土曜日: 私は日本語をべんきょうします

So as you may know already, I have not been updating this blog in a while and yesterday I started up again. I am making a promise to myself to review 日本語 because I don't want to arrive in 日本語のにねんせい and not remember simply how to conjugate verbs and forget most of the vocabulary. So as a start, today I'm going to go back to reviewing vocab and re-learn certain adverbs and verb conjugations as well as the basics.


So here's for some basics: Greetings!!

Hiragana	Roomaji	English Translation
おはよう	Ohayou	Good Morning (informal)
おはようございます	Ohayougozaimasu	Good Morning (polite)
こんいちは	Konnichiwa	Good Afternoon
こんばんは	Konbanwa	Good Evening
おやすみなさい	Oyasuminasai	Good night
さようなら	Sayounara	Goodbye
ありがとう	Arigatoo	Thank you
ありがとうございます	Arigatoogozaimasu	Thank you (polite)
すみません	Sumimasen	Excuse me
いいえ	Iie	No; Not at all
いただきます	Itadakimasu	Thank you for the meal (before eating)
ごちそうさま	Gochisousama	Thank you for the meal (after eating)
はじめまして	Hajimemashite	How do you do?
どうぞよろしく	Douzoyoroshiku	Nice to meet you

Now the fun begins when we go about using these greetings with a bit of what I've mentioned before in the past, like asking for the time.


Person 1: すみません。いま　なんじ　ですか。
Person 2: はちじ　です。
Person 1: ありがとうございます。
Person 2: いいえ。


I trust that by now, we'll be able to use the vocabulary list at the top of the blog if you're still having trouble with the translation here it is:


Person 1: Excuse me. What time is it?
PErson 2: 8 o clock.
Person 1: Thank  you very much.
Person 2: Not at all/ No problem.


So I'm leaving with that and next time I will probably post the day before my first class of Japanese 2!
さようなら！

こんばんは！

So the end of summer vacation is here and next Tuesday is the start of classes. Wait! My first class is Japanese 2! So that means that I'm going to start reviewing everything from Japanese 1. I'm happy that I made this blog for that reason. Actually, this blog is a collection of what I've learned in Japanese.

So without further ado, I will teach today something simple while I finish the post on verbs.
Days of the week!
Monday - げつようび - 月曜日
Tuesday - かようび - 火曜日
Wednesday - すいようび - 水曜日
Thursday - もくようび - 木曜日
Friday - きにようび - 金曜日
Saturday - どようび - 土曜日
Sunday - にちようび - 日曜日

Now you may wonder: "How does five characters translate into three characters where two characters look the same?"

I have an answer for that!

The kanji traces back into the history of Japanese writing. Furigana (written Japanese) is a seed of Chinese. The ひらがな characters are the phonetical chinese characters simplified in writting after many centuries and became the characters that are read today.

So how does this answer the question about the kanji? Well, since the written Japanese is taken from Chinese, the Japanese still use many Chinese characters to mean words (in their original sense) and translate them to a literal meaning in the reading. So there are some kanji characters that have many "readings" and there is no real easy way to know which reading to choose. Only memorization.

Here's the reading for the kanji from today's post:
げつ - 月 (history behind the character, moon)
よう - 曜 (weekday)
び - 日 (history behind this reading, sun)
にち - 日 (history behind this reading, sun)
きん - 金 (history behind this character, gold)
もく - 木 (history behind this character, tree)
か - 火 (history behind this character, fire)
すい - 水 (history behind this character, water)
ど - 土 (history behind this character, soil/earth)

Now these are the readings that I know so far for these kanji. No doubt there are more readings that I haven't learned yet, but I will someday.

So tonight I leave you with the days of the week and happy moon day!

If you aim at the castle, you'll end up in the sewers -Samuel Clemens (a.k.a Mark Twain)

すみません 私はいそがしいです

すみません！I have been a bit too busy for the summer and as such, I haven't been able to post, nor prepare anything recently. Currently my trip in フランス isn't going all too well and today I found out that my power adapter is on the verge of failing, which means that at some time, my laptop will not receive any more power and I will once again be without a computer for some time (I don't know when but it will happen soon, or I will arrive back in アメリカ and be able to get a new one). Anyways, so off with the pessimism and on with the optimisim! I am again preparing the final post of the three part series for verb conjugations and that will be posted soon! 


I'm sorry that I can't do much more than that but I will be posting soon.
じゃまた

I'm Back!

