Anime & Japanese

Done

2007-02-15T09:17:00.000-08:00

Umm I'm done updating this site. I feel there's enough information here to give people a basic idea about Japanese, at least it can get you on your road to success which is all I could hope for.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Particles.

2007-01-09T23:49:00.000-08:00

What have you got so far? Japanese verbs, some sentence examples, some particles, some kanji compounds, and even a hiragana table!!

I've received some feedback that my blog is confusing and complicated. Oops. It's because I haven't explained particles in detail and I am going to do that now! Even if I've already covered the particle I'm going to state all particles in this one post.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Particles!
You can think of this as "Particles For Dummies!"

WA は - Topic marker.
GA が - Subject Marker.
NO の - Possessive indicator.
NI に - Direct locational marker.
DE で - Indirect locational marker.
TO と - Means and or with
NA な - Turns a noun into an adjective
MO も - Means too or "also"
WA は - Used to indicate the topic of discussion in a sentence. Usually you can list a topic and then not list the topic again unless it changes. Often times Japanese people will make the topic obvious and not state it at all. It's best to pay attention to things like this. You can generally think if "wa" as meaning "as for". I won't give you any sentences here because I'll be using "wa" in almost every example sentence I show you next!

GA が - used to indicate the subject of the sentence. This generally doesn't mean anything to an English speaker but it does to Japanese. Sometimes you can think of "ga" as "is/are". Ga can sometimes be the object of the topic and sometimes the object of the verb can be what describes the subject! 僕はあなたが嫌いと思います <--- Boku wa anata ga kirai to omoimasu. This means "I think that you are hated." I am going to break this sentence down so please follow:
Boku means I
wa(written as ha) is the topic marker
anata means "you"
ga is the subject marker.
kirai means to hate or dislike.
to means "and" or "with", the context should make it clear. In this example it means "with"
omoimasu is a conjugation of omou meaning "to think" it's a verb so it goes at the end of a sentence in most cases.

I will write the sentence by replacing the Japanese text with English words so you can see how strange it looks. "I as for, you are hate with to think". In this example you can think of "ga" as "are". In some cases you will actually notice that "ga" is not used in some sentences that use the verb "to be" (desu) because "to be" is already implied by "ga".

A word of advice about GA. You can read up on it everywhere and still be just as confused as you probably are now. Start practicing it and you'll end up getting better at understanding it, this is really the only way. Feel free to go to my forum and practice it in the Japanese section. I will correct your errors if you make any and also answer any questions you have!

NO の - Is a possessive indicator. It can mean 's or of. And when attached to personal pronouns it can have many other meanings that should be obvious to you! Let me give you some examples:
僕たちの車　boku-tachi no kuruma. Our car.
Boku I
Tachi Plural indicator although Japanese don't often use plurals. You'll see this sometimes!
No indicates boku-tachi as being posessive. Otherwise boku-tachi would mean "we"
Kuruma Means car.

あなたたちの車 anata-tachi no kuruma. Their car.
Anata You
no Indicates anata-tachi as being posessive. Otherwise boku-tachi would just mean "you guys/girls" or just "you" in plural meaning.
Kuruma Car.
*important* NO has some other meanings that are locational just like "ni" and "de"; however, these meanings are really advanced Japanese and since my site is dedicated to helping beginners get through the rough spots I will only teach you the common usages of this particle.

NI に - This particle is a direct locational marker. It can be thought of as, at; by; for; from; to; in; on. Yep, all of those but which one is used depends on the context of course. Let me give you a couple example sentences! 私はアメリカに住みます - watashi wa amerika ni sumimasu. This sentence translates to: I live in America. Let me give you the vocabulary:
Watashi Means I.
Amerika Means America.
Ni Means in.
Sumimasu Means "to live"
fairly easy sentence!

Another example sentence: 私はトイレに行く watashi wa toire ni iku > I will go to the bathroom, or I have to go to the bathroom. Let me break it down:
Watashi I.
Wa Topic Marker.
Toire Toilet.
Ni To.
Iku To go.

DE で - Is the indirect locational marker. You can think of "de" as marking any location that isn't really tangible. De can mean, "at; in; on; by; for; of; from" although some of these meanings are extremely rare cases such as "from" and "of" you can still see them. I will give you an example:　私は五分で行きます　watashi wa gofun de ikimasu. I will go in 5 minutes.
Watashi I
Wa Topic Marker
Gofun Go = 5 fun = minute
de In
Ikimasu Iku means to go, ikimasu is a polite conjugation. Imasu is a conjugation of "iru" which is attached to verbs to mean "to be".

