Let's learn NIHONGO (Japanese language)!

Thanks to the suggestions from another thread, I decided to start this thread I'll do my best to answer. And I hope jade and anyone else who understands Japanese, or even just a bit and knows the answer, can help too, in this thread!^^

You can ask me anything! Should I start with Japanese greetings or Japanese characters (kanji, hiragana, katakana)?

Hey~! I know some greetings that I've been learning. I've asked a Japanese penpal if it's the right way to introduce yourself and he said yes~! ^^


はじめまして、わたしはAmyです。どうぞよろしく。

Hajimemashite, Watashi wa Amy desu. Dōzo yoroshiku.

How do you do, I'm Amy. Pleased to meet you.


Apparently, wa should look like わ (wa) but in sentences it is written as if it is は (ha) but will still sound like wa ~! Confusing ne!

For me, I mainly know some slang words, but I can understand basic Japanese.
Like I normally greet people online by saying ちょりーす~ - Chorisu. (I blame Kinoshita Yukina for getting me obsessed with this term)
Or, I would use the term あげぽよ - agepoyo, whenever I get excited for something. xD

I just need to properly learn Kanji. D:

I know some basic Japanese X3

Otaku-Nipples wrote:Hey~! I know some greetings that I've been learning. I've asked a Japanese penpal if it's the right way to introduce yourself and he said yes~! ^^


はじめまして、わたしはAmyです。どうぞよろしく。

Hajimemashite, Watashi wa Amy desu. Dōzo yoroshiku.

How do you do, I'm Amy. Pleased to meet you.


Apparently, wa should look like わ (wa) but in sentences it is written as if it is は (ha) but will still sound like wa ~! Confusing ne!

The は here is a particle - I think of them as the Japanese's version of verbs. The common ones are は (pronounced wa when used as a particle) and を (wo).

Also, during speech, です (desu) is pronouced as des.

*stares at kanji*
wuuuut? o-o
i should really learn.

xinping2016 wrote:I know some basic Japanese X3

Otaku-Nipples wrote:Hey~! I know some greetings that I've been learning. I've asked a Japanese penpal if it's the right way to introduce yourself and he said yes~! ^^


はじめまして、わたしはAmyです。どうぞよろしく。

Hajimemashite, Watashi wa Amy desu. Dōzo yoroshiku.

How do you do, I'm Amy. Pleased to meet you.


Apparently, wa should look like わ (wa) but in sentences it is written as if it is は (ha) but will still sound like wa ~! Confusing ne!

The は here is a particle - I think of them as the Japanese's version of verbs. The common ones are は (pronounced wa when used as a particle) and を (wo).

Also, during speech, です (desu) is pronouced as des.

Yeah~! wa is the subject particle right?

Otaku-Nipples wrote:

xinping2016 wrote:I know some basic Japanese X3

Otaku-Nipples wrote:Hey~! I know some greetings that I've been learning. I've asked a Japanese penpal if it's the right way to introduce yourself and he said yes~! ^^


はじめまして、わたしはAmyです。どうぞよろしく。

Hajimemashite, Watashi wa Amy desu. Dōzo yoroshiku.

How do you do, I'm Amy. Pleased to meet you.


Apparently, wa should look like わ (wa) but in sentences it is written as if it is は (ha) but will still sound like wa ~! Confusing ne!

The は here is a particle - I think of them as the Japanese's version of verbs. The common ones are は (pronounced wa when used as a particle) and を (wo).

Also, during speech, です (desu) is pronouced as des.

Yeah~! wa is the subject particle right?

Yup!

I self-taught myself looking at the lyrics of Japanese songs
YUI's especially because she uses a lot of simple yet meaningful words in her songs!
As a result I know basic Kanji...but my friend said I'm playing it dirty since I'm chinese - I just look at the Kanji and guess my way thru. I'm not proud of it tho

Of course I'll help out on here (^-^)v
First, the most important thing to know. In Japanese, the sentence order is the opposite of English!

I eat pasta.
SUBJECT VERB OBJECT

私はパスタを食べる。
watashi-wa pasuta-wo taberu.
(I pasta eat)
SUBJECT OBJECT VERB

*The は/wa particle shows it's the subject. The を/wo particle shows it's the object. The verb comes last.*


Now you can learn to introduce yourself:

+ I am Jade.

