Nihon Notes

Hiragana 9

2009-08-08T22:32:00.003-05:00

Ah, laziness. You make my world go round. And by round I mean in circles that get you nowhere.

Today we have RA. RA is one of those special cases in Japanese that will confuse the bejeebus out of English speakers. Why? Because RA is pronounced something like "la". It is supposedly more complicated than that, but I haven't exactly figured it out yet. Just keep in mind that RA sounds more like LA and try to sound smart. This applies to all of these R- Hiragana.

Actually the full lesson link has some more info on pronunciation, I encourage much practice on this one. I'll be practicing as well.

Full lesson:
http://japanese-lesson.com/characters/hiragana/hiragana_drill/hiragana09.html

ら (ra)

り (ri)

る (ru)

れ (re)

ろ (ro)

Remember always to practice writing them on paper. They are fun to write, so enjoy it. Practice recognition as usual at http://www.realkana.com/.

Hiragana 8

2009-07-21T23:54:00.003-05:00

I love the Y Hiragana set.

Full lesson here:
http://www.japanese-lesson.com/characters/hiragana/hiragana_drill/hiragana08.html

や (ya)

ゆ (yu)

よ (yo)

You may be wondering what happened to "yi" and "ye". Well, Japan decided that yi and ye were simply too complicated and that having i and e in their place would be better. So on a chart of Hiragana you may see an i and e in the blank spots. Since there is already both an i and an e there was no reason to make a new character for them.

Why do I love the Y set? Something about it makes it easy to remember. よ looks kind of like "YO" written in some kind of sideways cursive. や kinda reminds me of a Y too. ゆ...looks like a fish, I have no idea how that makes it easy to remember but whatever.

As practiced many times, make sure to write the Hiragana repeatedly, and practice your virtual flash cards at http://www.realkana.com/.

Hiragana 7

2009-07-19T22:37:00.002-05:00

M is our daily letter today. No surprises this time!

Full lesson here:
http://www.japanese-lesson.com/characters/hiragana/hiragana_drill/hiragana07.html

ま (ma)

み (mi)

む (mu)

め (me)

も (mo)

You get to practicing! Write it. Recognize it. http://www.realkana.com/

Love it.

Hiragana 6

2009-07-18T21:48:00.004-05:00

H time! This is about halfway through the Hiragana!

Full lesson:
http://japanese-lesson.com/characters/hiragana/hiragana_drill/hiragana06.html

は (ha)

ひ (hi)

ふ (fu) !!!!

へ (he)

ほ (ho)

As per usual, practice writing and recognition (http://www.realkana.com/).

FU!

Hiragana 5

2009-07-17T19:47:00.005-05:00

Today's lesson is brought to you by the letter na. Try saying that to someone on the street, and admire the baffled look.

Full lesson:
http://japanese-lesson.com/characters/hiragana/hiragana_drill/hiragana05.html

な (na)

に (ni)

ぬ (nu)

ね (ne)

の (no)

Practice practice practice...until you're blue in the face. Write it on paper. Use http://www.realkana.com/ for visual practice.

Remember to pace yourself when learning the Hiragana for the first time. It's a lot to take in at once. I wrote these lessons to be gone over with at least a day's time in between. If you rush through you're likely to not remember anything. This would be counterproductive, so don't.

Hiragana 4

2009-07-16T18:41:00.003-05:00

Today's post will be about the wonderful world of TA. In TA world there lives TA, TI, TU, TE, and TO.

Comfortable?

Good. I lied. TA world actually consists of TA, CHI, TSU, TE, TO. These are the other 2 exceptions to the pattern that I mentioned previously...and hey I might even be lying about that too. Same as the last time, the reason the pattern is different is only because of how they are actually pronounced.

By the way, if you aren't using the links I am providing you are only getting half of the story. I write these instructional posts with it in mind that you will visit the links and study what is there.

Full lesson:
http://www.japanese-lesson.com/characters/hiragana/hiragana_drill/hiragana04.html

た (ta)

ち (chi) - as in "cheese"

つ (tsu) - as in "tsunami"

て (te)

と (to)

Make sure to practice writing on paper, and practice recognition at http://www.realkana.com/. Any questions or comments are welcome. My e-mail is at nihonnotes [at] gmail [dot] com

Hiragana 3

2009-07-15T19:21:00.003-05:00

Today I'll list off the SA line of characters. You should be seeing a pattern at this point. It is easy to remember what sounds are in the Japanese language. You just have to associate those sounds with the letters, which is obviously the hard part. Again, if you are having trouble remembering them, I can't say enough how much I love the book Remembering the Kana.

Full lesson here:
http://japanese-lesson.com/characters/hiragana/hiragana_drill/hiragana03.html

さ (sa)

し (shi)

す (su)

せ (se)

そ (so)

Whoa! That doesn't follow the pattern! No need to worry. There are only 3 exceptions to the a, i, u, e, o pattern. し by all means is "si"... but in spoken Japanese it is pronounced SHI. So thus we romanize it shi. Just keep calm and take it all in slowly. Now go practice at http://www.realkana.com/. Remember to practice writing it by hand too.

