(or This isn't a pen. This is a pen for God's sake!!!)
Now that we have a little bit better idea of how to pronounce some Japanese, let's jump right in and start to learn some of the grammar so that we can start to say some simple, yet very important phrases.
In the real world we are always asking questions and looking for information so it might be beneficial to learn how to make a question or two as well. And where would we end up if we always said "yes" to every proposition we were offered? Perhaps the vice president's chair but more likely we would end up either in jail, some deserted back lane or heaven forbid, a cemetery. So as Nancy Reagan once said it, "Just Say No." Was that Nancy? I'm sorry but I don't recall saying that ...
As an aside, rather than have a long vocabulary list at the end of each lesson, I prefer to use the vocabulary that is in the examples. If I decide to make questions using unfamiliar words, I will put those in a table at the end. Otherwise, just consider the lesson as having the vocabulary directly in it. After all, who wants to memorize lists of words, anyway, right?
The Basic Sentence Structure: A wa B desu.
Japanese has a very straightforward sentence structure as you see above. We do not invert, rotate, or otherwise do funny things with it like we do in English (how many exceptions to the rules are there again?). The basic pattern is A wa B desu. This essentially means "A is B." The verb to be in this sentence is, as you might guess, desu. This is the polite form of the verb. There is also a "dictionary" or ordinary form as well and it is da. The wa in the sentence is a particle that marks the thing or person by means of B. It doesn't change; very simple. Very simple indeed.
Let's look at a few examples, shall we?
1. Kore wa pen desu.
(This is a pen.)
2. Watashi wa dokushin desu.
(I am single.)
3. Kanojo wa Kanadajin desu.
(She is Canadian.)
4. Kono pasokon wa baka desu.
(This computer is stupid.)
5. Buutsu wa neko desu.
(Boots is a cat.)
As you can see, the pattern is exactly the same throughout all of the examples. The only thing that changes is the vocabulary. Once you have mastered several useful words in Japanese, you can say very rudimentary statements regarding the existence of things.
Another very easy thing about Japanese is how you describe nationalities. In English we have so many different ways of doing it (American, Canadian, New Zealander, etc.) but in Japanese all you have to do is add jin to the end of a country and you have a native of that location (Amerika-jin, Kanada-jin, NyuuJiirando-jin).
More to follow...
- Sensei
Next Lesson: Lesson Three - How to make a question
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7 comments:
Would Scotland/Scottish be sakatorandojin?
Lyvvie - That's pretty close. It would be more like Sukottorando-jin. I don't know if you can see this Japanese without it going all funky on you (if you have font sets you will be able to see it), but it looks like this:
スコットランド人 where スコットランド is Scotland and 人 is -jin, or person. That last character can be read as -jin, -nin, or hito.
I have a question about blogger for you. I get an announcement when I have a new message, and I usually go to my dashboard. But the Dashboard never really seems to indicate new messages, as different from ones that are always there. Am I missing something?
Also, whenever I come here to leave a comment I get a window that tells me I'm "leaving a secure area". I don't know why, or how to fix it, even if I can.
Do you know anything about these things? Like I said, I am rarely here.
Thanks for answering about Scotland, when we come over, it would be great for the kids to know how to say it properly. I'm learning Japanese backwards, where I'm learning hiragana and katakana before learning how to speak Japanese. I'm the kind of person who can decipher sentences easier that way. Everyone else in the house is learning from phrase recordings.
About blogger, as you have comments sent to you via e-mail; from the e-mail you can click the link directly to go to where the comment is, that way you don't have to scroll through all your posts to find the one post that may have a different number of comments than you remember last. I use this for comment spam, as those buggers like to trawl through archives and drop spam turds. That way I can find exactly where they left it and delete it.
Some people like to use a program called Haloscan, which moderates comments. The downside of that is you'd lose all existing blogger comments, but it's a lot more useful if you want to track comments closely. Just Google Haloscan and it'll come up. I used to have it but found it was just an extra thing I didn't need to maintain. I prefer simple.
Regarding the "leaving secure area" message, I'm pretty certain this isn't a blogger message, but one that comes from your browser. I use Firefox, and when I first leave a secure are, it'll give a drop down warning much the same as you're seeing. In that window was a tickbox which says "don't show me this message again". It doesn't mean never tell me I'm leaving a secure section, but just on blogger, because I leave a lot of comments and don't need the annoyance of ticking "yes, thanks, I know," every time. Have a look at your browser settings to see if you can deactivate that warning. I find I usually know when I have a secure setting by the wee padlock and yellow url. We're Mac folks, so I couldn't tell you step by step how to do this on a windows browser, but I'm sure they'll have a FAQ that'll explain it.
Does that help?
It works smashingly well, dear Lyvvie. And to get to this page, that little annoying window popped up again so I will go into my browser settings and see if I can turn it off. It never happens on any of the other non-blogger blogs so I imagine it must be the way this google blogging platform is set up. Bingo! Found it, now let's see how well it works.
