Nihongo no Gakkou

[Bobtheduck]

バーブザダーク：　　　はじめまして。
みずのあみ：　　　　　はじめまして。
バーブザダーク：　　私は、バーブザダークです。
みずのあみ：　　　　　私は、みぞのあみです。
バーブザダーク：　　　どうぞよろしく。
みずのあみ：　　　　　こちらこそ、どうぞよろしく。

Lesson 1. The initial greeting. In Romaaji, this would be:

Baabuzadaaku: Hajimemashite.
Mizuno Ami: Hajimemashite.
Baabuzadaaku: Watashi wa baabuzadaaku.
Mizuno Ami: Watakushi wa Mizuno Ami desu.
Baabuzadaaku: Douzo Yoroshiku.
Mizuno Ami: Kochira Koso, Douzo yoroshiku.

In English:

Bob the Duck: Nice to meet you
Ami Mizuno: Nice to meet you.
Bob the duck: I am Bobtheduck.
Ami Mizuno: I am Ami Mizuno.
Bob the duck: Please be favorable to me.*
Ami Mizuno: I should be saying please be favorable to me.*

This is a standard introduction in the middle politeness scale in Japanese. Many of you may know that Japanese has different levels of speech for different levels of respect. There's the plain style used only for close friends and family, the polite style called "desu-masu" style used for normal discourse and the formal style or the "gozaimasu" style used for extreme politeness and talking to customers and bosses. This conversation was in the middle one, the Polite style. The polite style will be the first style you learn in any organized class for Japanses. If you're learning your Japanese from Anime, you'll likely learn the plain style first, and if you learn if from samurai movies, you'll probably learn the formal way first.

Speaking of Japanese, my class is in 15 minutes, so I'll finish this lesson later tonight.

じゃ、また。

*This phrase doesn't really have an english equivalent because we don't say things like taht in the US, and I dont' think in the UK, AUS, NZ, Fiji, South Africa, or any other English speaking country either... This is an important part of Japanese politeness, though...

my info gathered from many sources including Modern Japanese Third Edition by Mieko Shimizu Han. and Japanese for Dummies as well as the Lonely Planet Japanese Phrasebook.

[Bobtheduck]

Ok. Now that you have a short intro to the language, it will do you good to have pronunciation.

Lesson 2: The Japanese Vowels

あ い う え お
a i u e o

The vowels in Japanse are really close to the vowels in spanish. In fact, a foreigner speaking Japanese who ignores certain specifics will often sound like he or she is speaking spanish. Now, I can't really help you without sound, but for those of you who are american and part of the majority for the vowell pronunciation, I can lead you in the right direction.

あ romanized as "a" is pronounced like "ah" or the o in "body" or "roger." Japanese syllables are very rythmic, and there are no diphthongs such as the "ah-ee" sound when we say "I." Noticing that many of the things we consider one vowell are actually 2 or 3 vowells will make it much easier to speak and understand Japanese.

い romanized as "i" is pronounced like the letter "e" in english, the e in "Beef" or the y in "testimony." It's not easy to screw that one up with a diphthong, so I will leave it at that.

う　romanized as "u" is pronounced like the u in "blue" or two o's in "room" You're not likely to "dipthong" that one either.

え　is romanized as "e" and is prounounced like the e in "bet" Americans are likely to try to add an ee sound at the end of it, but that is incorrect. It's a very short e (not eh like the canadian eh, but e like in bet)

お　is romanized "o" and also will cause many americans to fall into the dipthong trap. I don't know how to explain the problem with this one, except that you should pay attention to the way your mouth moves when you say "oh." It most likely moves at least once, but during a true vowell, it shouldn't move at all... When we say "oh" we are actually using 2 vowells in a dipthong, so try to isolate the first part of it. Represented in hiragana, our "oh" would be spelled おう。　Try to eliminate the the "u" part. It will sound very unnatural because that vowell is almost never isolated in English...