TO と - To is used between two nouns to mean, "And". However, it can also mean "With" even when placed between two nouns so you need to use your judgment on which is used. Let me give you an example of both:僕の趣味は芸術のアニメと日本語です。 boku no shumi wa geijutsu no anime to nihongo desu. My hobbies are anime art and Japanese.
Boku I
No posessive marker, in this case think of it as my instead of I when put after boku.
Shumi Hobby
Wa Topic marker
Geijutsu Art
No posessive marker, in this case it would mean "of".
Anime come on now. You know this!
To And
Nihongo Japanese language.
Desu Verb, to be

Another example of To being used to mean "with": 僕は桜ちゃんと歩きたい. Boku wa sakura-chan to arukitai. I want to walk with Sakura-chan.
Boku I
Wa topic marker
Sakura-chan A very common girl's name in Japan. -chan is just an affectionate add-on to show politeness to someone younger than you.
To With
Arukitai A form of Aruku (to walk). add -tai by using the same verb rules I explained in my table. Remove U and add itai to show a desire to do that action. Tai is often added to verbs to show a desire. It's fairly common and good to know. Ikitai - I want to go, shiritai - I want to know. Etc, etc.

NA な - Turns a noun into an adjective. This is an incredibly complicated particle that even I don't understand all of its uses. But its basic uses are fairly common and important to learn. There is no translation for it in English, you can only translate the word it follows remembering that that word is being changed into something that describes a noun. I will give you a couple sentences.

バカな人よ！ baka na hito yo. He is a foolish person.
Baka idiot
Na Turns idiot into an adjective so idiot becomes "foolish"
Hito person
yo kind of like an English explanation mark. It adds emphasis to the sentence.
As I stated before, Japanese often leave the topic out because it is obvious. This is no exception. We just assume it is a "he" that this person is talking about based on whatever context is given.

好きな人よ。 suki na hito yo. He is my favorite person.
Suki Fondness. You can think of it as "to like someone/something"
Na Turns Suki in to an adjective so it ends up meaning, favorite instead of "like". As I said before, Na is very complicated and often times the adjective of these nouns will not be obvious so you'll have to think about it!

嫌いな人よ。 kirai na hito yo. He is hated!
Kirai To hate/dislike.
Na Turns Kirai into an adjective. So you end up with "hated". Simple enough!
Once again the topic is left out!

MO も - It just means "also" or "too" it's put after a noun usually.
Nana says to Sakura: 私はかわいいです - watashi wa kawaii desu > I am cute.
Sakura says: 私も！watashi mo! me too!

It's simple enough!

kawaii means cute.

Come vote in my polls on my forum!

2007-01-04T18:05:00.001-08:00

That's right! You don't need to register to vote or leave comments in this part of the forum. Please take the time to vote in the polls and to post in the feedback thread. I need to know what you guys think so that I will know how to better update my blog.

- Why do you study Japanese poll! -
http://z10.invisionfree.com/AiAnime/index.php?showtopic=17

- What do you think of my site poll!-
http://z10.invisionfree.com/AiAnime/index.php?showtopic=18

- Come here to leave feedback about my blog site! -
http://z10.invisionfree.com/AiAnime/index.php?showtopic=19

I know it's asking a lot but please help me make my site better by participating in these polls. Once again, you don't even need to register on the forum to participate. So please just take a few minutes :)

Japanese Alphabet tables!

