Japanese Lessons *basic sentence structure, numbers, and age up*

[Rinku]

If anyone's interested, I was thinking about starting a whole bunch of Japanese lessons on here... I'm in Japanese 1 right now, but I intend to take it all 4 years of high school. I know everything I've been taught so far by heart (although it isn't that much yet, but yea, still something right?), and if any of you are interested (just reply) or have ideas, I'd be willing to start.

[DW]

I've actually been looking for something like this, been trying to get my Grandma to teach me. Sure.

[Vaati]

I'M IN HEAVEN!!! Teach me! Please, please, please!  :D (I wanted to join this one website where tutorswho sgn up can teach Japanese to other people, but all the tutors are over 18, and i don't really like the idea of, y'know, talking to someone much older than m for my reasons. But I guess anyone under 18 wouldn't be a good teacher, huh?)

[DW]

but all the tutors are over 18, and i don't really like the idea of, y'know, talking to someone much older than m for my reasons.

...Does Tacheon know this?

[Hi no Seijin]

Are you aware that I'm 19?

I am hurt. :'(

[darkphantomime]

I'm 19 too, in case you haven't noticed. Been that way for some time now.

[Rinku]

Excuse me, I'm noticeably younger than 18 but I got an A+. I think I have some right to say I'll be a pretty good teacher. And as this got some pretty good reception... I say we start now.

==========Basic Pronounciation================
Ok, the basics. Once I can get some scans of hiragana up, or download hiragana that I can just type, I'll be writing in roomaji, romanized letters.. Also, in Japanese, when you have a double 'o' you write the second 'o' as a 'u'. When I'm doing it in roomaji (roumaji) I'll be using the 'u', so just keep in mind that it's an elongated 'o' sound.

The basic vowel sounds in Japanese are a, i, u, e, and o.

'a' sounds like "ah"                   "ah"
'i' sounds like "sleep"       "ee"
'u' sounds like "mood"      "oo"
'e' sounds like "eh"                   "eh"
'o' sounds like "obey"       "oh"

If you mispronouce any of the sounds, like saying 'o' like 'toe' I'll have to pull Saber's patented Cyber-Strangle. It irks me when people's American accents totally slaughter the words. Sorry, just try not to do it.

Okay, hiragana are sets of sounds, or syllables. The first set are of course a, i, u, e, and o, but then you have ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, sa, shi, su, se so, etc.... We'll get into that more later. Also, there's equal stress on each syllable most of time, but in certain cases different pitches make the words completely different. Such as:

haSHI (bridge)
HAshi (chopsticks)
HASHI (edge)

kaMI (paper)
KAmi (god)

Ame (rain)
aME (candy)

There are also skipping sounds, such as ippai (one cupful). You say ip-pai, making the double consonant separate but not too choppy.

=========Basic Words and Sentence Structure========

Watashi (I, me)

Anata (You. Don't use this too often, and especially to people you don't know, as it's kind of rude)

wa (this is the first particle you learn, and in hiragana is written as "ha". It makes something equal to something, or is. The kite IS red. I AM Rinku.

desu (at the end of almost every sentence that I've been though so far. It completes the thought. Hard to explain)

-san (An honorific, basically use this for everyone you're not best friends with.)

-sama (Even higher than -san)

-sensei (For teachers. As with the rest of the honorifics, just put the the name, preferably last name if you're going to be respectful, in front of the honorific suffix. So for instance, you could call me Rinku-sensei, although I don't really want you to. And some of you have seen me call Shikamaru/Sabertache Shika-san before.

kore (this)

sore (that)

are (that over there. Something far away)

There are variations of all three, discussed later on.

The first and most basic sentence structure is

Noun 1 wa Noun 2 desu.

Kore wa O desu.

This is O.

Kore means 'this' and wa+desu make "is". O is the sound or letter 'o'.

You can put in any words you want, but the direction word, such as kore, sore, are, watashi, or anata have to go in spot "noun 1" or 'A' as my sensei at school shortens the sentence formula to A wa B desu.

Watashi wa Rinku desu. I am Rinku.

I don't say Rinku-san, as you don't respect yourself. You respect others!

Watashi means 'I'. Rinku is the name Rinku. wa+desu make up the "is" or "am" part.

Understand? *feedback would be nice, and if you don't understand, I will elaborate*

[Gamefreak]

So, I guess Kami from Dragonball Z would probably translate to God, rather than paper, right?

[Rinku]

Unless they were playin JanKenPon (rock paper scissors, I think) then yes, most likely.

========More Vocabulary=============

ohayou (Informal good morning, as you can see, elongated 'o' sound at the end)

ohayou gozaimasu (formal good morning)

Konnichiwa (Used as a greeting during the afternoon. See, skipping sound example!)

Sayounara (If anyone dares mispronounce this like they hear it on TV, grrr! It means goodbye.)

hai (yes)

ee (It also means yes, but you mostly use this during phone conversations or something not formal. It sounds like eeehhhhh)

iie (elongated "ee" sound. It means no.)

konbanwa (good evening)

jaa ne (informal goodbye between friends)

-kun (a suffix mostly for boy's names. For someone beneath you, or say you had a cute little male cousin. So, Jon-kun.)

