2511 replies to this topic

[綺麗な氷]

Come to this thread to study japanese! learn and share what you know!

[yakuruto]

Since you started this you should be the first to share some knowledge, don't you think?

[wakuwaku]

with what this should start?

"inu ga hashirimasu" is good enough to start??

my jap knowledge is weird...I cant talk, only read...Im supposed to know 500 kanjis, but only remember pronuntiation of 400 and probably remember how to write 300 of them

[綺麗な氷]

well i don't know what other people know. I don't want to say a bunch of stuff everybody already knows.
ok here i go anyway.
sumanai should mean "excuse me" and be equal to "sumimasen" but i hear it translated as "boring" all of the time on fansubs.
yappari seems to mean "i knew it!"
hora means look
oppunai means trouble
genki can mean cheery healthy or even hyper

anyway onto gramman

everyone here should already know watashi wa
written in japanese as わたしは　or 私は
there are several forms of the word me or watashi i have ordered them in formality
私（わたし）
わたくし
僕（ぼく）
おれ

here are the versions of you or anata
あなた
きみ
おまえ
きさま
everything past would be just plain cursing

though i figure this is all to simple for everyone here.
please someone else share!

[wakuwaku]

hmm...boring its tsumaranai, maybe you're hearing wrong

kisama...its not exactly a polite way to use, its kinda offensive right? (remembering fight animes and characters pissed off yelling KISAMA!!!)

oppunai? dont you mean abunai as in dangerous??

boku should be male only, right?

now ill translate the phrase i put on my above reply to share some knowledge

"inu ga hashirimasu"= the dog runs
there you go, now thats a useful phrase

[綺麗な氷]

hmm...boring its tsumaranai, maybe you're hearing wrong

kisama...its not exactly a polite way to use, its kinda offensive right? (remembering fight animes and characters pissed off yelling KISAMA!!!)

oppunai? dont you mean abunai as in dangerous??

boku should be male only, right?

now ill translate the phrase i put on my above reply to share some knowledge

"inu ga hashirimasu"= the dog runs
there you go, now thats a useful phrase

kisama from what i know is the most impolite form of you but it still means that.
and thank you for correcting me on those i wasn't very sure because i just heard them and never saw them written out.
females say boke more than ore.
ore is the most informal use of i that i know of.
the top section of what i learned were just repetative h!p use.
i'm glad to now know what they actually said.

[agb]

Hentai means pervert
Taihen means trouble

No, it doesn't come from people calling me that ...

[綺麗な氷]

Hentai means pervert
Taihen means trouble

No, it doesn't come from people calling me that ...

taihen means terrible
like "sore wa taihen!" meaning that's terrible!

[hu5h]

I begining to take more and more notice of kanjis in my japanese learning and now I'm wondering how ppl actually write them on a computer? In my superb JLookUp application I can search for a kanji and then paste it into my text but how is it normally done? Something like if you write 'wa + ta + shi' it changes into 私??

I seriously have no clue on how this is done anybody knows?

oh and I'm with agb on taihen. It should mean trouble thus making 'sore wa taihen' into 'that's trouble/terrible' ;p

[turbos86]

How to type kanji? The way I do it, it's just press space after typing out what I want, and it'll ask me if I want to use which form. I'm on Win X P with Japanese IME, so don't know how your's is.

[qx123]

Cannot use njstar?
type watashi then got the form of watashi and the kanji form watashi to choose from already...

[hu5h]

I haven't the jap IME installed yet as it seemed kinda difficult getting everything to work when I tried. I didn't really need it then so I might just have been 'bah screw it' and just relied on JLookUp. But I'll try to do it now seems like it's really easy to use compared to the app I use

njstar seems nice too
大好き
whoa! it works
thx for the info!

[綺麗な氷]

you should install the IME before anything else
anyway NJStar is okay
try JWPce also

[agb]

njstar was my primary ime before winxp, even used it for a long time on win2k. But winxp has really supplanted any need for a plug-in. It actually is a barrier for me to migrate to linux because foreign language support in linux is not as simple

[bonta kun]

I've been interested to learn the language for quite sometime now. Not really sure what to put here so I'll just quote from a book my friend let me borrow.