This is pretty interesting, I must admit because I don't know if there really is anyone else looking at this blog, other than you! I feel like a "blog newbie" with my first "blog friend". Considering that I have written near 1,000 blogs of substance since I started, it is a bit of a strange feeling...
When are you coming to Japan? Where will you be? How long will you be here for? What are your reasons for coming?
Ooooh! So many questions!
I love you!
Cam
When are you coming to Japan? Well if I have my way in as little as twelve months. Reality is closer to eighteen.
Where will you be? If my Husband gets a transfer, it'll be Kobe. I want to go to Sapporo. We'll see is the only answer for now. I figure a lot of vacationing around will be top priority.
How long will you be here for? Well, we've planned for two years - this is a pure, 100% adventure for us. Our ultimate plan is to emigrate to Australia. I was daydreaming one day and asked "Why don't we move to Japan for a couple years before going to Oz," and Hubs said "Ok!" and it's been all systems go ever since.
What are your reasons for coming? The complete and utter foreignness of it all. New culture, new tastes, new smells, new sights, new sounds, New New New. After reading about a hundred books on Japan, we're even more convinced it'll be the most exciting thing we'll ever do.
I don't know how keen you are to get your lessons out to the masses, but I first found a lot of free Japanese lesson from iTunes podcasts. There's a handful of very good ones, but most have limited lessons (I think the authors lose interest) So if you want to increase traffic, there's an option, and I know you're completely comfortable in front of a camera. You could link back to this page, which I'll admit has some of the best written lessons going. You're a natural.
Lyvvie - ご意見ありがとうございました！ (Go-iken arigatou gozaimashita! [Thank you for your opinion/thoughts])
Regarding your new life... That sounds like a great plan! Thanks for letting me know. It sounds exciting. Your husband must be working for an interesting company (military?) to be able to request a transfer to Japan. Not too many places can offer such a transfer. China maybe... but I don't know too many people that really enjoy expat life in Japan; once you step out of your luxury apartment/flat, you are immediately in "China" which, no matter where you go, even the beautiful and quickly growing Shanghai is still pretty much "second world".
Regarding getting more visibility... I guess I'm as keen as the number of lessons I have (I have more that are not here yet and want to keep them up my sleeve for now).
Regarding "podcasting"... I have the capacity (and the voice) to turn any of my lessons into an mp3 easily. But I don't know how that would help people, or drive them to my blog here. Also, I don't really know where I would load them so that everyone could go and access them. That technology I haven't figured out yet. Uploading and storing is no problem, but to me "podcasting" is not simply making an mp3 and storing it somewhere, then including a link to that audio file in a blog....
There must be more to it than that, but I haven't found any resources (or delved that deeply) that would show me the power of podcasting or lead me in the right directions to do so.
You obviously think it might be of value... how do you envision these very textual lessons to be podcasted to the masses in a compelling manner?
- Sensei
Hope you had a nice weekend! My Husband, his name is Malcolm; Malk for short, works for Sun Microsystems and they're currently creating a big black box that does a bunch of computer...er...stuff. I think it's a mobile data center. You can see their site here
On iTunes, well I can only suggest you go and see what others have done and see where you could improve on things. I think the most active site is Japanesepod101.com That've different levels of ability and it's very lesson based. But I find I use them less and less because what appeals to me is the real life, blog types that sprinkle in a lesson. Or a lesson that sprinkles in real life. That's where Alex comes in; although I understand he's young, living the city life and covering us in slang, it's still very fun. Only niggle is it sometimes feel like they wing it, which they do. Don't we all (I know I do). But it's all free so who's complaining. For quickness We all use the Survival Phrases but they only have 60 lessons and although they would be helpful to have in case of emergency (A lot of lessons cover illness, hospitals and ailments,) I would like to know how to talk to someone and understand the the "politeical" correctness. One podcast is just a Japanese man in front a white board giving a lesson, which is fine too, if a wee bit dull. Malk wants to learn more about Japanese for the working environment. He's the kind who gets very concerned about not offending and the worry of doing so concerns him. There's no current lesson that focus on the working environment that we can find in MP3.
There's a lot of options, the one thing they have in common is iTunes. The benefit of iTunes is I can make the lessons mobile and take them with me on my walks. Malk listens to his in the car, people use them on the train - anywhere. Being portable is what makes them more usable to today's student. Certainly, your lessons are text based, but if you just speak what you write in your own easy-going way, then a student can come back here for the reinforcement of the text to the speech. There's also the benefit of hearing the correct pronunciation. iTunes has a very easy to follow FAQ, my only suggestion for style is to go have a look and see. If it were me, I'd probably aim a lesson towards a younger audience, like children. Do a "Follow the bouncing ball" kind of thing, or - did you get The Electric Company as a kid? That show was using phonics in the 70's to teach 7-12 year olds how to read. The thing is, if one is teaching children Japanese, I know I as an adult would want in on that lesson too so we could learn together. No one else is teaching Japanese for kids right now. But that's me and what I would do.
Also, you have the benefit of reversing your lessons and teaching English to the Japanese. How popular are MP3 players in Japan?
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