2006-12-30T06:35:00.002-08:00

Hiragana
A	I	U	E	O
あ	い	う	え	お
KA	KI	KU	KE	KO
か	き	く	け	こ
SA	SHI (SI)	SU	SE	SO
さ	し	す	せ	そ
TA	CHI (TI)	TSU (TU)	TE	TO
た	ち	つ	て	と
NA	NI	NU	NE	NO
な	に	ぬ	ね	の
HA	HI	HU (FU)	HE	HO
は	ひ	ふ	へ	ほ
MA	MI	MU	ME	MO
ま	み	む	め	も
YA	YE	YU	YO
や	いぇ	ゆ	よ
RA	RI	RU	RE	RO
ら	り	る	れ	ろ
WA	WI	WU	WE	WO
IMPORTANT Wa and Wo are the most common symbols, the other variations of "wo" are only seen in really obscure Japanese writing. It's important to note that the kanji for Wi and We are probably never used anymore in modern Japanese, but that doesn't mean you won't see it if you're reading something outdated or just a manga artist who's being strange with his writing. Also you'll notice the mini symbols next to the "U". They are written like that to match the sound that would be made if they had this kind of letter. You might find these in manga, especially if they're trying to make an English word E.X. うぃんどう means "window". It is ALSO important to note that in Japanese, it's proper to write foreign words with Katakana but you'll see it in hiragana too. And, there is no special way to write "wu" it's just "u"!
わ	うぃ (ゐ)	う	うぇ (ゑ)	を
N
ん
There's more! Special variations! DI and DU are the same as JI and ZU of the S variations because of sound purposes. They basically sound the same!
The K letters, S letters, and T letters change sounds with the addition of a " (quotation mark). And the H sounds change with the addition of a " or º. Any " or º will be placed to the right of the letter almost always unless you're reading something with a strange font!
Sound Changes! The K letters change into G sounds. The S letters change into Z except SHI which changes into JI. The T letters change into D sounds however CHI changes into JI and TSU changes into ZU! The H letters change into B with the addition of a " or P with the addition of a º.
And the -y additions!
It's important to remember that the second letter that comes after each letter alphabet (ka and then ki) (sa and then shi) (ha and then hi) (ra and then ri) when you add a -y sound you will write it with the second letter of the sounds always (FYI, it's better thought of as the "I" sounds of each letter will be the one conjugating). And the Y letters are always smaller than the letter before it when making these conjugations.
Ki changes into kya, kyu, or kyo　きゃ　きゅ　きょ Shi changes into Sha, Shu, or Sho　しゃ　しゅ　しょ Chi changes into Cha, Chu, or Cho　ちゃ　ちゅ　ちょ Nu changes into Nya, Nyu, or Nyo　にゃ　にゅ　にょ Hu changes into Hya, Hyu, or Hyo　ひゃ　ひゅ　ひょ Mu changes into Mya, Myu, or Myo　みゃ　みゅ、みょ Ru changes into, Rya, Ryu, or Ryo　りゃ　りゅ　りょ

Verb Table

2006-12-19T23:20:00.001-08:00

Verb	Definition	Politeness Level 1	Politeness Level 2	Politeness Level 3
Japanese verbs can be conjugated in many ways in order to show tenses, negatives or positives (sentences) and even how polite a sentence is! For the most part verbs go at the end of a sentence. And, much like English, Japanese verbs can be conjugated in regular, or irregular forms meaning some are easy to figure out while others require you to just memorize the way it works. Politeness level 1 is the lowest, humble is the highest. I am only going to mention a few words and all of their basic conjugations based on politeness!
遊ぶ asobu	to play	遊ぶ asobu	遊びます asobimasu	n/a
n/a	to not play	遊ばないasobanai	遊びませんasobimasen	n/a
-te endings: -te is basically a command form. Although not all verbs use the -te sound, the same principle applies.	Play! or Please play. depending on politeness.	遊べ asobe (another form of the -te ending used on certain verbs in place of -te for conversational purposes. (easier on the tongue))	遊びなさいasobinasai	遊んでasonde kudasai
n/a	not playing	遊ぶな asobu na	遊びなさるasobinasaru na	遊ばないでasobanai de kudasai
ましょう-mashou versions	let's play!	遊ぼう asobou	n/a	遊びましょうasobimashou
negative -mashou endings	let's not play	遊ぶまいasobumai	n/a	遊びますまいasobimasumai
Verb	Definition	Politeness Level 1	Politeness level 2	Politeness level 3
Japanese people almost never use the kanji for suru so you can expect it to almost always be spelled in hiragana (or katakana if being used as slang of some sort). But for your reference the kanji symbol is: 為る
する suru	to do	suru	shimasu	n/a
n/a	to not do	shinai	shimasen	n/a
n/a	doing	shite	n/a	shimashite
n/a	not doing	shina katta	shinakute	shimasen de
-mashou endings	let's do	shiyou	n/a	shimashou
negative -mashou endings	let's not do	surumai	n/a	shimasumai
Now I'm going to talk about the different letter endings of verbs. I'll list what I know, I may have missed one or two if I did and someone knows please inform me on the forum or via email!To do endings refer to -imasu, -imashita, -imasen, -imashou.the next list I'm about to give you are extremely important to memorize! It's important to note that there are actually many words that are exceptions to these rules but what I gave you are the absolute most common uses! It's up to you through trial and error to find the exceptions.
Original Verb Ending	To Do Ending	Impolite Command	Semi-polite Command	Polite Command
る -ru	change -ru to -ri or remove -ru to add the ending.	-ro	remove -ru and add -ri and then nasai.	remove -ru and add -te followed by kudasai.
ぶ -bu	remove -bu and add -bi and en the appropriate conjugation.	remove -bu and add -be.	remove -bu and add -bi and then nasai.	remove -bu and add -nde and then kudasai.
つ -tsu	remove -tsu and add -chi and then the appropriate conjugation.	remove -tsu and add -te.	remove -tsu and add -chi and then nasai.	remove -tsu and add -tte and then kudasai.
う -u	remove -u and add -i and then the appropriate conjugation.	remove -u and add -e.	remove -u and add -i and then nasai	remove -u and add -tteand then kudasai
く -ku	remove -ku and add -ki and then the appropriate conjugation.	remove -ku and add -ke	remove -ku and add -ki and then nasai.	remove -ku and add -te and then kudasai. In some words, like iku you remove -ku and add -tte
む -mu	remove -mu and add -mi and the appropriate conjugation.	remove -mu and add -me.	remove -mu and add -mi and then nasai	remove -mu and add -nde and the kudasai.
ぐ -gu	make -gu into -gi and add the appropriate conjugation.	make -gu into -ge.	make -gu into -gi and add nasai.	make -gu into -de and add -kudasai.
す -su	remove -su and add -shi then add the appropriate conjugation.	remove -su and add -ro.	remove -su and add -shi and then nasai.	remove -su and add -shite and add kudasai

