Language Diary

These lessons were taken from the game My Japanese Coach for the Nintendo DS.

While some people say the lessons aren't the best, I've felt that some things from the game are quite fun to know, and it has taught me a bit.

I recommend learning hiragana and katakana before looking through these lessons, as I can't be as in-depth as the actual game. Though here are all the kana lessons, since for some reason they're all spread out?

Kana Lessons

So you can follow along here for the lessons.

Section 1

Section 2

Section 3

Desu Tenses

the use of desu is still fresh in your mind, I want to show how you can change it around to make even more sentences. We'll be changing the tense of words to make even more sentences.

First, let's cover the past tense of です(desu). Past tense is where we talk about something that has already happened. The past tense of です (desu) is でした (deshita). It is placed in the same place that です (desu) would be.

これはくるまです - this is a car

これはくるまでした - this was a car

Just like です(desu), でした(deshita) doesn't care who or what the topic is

わたしでした - I was

かれらでした - it was them

The negative form can be thought of as isn't.

ではありませんか - it isn't

The past negative is a form combination of the negative form and the past form. It is "dewa arimasen deshita" ではありませんでした

To recap, the different forms are

present positive - desu - です

past positive - deshita - でした

present negative - dewa arimasen - ではありません

past negative - dewa arimasen deshita - ではありませんでした

Notice there is no future tense of desu. Don't worry about it for now.

Let's get some new words for you. We've already covered two f these

was - でした

isn't - ではありません

girl - おんあのこ

boy - おとこのこ

animal - どうぶつ

And one more group of words. Energetic is a commonly used word in Japanese that we'll be revisiting on the question lessons.

energetic - げんき

person - ひと

English - えいご

Japanese - にほんご

cat - ねこ

Let's practice with a few sentences

おとこのひとはおとこのこでした - the man was a boy

ねこはおんあのこでｈありません - the cat isn't a girl

Do you see how they are used in sentences?

Remember the subject (topic) goes first, then the object, and lastly the verb. There is no Japanese word for "the", so it is ignored in the Japanese sentences.

Also, there are formal and informal ways of speaking in Japanese. What I've covered so far are formal forms of です

Informal speech is what is used to our friends and family younger than we are. But in most cases, you should use formal speech

Here are the informal forms of です

present positive - da - だ

past positive - datta - だった

present negative - ja nai - じゃない

past negative - ja nakatta - じゃなかった

Desu - です

Now it's time to start making sentences. Just basic ones for now though!

The most basic thing you need to know is that sentences in Japanese are not ordered the same way as English sentences. Be sure to remember that

In English, the order has the subject first, then the verb, and then the object of the sentence last. "I am fast", Subject: I, verb: am, object: fast.

A subject is the thing that does the verb, and the object is the rest of the sentence.

The English ordering of subject, verb, object can be shortened into S.V.O. Japanese sentences are ordered differently, the verb always goes last. The ordering is S.O.V.

In Japanese, the example sentence "I am fast" would be "I fast am"

The words am, is and are in Japanese are all the same word, desu - です. Regardless of the subject!

So in English we have the following partial sentences. "I am", "he is", "they are". In Japanese they would be, "watashi desu", "kare desu", "karera desu"

Remember that the desu goes last. The only thing different between these sentences are the subjects. Technically, desu isn't a verb, but it fits in the same place when looking at a sentence

Here are some basic words that will be useful in basic sentences. The word for "this" can also be a subject. Also, notice that the u in desu is silent.

be - です

man - おとこのひと

woman - おんあのひと

child - こ

American - アメリカじん

Many of these words are common objects, and Japanese people are certainly common in Japan!

Japanese person - にほんじん

chair - いす

car - くるま

book - ほん

house - いえ

Alright! Let's start using these in sentences. We just need to cover one more thing...

Particles. These are very small words that come after a word. They tell you the context of the word they follow. WE're going to vover one particle right now.

That particle is は (wa). は is used to tell you what is the topic, or main subject of the sentence. What is the topic of this sentence:

これはくるまです - kore wa kuruma desu

If you said the topic was これ (kore) then you were right! If you said it was くるま (kuruma) then you need to remember, that the particle goes AFTER what it is attached to.

What about this sentence? What word is the topic? Also, what is the translation of this sentence?

