Japanese Learners Club

I've noticed a few people here are studying or are interested in the Japanese language, so I'm starting this to bring us all together.

Members:
- Armads
- Pokelover33
- Lesley_GSC
- Pale Bones
- Hinata
- DL_Buizel+Croagunk
- JacobGRocks
- anime_aficionada

For starters, I'm a bored high school kid with little else to do than memorize the dictionary. Then I figured, why not memorize a dictionary in another language? (I know, not exactly the inspiring story you might have expected. ^_^) But Japanese has held my interest for quite a while. I'm far from fluent, but I'm getting somewhere and am more motivated to learn than I was in Spanish class. How or why are you all studying? どうしてあなたは日本語勉強するか？

私が参加

私には分からない

I'm in!

Uh... I may not know any Japanese, but I'm very interested in learning it and I'd like to join =D .

No worries, you don't have to. *points to self*

Bakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabaka.
Bakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabaka.












Baka.

^That's one of my favorite Japanese words. ^_^

I don't know any, but can I join as well?

Lesley_GSC wrote:

Bakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabaka.
Bakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabakabaka.












Baka.

^That's one of my favorite Japanese words. ^_^

It means beef in Tagalog. >:]

I plan on learning it in high school. Trilingual. ;]

It also means Idiot.

hm, well you know i like to learn japanese, i wish i could learn in school, though :( but anyway, i want to join.

hmm...no wonder i didn't notice hi, i wasn't allowed on the computer the day this started.

I wish I could learn in school too. But I convinced myself to buy textbooks and study on my own. I could post bits of lessons here if you want.

My mom's friend might teach me when she gets back from Japan.

I'll get a textbook somewhere and learn Japanese, like Armads.

I got all three of 'em off Amazon (two grammar and vocab, and one kana). Normally they'd be about $30 each, but I found a few used ones and practically stole them for maybe ~$10 each. B)

I want to start learning it. I am interested in japanese.

I've gotten a few requests to post lessons here, so here goes nothin'...

First, basic sentence structure. In Japanese, the topic or subject of a sentence comes first, and the verb comes last. The most basic verb is desu "is", so we'll start there.
- Enpitsu desu. = It's a pencil. (lit. "Pencil is.")
- Hon desu. = It's a book.

In more complex sentences, particles distinguish what role a word has in the sentence. The particle wa "concerning X" or "as for X" is a basic one that tells what the sentence is talking about.
- Sore wa enpitsu desu. = That thing is a pencil. (lit. "As for that thing, it's a pencil.")
- Kore wa hon desu. = This thing is a book.

Demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, and those) in English have two variations in Japanese, depending on how they are used. The first variations act as stand-alone nouns:
- Kore = This thing or These things
- Sore = That thing or Those things
- Are = That thing over there or Those things over there (referring to something more distant)
The other variation points to another noun that follows:
- Kono = This or These
- Sono = That or Those
- Ano = That over there or Those over there (referring to something more distant)

(Notice that Japanese nouns do not distinguish between singular and plural. Number is usually distinguished by context.)

Compare:
- Sore wa enpitsu desu. = That thing is a pencil.
- Sono enpitsu. = That pencil.

And now a little more vocabulary:
- Enpitsu = pencil
- Pen = pen
- Hon = book
- Jibiki or Jisho = dictionary
- Kyou = today
- Kinou = yesterday
- Ashita = tomorrow
- Dore/Dono = which thing (of three or more), see above for usage.

...Well, how do you like it? Do you think I should keep this up? ^_^;

I learned that "Baka" comes form deer and horse. People thought that they bred a species.

Okay.

Armads, I like the lesson, and now I know that pen is the same in both English and Japanese.

Well, here comes lesson 2, then.

We'll start with some particles I forgot... <_<
- Ka is a sentence particle, one that belongs only at the very end of a sentence, that indicates the sentence is a question. All questions in Japanese end in ka, but not all sentences ending in ka are questions (though I myself have yet to see one >_>).
- Mo translates to "also" or "too" in affirmative lists or requests, and "or" or "either" in negatives.

Next we'll go to adjectives. In Japanese, just like English, adjectives come before the nouns they describe:
- Are wa atarishii pen desu. = That thing over there is a new pen.
- Kono furui hon wa jibiki desu. = This old book is a dictionary.
- Dono kuruma wa hayai desu ka. = Which car is fast?

An adjective can be changed to an adverb by changing the final i to ku. The negative of an adjective is formed by adding arimasen "there is not" to its adverbial form.
- Iie, atarishiku arimasen. = No, [it] is not new.
- Iie, kono jibiki wa furuku arimasen. = No, that dictionary is not old.
- Sono kuruma wa hayaku arimasen. = That car is not fast.
Note that in non-past tense negative descriptions, desu is omitted.

And now the fun things: verbs. I don't know too much about verbs, but I'll do my best.
The basic(?) form of most verbs ends in su, which is the formal, non-past (could indicate present or future tense depending on context) form of a verb.
- Kyou ikimasu ka. = [Are you] going today?

The past tense is formed by changing the final su to shita:
- Iie, Kinou ikimashita. = No, [ I ] went yesterday.

And the negative is formed by changing the final su to sen:
- Ashita mo ikimasen. = [ I ] will not go tomorrow either.

Let me know if anything isn't clear. This post is a bit shorter but goes through more stuff.

*shoots hand up* SO JOINING!

I'm Trilingual (Italian, English, Tamil [if anyone knows what it is]) and I'm really interested in Jap. I've been so bored of Italian that it's not funny. It's not cause of the language, it's just I've been learning it for about six years and it's quite tedious really.

Anywaii, I don't know Japanese at all apart from basic words like Sayonara, Ja Ne and yeah.. stuff like that and Armads, that lesson was very helpful.

So, sign me up. =]

YAY! You joined. Lol.

I need to learn Japanese to be trilingual, so yeah.

learning japanese will make me trilingual. i of course know English (or do i...?) and i've been learning Spanish in school since first grade, and it's rather easy.

Ah.

(Heh, I forgot there was activity on this thread. ^_^)

I only took Spanish for one year, and I quit because it didn't really interest me. It's usually tougher to learn a language on your own than in a classroom, but for me I prefer to study on my own time because there's no rush. Then again I'm learning so slowly because there's no rush, but I'm definitely enjoying it more.

Today's short lesson will be on numbers:

SERIES I

1: ichi
2: ni
3: san
4: shi or yon
5: go
6: roku
7: shichi or nana
8: hachi
9: ku or kyuu
10: juu
11: juuichi
12: juuni
13: juusan
14-19: (you get the idea)
20: nijuu
21: nijuuichi
22: nijuuni
23: nijuusan
30: sanjuu
40: yonjuu
50: gojuu
60: rokujuu
70: nanajuu
80: hachijuu
90: kyuujuu
100: hyaku
200: nihyaku
300: sanbyaku
400: yonhyaku
500: gohyaku
600: roppyaku
700: nanahyaku
800: happyaku
900: kyuuhyaku
1000: sen or issen

More to come later, if you ever need to count higher than that. =P

Alright, that's awesome.