So I'm unable to use my laptop still as I just got back from this lovely beach city, Biarritz. I am however able to post from blogger still while I'm on my iPhone. This is going to help out much until I get my power cable back.

As a side note, I'm preparing a new post and I am positive that it will be ready for publishing tomorrow. So until then, でわまった

Vacation

I'm going to be leaving for Biarritz on Saturday so I will say that I'm not going to be able to post anything as there isn't internet there. As well I have left my power cord at my friends house so my laptop will not be able to power itself unless I find a cord somewhere... Otherwise, no more computer for a week!

Now for a long good-bye: さようなら (sayounara)

きょうはすいようびです。

I'm going to deviate from the verbs for a day as it isn't yet prepared. For today, I'm going to teach something that is useful in everyday circumstances. I'm going to start teaching some kanji!

This means that we can start replacing multiple characters with one chinese character!

For example: わたし becomes 私
The only difference between using kanji si that they are read the same way as they would be in hiragana.

So lets start learning kanji!

Remember that these kanji have the same reading as they would normally in hiragana.

As I have yet to teach numbers other than in the vocabulary lis, here it goes along with the kanji.

1 いち　一   (ichi)
2  に　二   (ni)
3  さん　三   (san)
4  よん/し　四   (yon/shi)
5  ご　五   (go)
6  ろく　六   (roku)
7  なな/しち　七   (nana/shichi)
8  はち　八   (hachi)
9  きゅう　九  (kyuu)
10 じゅう　十   (jyuu)
11 じゅういち  十一   (jyuuichi)
12 じゅうに　十二   (jyuuni)
13 じゅうさん　十三   (jyuusan)
14 じゅうよん　十四   (jyuuyon)
15 じゅうご　十五   (jyuugo)
16 じゅうろく　十六   (jyuuroku)
17 じゅうなな　十七   (jyuunana)
18 じゅうはち　十八   (jyuuhachi)
19 じゅうきゅう　十九   (jyuukyuu)
20 にじゅう　二十   (nijyuu)
30 さんじゅう　三十   (sanjyuu)
40 よんじゅう　四十   (yonjyuu)
50 ごじゅう　五十   (gojyuu)
60 ろくじゅう　六十   (rokujyuu)
70 ななじゅう　七十   (nanajyuu)
80 はちじゅう　八十   (hachijyuu)
90 きゅうじゅう　九十   (kyuujyuu)
100 ひゃく　百   (hyaku)
200 にひゃく　二百   (nihyaku)
300 さんびゃく　三百   (sanbyaku)
400 よんひゃく　四百   (yonhyaku)
500 ごひゃく　五百   (gohyaku)
600 ろっぴゃく　六百   (roppyaku)
700 ななひゃく　七百   (nanahyaku)
800 はっぴゃく　八百   (happyaku)
900 きゅうひゃく　九百   (kyuuhyaku)
1,000 せん　千   (sen)
2,000 にせん　二千   (nisen)
3,000 さんぜん　三千   (sanzen)
4,000 よんせん　四千   (yonsen)
5,000 ごせん　五千   (gosen)
6,000 ろくせん　六千   (rokusen)
7,000 ななせん　七千   (nanasen)
8,000 はっせん　八千   (hassen)
9,000 きゅうせん　九千   (kyuusen)
10,000  いちまん　一万   (ichiman)
20,000  にまん　二万   (niman)
30,000  さんまん　三万   (sanman)
40,000  よんまん　四万   (yonman)
50,000  ごまん　五万   (goman)
60,000  ろくまん　六万   (rokuman)
70,000  ななまん　七万   (nanaman)
80,000  はちまん　八万   (hachiman)
90,000  きゅうまん　九万   (kyuuman)
100,000  じゅうまん　十万   (jyuuman)

So for counting, you start with the largest number and continue to go down till the smallest number.
For example:
Write out 93,825
きゅうまんさんぜんはっぴゃくにじゅうご or in kanji 九万三千八百二十五

And when you have numbers that are higher than 10,000 just use 10 then 10,000 such that it says ten ten-thousands.

So I leave you with the first set of kanji and until next time, おやすみなさい！

Vocabulary Page is Up!

So As some people may notice but now there is a toolbar on the website for the page on vocabulary words. There you'll find all the words that were mentioned before in earlier posts and I'll keep updating it often with more words and more words.

Hope all is well!