That should make it easier to say things like "Usagi" meaning rabbit, and "Neko" meaning cat.

That covers the pronunciation of the vowels.

I'll deal with consonants tomorrow, including the ever threatening "tsu"

[shooraijin]

The pedantic linguist in me comes out

> [The vowel い] It's not easy to screw that one up with a diphthong, so I will leave it at that.

Actually, in English, the "ee" sound tends to have a faint "y" glide at the end of it, although this is dialect-motivated. It's definitely not in Japanese.

> When we say "oh" we are actually using 2 vowells in a dipthong, so try to isolate the first part of it. Represented in hiragana, our "oh" would be spelled おう

This is actually a glide effect again (in IPA we might write the sound /ow/), not two separate vowels.

[ShiroiHikari]

Here's one thing I've noticed about Japanese vowels. To me, they sound really choppy and cut off short, so it's hard to get used to. I just have to keep practicing with them. Like, I have the most awful habit of making my "o" too long when it's not supposed to be. >_<

[shooraijin]

Yeah, training your ear to listen to how long (i.e., sustained) your vowels are is a big pain.

[Bobtheduck]

I may get some samples of the Japanese vowels and some of the more confusing consonants (such as tsu and gi) being spoken so that people can hear it for themselves... I can only post in zip format and record in wav or wma, so sorry for all the maccas out there.

There is also the matter of the two tones. For most things it doesn't matter except that it makes you sound like a Gaijin if you use the wrong one... For a few words (such as hashi and kami), it can mean something entirely different if you pitch-up the wrong syllables. It's not nearly as complex as Chinese, but it is worth knowing. It's best to learn that from the start so it will be ingrained in you. That way, you won't train yourself in these words with the wrong pitches and really sound like a Gaijin and have to untrain and retrain yourself later on. I'm probably going to have to do that with a lot of words.

I found that equally hard as the sustained vowells for the double vowells (such as ryooki) are the breaks, represented in romaaji by a double consonant, but in most cases that's not really realistic... It is accurate with S, though, I think... S actually does sound longer with a small tsu symbol, Ie "いっしょに、Issho Ni". Of course, all these things come in time...

I should have been to sleep 6 hours ago... I've got family coming tonight... Family which won't let me in my room or be on my computer... They're going to take over my room, and I've gotta clean it FOR THEM... I'm not looking forward to that.



Yes, I am a dancing banana/alien/cat/duck.

[shooraijin]

One thing that may help people is that there are a few words in English that sound similar to a true double consonant, even though we don't have them "truly" in this language -- mostly conjoined words like

hip pocket (the delayed longer 'p')
rest timer (the delayed longer 't')
ten noses (the delayed longer 'n')

Note that these are only an approximation, but they give you the general idea.

[inkhana]

>Baabuzadaaku: Watashi wa baabuzadaaku.
>Bob the duck: I am Bobtheduck.

>Mizuno Ami: Watakushi wa Mizuno Ami desu
>Ami Mizuno: I am Ami Mizuno..

I have a question (I don't know if I'm supposed to ask questions here, so....<.< I apologize)

Why is it in these particular sentences, although the English equivalent reads the same, the Japanese is different? I'm familiar with watashi wa, but what is watakushi wa ____ desu and what effect does the difference have?

[ShiroiHikari]

If I remember right, "watakushi" is more polite than "watashi", and I think it's also used more commonly by females.

[shooraijin]

Myself, "watakushi wa ____ desu" sounds more polite than "watashi wa ____".

[Bobtheduck]

Yeah. Watakushi is more polite, and is also more likely to be used by females, but is sometimes used by males too.

[purplemoose]

its probaly the same thing as hi and hello ones a bit more formal and in japan one is probaly used more by women that and Bob the Duck can u posibly put some sound files here i need to hear it realy to pronounce it rite i cant get a japanese dictionary and comprhend those little wierd upside down e's and stuff never could its too confusing for me

[purplemoose]

plz with a cherry on top

[Bobtheduck]

Sorry I haven't been keeping this up... I need to find someone who's actually Japanese to come in here and record the syllables.

