O-matase! [Sorry to keep you waiting.] It's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry for being so lazy. I am finally back with a new lesson. Arigatou again to Krusty-sensei for putting up lesson 2 before. :3
Hai! Jaa, kyou no ressun wa...grammar! [T...
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Yeah, sorry guys! This world ended up being a bust. XD Gomennasai! Hontou ni gomennasai!! I have been SOOOOO lazy...I haven't updated this in months, and I only updated one lesson so far!! ^^;; Have no fear! There are many lessons I can teach...
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As a proper introduction, I'll give my example in proper Japanese:
Ohayo gozaimasu. Watashi wa Banneru desu. Hajimemashite douzo yoroshiku.
Translated verbatim, this means:
Good morning. I am Banner (Family names are used rather than personal ones). This is the first time we meet, treat me well.
I will now pull this apart to explain all the parts to the grammar of it.
Ohayo - This is the standard greeting for the morning, 'konnichi wa' and 'konban wa' are the greetings for the afternoon and the evening respectively.
Gozaimasu - this is a term added to a sentence to enhance the respect it gives (although I haven't been taught the literal meaning) it is simply more proper to use this..
Watashi wa Banneru desu - this is the basic sentence structure for Japanese.
Watashi - meaning I, me, myself - topic of the sentence
wa - a pronoun type of word that relates the topic to the verb
Banneru - Romaji (English spelling of the Japanese version of my last name) - this is the direct object of the sentence
desu - meaning is, to be, am - the verb of the sentence
Hajimemashite - Literally translated as "this is the first time we meet" but it is used like pleased to meet you in Japanese.
Douzo Yoroshiku - typically used in formal greetings, this means "treat me well" and is not really covered in typical translations of this greeting.
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You may have noticed that my last name is not Banneru, but rather Banner. So, why add the u to the end?
The answer is simple:
The Japanese use only one consonant sound by itself.
While those who speak English and any European languages all use the sounds b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, and z by themselves, Japanese is only taught the basic vowels a, i u, e, and o.
All of their consonant sounds are paired with vowels except one
They do use the consonant sound n.
So when you write my name in Japanese, it would be 4 characters.
Ba|n|ne|ru
The same goes for words that the Japanese have borrowed (however they are sometimes said lazily):
Hamburger for example - ha|n|ba|-|ga|- rather than ha|mu|ba|ru|ga|ru
The dashes I use there are actually the symbol for the extended vowel sound in foreign words rather than using more vowel characters to show this. In fact, foreign words have their own alphabet - Katakana.
Katakana can be covered in the next lesson.
so, until then you can use this online Java applet to learn about it.
click ->Kana Sensei
I do believe that first thing's first! If you want to learn a language, you must know the basics of how the letters are pronounced, ne? I shall make that the first lesson; several of you, probably from anime or other Japanese sources, know how to ...
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Yes, yes, hai, hai, my first post here. :3 You can just feel free to read the introduction first!! Find out what this is all about! This post won't have any lessons yet; I'm just going to explain this a bit more!
This idea came to me while I was trying to sleep last night...I couldn't sleep, and since this idea popped in mind...I just HAD to create this world. It was roughly 1:30am when I created it. Yeah, I'm crazy. Totemo hen...but anyhoo, I was thinking that it'd be nice if I made up a World to help teach some Japanese--what I CAN teach, that is. I know a good amount (NOT fluent!!), and it's mainly from watching anime, so I hope that I can help any of you that would like to know more. When I think of something, my mind doesn't rest until I get it out of the way! And this is one of those things! Baka mitai dakedo [it may seem stupid, but...] I just felt like creating this place...and hopefully I can update it often enough!
I encourage questions! If you have certain words or things you want to know how to say, then I would be glad to try to answer them. And if you know things, then I'd love for you to share as well. When I get to it, the first post will probably be about pronunciation...it might be hard to describe, seeing as this is all text and no audio, but I'll do my best. Ganbarimasu~
When and if I decide to update this with items of learning, I don't really expect in-depth comments. I have a feeling all I'll get is, "Oh, that's interesting. Thanks." And that's fine...you can take it or leave it~ I don't really care. Jaa...nihongo o benkyou shimashou-ka? Shall we study Japanese? :3