やまださんはおとこのひとです - yamadasan wa otokonohito desu

The topic here is Yamadasan! And the sentence translates to 'Mr. Yamada is a man'

Is this starting to feel a little more comfortable? Try making your own sentences! Putting it together on your own is a very effective way of learning Japanese

Akihabara - Best known as one of the largest shopping areas on Earth, for electronic, anime and otaku goods, including new and used items

Lesson 2.1 - Kana 1

Lesson 2.2 - Months

Lesson 2.3 - Kana 2

Lesson 2.4 - Pronouns

Kana 3

It's time for even more hiragana! There are a total of 46 hiragana characters. You're halfway through now.

na - な

ni - に

nu - ぬ

ne - ね

no - の

Pay attention to the fu character. It's not a hard f sound, but it's not really an h sound either. It sounds more like a breath out.

ha - は

hi - ひ

fu - ふ

he - へ

ho - ほ

The n characters can't use the dakuten, but the h characters can. The h characters with a dakuten turn into b sounds. The h characters can also use another symbol, the handakuten (also known as a maru).

ba - ば

bi - び

bu - ぶ

be - べ

bo - ぼ

The handakuten is a little circle placed in the same area as the dakuten. An h character with a handakuten gets a p sound. The dakuten and the handakuten cannot be used at the same time.

pa - ぱ

pi - ぴ

pu - ぷ

pe - ぺ

Pronouns

Let's learn some new words before we get started on sentence building. Pronouns!

Here are some common words used to describe other people. This brings up an important point of Japanese: politeness levels

Those - それら

Me (Male informal) - ぼく

Me (Fem. informal) - あたし

You - あなた

We - わたしたち

When you're being polite, you should use words or grammar marked as formal. This should be used when talking to people who are above you in rank. This includes your boss, teachers, people that are older than you, or people that you look up to.

If you're not talking politely, like with people your age or younger, you can use the words that are marked as informal. Most girls will still use watashi instead of atashi though.

But if you're a boy and you're speaking informally, you would refer to yourself as boku. Just to warn you, it's not very polite to refer to other people with a pronoun like he, she or you. It's best to use their name instead.

He - かれ

She - かのじょ

They (masc.) - かれら

They (fem.) - かのじょたち

You (plural) - あなたたち

Kana 2

This time, we'll be covering hiragana starting with S and T

sa - さ

shi - し

su - す

se - せ

so－そ

The second character has an extra letter in it! That is because this character has more a sh sound than a ss sound. There are a few other characters that don't fit perfectly with the rest of the sounds.

For example, with the T characters, there are two that are pronounced differently.

ta - た

chi - ち

tsu - つ

te - て

to - と

Remember when I told you about the dakuten earlier? The dakuten works for both S and T characters. The S characters turn into a z sound and the T characters turn into a d sound.

za - ざ

ji - じ

zu - ず

ze - ぜ

zo - ぞ

However, the shi character with a dakuten turns into ji. The chi character with a dakuten turns into a ji, and the tsu character turns into a zu.

da - だ

ji - ぢ

zu - づ

de - で

do - ど

The more practice you get writing hiragana, the easier it will become. Most people find hiragana easier to use than romaji after they've been using it for a while

Months

Let's cover months now. They're actually very easy.

They are listed out by number, the first month is January, the second month is February, etc. Remember when I mentioned counters? Months are a type of numeric counter.

Here are the months. If you remember the numbers then these are really easy. Japanese people use standard 12-month calendars just like you.

いちがつ - January

にがつ - February

さんがつ - March

しがつ - April

ごがつ - May

ろくがつ - June

しちがつ - July

はちがつ - August

くがつ - September

じゅうがつ - October

じゅういちがつ - November

じゅうにがつ - December

Remember how to use days of the week? Months can be used the same way.

くがつです - It is September

Kana 1

Before we can really learn Japanese, we need to be able to use kana. Kana refers to both hiragana and katakana, which are two of the writing systems that are used in Japanese.

The other system is kanji. It is more complicated than the other two, so we will come back to that later. For now, we are going to start learning hiragana since it's the default writing system for Japanese.

Here are the first 5 characters. The vowels are always in this order. Also, unlike English, the vowels will always sound the same

a - あ

i - い

u - う

e －え

o - お

Here, each character starts with k and is followed by one of the vowels. This pattern is followed by most hiragana

ka - か

ki - き

ku - く

ke - け

ko - こ

As you learn more hiragana, you'll be able to stop writing in English letters. You'll be that much closer to really knowing Japanese.

If we only had the 46 hiragana characters to choose from, Japanese wouldn't have many ways to pronounce words. But adding more characters isn't a very good solution.

Instead, we can place little symbols next to a character to show that it is read differently. The symbol I'm going to talk about this time is the dakuten (also called the tenten)

The dakuten looks like quotation marks. It's placed in the top right corner of a character. Not all characters can use a dakuten.