As soon as I have someone to record, I'll move on to Lesson 3

[Bobtheduck]

Ok... Sorry... Nobody to record but me... I'm not a native speaker, but It may be good to hear anyhow.

Onto Consonants

Start with K

Ok, with the exception of ん, no consonants stand alone... They go in lines of which I don't know the "official" terminology. The K line is as follows

か　き　く　け　こ
ka ki ku ke ko

No problem with that... Just a matter of making sure you only say each syllable for one beat, and keep the words you say rythmically consistant. The k's are pronounced exactly like you'd expect.

K is a devoiced consonant. That means you don't use your voice to say it... A way to tell if a consonant is devoiced is to feel your throat when you speak. Just make a k sound with no vowels. It doesn't makea vibration (more than the click of the k) On the other hand, say a "g" sound. A G is a voiced consonant.

This is the G line

が　ぎ　ぐ　げ　ご
ga gi gu ge go

Unlike The "k" line, there may be some troubles in the "g" line

First off, as english readers we are firmly entrenched with "phonics" rules. No matter what it looks like, the "g" line will never be a soft "g" or "j" sound no matter what vowell follows it.

The Second problem is the nasal thing. Some of the "g" line can be pronounced witha nasal thing... Don't ask me how or when... It's supposedly best to immitate native speakers on this issue, but they'll understand you if you use a "hard" g sound in every syllable, and not every Japanese speaker uses the nasal g's.

An example of a word using the k and g lines is かぎ　"kagi" meaning key or keys.

That's it for lesson 3. I will go onto the T and D lines tomorrow. おやすみなさい！

[TwilightApostle]

Hey Bob, how long have you taken Japanese?

[Bobtheduck]

Um, I'm in my second semester... Which explains why I said I'd be moving on to the "t" line rather than the "s" line.

My very first Japanese phrase (outside of common things as Karate, Sayonara, and Karaoke) was baka yaroo... I learned that from the Sailormoon S movie... I hope that I have a decent grasp of the grammer by the end of this semester...

I have always transitioned well into pronunciations... Though I retained no vocabulary or grammer from French, I picked up on the pronunciation really quickly. That's hard too, because French has vowels that English doesn't have. Japanese pronunciation is very similar to Spanish (well, vowells anyhow) so I'm very good at most spanish pronunciation (though I'm not quite sure what to do with g's and x's) as well as Japanese. I have a decent grasp of things that many people take a long time to get accostomed to (like the sudden stop (っ））　but seem to be a bit behind in grammer and vocabulary. I am still learning, of course, and I hope to put in some good study time over the next week, provided I'm not too sick...

Since I have the books at my disposal to use, and since I have a decent (albeit not perfect) grasp on the pronunciation, I think I should be able to help people even though I won't be very far ahead of you... I'll still be learning, too.

I see no one has touched the other two files, and only one download of the vowells? Hmm... Not a problem. I'll keep putting these lessons on here in case there is a newbie who could benefit from my help.

[Bobtheduck]

First correction: I put the first "desu" in the hiragana, but not in the romaaji... Generally, the verb (desu) is only elliminated in very relaxed speech, and usually for lighter speech, it's replaced with "da." Oops... Also, Generally words spelled in english with o's that we pronounce with an a sound (such as "Bob"), su do not have "a" vowells in Katakana unless they were explicitly imported from American english, which is very rare... It should have been ボーブザダーク　and not バーブザダーク。 I'm still not perfect with this language...

Ok, onto the S and Z lines.

Chapter q: The S and Z lines, and the best sukiyaki recipe in the world.

