Ah...so I just forgot the ちょうおん in Trinidad. Okay.

I see. Thank you for looking it up.

So I'd say:

Watashi wa pueritoriko jin desu

Now, because foreign words are written in katakana would I have to write the entire sentence in katakana or just the foreign word? *daft*

Just the foreign word because if you do the whole thing in katakana it'd mean it's in English, which it isn't, so only the foreign word.

I think it's time to move onto age and year in school.

If you want to say you're a certain age you say the number then add sai (pronounced sigh).

Example:

go sai desu = I am 5 years old.

jyu go sai desu = I am 15 years old.

Note: If you want to say anything above ten but below one hundred, you put jyu then the number, unless it's above 19, then you put the number first then jyu.

Examples:

jyu san = thirteen

jyu ni = twelve

san jyu = thirty

yon jyu = 40

yon jyu kyu = 49

go jyu hachi = 58

kyu jyu kyu = 99

*

If you want to say you're a certain year in school you say the year then nensei desu. (pronounced nen-say)

Example:

yon nensei desu = I'm a fourth year/ senior in school.

ichi nensei desu = I'm a first year/ freshmen in school.

Minasan, try it!

How do you pronounce 'jyu'?

And how do you say 'I'm in third year'?

Like ji-yu, but without the i. Kinda like Jew. 三年生です。　San nensei desu. I'm a third year.

As usual, correct me if I am wrong.

Yup that's right, and that was a good question. Anyone else wish to give it a try?

Oh, I see. Thank you

And I know this is going back a lesson or two ago, but how do you say Irish or Ireland in Japanese?

Okay...so I'm completely new at this Forgive me

Watashi no namae wa Lari desu. (Sri Lanka??) jin desu. Jyu yon sai desu.

*counts*

1. I-chi
2. Ni
3. San
4. Yon
5. Go
6. Roku
7. Nana
8. Hachi
9. Kyuu
10. Jyuu



Question: So if I wanted to ask, politely, 'Do you speak english?" or "I only know a little Japanese" or "I do not know Japanese", how would I say that?

Correct.

Ei-go (w)o hanashi masu ka.

Nihon-go (w)o sukoshi hanashi masu.

Nihon-go (w)o hanashi masen.

I'm going to be going over that later because it might be a bit confusing if you don't get the sentence structure.


It's アイルランドじん or ai-ru-rando-jin. Sorry I took so long, that's a rather unusual one.

Since we're on numbers I might as well start you on time.

To ask "What time is it?" you say "Ima Nan Ji desu ka" which literally translates as "Now, what time is it?"

To answer, you say the number then "ji desu".

Example:

Person 1: Ima Nan ji desu ka?

Person 2: Go ji desu. Translation: It's five o'clock.

Here's how to combine the number with ji:

1 o'clock: ichi ji

2 o'clock: ni ji

3 o'clock: san ji

4 o'clock: yon ji

5 o'clock: go ji

6 o'clock: roku ji

7 o'clock: shichi ji

8 o'clock: hachi ji

9 o'clock: ku ji (not kyu ji)

10 o'clock: jyu ji

11 o'clock: jyu ichi ji

12 o'clock: jyu ni ji

We'll go over minutes and A.M. and P.M. next time

Konban wa. Ogenki desu ka? Watashi wa ni jyu desu. Jyu ni ji desu. I think I said that all correctly please correct me if I did not. I can't write in japanese text on this computer.

What do you mean by you are 20??? If you mean you're 20 years old, add a sigh after the age. What do you mean by it's 12:00??
Other than that you're fine. Did you learn that here or from a sensei? To write in Japanese, on PCs there's an application to do that on your computer.

あらま！2009年からポストがない(」ﾟﾛﾟ)｣(｣ﾟﾛﾟ)｣(｣ﾟﾛﾟ)｣ｵｵｵｵｵｯ ｯｯ

For those of you still interested in a daily Japanese lesson AND have twitter, I highly recommend Maggie Sensei.

日本語の勉強頑張りましょう～p(◆´∀｀◇)ノ【ＧАЙВАЯЁ】ヽ(◇´∀｀◆)q

If you can, I'd suggest posting in Unicode format next time.

attemptive revival of the forum!



Pika Pika Pi Pi Pika CHUUUUU!

Pikachu just wants to welcome you to his first Japanese lesson Since there has already been a discussion about the three alphabets used in Japanese (hiragana, katakana, and kanji) along with some basic words and expressions, Pikachu thought it would be nice to just keep on building from that.

So, today Pikachu (by means of me translating) shall explain basic very conjugation that will become the basis for many sentences!

You have already been taught the basic way to introduce yourself, so let's do a quick review of that.