I haven't mentioned how important stroke order is yet. In the full lesson link they teach you how to write the character, they also show you proper stoke order. You NEED to write it in this fashion. I am not sure why, but I am fairly sure if you don't, a にんじゃ will be at your house in a couple minutes to show you his かたな.

Hiragana 2

2009-07-14T18:30:00.000-05:00

If you haven't already, obtain some graph paper in which to practice these characters on. There is a practice sheet you can print out here:
http://japanese-lesson.com/characters/hiragana/pdf/hiragana_writing.pdf
You should write them a good deal of times until they feel at least somewhat natural to write. This post is going to focus on the KA family of characters. Because you should know how to pronounce the vowels by now (and vowel sounds never change in Japanese...as far as I know), I shouldn't need to give you instruction on pronunciation. If you do need help, feel free to ask in comments.

Full lesson here:
http://japanese-lesson.com/characters/hiragana/hiragana_drill/hiragana02.html

か (ka) - "kah" as in "calm" for example

き (ki)

く (ku)

け (ke)

こ (ko)

Again, you need to practice writing these. It is very important if you hope to be able to write Japanese one day. After you feel like you have a good grip on them, test yourself with this set and the first set on http://www.realkana.com/.

Again, any questions or corrections, post a comment of send me an email at nihonnotes [at] gmail [dot] com

Encouragement

2009-07-13T17:30:00.002-05:00

Here is an inspiring word from a man more experienced than I.

http://pepper.idge.net/japanese/

I am greatly moved by this! I will be studying double time from henceforth.

Hiragana 1

2009-07-13T10:11:00.008-05:00

For your entertainment, the "Japanese Alphabet Song".

Catchy, mmmm'yes.

So that video displays all 46 basic letters of Hiragana, and how to pronounce them in a very loud and annoying voice. For a chart listing all the basic Hiragana, have a look here:
http://www.japanese-lesson.com/characters/hiragana/index.html#gojuon
As a side note, the site www.japanese-lesson.com is a wonderful resource and I will be linking to it often.

Before I say anything else, I suggest a book purchase. Get "Remembering the Kana" by James W. Heisig. I mentioned it earlier and I will mention it again. The methods enclosed will spark your "imaginative memory" into remembering the letters with ease. At first it may be a crutch, but you are free to stop using that crutch once you learn the letters well enough. Here is a link to it on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kana-Reading-Japanese-Syllabaries/dp/0824831640/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247501839&sr=8-1

If you decide to forego Remembering the Kana, I will have to suggest that you take learning the Hiragana slowly and do a LOT of repetition. Either way, I will go over the Hiragana here, in dictionary order. I'll suggest about 5 kana to study per post. First up, vowels!

Full lesson here:
http://www.japanese-lesson.com/characters/hiragana/hiragana_drill/hiragana01.html

あ (a) - pronounced "ah" as in "...ah"

い (i) - pronounced "ee" as in "key"

う (u) - pronounced "oo" as in "goo"

え (e) - pronounced "eh" as in "neigh"

お (o) - pronounced "oh" as in "bo"

I suggest listening to the pronunciations on the lesson linked above. It is very important to get the sounds of these vowels down correctly, and I can't say my example words are the best. When you are comfortable pronouncing them, start memorizing them! You can use the drills on japanese-lesson, even if the voices sound like rusting cyborgs. Drill 3 is particularly useful in my mind, teaching you some vocabulary at the same time. Also, you need to head on over to
http://www.realkana.com/
and use the drill there. All you have to do is go the the Hiragana tab and check off the row you want, then go to the Katakana tab and make sure nothing is checked. Once everything is set, click on the Practice tab and start cementing these letters in your memory.

Memorize these to where you can see them and almost immediately know what they are before moving forward. If you have to make up mental pictures, rhymes, whatever...go ahead and do that to keep them in your memory. Just make sure they stick. When learning more kana down the road, you will need to constantly re-drill these same letters to keep them fresh in your mind.

Written Japanese

2009-07-12T14:54:00.006-05:00

Written Japanese is comprised of 4 different systems. Each of them can say the same exact thing, written in different ways. They are Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, and Rōmaji.

Hiragana (ひらがな) - Hiragana is a phonetic alphabet. That might sound complicated but it isn't. Each letter stands for a syllable in spoken Japanese (e.g. か = ka). There are 46 basic letters in all, with multiple ways to alter them. Hiragana is used for writing native Japanese words that don't have a kanji associated with it, or whose kanji is relatively unknown. It has more curved shapes compared to Katakana and Kanji. When learning the writing system, this is usually your first stop.

Katakana (カタカナ) - Katakana is also a phonetic alphabet. As a matter of fact it's the same alphabet as Hiragana! Why are there two alphabets for the same sounds? Katakana is used to write foreign words and onomatopoeia. For example, アメリカ reads "amerika". This would not be written in Hiragana simply because it is not a native Japanese word. I look at Katakana as a flag that tells me the word I am about to read will likely be a butchered English word, made to fit into Japanese syllables. It's usually pretty entertaining to read! It should be noted that Katakana is block-shaped compared to Hiragana.