さ し す せ そ
s shi su se so

Most of this line should give you no problems, once you get over the vowels. One that may be a problem is shi. Most Japanese will understand you if you just straight out say "shi" (like "she went to the store") but it's not exactly the same sound as the sh sound in English. It is only halfway pronounced. It's halfway between shi and si. Also, how strong the sh sound depends on where in Japan you're in. Some Japanese say it more like sh, some say it more like just s. To get the right way, say an "sh" sound, then move your tongue a TINY bit forward.

ざ じ ず ぜ ぞ
za ji zu ze zo

Once again, Ji, like shi, is not a full on "j" sound, but is halfway between zi and ji... I'm not even sure the exact right way to say the j sound, so I just say j. I know I sound like a Gaijin... Probably, you just put a voice to the sound you make to say "shi"

Some words with the syllables you've learned so far:

いそがしい - Isogashii - Busy

Um... That's all I can think of, now...

Onto the T and D lines

た ち つ て と
ta chi tsu te to

The T line is the funnest line... It's got the most famous English-incompatible specific syllable: Tsu. A lot of people have a hard time with that one.

One thing you must NEVER do is say "su" for "tsu." NEVER EVER EVER take the t sound off of tsu. If anything, to help you say it right, say "tu" rather than "Tsu" You'll probably sound like a Gaijin, but you will be understood.

Ok, Ta has nothing of note.
Chi... Chi is almost chi but not quite... Just like the sh sound, the ch sound is halfway between a ti and a chi... If you say either one, you'll be understood perfectly (If people are prepared to hear a gaijin, anyhow)
Tsu is is said much like it looks, though it's not entirely right. It is closer to a tsu sound than a tu sound, but it is NEVER a su sound... Um... I don't know how to explain the pronunciation of this one, can someone else spot me?
Te is pretty normal (vowels aside, I mean)
To is also normal

Um, I think there are only 3 syllables on the d line in Japanese.

だ で ど
da de do

They should all be pretty easy to pronounce as long as you understand that you must speak the d sound hardly, to avoid it sounding like the r sound.

Hmm... I forgot what the next line of syllables are... I know R goes second to last...

I think it's the N line... It may not be, I have to check.

な に ぬ ね の
na ni nu ne no

This should be pretty straightforward.

は ひ ふ へ ほ
ha hi fu he ho

As you can guess, the "f" is not really going to sound like an f in english... Say hu (like "who") and close your upper teeth part of the way to your lower lip until is sorta sounds like an f, but not really. That's the f sound... The rest of them are said exactly how they look.

ば　び　ぶ　べ　ぼ
ba bi bu be bo

Nothing weird about the B line

ぱ　ぴ　ぷ　ぺ　ぽ
pa pi pu pe po

Just some trivia. In Japanese, the p sound is considered "explosive." I have no clue what it means, except that it's used in "loud" words (several onomatopoeia that represent loud sounds)

ま み む め も
ma mi mu me mo

once again, pretty straightforward

Nothing wierd to remember.

The Y Line

や　ゆ　よ
Ya Yu Yo

There are only 3 in the Y line. I don't know of anything weird about them, but I could be wrong. Anyone who wants to say if there's anything special about Y's, go right ahead

ら　り　る　れ　ろ
Ra Ri Ru Re Ro

The "r" line is pronounced by tapping your tongue to the roof of your mouth. It's like a rollled r in spanish, only you tap once instead of repeatedly. It is probably even harder to get down than the "tsu", just not as well known.

わ　を
Wa Wo

Wo is only used as a particle, and is never pronounced as "wo" but only as "o." It's only listed as Wo because I believe it used to be pronounced wo, but the Langauge eliminated that sound a long time ago, as well as the sounds wi and we, and the Th line. So, を　is just pronounced "o."

ん
n

Different from the "n" line, the single "n" is said with the tongue affixed to the roof of your mouth. Like the n at the end of "Line" you sustain the "n" sound for one beat.

Next lesson: the small y's and the small tsu.

[Bobtheduck]

Lesson frank: the combination syllables and the small tsu.