Sometime this week I'll update this table to include the negative endings of these verbs! Look forward to it!

News ニュース

2006-11-29T12:27:00.000-08:00

I'll be updating this blog soon with a big lesson on verbs and hopefully a chance for you to learn some new words. I'll make a verb table showing the different conjugations and especially those pesky irregular verbs!

Just for fun, I'm going to give you a couple sentences for you to translate. I will give you the vocab for every word in the sentence that I haven't already told you about! See if you can come up with a logical translation!

わたしは、あなたがすてきとおもいます。そしてあなたのはいくがすきです。
watashi wa, anata ga suteki to omoimasu. soshite anata no haiku ga suki desu.

suteki means lovely, dreamy, beautiful
omoimasu is conjugated form of omou; omou means "to think (something)".
soshite means "and"
haiku You know what a Haiku is! A Japanese poem.
suki means "fond of" or "like"
Give it a try. You can post your answers on my forum if you'd like. These are rather easy sentences!

beginners!

2006-11-22T02:55:00.000-08:00

Before I begin I want to encourage anyone who reads my blog to go to my forum (located at my links area) and register and under the "Japanese" forum you can post any questions you may have. I will answer them as quickly as I can so don't be shy.

So you want to learn Japanese but there are no classes you can take so you feel that:
A - You don't know enough time
B - Feel that it's impossible to learn Japanese on your own

Well I once felt B and I'll tell you that that's a load of garbage. It's a big language and you'll have to change the way you normally think in order to learn it; but, you can do it!

You find out that problem B isn't a problem for you but problem A is a problem for you. I work third shift and attend my local university full time and I always have time to study Japanese. Even if you can't devote enormous amounts of time during the week to study it that doesn't mean that you "don't have time" just pick important concepts worth studying and learn at least one new thing every week. Remember this: You can spend your whole life saying you can't do something, or you can take the initiative and just do it. Basically you need to just start studying even if it's only a little bit each week. If you truly have a desire to learn Japanese you won't let problems like this burdain you.

What I wanted to talk about in this post was ways to help beginners learn Japanese and the things they should be studying first.

You'll start off studying Japanese by looking at some words: konnichiwa, ohayou/ohayougozaimasu, konbanwa, perhaps even desu and suru and iku.

You'll then wonder what to do after this. I mean sure you can use some basic Japanese words but where do you go from there?

