanese characters, you know.

And it's also harder for other people that actually want to learn the language to understand what you're saying. If you only need to use a few words in a full fledged English paragraph, romaji is quite useful. Of course, if you want to look like an elitist showoff, writing everything in kana and kanji is the way to go

[FatPianoBoy]

When dealing with those of limited knowledge (more limited than even myself ) I use both romaaji and kanji/kana.

[Mayu]

Originally Posted by infestedysy

やれやれだぜ。。。ORZ

You know, I find it really pointless to type/learn the romanji version of Japanese. It's just... pointless, really. Just being able to speak and listen to a certain language is rather limiting, and it's really simple to enable winXP to type out Japanese characters, you know.

I know.
I type romaji because here many people can't understand Japanese.....||= =

みんなひらがながわかる？orz
私は始めでここに話しますから....
確か、ローマ字は意味がない。。。。。
私の友達（日本語ができない人）、ときときローマ字を読む.....話すも、歌も。orz
じゃ、ローマ字を輸入しません。
がんばってね。

[pomps]

Actually this is a learning Japanese topic, so I think it's better to write in Romaji so people with no experience at Japanese at least know what they are looking at. I would agree on writing with Japanese characters if this is a Japanese discussion thread, but it's not.

[FatPianoBoy]

Originally Posted by pomps

Actually this is a learning Japanese topic, so I think it's better to write in Romaji so people with no experience at Japanese at least know what they are looking at. I would agree on writing with Japanese characters if this is a Japanese discussion thread, but it's not.

But you could also say that, because it's a Japanese learning thread, those who know should encourage those who are learning to progress

[7thFonon]

Yeah, there are all different levels. But actually, I learned romaji to kana before I actually started to work on a larger vocabulary.

[raikage]

Those who are learning Japanese to read/write, should be off Roma-ji and onto kana as quickly as possible.

It depends on how you want to approach the thread -- for those who are dabbling in Japanese, roma-ji is perfectly fine and readable.

For those who want to go more in depth...past 1st semester Japanese (once you pass 3-4 months of learning) chances are you won't be seeing any roma-ji at all, so might as well get used to it.

I'd support using a very small amount of kan'ji, because you'll find comprehension rates all over the place. There will be some that only know fifty or so, and others who know 3,000. In that case, I'd rather cater to those who aren't as knowledgeable.

[Risaa]

Originally Posted by raikage

For those who want to go more in depth...past 1st semester Japanese (once you pass 3-4 months of learning) chances are you won't be seeing any roma-ji at all, so might as well get used to it.

Sorry, a tad bit off topic, but I want to mention it: I have a friend who attends MIT, and the book they use in her Japanese class is the Yale Japanese textbook (made especially for Yale students taking Japanese at Yale, ne). She's in her second semester, and it's become clear that they're ONLY going to teach in roomaji. This has really affected how quickly she was able to master kana (a helluva lot slower than anyone in my Japanese class). She asked her sensei about it, and her sensei replied that it's easier to see how words are conjugated.

This is true, however I think in the long run it's MUCH better to go with kana as soon as you can grasp them. I don't really like the thought of teaching completely in roomaji just because of the conjugations; what my sensei always did was teach completely in kana, but then would romanize whenever we were learning new conjugations (even then I found it unnecessary after a while though).

I guess it just depends what program you're in whether you'll be seeing more roomaji or not, and I'm no expert, but I highly recommend learning kana and sticking with it once you've mastered roomaji.

[FatPianoBoy]

Originally Posted by raikage

I'd support using a very small amount of kan'ji, because you'll find comprehension rates all over the place. There will be some that only know fifty or so, and others who know 3,000. In that case, I'd rather cater to those who aren't as knowledgeable.

If I happen upon a kanji I don't know, I just pull up rikaichan. Alternatively, if you don't use Firefox (why wouldn't you? ), you can visit the WWWJDIC for all of your translation needs.

Of course, both of these tools require a basic grasp of the grammar and full knowledge of kana to be useful, so they're not for the beginning student.

[Vexx]

I tend to learn better if I don't have to keep converting from romaji to kana ... just learn the sounds for the symbols (like I did when learning to read in my native english) and later I'll grab chunks of characters and just "know" the word. Dabbling versus fluent is one reason -- also people are different types of learners, I just do better with immersion.

For kanji..... I have books that teach the kanji in non-traditional ways and such. But for reading manga, I've found it better to pick up a book that teaches kanji in the grade order that japanese kids learn it in. I'm FAR more likely to encounter those kanji in manga written for people under the age of 20/16/12/8. So that's been helpful.

@risaa: "her sensei replied that it's easier to see how words are conjugated." ........ that's a TERRIBLE rationale when the phonetic changes are just as clear in kana. Yeesh. My son is applying to MIT -- that's good to know.

[Risaa]

If you're interested in checking out the Yale book ahead of time then I recommend seeing if you can find it at your library - my local library had it, perhaps yours will as well? It looks like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Japa.../dp/0300001355

It was one of the first books I ever looked at when I started independently studying the language (even before taking classes), and I can tell you, I didn't make it five pages in. It was very confusing for me, but then again, at the time I had NO experience with the language at all. Maybe your son would have better luck with it (besides... I'm not MIT material!).

Edit: lol... apparently some of the reviewers had *great* luck with it.

[KKensei]

Lol, watching anime and reading mangas help....as you listen more and more while reading subs and such, you'll start to remember some basic words and sentences...while with manga, considering most are written in furigana, you are able to learn some kanji. Quite useful I say~

[Xiithros]

Originally Posted by KKensei

Lol, watching anime and reading mangas help....as you listen more and more while reading subs and such, you'll start to remember some basic words and sentences...while with manga, considering most are written in furigana, you are able to learn some kanji. Quite useful I say~

That's very true. You can easily pick up the accent by watching anime in Japanese. I suggest listening to mostly fluent Japanese. Not those tapes/CD's from tutorials or lessons. A lot of the times they just aren't good enough.

Furigana saves you from the intimidating Kanji. xD

[lubuko]

If u know Chinese. Kanji is not a big probelm.