Many of the consonants combine with small ya, yu, and yo to make combination consonants.

きゃ　きゅ　きょ
Kya Kyu　Kyo

ぎゃ　ぎゅ　ぎょ
Gya Gyu Gyo

しゃ　しゅ　しょ
Sha　Shu　Sho

じゃ　じゅ　じょ
Ja　　Ju Jo

ちゃ　ちゅ　ちょ
Cha　Chu Cho

にゃ　にゅ　にょ
Nya Nyu Nyo

ひゃ　ひゅ　ひょ
hya hyu hyo

びゃ　びゅ　びょ
bya byu byo

ぴゃ　ぴゅ　ぴょ
pya pyu pyo

みゃ　みゅ　みょ
Mya Myu Myo

りゃ　りゅ　りょ
Rya Ryu Ryo

The lines I always had problems with were the N line and the R line. I still can't say the r line (compounds) correctly. I always end up saying like "Riya" instead of "rya" but these must be said in one beat.

In addition to the compounds, often times, vowells are doubled.

A word I introduced earlier, "isogashii", has two "i" sounds at the end. The way to pronounce two vowels is to sustain the sound a beat longer. Sometimes, the tone will also change on the second vowell for emphasis, especially in adjectives.

Many times, words written as "おうâ€

[Retten]

This is awsome thanks for the lessons Bob. I'm learning allot already!

[Kireihana]

First of all, thanks for these lessons! And now some questions:

Could you elaborate on kanji/kana/romanji/hiragana? What exactly are the differences between them? It's kinda confusing me.
And, How do you type in the Japanese characters?

And I have a link to a site with sound files, and also steps to writing the characters. It's a pretty cool site, but I've always been a bad grammer student, so all that "participles" and "gerunds" stuff goes over my head.... Anyway, here's the link: http://www.mala.bc.ca/~furutak/lan-ex.htm

[shooraijin]

hiragana = Japanese syllabary typically used for writing native words phonetically
katakana = Japanese syllabary typically used for writing foreign words and (less frequently) words with stronger emphasis

kanji = Chinese (or originally Chinese) characters used to represent an idea or concept. Since Japanese has word endings and conjugations, etc., a single kanji or group may be typically followed by hiragana for the ending, and these "conjugatory" kana are called okurigana. Sometimes kanji and kana can be intermixed: お好み焼き "okonomiyaki"

For books for younger readers who might not know kanji, the book is either written entirely in hiragana, or in kanji with little hiragana above it to give the "reading" which are called furigana.

romaji = a way of representing Japanese sounds in Roman (Western) letters
There are several ways of doing this; the first and the best known outside Japan is still the Hepburn system -- it's popular because it's phonetic: what you read is what you say. I type in modified Hepburn since I don't have easy access to IPA macrons. Nowadays, the system taught in the Japanese school system is not Hepburn, but Kunrei, which is more "accurate" but not particularly phonetic and harder for people to read aloud properly who don't know the Japanese syllabary already.

Typing in Japanese characters varies based on your operating system (I assume yours is Windows, so someone else will have to answer this question). On my Mac, I just type the words in phonetically, and ask the computer to fetch an appropriate kanji from its dictionary.

[shooraijin]

One thing to add, too, is why bother having kanji at all when they're a pain to learn (and literally take years and years in school), there are so many of them (1,945 in the official Joo-yoo list, not including readings for names, common non-official alternate kanji and/or readings, and the like), and there's no (apparent) pattern.

The reason I hear cited most often is the massive number of homonyms in Japanese. One example is this word:

Modified Hepburn: sooji
Kunrei: souji
Hiragana: そうじ

There are two kanji strings for this word:

掃除 -- meaning cleaning, dusting, sweeping ("soojiki" is a vacuum cleaner ^^), and
相似 -- meaning similarity.

When I asked my Mac to find the kanji for that word, it pulled up both and a list of others besides. The words are pronounced exactly the same, but the kanji are different. In spoken Japanese, you could only tell the difference by context, but at least you have the kanji in the written form.