More pronounciation help:

The 'i' and 'u' sounds are very soft. So when you say "Konnichiwa! Watashi wa Rinku desu!" It sounds like "Kon-nichiwa! Watashi wa Rinku dess!"

Or "Hajimemashite!" 'mashite' is a verb ending to change tenses and whatnot. I don't know too much about 'shite' yet, but you would say the word as "Hajimemashteh"

[Gamefreak]

I know a few suffixes, I know

kun
chan
san
senpaii
sempaii
niichan

And a couple others I think.

[Rinku]

=======More Honorifics==========

Okay, -kun, I believe I explained that last post.

-chan is sort of like -kun, except used more towards girls. -chan came from -san; apparently when little kids in Japan try to say -san, it ends up sounding like -chan. So when little kids talk to each other you hear, "Emiko-chan!" "Daisuke-chan!" Instead of Emiko-san and Daisuke-san. (Try it out on your own, with an exaggerated cute anime girl voice. Closest thing to a three-year-old's.)

-senpai, or sempai (when you Japanese-ify words in English, or vice versa, n's become m's in English, v's become b's in Japanese, etc.)

Well that's used when you talk to an upperclassman.

-kohai is the opposite of -senpai, and is used to talk to underclassmen.

niichan means older brother- You probably heard this on Fullmetal Alchemist. Well, that was the first idea that came to mind. Anyway, this goes back to that "little kids can't pronounce -san" Niisan means older brother, so when little kids address their older brothers it probably sounds like niichan.

[DW]

Isn't bozu also an honorific for like a little kid or something?

[Vaati]

Are you aware that I'm 19?

I am hurt. :'(

Guys it seems you misread me.: that's on a whole different website other than TDC, and you talk directly, privately with that person, TDC is a forum where what you say to other people will be read by other people.

[Rinku]

Yea, bozu means something like "little squirt" or "short stuff" etc.

A wa B desu.

This is basically the first and only real sentence structure I learned in the first semester of school. "Something is something else". You will learn to hate it, but it's useful.

Now if you're a guy, you can say boku instead of watashi for I.
So if I was a guy, I could say, Boku wa Rinku desu. I am Rinku. It means practically the same thing.

Another particle is ka. You just put it on the end of a sentence, and that makes it a question.

Watashi wa Rinku desuka? I am Rinku?
You could use this, for example, if you're having amnesia.

Japanese words tend to be long, and so are their sentences when you build them up. They like to shorten things, so if the subject you're talking about is know, you could just say,  Rinku desu, and it would mean about the same thing. Another example of this:

"Anata wa nansai desuka?" *You can automatically tell that the person is talking about you, and it's a question since there's ka at the end* How old are you?

"Juuhassai desu." 18 years old. I could have said Watashi wa juuhassai desu, but you both know you're talking about you, so you don't have to. Also in the first sentence, that person could have just said "nansai desuka?" and it'd be the same thing.

=======Numbers==============

Japanese have different counters for different objects. To count people, you have to add the suffix -nin. Think Sannin, from Naruto. There are 3 of them, Tsunade, Orochimaru, and Jiraiya, so, the Legendary Sannin (Three). Well right now we'll go over the basic numbers.

ichi (1)
ni (2)
san (3)
yon/shi* (4)
go (5)
roku (6)
nana/shichi* (7)
hachi (8)
kyuu/ku* (9)
juu (10)
hyaku (100)
You can see that 4, 7, and 9 have asterisks. The second way of saying the numbers, shi, shichi, and ku, are not to be used in some situations. That is because shi and shichi mean and are related to death, and ku means suffering. So you don't use it all the time! Use yon, nana, and kyuu!

We'll go back to numbers later.

=======What?===========
The word nani, or nan, is used for what, or when something is unknown. In the "nansai desuka" sample sentence above, -sai is the counter for age, and it has nan in front of it. Therefore you're asking "how old."

Kore wa nandesuka?
Kore means 'this' and nan means 'what'. You also have ka at the end, making it a question. So you're asking, "what is this?"

-mai is the counter for flat objects, like paper, or even pizza. So if you said, "nanmai", that would mean, "how many (flat objects)".

Zeruda no Denetsu wa nandesuka? What is The Legend of Zelda?

=============Possession============

The particle "no" is a possessive article. So if I said, Kore wa watashi no desu, that would mean, "This is mine".
You can keep putting 'no' at the end of subjects as much as you like. For example:

Watashi no haha no namae wa Emiko desu.

New words: haha means (your) mother. You don't actually call your mother 'haha', you call them 'okaasan', but that's another lesson.

namae means name.

So the sentence Watashi no haha no namae wa Emiko desu means My mother's name is Emiko.

Watashi no means my.

haha no means my mother's.

You could keep piling them on too. "Watashi no haha no otousan no imooto no inu no namae wa Inuyasha desu."

My mother's father's younger sister's dog's name is Inuyasha.

Otousan means father. You address your father with "otousan"

Imooto means younger sister. Inu, as most of you know, is dog.

[Mysterious F.]

I don't know if my high school has Japanese, but if it does, I'll take it. I'll also take German, too. Spanish doesn't seem a useful language anymore, besides simply being a language other than English, and French doesn't interest me enough. Italian seems like a fun language to learn, considering Italy's grand history. Russian and Chinese also seem nice to know today.