Do what I did! Learn the Japanese sentence structure! Subject-Object-Verb! It's true, when I frst started studying Japanese it was the first time I've ever tried a foreign language I always thought that languages used the same sentence structure and word patterns just different ways to pronounce words. I was kinda stupid and this smacked me in the face hard when I learned this. So I would open up my dictionary and try to put words into this sentence structure to see if that would work. For example. "Watashi no namae wa Jess desu" In this sentence you have the topic marker "wa" the topic is also the subject of the sentence so you would proceed to place the object which is the name "Jess" and "desu" would be the verb!
私 Watashi personal pronoun "i" "me"
名前 Namae means Name
Desu means "to be" you would fill in the appropriate words such as "Is" "are" "am" etc.

When you learn the sentence structure you can proceed to learn new words and try them out and you can also understand subject and topic markers and object markers easier.

Before I move on to the new word I want you all to remember that in Japanese, personal pronouns such as "i" are often left out of sentences. In Japanese these things are automatically assumed.

A new word I'd like to discuss today is "為る suru" Suru is usually placed after verbs to make them progressive and in some cases can be thought of like adding "ing" to a word. You will often times see "suru" conjugated as shite or shita.
shite is present-tense progressive
shita is past-tense progressive (impolite)
EXAMPLE: "hanashite" = "Speaking" and "Hanashita" = "Spoke"
suru can be adding to some nouns as well:
EXAMPLE: "koi shite" = "I am falling in love" "koi shita" = "I fell in love"
Although koi is a noun it is possible to use shite with some nouns like this. "Like in English we have love and we have loving"
I forgot to mention this earlier but Japanese verbs are understood to have the phrase, "To be" already in them. Which is why just saing "loving" can mean you are falling in love.

Even though verbs have "to be" aleady in them it's not always polite to just leave verbs using this principle. The word:
Iru works exactly like "desu" except Iru is used after verbs! Let me give you a few examples of different politeness and tenses:
hanashite(話して)iru, more commonly said as "Hanashiteru" where the I sound is often left out. means "I am speaking"
Hanashiteimasu means the same thing as above except iru is conjugated as imasu to add more politeness.
hanashiteimashita -imashita is the past-tense form of iru so in this case you have "I spoke"
hanashiteimasen -imasen is the negative form of iru meaning "I am not speaking"

Forum up

2006-11-20T00:12:00.000-08:00

I have a forum up for those of you who want to ask questions or just participate in a forum. The forum sucks because it's new but feel free to join up and do whatever there.

http://z10.invisionfree.com/AiAnime/index.php?

こんにちは皆さん

2006-11-19T05:07:00.000-08:00

Hello again. I have been trying to think of something that would make my blog different from all of the other Japanese learning sites. I think I've hit the jackpot.

Upon self-studying Japanese there's one thing that really bothered me, the use of slang in anime. Face it, anyone who studies Japanese on their own will end up ripping their hair out trying to figure some of this garbage out. I have am fortunate enough to have Japanese penpals who have told me the meanings to these slang words. No dictionary will tell you, translators won't translate them, there's no good Japanese slang books to buy, Japanese slang sites are rare or they just suck or fail to explain things showing real use. So what will I do? I am going to update THIS post frequently whenever I feel like adding new slang. I will focus heavily on explaining definitions for hard to find slang and difficult to understand phrases that I have heard from songs and such. I also feel that it's best if I include kanji in everything for the sake of you maybe picking up new kanji compounds.

Right now I want to use a song that I translated at animelyrics.tv which can be found http://www.animelyrics.tv/anime/sisterprincess/egiyn.htm

kono goro TSUItenai a-a yannacchau na - So you've recently hit bad luck, It truly sucks.
BAIORIZUMU wa mada KA-BU no nami donzoko ne Your spirits are down right?

massao ni hareta sora - A deep blue sky,
taiyou no hikari KIRAKIRA afurete - Filled with bright sunshine
MERAMERA kokoro ga genki o torimodosu - Will lift your spirits!
And again in Kanji:
このごろツイてない　あーあ　やんなっちゃうな - So you've recently hit bad luck, It truly sucks.
バイオリズムは　まだ　カーブの波どん底ね - Your spirits are down right?

