Beginner Japanese

[river_chaos]

....I'm starting to hate my little dictionary.

Are you saying I'm getting good at translating Japanese, Durendal? Or did I totally get that wrong?

[*Jess♥]

maybe it's a little too challenging?

I always prefer to take baby steps when introducing things.

this part is katakana - リュキ

this part is a verb - 怒ã£ãŸ the verb is conjugated and is past tense. ( is it past perfect? something that has already happened. it has completed. like the car has broken. )

durendal, do you think it's ok to include verbs just now? or do you think it might be a bit complicated just yet?

[ErutanXiku]

I apologise for interrupting the lesson, but may I ask a question regarding the following?

kinyoubi is friday. youbi is day. kin is money. so to remember that it's friday think of it as 'payday'.

Japanese days of the week are named after the Eastern elements (Fire/Earth/Water/Wood/Metal and two celestial beings (Sun and Moon) As I remember, 'Kane' is the word for 'Money' and 'Kin' is the word for 'Gold' (a precious metal...) I guess you could still consider 'Pay Day' to make it easier to remember, but wouldn't that be confusing the words 'Kin' and 'Kane'?

I really should learn to read Japanese text...Romaji can only get me so far...Would you happen to be in a position to recommend a good dictionary? I've got maybe two phrasebooks which have a little mention of the characters, but it's done wonders for my pronounciation.

Edited October 12, 2011 by ErutanXiku

[durendal]

Wow, was it that hard?

Watching some anime, I thought these were the common phrases that are usually heard when you watch anime. Aw shucks, if I had to explain this, then my gag will be ruined. Anyways....

ã—ã¾ã£ãŸ! = Oh no!

リュキ = Ryuki

㌠= IS/WAS (giving emphasis on Ryuki)

怒ã£ãŸ! = Angry

皆ã€= everyone

逃ã‚!!!! = run!!!

(冗談) = kidding

Analyzing it further, do pardon me as I used too much colloquial words.

perhaps if I rephrased it like so:

ã—ã¾ã£ãŸ! リュキãŒæ€’ã‚Šã¾ã—ãŸ! 皆ã•ã‚“,逃ã’ã—ãªã•ã„!

[river_chaos]

Ahhh, I thought I saw Ryuki in there.

[*Jess♥]

but wouldn't that be confusing the words 'Kin' and 'Kane'?

since both are the same kanji, it's no problem to me. but perhaps it could be confusing to others. either way, gold can be considered to be currency anyway, ã­?

I really should learn to read Japanese text...Romaji can only get me so far...Would you happen to be in a position to recommend a good dictionary?

yep. I think the Oxford dictionary has improved a LOT lately. my original dictionary was quite bad and had the japanese words arranged in english alphabet order ... well the latest edition has it in proper japanese order. I have the Oxford Japanese Mini Dictionary (2009) and find it to be quite useful. but it's not the ideal for learning reading. for reading, I use Gakken å°å­¦æ¼¢å­—１ï¼ï¼ï¼– that is available from ebay as far as I know, that's where i purchased it.

[*Jess♥]

Wow, was it that hard?

Watching some anime, I thought these were the common phrases that are usually heard when you watch anime.

not many people are listening to hte words when watching anime though.

when subtitles are there, the actual dialogue can become simply noise. I think some people hear intonations and they might pick up on some small phrases like 'yatta!' or 'yurusenai' or something like that, but not actual phrases and dialogue.

this is what i'm thinking.

but i'm dyslexic so it might be different for others.

[ErutanXiku]

but wouldn't that be confusing the words 'Kin' and 'Kane'?

since both are the same kanji, it's no problem to me. but perhaps it could be confusing to others. either way, gold can be considered to be currency anyway, ã­?

Aah...that makes sense! Thank you for explaining that - I didn't know they were the same character

I really should learn to read Japanese text...Romaji can only get me so far...Would you happen to be in a position to recommend a good dictionary?

yep. I think the Oxford dictionary has improved a LOT lately. my original dictionary was quite bad and had the japanese words arranged in english alphabet order ... well the latest edition has it in proper japanese order. I have the Oxford Japanese Mini Dictionary (2009) and find it to be quite useful. but it's not the ideal for learning reading. for reading, I use Gakken å°å­¦æ¼¢å­—１ï¼ï¼ï¼– that is available from ebay as far as I know, that's where i purchased it.

I think I can get the Oxford one quite easily, but I did a search for the Gakken one but couldn't find it...I did however manage to find an app that covers the basics on Hiragana; Katakana and Kanji. It seems to be okay so far...

Thank you again for the recommendation

Just a quick question - the word for Welshman > Uueruzu-jin; is it written with the 'U' character because there is no 'We' character? So writing it like that gives it a similar sound to what it's supposed to sound like? (Weeruzu-jin)

[*Jess♥]

almost. ehm, it uses a normal 'U' and a small 'E' which is most easily typed with the keys 'we' when using a western keyboard and conversion software.