Kanji (漢字) - Kanji is the bane of any student of Japanese. These are the thousands of symbols that you see when looking at Japanese writing that make your eyes roll back and the drool pour forth. Kanji characters are ideographic (in English: representing ideas), with the thought being the character symbolizes what it means. So you have thousands of symbols that all vaguely represent their meaning. Awesome. To seal the deal, most Japanese writing prefers to use Kanji over any other form of writing where possible. I am sure there are some rules to this, but I can't say I know what they are. To be "newspaper literate" in Japan, you must know how to read at least 2,000 Kanji. There are a few different lists describing which of these are considered important to know. These characters are VERY pretty to look at, and are generally blocky with few curved lines.

Rōmaji - Rōmaji is Japanese written in Roman letters. Yes, English! It is a relief to know that there is a system that uses English. Unfortunately nobody really uses it natively. It will be helpful to us while learning the written language either way, so we are grateful. It should be understood that even though the letters are in English, the sounds are still Japanese. So don't try to pronounce things the way you would in English.

I'll be going over what I learned of Hiragana first, proceeding to Katakana, and then Kanji. I have only just started learning Kanji at this point, so that may be drawn out. As usual, any comments or corrections are welcome!

The Plotted Course

2009-07-12T08:35:00.009-05:00

When I decided to start learning Japanese, I had no clue on where I should start or how. I was working full time and had no idea if the interest would last long enough to justify college instruction or not. So I tried to grab a couple of different resources for self study. Among them I picked up Rosetta Stone Japanese, Pimsleur Japanese, a number of books, and even "My Japanese Coach" for Nintendo DS.

A lot of people seem to hold Rosetta Stone in very high praise for learning a new language. It left me wanting some more guidance after the first lesson. They associate words with pictures of what it means. This works...but sometimes I just want it to say, "this means that". It never does, so if you don't fully grasp the words associated with the picture you will have a problem. But this is all drawing off one lesson of experience. I will give it more of a shot a little down the road and report back.

Pimsleur was more descriptive than Rosetta Stone in my mind. It is a set of CD's that you can listen to with translations of words and sentences with focus on repetition. Eventually words stick and you can actually understand what the speakers are saying. I have learned a decent amount of vocabulary from the course but am only on lesson 5. I recommend these lessons for those looking to get a quick grasp on spoken Japanese.

My Japanese Coach for Nintendo DS. You're likely wondering if such a game could actually be informative. The answer is yes. I would actually go so far as to say at this point I like it more than Rosetta Stone. The structure is lesson based, and it teaches vocabulary, sentence structuring, writing, etc. It is a comprehensive course for only $30! The drawback is the integrity of the information. I know at least some of the stroke orders on the characters they teach are off. Learning the wrong stroke order is not such a good thing in written Japanese (or so I'm adamantly instructed).

I have a number of books, and at this point they are the ones guiding me through the blackness of ignorance. Remembering the Kana (by James W. Heisig) is hands down the fastest method of learning the kana writing systems. Remembering the Kanji (also by James W. Heisig) is what I am working on now, and it seems to show the same promise. I will go over them a bit more in depth later. I also have Kodansha's furigana Japanese dictionary. It has Japanese > English and English > Japanese dictionaries all wrapped up into one compact package. It has been a good dictionary so far for my skill level, I would recommend it. Be warned however...all Japanese words are written kana/kanji. Fortunately all kanji has furigana associated with it (furigana is tiny kana written above, showing how to pronounce the kanji).

Someone reading this might be scratching their head at this point saying things like, "Can-jee whut?". Being that I tackled learning to read and write the kana so efficiently, I am going to go over the written language first. My knowledge at this point is almost entirely comprised of kana anyway.

Any comments are welcome and encouraged. If you feel the need to e-mail me, you can reach me at nihonnotes [at] gmail [dot] com .

Preface

2009-07-11T21:12:00.006-05:00

Welcome to Nihon Notes! This blog is (projected to be) about my journey in trying to learn the Japanese language.

I am a 21 year old gamer, who like many other gamers, has a fascination with Japan. This has sprouted from a lifetime of playing japan-made games. As most of us here know, Japanese makes no sense to the average American. Being so, there are times when I cannot understand a game that I'd really like to play! If it's not getting a translation in some manner of English, than most of us are totally screwed out of playing it. I was fed up with it one day!

Thus I study the language. Someday I may attain the goal of fluency, but not without a lot of effort. I am writing this blog for a number of reasons, foremost being to keep pressure on myself to continue learning. Another is to hopefully get insightful input from others. And yet another is to encourage those who are considering studying Japanese to do so. I am having a lot of fun studying the language and having those, "Oh, that's what that means." moments.

I feel obligated to say that I am in no way a language master, and anything written here is possibly completely incorrect. In the event that you find a mistake, please let me know about it! Anything that you can input towards learning would be appreciated. Beyond that, any comments are encouraged. I hope this blog will be helpful to you, and frankly, to me.