+ 私はジェードです。
+ watashi-wa Jade desu.
(I Jade am)

Good luck everyone!

Another way to say I'm Amy (obviously putting your own name

So you have:

わたしはAmyです。

watashi wa Amy desu.

I (subject) am Amy

ですdesu = am/is/are

OR

わたしのなまえはAmyです。

watashi no namae wa Amy desu.

My name is Amy

の no = possession particle

i'm used to the order of the sentence opposing to english.
it's because i study indonesian and it's like that too. thank you for guiding people that don't understand very well, i appreciate it and i'm sure others appreciate this as well.

I've studied Japanese for 1½ years at uni so I'll be glad to help out!
In my school Japanese syntax is an obligatory part and from what I remember from the syntax lessons

は (wa) is the topic marker (what you're gonna talk about)
を (wo) is the object marker and
が (ga) is the subject marker

for example,

私は魚が好きです
watashi ha sakana ga sukidesu
I like fish

The topic, marked with は, is 'I'
and the subject, fish, is marked with が followed by the verb.

I know my hiragana and katakana fairly well, but I have almost no clue about kanji. XD

And I only know an assortment of nouns and the sentence structure "*blank* wa *blank* desu". >w<

I really need to practice my hiragana and katakana~!

I only know a bit of Kanji from learning beginners Mandarin during sixth form...

Guys guys guys
wanna know how I learned my hiragana and katakana?

First, I printed out a chart of each.
Each day (hiragana three years ago and katakana last year, I got a bit distracted and wasn't learning for a while), I would write a character on my hand, and its English romanization underneath. So I'd spend each day, looking at my hand all day and seeing the character. Every day I'd test myself on the ones I knew. It was a good way to memorize how the character looked, and keep drilling myself on the ones I knew already.

I LOVED THE HAND IDEA YOU ARE A GENIUS OK

Cinnamon is our Mori! Claps everyone! *o*

Cinnamonipples wrote:Guys guys guys
wanna know how I learned my hiragana and katakana?

First, I printed out a chart of each.
Each day (hiragana three years ago and katakana last year, I got a bit distracted and wasn't learning for a while), I would write a character on my hand, and its English romanization underneath. So I'd spend each day, looking at my hand all day and seeing the character. Every day I'd test myself on the ones I knew. It was a good way to memorize how the character looked, and keep drilling myself on the ones I knew already.

That's a really good idea! I might try that! I've been trying to learn them in lines of like

A I U E O then KA KI KU KE KO but it's hard to remember~! So I might try your idea instead

With hiragana and katakana, sometimes it's easy to remember them based on what they look like.

For example: ki-きkinda looks like a key. Ta-た-looks like ta (sort of). Shi-し-looks like long hair, so 'she'
hi-ひ- looks like a big smile saying 'hee hee' .he-へ (pronounced hey) makes me think of an eyebrow when someone says 'heyyy' ka-か- looks like a K to me, and ni-に- sort of looks like a knee.

The same thing can be done with some of the more basic level kanjis (like the ones used for weekdays)

I can actually read more than I can speak, but I really have to work on the talking. *grin*

enggrrl wrote:With hiragana and katakana, sometimes it's easy to remember them based on what they look like.

For example: ki-きkinda looks like a key. Ta-た-looks like ta (sort of). Shi-し-looks like long hair, so 'she'
hi-ひ- looks like a big smile saying 'hee hee' .he-へ (pronounced hey) makes me think of an eyebrow when someone says 'heyyy' ka-か- looks like a K to me, and ni-に- sort of looks like a knee.

The same thing can be done with some of the more basic level kanjis (like the ones used for weekdays)

I can actually read more than I can speak, but I really have to work on the talking. *grin*

That's how I learned my hiragana and katakana, actually o(^-^)o

enggrrl wrote:With hiragana and katakana, sometimes it's easy to remember them based on what they look like.

For example: ki-きkinda looks like a key. Ta-た-looks like ta (sort of). Shi-し-looks like long hair, so 'she'
hi-ひ- looks like a big smile saying 'hee hee' .he-へ (pronounced hey) makes me think of an eyebrow when someone says 'heyyy' ka-か- looks like a K to me, and ni-に- sort of looks like a knee.

The same thing can be done with some of the more basic level kanjis (like the ones used for weekdays)

I can actually read more than I can speak, but I really have to work on the talking. *grin*

I think it's easy to learn like that. Nice ideas!