I apparently deleted the last thread while attempting to delete a post in it. At any rate, this is the new Learn Japanese thread. I'll try and post a 'lesson' up here every week or two, but in the meantime, ask questions about Japanese and native speakers, knowledgeable forum members, or myself will answer your questions.

Lesson 1:
「いろは」　平仮名 (「i ro ha」 hiragana)

Japanese has three (four) writing systems:

• Hiragana ひらがな - Syllabary used in grammatical contexts and general Japanese. Fixed pronounciation.
• Katakana カタカナ - Syllabary used to write foreign words as well as the pronounciation of kanji.
• Kanji 漢字 - Lit. "Han Characters", borrowed Chinese words. These are used generally in Japanese. There are about 2000 used for most writing.
• Romaji ローマ字　- Lit. "Roman (Latin) Characters." These are simply Latin transliterations of the Japanese syllabary.

The Japanese Alphabet can roughly be broken down into 10 groups of 5 sounds. Each 'letter' is pronounced as a consonant followed by a vowel. So for each group, there are 5 letters, each with similar pronounciations.

A I U E O
あ い う え お
Ka Ki Ku Ke Ko
か き く け こ
Sa Shi Su Se So
さ し す せ そ
Ta Chi Tsu Te To
た ち つ て と
Na Ni Nu Ne No
な に ぬ ね の
Ha Hi Fu He Ho
は ひ ふ へ ほ
Ma Mi Mu Me Mo
ま み む め も
Ya Yu Yo
や 　ゆ　 よ
Ra Ri Ru Re Ro
ら り る れ ろ
Wa Wo
わ　　　 を


So, these are the characters used in basic Japanese. Any questions on how to say things, or just general educational requests, post and I, Native speakers, or Japanese speaking members will get to it when I can!

This is pretty cool...my mother was Japanese, but I'm no where near fluent, lol! I can't write it at all, I'm trying to learn Hiragana at the moment...anyway, I'll be following your lessons, I want to learn this language!

But uhh one thing: the characters aren't showing up. Maybe it's just my computer, but only one character ("U") is showing...

^ you should look at the "how to see japanese" thread (or something like that. It has steps by steps instructions)

Okay everyone, this is going to be our first lesson. In Japanese the phrase "This is a..." or "That is a..." or "That thing over there is a..." are all very similar.

The words 「これ」　「それ」　「あれ」　("kore" "sore" and "are" respectively) each mean
"this" "that" and "that (over there)". "Are" is different from "sore" in that it implies an object which is far away from the speaker and the listener. Sore just means something which is far away from the speaker, but (roughly) near the listener and "kore" means something nearby the speaker.

The phrase 「は」 is a subject marker, pronounced "wa" it indicates whatever noun, verb, or clause preceeding it is the subject of conversation.

The phrase 「です」, pronounced "desu" (more like des), is the polite form of the be-verb "is".

So, using these three terms, we can construct simple sentences:

kore ha hon desu = this is a book
sore ha pen desu = that is a pen
are ha ie desu = that (over there) is a house
kore ha inu desu = this is a dog

So, before the next lesson, why doesn't everyone give it a try, you can ask also for specific words.

This is awesome.

i just got a little confused

1- is "a" in english "ha" in japanese?
2- i tried constructing a sentence but i got alittle confused:

kore ha hon desu = this is a book

you had desu (is) at the end of the sentence, can you please explain to me the gramatical reason its that way.

i would have done the mistake of saying:
kore ha desu hon


and one last thing my name is Rhea ... would it be : ろ あ
i could be soo off..

Well, this is a complicated subject. Generally speaking, Japanese does not distinguish between singular and plural.

neko = cat

kore ha neko desu = this is a cat/these are cats

"... ha" (pronounced 'wa' in this case) literally means "as for..." or "concerning..."


Exactly.
kore ha hon desu (koh-LE WA HOHN DES) = this is a book
これはほんです。

I'm not certain as to your name. Here are the pronounciations...

Ree-ah = りいあ (Riia)
Ray-ah = れあ (Rea)
Roh-ah = ろあ　(Roa)

Here is a breakdown of vowel pronounciations...

あ (a) = ah; as in 'fAther'
い (i) = ee; as in 'strEEt'
う (u) = oo; as in 'mOOse'
え (e) = ay; as in 'AIde'
お (o) = oh; as in 'cOAt'

--------------
Also, here is how you introduce yourself (jikoshokai)

Hajimemasite, Fox desu. Dozo yoroshiku.
はじめまして、フォックス　です。どうぞよろしく。

Hajimemasite, Francis desu. Dozo yoroshiku
はじめまして、　フランス　です。　どぞ　よろしく

Didn't dozo have two o's or a u?

I have a question, when do you use wa, ha, ga, and so on? I dont get those particles to mark subjects and so on

Yes どうぞ (douzo) has a 'u' following the 'do'. It is pronounced Doh-zoh with a long 'oh' sound after the 'Do'.

That's a good question. People write Ph.D. theses in Japanese linguistics concerning the right answer. The most useful answer is: 'ha (wa)' is used to introduce a new subject or to change the topic of conversation. Because often in Japanese, people leave out the subject entirely in a sentence. For instance:

ano neko ha kuroi desho? (that cat is black isn't it?) kawaii desu ne. ([the cat] is cute)

I thought I would pop in and give it a try as well. :~)

これは爪です。
これ / は / 爪 [つめ] / です。
Ko-re / ha / tsu-me / de-su.
This is / [ha] / [a] toe/finger nail / [is].

それは呆けです。
それ / は / 呆け [ぼけ] / です。
So-re / ha / ba-ke / de-su.
That is / [ha] / [a] fool / [is].

