Thread: Japanese

Yo! I was wondering how big the interrest of putting up an thread/sticky with japanese lessons in romanji is.
Like for example:

Watakushi = I
Anata = You
Ano hito = That person
Kuruma = Car
Atarashi = New
No = Owning, like the sentence down below. My car...

Watakushi no kuruma wa atarashi desu. = My car is new.

etc. etc.

I would in such a case gladly help with the knowledge that I have, it might not be the very best but I did go an 100p course in japanese, giving me some grammar and such, and with my reliable Oxford Japanese Dictionary I hope that I would be able to anwser and give out simple lessons.
That being said, I would love to hear from any mod of the possibility of such a project.
(In case your wondering, 100p = 4 hours in classromms/week for 2 terms, then I do not include selfstudies)

Sounds interesting only cause I know a tad bit of japanese too. (just started learning)

Hajimemashite
Watashiwa cpr-san desu.
Watashiwa ichinensei desu.
Doozo yoroshiku oneigaishimasu.

*bows*

Please teach me some! I only know words such as Kawaii, Hitori, etc.
I didn't know how to speak Japanese and their gramar! Waaah!

I'm way too lazy/too bad to try and teach.

Here, just look at this webbie:
http://web.mit.edu/21f.501/www/
and teach yourself.

You could create a thread in chitchat for Japanese if you want to share your knowledge.

Well, who will create?!
A Japanese Dictionary Thread?!
Make it sticky!

Honestly, I question how many people would actually use it. Learning Japanese takes a shitload of time and commitment.

Cool.

I'm thinking about majoring in Japanese, today, for my birthday, my friend bought me a kanji book... I'm really excited, but really overwhelmed, especially about the order of radicals and... I don't know... why can't they just order things like english-speaking people? I understand how there are too many homophones for them to have an alphabet... but.... the order... >_< *begins to whine*

Originally Posted by coolpuprocks

Honestly, I question how many people would actually use it. Learning Japanese takes a shitload of time and commitment.

He is right. Learning japanese takes alot of both time and commitment. Ive been self learning japanese for a while and found this out, but I will be picking up Japanese (Both Beginner and Advanced later) at University next semester and add more dedication to what I am doing at the moment.

Firstly, many ppl already think they know the pronounciations, and I'm pretty sure that you do, but when speaking the japanese words try saying them aloud and not in your head and you would be quite surprised at how you actually say the words differently to what you imagined you would say them. After this, learn the basic characters (if you want, go ahead and learn the hiragana and katakana for these as well, but it will take some time to remember them off by heart). These are some basics that will help with you pronounciations and understandings of word structures.

Learning simple sentences also help as what largo has presented above, but there are multiple meanings to some words and yeh... for example people take different views on some words and thats how translations are not always the same. Yet I abide by largo's translation, some of the singular word translations could be worded better, but each one to himself. Instead of just limiting yourself to just one word to describe something, you can extent if over more words. For example, here is a better deconstruction of largo's sentence of translation:

Originally Posted by largo

Watakushi = I
Anata = You
Ano hito = That person
Kuruma = Car
Atarashi = New
No = Owning, like the sentence down below. My car...

Watakushi no kuruma wa atarashi desu. = My car is new.

The only areas that I would extent on breifing on would be 'Ano Hito' and 'no' so that the person who is learning would understand its contents more. The rest is simple as it is stated.

Ano Hito - That person

Ano comes from a part of words that represents placement of things. These include the 3 words Kore, Sore and Are. These are the 'this' and 'that' particles.
Kore indicates something near the speaker
Sore indicates something near the person spoken to
Are indicates something not near either person

Hito lit. means 'person'. You can add a number of words to it to state what type of person like:
Onna no Hito - Woman, Female
Otoko no Hito - Man, Male

no

I dont like capitalising the 'no'. 'no' is a simple particle that links words together just like the particle 'wa' but in a different manner. Like in the above portion I wrote 'Onna no Hito' and 'Otoko no Hito', you can see that 'no' is linking the 2 words 'woman/female'/'man/male' together with the word 'person'. 'no' links words together that share the same type or object. If we were to use the perticle 'wa' instead, 'otoko wa hito' this would come out as something like '(this) man is a person' which doesn't cut it and is an irregularity. 'no' is a simple particle linker.


That is just a simple extention on what largo has already said, but there are some other things you must look at while learning japanese:

The sentence structure of Japanses isnt the same as english.
English - 'George ate some cake'
Japanese - 'George wa keki tabemashita'
As you can see, the japanese sentence structure follows 'Noun adjective verb' while the english one follows 'noun verb adjective'. Its a little difference, but it is different to the way english sentences are structured.
Sometimes they might be similar, but they shoudnt be.

I know that I might have been wrong on a lot of accounts, but meh... cbf'd writting anymore either... Japanese is considered an easy language to learn, so stress yourself too much, cause its quite easy given the patience and time... If I am wrong in any area that Ive written above, ignore it... =)

heres a link for learning japanese http://www.japanese-online.com/
also if u use itunes download japanesepod101 http://www.japanesepod101.com/