Riv, should we split this topic for you? it's becoming less of your blog and more of a language lesson.

not that it's a problem for me, it's up to you.

edit:

I must have bought that book from amazon - http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E5%B0%8F%E5%AD%A6%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%971006%E2%80%95%E8%AA%AD%E3%81%BF%E6%96%B9%E3%80%81%E6%9B%B8%E3%81%8D%E6%96%B9%E3%81%8C%E3%81%99%E3%81%90%E3%82%8F%E3%81%8B%E3%82%8B-%E5%AD%A6%E7%A0%94/dp/4053008255/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318505357&sr=1-2

[river_chaos]

Riv, should we split this topic for you? it's becoming less of your blog and more of a language lesson.

not that it's a problem for me, it's up to you.

Yeah, seeing as how many pages we've taken up so far I think it would be best to split it.

[durendal]

Perhaps I can point you lovely people to this thread:

[*Jess♥]

ok I wrote this - 　幼ã‹ã‚‰ã€åƒ•ã®å¤¢ãŒã‚‚ã£ã¨å°ã•ã„ã¨ã„ã¾ã™ï¼

now, this was quite adventurous for me since I am not completely familiar with this sentence type.

I believe i have gotten it right but i hope that durendal can tell me what it says and hopefully i said it correctly.

if you ut it in a spoilers tag, then river can still try working it out.

[durendal]

perhaps you were aiming for this:

幼頃ã‹ã‚‰ã€åƒ•ã®å¤¢ãŒã‚‚ã£ã¨å°ã•ã„ã¨æ€ã„ã¾ã™!

Which am I correct to understand that since you were a child, your dreams have been smaller?

[*Jess♥]

thanks I must have written it wrong or you would have gotten it. it isn't what you have suggested though.

I was aiming for

since I was a child, I have dreamed of being tiny. (you know like the people in gulliver's travels)

[river_chaos]

Hmm....Ryuki, can we try to learn the grammar structure first? It would probably help out a lot if we knew how the sentences are structured in Japanese.

[*Jess♥]

of course.

I can help out with what i know. but I am by no means an expert in grammar. and structure.

i'll make use of examples to show a grammatical structure.

first thing I'll say is that Japanese makes use of a lot of implied context. for for example, instead of saying to you, my bike is very fast. I might say "bike very fast" in japanese of coure. but that should give you a good idea.

so if i were to then follow with a japanese phrase - 赤ã„自転車ãŒå¥½ãã§ã™ã€‚I'll tell you straight up that this means, 'I love the red bike'.

I won't write the english words in japanese order like some try to do, because the words are not equivalent.

instead i'll tell you each bit. 赤ㄠis red. 自転車is bicycle. ㌠is the object indicator. 好ã is favourite or 'like'. ã§ã™ mean 'it is'.

so you see, the sentence structure is subject, object, verb. well actually, the subject was implied in this case. so you do't see the subject in this example. the subject is myself. so to tell it in full, I would say ç§ã¯èµ¤ã„自転車ãŒå¥½ãã§ã™ã€‚

another thing to note is that suki is the verb here, but in some ways we could consider it a pronoun adverb(?). because it is more similar to our use of the word 'favourite' rather than our use of the term 'to like'.

does this make any sense?

in all honesty, this is the type fo thing that comes clearer through experience and being exposed to the language so don't worry if you don't fully get it.

I also considered that some people aren't fully sure about subject, object and other grammatical terms.

this works in any language because it's part of language full stop.

the subject is the main thing that the sentence is about. the object is the something else that is being considered. in relation to the subject.

actually, in english, emphasis can define which is the subject or the object. in japanese, it seems to be expressly indicated.

㯠indicated subject,　㌠indicates object.

in english if we emphasise certain parts you can get the following -

JOHN likes peas. . in this case, john is the object and peas is the subject and would be the answer to such a question as "who likes peas?"

John likes PEAS. . in this case, john is the subject and peas is the object and would be the answer to such a question as "what does John like?"

hope that makes this clear, unless you already knew it well enough XD

[durendal]

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Because frankly, I'm not really good with nouns pronouns and all that english rules. One technique you might employ is that the japanese grammar is the complete opposite of english grammar. So the phrase "I like this bike" can be formed in japanese as "this bike I like". Hmm.... now that you mentioned this, Yoda (Star Wars) does seems to speak in Japanese grammar. So you may want to practice speaking Yoda to be familiar with Japanese grammar.

And if you are serious in learning Japanese without formal lessons, read lots of raw manga with a Japanese-English dictionary on hand. This has worked wonders for me. I swear I learned Japanese through playing games before I actually had formal lessons.

[river_chaos]

Sadly, I understood both of you.

I understood Ryuki because I tend to write a lot (and I also pointed out a thousand or so grammar mistakes in the Twilight books to one of my friends in high school just to annoy them).

Durendal used Yoda as a reference, and I actually didn't know he spoke like that I might actually follow your advice on reading raw Japanese manga with a dictionary in hand.

Thank you both!