Ok, so to start off, I do not know a lot of Japanese

If you want to learn more about Japan itself, https://www.youtube.com/user/TheJapanChannelDcom
^he has a lot of great info on Japan, and sometimes has giveaways, please support him!

What I do know:
Hiragana
Katakana
Some Kanji
Meanings of a fair amount of words
Sentence Structures

So, if there are any people who are more Japanese-Savvy, please dont mind telling me where I screwed up

I will TRY my hardest to keep this updated

Ok, for starters:
There are 3 types of Japanese characters
Hiragana: Used for Japanese words
Katakana: Used for foreign words or sounds (onomatopoeia)
Kanji: Derived from Chinese characters, used for a specific meaning to some Hiragana

(Sorry if I am a bit vague on the Hiragana and Kanji part, dont really know how to explain them)

The japanese alphabet consists of (this applies only to katakana and hiragana):
a(ah)
i(e as in eep)
u(ooh)
e (e as in kept)
o (o as in OH!)

I will go into further detail (maybe tomorrow
Any specific questions I will try to the best of my ability to answer

This should go under member discussions. This isn't a forum game what-so-ever.

Moved to Member discussions.

nice, I'm learning as well, all I know are some pretty basic stuff

this should be pretty useful for anyone who wanna understand what the girls are saying on twitter/blog

Sorry about that, Mods. I thought that the Fun corner was a general off-topic sub-forum

Wewt! The vowels are pronounced the same as in spanish! :D Also, that channel is very good, I've been subscribed since he had 200 videos :D

Sorry for not updating this,
But this will be short

Today, I will be covering terms when rfeferring to yourself, particles, and a little bit of sentence structure

When referring to yourself, there are generally 3 ways:
The most common way to refer to yourself is "Watashi"
For boys/men, you can use "Boku"
And for women/girls you can use "Atashi"

Particles:
wa(written as "ha") is a general topic pointer
ga is used when applying an adjective to an object
de is the where of a sentence
ni is the place where an action can take place
(note the difference between ni and de)
o (written as wo) is the particle for the action in the sentence
no is showing ownership
e (written as he), Im not sure about this one, I will find out by the next time I update

Sentence structure:
It will always start with the topic and end with the verb

example:
Rainen de, boku ha Nihon ni kaimono wo shitai (next year I will go shopping in Japan)
*Rainen=next year
Nihon=Japan
Kaimono=Shopping
Shitai=will do

Example 2:
Amerika no daigaku ga sugoi ookii desune? (America's colleges are big, arent they?)
*Daigaku=college
sugoi=in this case, an extreme
ookii=big

(When adding "ne" to the end of desu, you are somewhat asking the other person if they agree with you or not)

*NOTE: I AM TEACHING THE POLITE FORM OF JAPANESE

I have some app suggestions for Itouch and Iphone users (in America as far as I know)

Kotoba! (it is a type of dictionary, I use it rarely because I have trouble understanding it sometimes.)

Learn (Kanji for Japanese)

Japanese Phrases & Lessons (my personal favorite) I have been using this app to teach myself Japanese.

While Jphrases is what I have been using to teach myself, my progress is slow due to my own laziness.

Yep, I too have the app kotoba!
It helps me a lot when watching Japanese shows.

I have nothing to say about the others though....

hmm, the first sentence seems slightly different from what I was taught (very basic level tho)

(Rainen de, boku ha Nihon ni kaimono wo shitai)

my sensei taught me that e(he) is used for places --- English "to"
while de is used for the method of getting there --- English "by"
and ni is used for stating the time period --- English "in"

e.g: Rainen no roku gatsu ni, boku wa(ha) hikoki de Nihon e(he) kaimono wo shitai

[next year in June, I will go to Japan by plane for shopping]

Roku gatsu (6th month - June)
Hikoki (aeroplane)

EDIT:
ok I think I get what you mean, "ni" is used like the english word "in", so in your sentence "Nihon ni" means "in Japan"
while e(he) is like the english word "to", so in my case "Nihon e(he)" means "to Japan"

Yeah, there are different ways of saying the sentence I guess,
And I felt as though I was missing something from "De"
Thanks for posting it

Ok so today I will talk about verbs and their conjugations.
There are 3 classes of verbs.
Class 1 verbs end in "eru" or "iru"
Class 2 is every other verb
Class 3 is special, with only to 2 verbs, "kuru," to come, and "suru" to do

(all verbs are in plain form)

For Class 1, we will use "utau," to sing.
Basically, to conjugate class 1 verbs, you will go through the a i u e o of the ending hiragana.