Plus, there is an awful lot of cultural tradition in the balance if the system were to lose prominence, and so, much to the chagrin of all of us struggling Japanese students, I don't see that happening (after all, we still have this miserable English spelling system, too, in our own language).

[Kireihana]

Yes, but at least our English system only has 26 characters! Anyway, that clears things up for me a bit. Also, in my ignorance I'd like to make a comparison. For those Tolkien fans, aren't the "lines" (Bobtheduck's terminology) of the consonants similar to the lines of Tolkien's elvish characters? (if you look in the appendices) Because Elvish is also a phoenetic language (now is the time where you say "ok, Kirei, come back to reality...") Anyway that was just my impression. I don't know if they are indeed similar or not, or if its some wierd pattern my mind kinda picked up on...

[ShiroiHikari]

To set up Windows for typing in Japanese, have a look at this website: http://www.nihongo-ok.com :]

[Saint Kevin]

Thanks, Bob, for the lessons - I just found this thread. I have a Japanese textbook I bought off of my friend for a couple of bucks, but it's pretty hard to discipline myself to sit down and study it. My hope is that if I can combine your lessons with the textbook, I can begin to learn the language a bit. I would like to take at least one semester of Japanese, but I just don't think it is feasible (much less economical) to do. Do you guys have any input or advice on the best way to teach myself without picking up to many bad habits? Also, would you recommend the Japanese for Dummies book you mentioned in your first post?

[Bobtheduck]

Do you guys have any input or advice on the best way to teach myself without picking up to many bad habits? Also, would you recommend the Japanese for Dummies book you mentioned in your first post?

Well, many anime fans learn through anime. The biggest problem with this is you may not pick up on the social differences, and you may talk very rudely to someone using what you learned in the anime. Another problem is that you may not train your ears correctly, and you'll be saying things entirely different from what you heard. It helps if you are looking for things like rythm, a

Japanese for Dummies is a good resource to get started with. It comes with a CD you can use to immitate native speakers. Get to a real class if you have a choice, though, because you'll have some feedback that a book can't give you.

[Bobtheduck]

Until I get some more lessons up here, you can check out a flash cartoon on http://www.flashplayer.com/animation/finalfantasy.html called Final Fantasy A+. Be carfull, because not all of the cartoons on there are appropriate. Final Fantasy A+ is entirely in japanese, but it's very BASIC Japanese, so it's good to practice listening. I can understand most of it. Of course, even this isn't perfect, but the very fact that it's a student makes it better for people wanting to practice. It's very basic Japanese, and it's quite slow, even though it's "accented." I'll get more lessons up here soon... And, if anyone else has some stuff they want to add to help out, that would be cool too. Of course, I have run into people that THINK they understand something about Japaense that don't, so... Um... Well, just submit your stuff but don't feel offended if you are corrected. I don't know how many native Japanese speakers come on CAA, so most of us are students even if we are teachers...

[Heart of Sword]

Watashi wa baka ningen desu. -_-x

[Saint Kevin]

Just some trivia. In Japanese, the p sound is considered "explosive." I have no clue what it means, except that it's used in "loud" words (several onomatopoeia that represent loud sounds)

Click here for a link on english phonesthemes. Check out the p's and it seems that our language shares the explosive p in some form.

Sorry I haven't been following this thread, but I simply forgot about it. Until I found something to contribute that is.

A website that I intend on using a lot is kanjiclinic.com : a website that tries to teach JSL students Kanji by a process of components. It is a column in the Japan Times, and to date has about 54 entries. Go ahead and click on previous columns and read them from the beginning if you like. Hope this is helpful to some of you.

BTW Bob, if you continue your Japanese tutorial (or if someone wants to help Bob with it) I would be grateful. I'm gonna subscribe to this thread, and I promise to read it every time you update. Later.