All the k characters can use a dakuten. Putting a dakuten on them gives them a g sound instead of a k sound

ga - が

gi - ぎ

gu - ぐ

ge - げ

go - ご

Tokyo - The twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, although each is a city, constitute the area informally considered as the "City of Tokyo"

Lesson 1.1 - Basic Words

Lesson 1.2 - Pronunciation

Lesson 1.3 - Numbers

Lesson 1.4 - Colours

Days of the Week

What day is it? きょうはなにょうびですか？

Let's cover the days of the week. You know, Sunday through Saturday

All you have to do it sat "It is (blank)". Fill in the blank with Sunday, Monday, whatever works best for you.

This works out to "(blank)です" in Japanese. にちようびです -- It is Sunday

です is the from of "to be" in Japanese. It's a very useful word, and I have a whole lesson dedicated to it.

げつようび - monday

かようび - tuesday

すいようび - wednesday

もくようび - thursday

きにょうび - friday

どようび - saturday

にちようび - sunday

ひ - day

きょう - today

あした - tomorrow

Now you can say what day it is!

きょうはきにょうび - Today is Friday

Colours

Ready for some basic colours? Colours are everywhere, so they're easy to point out and practice with.

In Japanese, some colours are adjectives and some are nouns. Adjectives are words that describe nouns.

These are two types of adjectives in Japanese. But don't worry too much now, I'll just cover the very basics

White, black, red and blue are adjectives. Just put them in front of the word that needs colour

しろい - white

くろい - black

あおい - blue

あかい - red

Here are some examples of these adjectives in use

あかいりんご - red apple

くろいかみ - black paper

Here are some more colours that are nouns.

みどり - green

ちゃいろ - brown

きいろ - yellow

オレンジ - orange

はいいろ - grey

ピンク - pink

In order to connect a noun to a noun, we need to put a の (no) between the words. Remember to put the colour before the noun.

It would go in this order: "colour"-の-"noun"

きいろのぼうし - yellow hat

はいいろのくるま - grey car

Numbers

Now that we've eased into Japanese with some familiar words, let's cover something that everyone is familiar with. Numbers! すうじ!

Numbers are very useful and are easy to remember. Let's get started.

いち - one

に - two

さん - three

よん - four

ご - five

ろく - six

しち - nana

はち - eight

きゅう - nine

じゅう - ten

To use numbers to their fullest extent in Japanese, you'll need to know counters. Counters tell the numbers what kind of thing they are counting.

They can be a little confusing, so we'll cover them in a later lesson

Some simple counters that don't make us change how the numbers are said are えん "yen" and ねん "years". See below

ごえん - 5 yen

じゅうえん - 10 yen

This is small change though, 1 yen is only worth about a penny

さんねん - Year 3

しちねん - Year 7

In these phrases, it says "year" first, because it is telling the number of the year, not how many years.

Even if you don't know the correct counter yet, you should practice counting things in Japanese. Remember that practice makes perfect, or at least very good!

Here are the next numbers. Notice that we're just putting ten before the number we want to say. This works all the way up to 19

じゅういち - eleven

じゅうに - twelve

じゅうさん - thirteen

じゅうよん - fourteen

じゅうご - fifteen

じゅうろく - sixteen

じゅうしち - seventeen

じゅうはち - eighteen

Pronounciation

Let's look at some words that many people are familiar with. These words are commonly used in English.

You need to pay close attention to differences in pronunciation! English speakers pronounce them based on English rules

But the original words are pronounced quite differently in Japanese.

Karaoke - カラオケ

Kamikaze - かみかぜ

Karate - からて

Anime - アニメ

Manga - まんが

The sound isn't the only thing that will change.

In English, manga and anime refer to a certain style of comics and cartoons. But in Japanese manga refers to all comics, and anime refers to all cartoons.

Also, Japanese people don't use the word kamikaze.

Futon - ふとん

Romaji - ローマじ

Tsunami - つなみ

Samurai - さむらい

Ninja - にんじゃ

Romaji is what we call Japanese that is written in English instead of Japanese characters.

Basic Words

Here is a list of words in Japanese. They're all very basic words you will hear all the time.

Good - いい - ii

Bad - ダメ - dame

Yes - はい - hai

No - いいえ - iie

Hello - こんにちは - konnichiwa

Goodbye - さようなら - sayounara

This - これ - kore

That - それ - sore

Thank you - ありがとう - arigatou

I (formal) - わたし - watashi