まっさおに晴れた空 - A deep blue sky,
太陽の光　キラキラあふれて - Filled with bright sunshine
メラメラ　心が元気を取り戻す - Will lift your spirits!

this is a great example of what it'll be like if you try to translate or read Japanese from children who like to act silly in any Japanese animations really. The Japanese here is incredibly difficult and it took me a couple days just to figure out what they were trying to say. I'm going to break it down and show you what this kind of Japanese looks like before it's translated and explain the grammar and functions of these sentences so it'll hopefully make sense to you and you'll learn new things. (FYI, this is only a couple paragraphs. I'm not going to show you the whole song here)

konogoro means "recently"
tsuitenai ---> tsuku + Itenai ----- this is fairly annoying because my Japanese penpal told me once that in order to add "nai" to something we need to add either "A" "I" or "E" to a word. I believe the te is added because Tsuku is an irregular case and it's added to show that you mean to use the word tsuku and not the word tsui or it could be because of flow purposes. You would either drop an entire letter or drop a vowel to add the A, I, or E required to make this modification (depends on the word as you've seen). Tsuitenai means "Bad luck".
a-a is just kinda like Oh! or Alas! kinda like a sound effect referring to something bad.
Yannacchau is really Iyani naru. -- It's important to note that the i sound is usually ommited in this expression so you'll usually hear only yani naru. Chau is a childish express that children in Japan would attach to words in place of the "ru" that should be at the end of it. For example: chiru = chichau shiru = shichau naru = nachau. Children do this in anime to try to sound extra cute or you might hear it in anime soundtracks (I hear it all the time in the Sister Princess soundtrack) but basically it has absolutely no meaning except to sound cute or funny and they'll just use it in place of a "ru" at the end of a word. (Note, in Osaka part of their dialect they may use Chau as a slang word instead of chigau don't confuse this with the Chau these children are making)
na is added as emphasis on a topic often times it'll turn something into a descriptive term like if I say "Daisuki na" it means beloved. "Daisuki na oniichan" <--- beloved big brother. If you put these together you get "recently bad luck, alas horrible becomes (na)" In Japanese, they will often not use personal pronouns so you'll be left to assume whether they're talking about themselves or to you so: The name of the song is Egao ga Ichiban! Yappari NE, it means "It's always best to smile" You can figure out right away after knowing this that it's a "cheer up" song which is a dead giveaway that they're talking to the listener. ---The reason I mention this is now that you know this, you can figure out how recently bad luck turns into "recently you've hit bad luck" in English, and alas horrible becomes (na) na turns it descriptive and yannacchau is slang so I figured it'd be best to translate slang into slang so I said "It truly sucks" But if you wanted a literal translation -----> "Oh! How horrible it is!"---

"BAIORIZUMU wa mada KA-BU no nami donzoko ne Your spirits are down right?"
I then moved on to this:
BAIORIZUMU means biorhythm
wa - topic marker I told you about in our first lesson. can be thought of as "as for"
mada means still or yet
KA-BU is curve note that the caps simulate katakana and often times(not always) this means it's a foreign word mainly English they are simulating with sounds.
no is a posessive marker
nami means wave
donzoko means the very bottom
ne used at the end of a sentence like this is like "eh?" "right?"
so you get: your(remember when translating you need to add the personal pronouns that weren't stated but simply implied) biorhythm as for still curve of a wave to(although to is not stated here it's basically implied) the very bottom eh?

This particular sentence is so stupid that not even my Japanese friends nor some translators at animelyrics.tv could even state a translation they could say was 100% accurate. My penpals actually made fun of the person who wrote it saying they were stupid haha!

Now let me make sense of it so you can understand.
Biorhythm refers to some sort of characteristic of a human be it emotion or whatever. It's a VERY shallow word and actually a friend recommended that I think of it as spirits and it just sounded good like this and makes more sense now. they are using biorhythm to refer to your spirits.

curve of a wave to the bottom ---> this is the supporting part of the sentence that describes the topic that was marked in the begining (biorhythm) meaning your spirits have curved to the bottom like a wave.
After talking with some of my penpals, apparently the "Curve to the bottom like a wave" is actually a stock market reference but the person who wrote this song did a really bad job at making the comparison so it just sucks. It's best to think of it like this, Your spirits are curving to the bottom like an unsuccessful company in the stock market's graph charts.

So I just settled on "Your spirits are down eh?" You'll run into problems like this in Japanese where you'll just need to find the easiest answer to something seemingly shallow and complicated.

massao ni hareta sora - A deep blue sky,
taiyou no hikari KIRAKIRA afurete - Filled with bright sunshine
MERAMERA kokoro ga genki o torimodosu - Will lift your spirits!

