Random Japanese: Always fun

[bakaneko]

^^; Yeah... I don't really have much to say about this:

Just pronounciation for t3h n00bs:

If you know Spanish, the vowels are pretty much the same:

a: ah
e: eh
i: ee
o: oh (keep the 'w' sound out)
u: oo

ai: aye (like eye)
au: ah-oo... like the 'ou' in 'loud'
ae: ah-eh (almost like 'eye')
ei: ay (like the letter 'a')
ou: oh (with the 'w' in it)
oi: oy
ie: yeh (kinda)
iu: o.o ee-oo... kinda like 'you'

If there's a '--su' in the middle or end of a word, you almost always never pronounce the 'u' sound.

If there's a '--shi' before the end of a word, you usually lose the 'i (ee)' sound... (manutsa: mash-tah)

Yeahhhh... on to the random common phrases:

Ohayo (add gozaimasu to be more polite) : Good Morning
Konnichi wa: Good afternoon/day
Konban wa: Good evening
Sayonara: Goodbye
Hai: Yes
Iie: No
Ee (like ehh): Kinda like 'yeah' in English...
Banzai: Hurray ^^;
Kampai: Cheers
Ikimashou: Let's go/ Shall we go
Mou sukoshi nette itai naa (Don't ask where I got that from...): I wish I could sleep a little more XD

Yeahh... I forgot a bunch of other phrases but I guess this board is for adding, so if you know more just add on. Ima gon post random words in a new post... Just to be friendly XD

[bakaneko]

Oh yeah one more thing... if you know this stuff, that's great... but it's really unnecessary to post how stupid this board it. If you have something to add to something already posted, by all means go ahead and say the variation... Also, if you post something try to make sure it hasn't been posted before. Also, there are no masculine/feminine or singular/plural differences in nouns... like, kumo is cloud/clouds. This should make things easier.

I'm not putting any/ mostly any verbs because of the conjugations... and it's stupid to give lacking information to the masses... or whoever reads this XD

Random stuffs (you can't always use them in the form here):

chiisai: small
hayai: early/ fast
mainichi: everyday
kyo: today
kinou: yesterday
ash*ta: tomorrow (it thought I was saying sh1t)
ai: love (more like true love)
koi: love ( I think)
baka: fool/stupid/idiot
inu:dog
neko: cat
koneko: kitty/kitten
koinu: puppy (you can add ko to almost any animal to make it younger)
itachi: weasel
hoshi: star
sora: sky
mimi: ear
me: eye
kumo: cloud
ame: rain
yuki: snow
yume: dream
kono: this*
sono: that*
kore: this*
sore: that*
asore: that over there
koko: here
soko: there
asoko: over there
dare: who
nani/nan: what
doush*te: why
itsu: when
kaba: hippo
heya: room
tenshi: angel
koe: voice
tanoshii: fun
kami: god
kamisama: God
hon: book
tabemono: food
nomimono: drink (like beverage)
ushi: cow
uchi: house/home
ie: house
(o)cha: tea
toshokan: library
gakkou: school
sensei: teacher/professor (can be used when addressing someone)
aoi/ao: blue (sometimes green)
iro: color
mori: forest
fukai: deep (yeah,yeah... I get a lot of these from lyrics...)
nohara: field
ringo: apple
usagi: rabbit
umi: ocean
sakana: fish

1- ichi
2- ni
3- san
4- shi/ yon
5- go
6- roku
7- shichi/ nana
8- hachi
9- kyu/ku
10- juu
100- hyaku
1000- sen
10,000- man

For the numbers with two words, there are times when both are acceptable and times when only one is right. The same goes for whta (nan/nani)... if you guys care about this board at all I'll see if I can dig up when. Also, Japanese use counters, so you can't just say "shichi neko" for seven cats. Depending on what you are counting, you must add on a certain ending to the number. I think they might meld with the number entirely (some change)... but either way, you need to be careful.

--The list goes on in my mind, but I want to see what t3h peoples say first... yeah... enjoy?


*As for the kono/kore sono/sore difference... in Japanese, you can add a noun after kono/sono/asono (kono me, for instance... "these eyes"). You can't do that with kore/sore.

For instance, to say "What is this?" you could use either kono or kore. But to say "How much is this watch?" You could only use kono (the word for watch is tokei, by the way).

[terryshadow]

Also very interesting ;D

I'm learning more on the forum than I do anywhere else! Even school, which in some minds might not be much, but dang! I'm loving this! Thanks for all the tips you posted here!

I'm going to have a mental overload for a bit, but it'll all sink in in no time!

[bakaneko]

Eh, I'm gonna go ahead and take that as permission to keep going. I don't really know that much Japanese, but I know enough to be able to form the most basic sentences out there (or enough to understand the most basic) I guess I'll post more when I learn more...

Eh, first of all... to say something is something (like "it is a cat" or "it is fun"), you just add "da" or "desu" to the end. Because there are different levels of politeness in Japanese (a lot, desu is probably better to use at first (like any of you are going to Japan any time soon)

Verbs come at the end of sentences. Other than that, almost every other element of the sentence can come in any order (there is a preferable one but as long as the verb comes last...) There are also different conjugations for verbs, but none of them are for who you are talking about. And since the subject can easily be omitted if it is obvious, you could say "tabemasu" (the polite present tense affirmitive), you might mean "I eat," "You eat" "We eat" "They eat" "They eat it" "I eat"... Or whatever you want without explaining (though sometimes you do, obviously).

Umm... I guess I'll put in a few verbs that I know along with the polite conjugations. There are different categories of verbs, but I'll group each set with each other...

present/future tense affirmitive: --masu
present/future tense negative: --masen
past tense affirmitive: --mash1ta
past tense negative: --masen desh1ta

There are more conjugations, and more ways to do those basic ones that I just posted. But for now just knowing that will help tremendously... (I'm not so good with informal conjugations since most of the places I'm learning from don't include them. I guess the reasoning is that foreigners won't really need to be informal with Japanese, and Japanese won't need to be informal with foreigners.)

taberu (tabemasu):to eat
nomu (nomimasu): to drink
iku (ikimasu): to go
kuru (kimase--irregular): to come
suru (shimasu, also irregular): to do
aru (arimasu): to exist in/ as-- inanimate things
iru (imasu): to exist in/as--animate things
kiku (kikimasu): to hear
kaku (kakimasu): to read
hanasu (hanashimasu): to speak
au (aimasu): to meet
miru (mimasu): to see

Have fun?