Levels of Speech
Aburpt - used when speaking "down" to children, animals, or other social inferiors;

Informal - used when speaking with close friends, family members or peers in a casual situation;

Normal-polite - (also called the Desu-masu Form) used when speaking with strangers, business associates, and others when courtesy is called for;

Honorific - used in very formal situations or when speaking to superiors, clients, etc.

The differences between the levels show up in choce of vocabulary, verb endings and other grammatical constructions. There is a degree of acceptable overlap between the levels of speech, as well as certain traditional Honorific expressions that may be used at any level (greetings, apologies, etc.). Informal verb endings are also freely used in "Impersonal" speech, such as broadcast new, formal announcements, etc.

Author: Lampkin, Rita.
Title: JAPANESE Verbs & Essentials of Grammar 2nd edition.

[tchenku_rms13]

I just watched about 2/3 of Last Samurai to see what I can pick up on.. I think about 10% only haha. It's all mumbly and they use words I've never heard of (corresponding to the English translations..). Is the language really archaic, formal formal? j/w

Plus I guess guys talk kind of mumbly compared to all these H!P vids

[mastercave]

what's the difference between saying "nani?" and "nani ga?" i know "ga" is used as a subject marker, but not sure if it makes a difference in this case.

[niphty]

<-- new member

I've been studying up my Japanese lately.. having now moved from anime on to J-drama and all forms of J-music (except J-rap.. hehe.. cute Japanese guys rapping is humorous to me) so I needed to be able to understand a little better. That, and I like the Japanese culture so much.. it's actually an honor to learn the language as well =D

Anyway, for my regimen of home-training the basics I use:
Japanese for Dummies - sounds funny, but the Dummies books are ALWAYS excellent and written by masters in thier fields and made so anyone can read it. This is a real adult-level book and speaks to you that way.
Japanese in 10 minutes a day - This one's much more basic, child-like almost.. but it's very very good at getting all the basics and learning a lot of things in a very short ammount of time.
Mangajin's Basic Japanese through Comics 1 & 2 - Excellent situational and culture reference book, putting phrases, politeness and some basic sentance structure and understanding out there for you. The comics really help to explain the situations in which certain phrases are used.. so you don't look too much like a baka =D
Easy Kana Workbook - You should learn Japanese writing while you're learning the language. It helps to understand the word and phoentic breakup (due to the characters being seperate sounds, etc) when you're trying to listen to or speak Japanese properly. This workbook takes you through Hiragana, gives you practice sentances both horizontal and vertical to get practice both ways, then gives you Katakana to do the same with.
Japanese Kanji Flashcards - Flashcards are great for learning anything, and complex kanji really takes some time to learn. These let you work at your own pace on them.

Beyond those come the more complex books. Of course, a japanese to english dictionary is good, but I also have Baron's Japanese Grammer book on hand as well. Once you get a bit more confident in your abilities..
Breaking into Japanese Literature - This book is amazing, Japanese literary tales in their original and translated forms with notes on everything you'd need. The book actually has a link to only MP3 where you can hear them read aloud. Very nice.
Kodansha's Dictionary of Basic Japanese Idioms - Another truely amazing book. This breaks down a lot of daily phrases one might take for granted so you understand the root and how it's evolved over time into its present form and meaning.

Lastly, a fun book: Making Out in Japanese - this book is one of the neater titles out there, giving you some distinctions on the male/female sayings commonly used. It gives you all the basics of greetings, phone conversations, and yes.. it even moves on to dating and some of the more.. *ahem* in depth.. conversations There's also a More and Even more making out.. books out there, though I haven't gotten to them yet.

If you manage to get really confident.. you can start ordering children's renshuu (practice) workbooks directly from Japan and building yourself up that way. They're a lot more daunting, as there's zero english help to them But more rewarding the first time you finish one.

As for simple words and such here.. baka is most any gaijin's first Japanese word.. meaning, of course, idiot

[seresv7]

hajimemashite, Ogenki desu ka?

I think it says hello, and how are u


Is that right

[hu5h]

hajimemashite, Ogenki desu ka?

I think it says hello, and how are u


Is that right

quite right notice tho that hadjimemashite is only used the first time your meeting someone new. hadjime = begin,start

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I started to use the win IME now and I like it I really like how you choose an apropiate kanji with space. Only thing, I still have to use like JLookUp or something since I'm not skilled with kanjis yet