This stuff is easy! Now that the difficult stuff is out of the way I'll finish it with this:
Massao - Deep blue
ni in this case means "to"
hareta = hareru means to clear up. Ta is past tense so it's added to hareru with the subtraction of "ru"
sora - Sky
deep blue to clear up sky
The sky cleared up to a deep blue sky. They're just saying basically, "A deep blue sky"

taiyou - Sun
no - posessive
hikari - light
kirakira - glitter or twinkle, sparkle or glisten.
afurete - afureru - means overflow. Te is added with the subtraction of -ru. (te is shite also known as suru) you would add this to verbs to make them progressive. So afurete means overflowing
sun of light glitter overflowing
You can guess this one easily > there's overflowing sunlight shining brightly (kirakira insinuates a bright sunshine)
MERAMERA kokoro ga genki o torimodosu - Will lift your spirits!

meramera means refresh (as in your spirits or your heart) but Meramera is like a burning desire or burning refreshment like the burning of your heart (not actual burning just poetic stuff)
kokoro - intangible word for one's mind, spirit, and heart. It's poetic too and when translating it's up to you to decide which one of it's meanings is best to use
ga - is a subject marker, I haven't covered this in detail yet, if at all really. But I will eventually!
genki - energy!
o(or wo) - is the object marker. I haven't covered this either.
torimodosu - to regain, to take back.
So you are left with:
refreshment spirit (ga) energy (wo) to regain

The girls in this song are basically saying that the deep blue sky and the sparkling sunlight will refresh your spirit. Remember that when reading or listening to Japanese, context is EXTREMELY important. I can't express this enough. If something doesn't make sense to you, you should examine context. Something as little as a song name can make a big difference in how you'll interpret things in Japanese.

If anyone has any questions about this you are free to email me or just post a comment. Your questions will help me improve my explanations so any comments are welcomed. And to any Japanese vets reading this, if you see any errors on my part don't hesitate to correct me. I'm new to this, and, although I'm checking all of my lessons for accuracy before I publish them, I may be wrong about some things since I'm not perfect so... yeah ^^

BTW I decided to keep bolding my vocab words so that if you're just looking through my blog for vocabulary terms, you'll find it very easy to find the vocab I have posted in each blog.

New Kanji for you!!

猫 - neko!!! it means Cat :)
猫耳 - neko mimi! cat ear!
猫少女 - neko shoujo, pretty cat girl! :P

PS: Check out my ads. They're mainly there to supply you with Japanese products and services to help you learn! And some are just anime stuff. Pay some of them a visit sometime, maybe you'll find something useful.

Lesson 2, introductions!

2006-10-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

Konnichiwa minnasan!(こんにちは皆さん！) genki desu ka?(元気ですか？)

Hello everyone! How are you? Today I'm going to discuss introductions in japanese and give you a couple more kanji to study! And a compound!

What are introductions? Well in America and most English countries there are not many formalities unless in a career field or business. We just say, "This is Chad, Chad this is Jess" then you both nod and say "hey". But in Japan formalities are very important to make a good impression on others even if the person is of no importance to you.

Okay! Here I go:
はじめまして。私の名前はチャドです。
私の趣味は、アニメとアニメの芸術です。
よろしくございます。(and bow softly)

Hajimemashite. watashi no namae wa chado desu.
watashi no shumi wa, anime to anime no geijutsu desu.
yoroshikugozaimasu! (and bow softly)

Hajimemashite means "How do you do?" or "Nice to meet you!" Depending on the situation.

Watashi means " I "
no is a posessive marked so if you have "watashi no" it because "My"
Namae means name.
there's "HA" again being used as a topic marker which, as stated in my last lesson is pronounced as "WA"
Chado is a name, it is derived from the name "Chad" in English. You will always write foreign names in katakana like this.
Desu again as stated in my last entry means "to be". Please refer to my previous lesson for more info.
Shumi means hobbies!
Anime... do I need to tell you ^ ^? geijutsu means art.
To means "With" or "and" it typically means and when placed between two nouns.
Yoroshiku means "Best regards" and can be translated as many things! Like in anime when a female introduces herself to the class she'd say, "Yoroshikugozaimashita!" And it'd translate as, "Please be kind to me!" or "Please treat me kindly!" It's a great way to end an introduction nonetheless. Just think about the emotional meaning when you finally get good enough to translate!