あれは躯です。
あれ / は / 躯 [むくろ] / です。
A-re / ha / mu-ku-ro / de-su.
That [over there] is / [ha] / [a] corpse / [is].

About my second sentence, does anyone know if that would actually be used in Japan, as a sort of playful insult? Or maybe if I were trying to be more playful something like 馬鹿 [ばか / ba-ka] would have been less harsh? (I just find 呆け [ぼけ / ba-ke] 's kanji to be easier to remember. I'm so lazy!) I've heard that the Japanese don't use sarcasm in their speech, yet would they still use a phrase like that?

Oh and of course, please tell me if I've made a mistake. I'm sort of new to this whole English-->Japanese thing.

EDIT: Just for my curious mind, do we know when there will be another lesson? Is there anyway to get a hold of the old lessons that were deleted?

Im A Japanese Freaak!
I Wanna Go To Harajuku!
:p

I've been reading some japanese gramars during my google searches, but I don't know if this is correct:

Watashi wa Christy desu. Douzo yoroshiku.

--> I am Christy. Nice to meet you.

Is this ok?

Yes, very good.
Watashi wa Fox desu. Douzo yoroshiku.
どちらからですか？
dochira kara desuka? (where are you from)

Watashi wa Trick desu. Douzo yoroshiku.

I was around for some of the old classes but I have almost no experience outside anime and manga. I hope this thread helps me out.

Arigato goziamasu.

Ohayou! Watashi was Jen desu. Same with Trick, I was with the old class from last year. I hope lessons start soon. Ja! ^^

Uh, Moshi Moshi, this thread has been inactive for almost two years, if you wish I could keep this thread up. The class is supposed to start after my competition Saturday, sorry for the long wait.

Ooh, this thread is neat! I lived in Japan for nine-months, but was only able to pick up phrases, the writing completely eluded me! The only thing I know in Japanese is Misawa: 三沢 and that's only because I have a necklace from there (That's the city I was in) and it has that written on it...

Thanks for this thread! I'll have to study it!

~Casey

Wow, I'm so envious, I've always wanted to go to Japan! ^^

Anyway, since Rachel aka Sensei (^^) asked in the Notice thread, I vote that we have the Japanese lessons in this thread, instead of doing RPG. But if everyone wants RPG, thats OK with me. =)

Okay! Let's begin. Now, fox_in_sox explained a few things incorrectly, so let me tell you the right way.

Hiragana is actually the first writting system a Japanese student should learn (as do little kids first learning the Japanese writing), and it does have a fixed pronounciation because that's the basis for the Japanese language. When it's spelt 'ha' it's pronounced as 'ha' always, unless the character is used as a particle.

Katakana, is NOT the pronounciation for kanji, that's what Hiragana is used for; I'll be going into that during a kanji lesson. Katakana is strictly the spelling and pronounciation for foreign words, for the benefit of the Japanese (though it's useful for people speaking English to understand words like "Orenji Jyusu" which means "Orange Juice") to pronounce other languages.

Kanji is the fancier and more educated way of writing Japanese. A kid can read 'Nihongo' (the Japanese language) in Hiragana, but an adult reads 'Nihongo' in kanji. Kanji often makes the words shorter, but more complicated to write.

Romaji is technically English, 'Sashimi' may be a Japanese word but it's written in English.

Also, they left out the 'n' (ん), which is the only consanent in Japanese that can stand alone without a vowel after it, (example: sumimasen, gohan)

I don't think that you should be taught kore,etc. yet; that's middle-first year stuff. I'll teach the basic word phrases in the next post. Any questions?

Cool, thanks Sasaki.

Awesome! Thnx!

Ah! I love Japanese! I just recently started learning it! I'm going to Japan with my best friends for my senior trip in High school!

Thanks for the info! Which one are we gonna start with?

Okay, sorry I haven't updated in a while, but I was on the San Fran Trip with the Japanese Club. I learned loads, and hopefully you will benefit from it!

Greetings:

Good Morning: Ohayo Gozaimasu (Ohio Go-zai-ma-s)

Good Afternoon: Konnichiwa (Kon-ni-chi-wa)

Good Evening: Konbanwa (Kon-ban-wa)

Partings:

Good-Bye (formal): Sayonara (Sa-yoo-na-la)

Good-Bye (informal): Jamatane (ja-ma-ta-ne)

Good-Bye (friendly): Bai Bai (bye bye)

Etc:

Welcome: Yookoso (Yoo-ko-so)

Nice to meet you, Please treat me favorably: Hajimemashite (Ha-ji-me-ma-shi-te (you pronounce it with the e at the end as te (like how you pronounce table)) Dozo Yoroshiku Onegai Shimasu (Doo-zo Yo-lo-shi-ku O-ne-gai Shi-ma-su) (This is a polite thing to say)

I'm starting off with these, just to get you started, I'll update with proper prefixes next post

Uhm, I heard that you pronounce the "u" at the end of Gozaimasu very faintly. Is that true? (As in "Go-zai-ma-sue" but the "ue" really, really short)?

*Ding* Yup, that's true. Usually women prounounce the U at the end of words such as Gozaimasu and desu, but it's a matter of choice. If I want to be really formal I use it, but only around my Sensei, and I only started speaking it that way after I watched Shogun because Mariko did. But it's spelt with the U because the n is the only consenant that's allowed to not have a vowel after it. You can go either way, I still say "des" instead of "desu", now you can't do that on all words, just some.

Good question

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks.


*also, is there a way to get your computer to type in kanji? (or katana) i can see the characters you've typed but...*