A: Utawareru (when conjugating, if there are going to be 2 "a"'s, then the second "a" will be changed to "wa"
I: Utaimasu (proper form)
U: Utau (plain form)
E: Utaeba (Im not sure, but I think it is future tense)
O: Utaou

To conjugate class 2 verbs, use this:
Ku-> Ite
Gu-> Ide
U Tsu Ru -> tte
Nu Mu Bu -> nde
Su -> shite

Conjugation of class 3 verbs follows no patterns:
I never understood how to conjugate these so, I will probably screw up, so here is a site that will explain it.

Kuru http://japanese.about.com/blverb2.htm
Suru http://japanese.about.com/blverb3.htm

^ i have a question....what's the difference between godan and ichidan verbs? in terms of use and conjugation

Sorry Kiera, I have never heard of godan or ichidan verbs.
The only types of verbs in Japanese that I am aware of are Class 1, 2, and 3

Sorry

Today, this will be a short post cuz I have a butt load of pre-cal and physics hw.
Sorry for not updating this a lot.

Ok, so there are 2 ways to Kanji (hopefully you remember what those are)

From what I remember, if there are 2 or more kanji together, it is said to read them in "onyoumi"
If it is one by itself, then it is "kunyoumi"

Example. The kanji for big: 大きい (ookii), will be read ookii since there are no KANJI (hiragana does not count in these readings)

But, the kanjis for ookii in daijoubu and daisuki: 大丈夫 (daijoubu: ok as in: "I am ok") 大好き(daisuki, like a lot, love) will be read as "dai" instead.

Ok, so I might stop updating this frequently, my Japanese teacher is senile and is not teaching us anything new.
So, I will occassionally update this with whatever new she tries to teach us, or until I my dad can get me a copy of rosetta stone from work....

Until then, any questions?
I will be glad to answer any and all relevant questions.

I realize this is a pretty old thread, but I'll revive it with a question to anyone who knows japanese. I'm trying to learn japanese and I'm very slowly going through hirgana. Also, I try to pick up words and sentences whenever I watch anime or jdramas. There are many things I don't understand, but right now it's the word "nanka" that's been getting on my mind. It's being used alot but not translated.

Does it mean something similair to -"sorta"- as in for instance "I sorta understand what you said" or am I totally off track?

^ I'll try a lil' bit to help..Yup, nanka could be translated as sorta, kinda, somehow, etc..
I'm not good on explaining, so here's some explanation of it..v^_^

Thanks Jigoku! Finally got that cleared up. .uhuh.

thoroughly enjoying this thread. Keep it going

I have another question for someone with japanese knowledge. I just bought the game "Tales of Vesperia", the japanese version.

On it, appears a katakana that looks like this ヴ. An "u" but with two dots. The thing is, it doesn't appear on any katakana charts I have and I can't find anything on the internet about it. I know it's placed at the Vesperia part so I'm guessing it's something like that, but can anyone explain it? .please.

Did it come along with a little ェ below ヴ? I mean, did it looks like this-->ヴェ?
Well, if it so, it's read as Ve. As far as I know, for the word in katakana begin with We, Wi, they use ウ(U) with addition of little ィ, ェ below it. Like this: ウィ(Wi),ウェ(We).
This commonly used for foreigner names.
So if you put " on it, it would read as :
ヴェ--> Ve.　ヴィ--> Vi.Sorry, I kinda bad on explaining things. Hope it helps..

Yeah it helped alot, thanks. Cause there was a little ェ next to it, and the game is called Vesperia in english so yeah.

Thanks alot man! .hail.

Sorry for double posting, but I have another japanese question. So, I was trying to register at Niji to watch the upcoming AKB Janken Tournament. The problem is I can't understand the ID registration.



1st Field is obviously the login ID. Don't know what it says after the fill in bar though.
2nd is the password.
3rd looks to be a password repeat, but it says something else in kanji I can't understand.
4th is a check code.

This is how I interpret it, but I get that red error message down below. Problem is, I can't copy/paste anything from that form to translate on the internet. So, anyone knowledgeable to be able to see what I'm missing.

Thanks alot! .please.

Fill in 1st field with your Niji ID, which is an email address (that's what written after fill in bar).
3rd field is as you've said, field to repeat the password. The kanji said literally to (Input again) the password. The error message said that you've to fill the email address correctly (on the 1st field). Hope it helps..