English: My name is Pikachu.
Japanese:

• romaji (ローマ字) - watashi no namae wa Pikachu desu.
• hiragana (ひらがな） - わたし　の　なめえ　は　ぴかちゅう　です。
• kanji included (漢字入り) -　私の名前はピカチュウです。

please remember that while it is written as "ha" the reading is actually "wa" as in water.

Of course, there are many other ways to refer to yourself besides "watashi/私" in Japanese, but when it doubt this is a good one to fall back to

Now, let's say you want to make this sentence
I eat.
Yes, Pikachu realizes that this is a rather odd sentence, but we all start at the most basic level when learning a foreign language.

Now, we already know the word for I is "watashi/私" so we already know how this sentence will begin!

The next step is using the proper particle, which in this case is wa/は. Other particles may be used, but it will change the meaning of the sentence. So, for now, let's just stick with this one.

The word for "to eat" in Japanese is taberu/たへる/食べる.

So, I eat becomes:

• romaji: watashi ha tabemasu.
• hiragana: わたし　は　たべます。
• kanji included: 私は食べます。

Now, I know what you are thinking. "HEY! Where did all this "masu" business come from?! That verb up there ends in a "ru"!" Japanese verbs are roughly divided into three groups according to their dictionary form (basic form). The verb we used in this sentence (taberu) is in its dictionary/basic from. Think of it this way, we wouldn't say "I to eat" now would we? So, we conjugate the verb by removing the "to."

Now, this is a minor detail BUT "watashi ha taberu" and "watashi ha tabemasu" are both grammatically correct sentences. The difference is that by adding the "masu" we are making our speech more polite and we all want to be polite, right? RIGHT!

So, back to verbs. These three groups of verbs are pretty easy to identify. The basic form of 'Group 1' verbs end with "~ u".

Some common words from Group 1 are:

• to walk - 歩く（あるく）aruku
• to play - 遊ぶ　（あそぶ）asobu
• to begin - 始まる（はじまる）hajimaru
• to buy - 買う　（かう）kau (sounds like cow)
• to drink - 飲む　（のむ） nomu
• to swim - 泳ぐ　（およぐ) oyogu

Now, to conjugate these verbs there is a simple rule to follow "take the 'u' and turn it into an 'i' and add 'masu'."

For example: I swim with become watashi wa oyogimasu (私は泳ぎます)

See how easy it is?

Now, the verb we used first, to eat, belongs to Group 2 which are verbs ending in with either "~iru" or "~ eru." For them, just as we saw with our first example sentence, you remove the 'ru' portion of the verb and attach 'masu' and you are done!

Some other verbs in this group are

• to think - 考える（かんがえる）kangaeru
• to see - 見る（みる）miru
• to sleep - 寝る（ねる） neru

'Group 3' verbs are irregular verbs and, thankfully, there are only two in Japanese: "kuru/来る" (to come) and suru/する (to do).

These two verbs have a special conjugation.

"to come" becomes kimasu きます　来ます and "to do" becomes shimasu します

Those two you just have to memorize

One final thing. You may, of course, change "watashi" with another noun like "you"　あなた/anata or "he"　かれ/彼/kare or she 彼女/かのじょ/kanojo or "the cat" 猫/ねこ/neko without having to change the grammar at all. Japanese does not have the third person concept that English does. Whereas in English we would say "The cat plays" in Japanese it would be "The cat play."

So, now that we have the explanation out of the way...

POP QUIZ!

See if you can try and make the following sentences in Japanese!

1. I play.

SPOILER!!: click for the answer

私は遊びます。
わたし　は　あそびます。
watashi ha asobimasu.

2. I sleep.

SPOILER!!: click for the answer

私は寝ます。
わたし　は　ねます。
watashi ha nemasu

3. I drink.

SPOILER!!: click for the answer

私は飲みます。
わたし　は　のみます。
watashi ah nomimasu.

4. I do.

SPOILER!!: click for the answer

私はします。
わたし　は　します。
watashi ha shimasu.

5. I think

SPOILER!!: click for the answer

私は考えます。
わたし　は　かんがえます。
watashi ha kangaemasu.

So, how did you do?!

Of course, these are the building blocks to make longer sentences. For example, maybe you want to say "I drink water". But that will come later

Any questions? Pika Pika?

I just want to share some knowledge here. A lot of people asked the difference between the verbs ”は” (ha - pronounced as "wa") and ”が” - (ga)(which I too took several months to understand ).

は focuses more on the subject. For example: これは鞄です (This is a bag). The subject here is the bag. Therefore, we use は in this sentence.

が focuses on the topic instead. Example: 車がない (I don't have a car). In this case, the main focus is "I" who don't have a car. Thus, we use が instead.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.