watashi no shumi wa, anime to anime no geijutsu desu.
yoroshikugozaimasu! (and bow softly)

So how does this sentence play out grammar-wise? Japanese sentences are "Subject-Object-Verb" and it's typical that the "topic" would go first in any sentence where it's required. "Watashi no namae wa" <--- The topic is "My name" then after this I state my name which acts as the object of the sentence. Followed by the verb "To be". It's proper to end all Japanese sentences with a verb even if you don't think it needs one. The next sentence. The same thing as the last, "Watashi no shumi wa" <--- my hobbies "anime to anime no geijutsu desu" <---- are anime and art of anime. I want you to take not of how "no" is used in this sentence. Literally translated it's "Anime of art" Japanese is backwards like this. Remember this when you need to use no as "of" to reverse the order from the norm in English. Now lemme give you a kanji of the day and a special kanji compound!! 皆 - Minna 元気 - genki 気 - by itself it means "ki" for energy. As in spiritual or natural energy. 元 - It is pronounced "moto" by itself. It means original as in origin. So there's another lesson. I will start defining verbs for you in the next lesson since they're crucial to making real sentences!

私　－ Watashi - personal pronoun "I"
土　－ Tsuchi - earth

またね！ <--- mata ne! (cya later)

Japanese

2006-10-17T08:40:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, I know that many of you are wondering what this is about. Well I'll tell you what it's about, it's about nihongo(日本語！) Japanese. I have been self-studying Japanese for about a year and a half now and I have some great tricks to helping you understand complicated particles and even those confusing word-plays that boggle the mind. But I also know that many people who have an interest in learning Japanese are also very interested in anime as well. Well, so am I! I love anime and I love anime art especially. I am going to try something new. I'll be teaching you Japanese using anime as a reference. Hopefully it'll work.

Feel free to leave comments! If you find any errors or if I make retarded mistakes just let me know! I've never done anything like this before so I'm bound to do something stupid ^ ^

First of all, let me give you the kanji of the day, except to start you all off I'd like to at the very least introduce you to a few kanji I find are used commonly.

For those of you completely new to this, the reason kanji is so difficult is because they have many different sounds and some change drastically so it becomes difficult to figure out what the sound is when combined with other kanji. The key is, remember compounds. I also recommend you download a program called jwpce which is located on my links section. This program allows you to view all kanji even the really obscure ones that are only used in real poetic literature or old ones. But a basic knowledge of hiragana and katana is required before you can really take full advantage of this program. Check out my links section for probably the best site to learn these alphabets. There's only one real way to learn these alphabets and that's to just sit down and draw them over and over again while pronouncing the sounds. It's difficult at first but once you get the hang of it you'll love it! (You can also practice writing sentences you may already know, things like konnichiwa ( こんにちは ). (spelled with a ha at the end, why? Because whenever a word ends in 'wa' as a sound you spell it with a hiragana "ha" but it is still pronounced "wa". Contrary to this, if a word has a "wa" sound in the middle or at the begining of a word you'd use the hiragana "wa"(わ).

Now that I've rambled on let me state the kanji of the day:

日 - hi, nichi, ni, jitsu >>>> this kanji means Day
本 - hon, moto >>>> this kanji means Book
語 - go >>>> this kanji means language
一 - ichi, itsu, hito(tsu) >>>> this kanji means one

Many different sounds to learn. But you can see hopefully how 日本語 is pronounced as "Nihongo" and this word means "Japanese language" Not all kanji in a compound have relevance to the actual meaning of the word, remember this.

I will explain more on this later.

Right now I want to explain 1 particle to get you started:
A particle in Japanese is things like, "In, on, to etc etc"
But some are not so obvious like the one I'm going to show you today:
は (pronounced wa but is spelled as ha) this is a topic marker. Literally translated it means, "As for". A basic Japanese sentence, "Inu wa okii desu" <--- the dog is big ( ^ ^ ) Inu means "dog" (inuyasha > dog demon?) . In a literal sense the sentence translates as, "Dog as for big is" Desu is the verb, "To be" you will fill it in with the appropriate word in English. to be = is, are, am etc etc. Okii means "big" which is usually used before a verb. "wa" markes the topic as being the dog.

So, that's it for today. Let's see if this makes sense to anyone it's my first time giving lessons. ^^