Vocab

tabun - probably

minna de - all together

moo - already

yoku - often

doozo - please

こ - ko is my hiragana of the day.

I should probably mention that I'm following the format of long vowels as it occurs in my current textbook: a doubled vowel = long vowel. Thus, moo is pronounced [mo] (long), not [mu]. 

Also, given that I know the IPA, I will tend to use it if the limitations of my computer allow it to be practical. I find it so much easier than trying to spell it out phonetically any other way... English just doesn't work that way! (Does 'ay' sound like [aI] or [eI]?)

Particles

Japanese expresses all sorts of ideas through particles; they serve as prepositions, case markers, and inflections, among other things (I'm still a beginner, so I'm sure I've barely scratched the surface of particles).

Here are some that I've learned:

no - possessive marker, equivalent of 's, placed after the noun it modifies

For example:

watashi no uchi - my house

Sumisu san no tomodachi - Mr. Smith's friend

ojiisan no inu - Grandpa's dog

o - direct object marker, no English equivalent (English uses word order to express this idea), placed after the noun it modifies

For example:

(watashi) ocha o nomimasu - (I) drink tea

bangohan o tabemashoo - let's eat dinner

to - directly translates to 'and', but can only connect nouns

For example:

Yamaguchi san to watashi - Ms. Yamaguchi and I

keshigomu to enpitsu - erasers and pens

de - can be directly translated as 'at' or 'in', the location in which an action takes place (it looks like there's only one word for this, unlike darn English's seemingly random alternation between 'at' and 'in')

kissaten de ocha nomimashoo - let's drink tea at the coffee shop

tomodachi no uchi de bangohan tabemashita - I ate dinner at a friend's house

Also, pronoun dropping is fun but will take some getting used to. But more on that later. Apparently I was in a writing mood, anyhow. 

Time words and more verbs

Feeling kind of blah today, so not much writing. I'm not 100% confident with yesterday's words, but I'm going to add new ones today anyhow:

ototoi - the day before yesterday

asatte - the day after tomorrow

nomimasu - to drink

dakara - so, therefore

karimasu - to buy

And the hiragana of the day is け, which is ke.

I find it interesting that the Japanese have a word for the day before yesterday/day after tomorrow. I can't think of another language that expresses that concept so easily, at least not of Indo-European languages. I wonder if it's common in Asian languages? I wish English had an easier way of expressing it though. Obviously the concept exists, it just creates confusion and awkwardness in English. 

I feel like I might get these terms confused, though, because there doesn't seem to be a lot linking the words for tomorrow and day after tomorrow or yesterday and day before yesterday.

tomorrow - ashita 

day after tomorrow - asatte

yesterday - kinoo

day before yesterday - ototoi

The only connection I can see is that ashita and asatte both start with a... and kinoo and ototoi both have o and i sounds.. a tenuous link at best, but it may help. 

Other time words (review):

today - kyoo

every day - mainichi

...

So it's not that the vocab list that I posted yesterday is the complete extent of my knowledge, because it's not, it's just that the words that go in my little book are the ones that require learning. I find that some words stick in my mind more easily than others, and so anything that goes in super easily doesn't deserve a line in my book of words (i.e. the place where I keep my five daily words... it's this really adorable miniature notebook that is perfectly spaced to hold the exact amount of information that I want for each day, and it's a flip notebook so that I can read it backwards or forwards, thus the English is on one side of the page and the Japanese on the other for easy self-testing. Hooray little books! Thank you, Amanda!).

So today's words are:

keshigomu - eraser

tokei - watch, clock

oto - sound

koko - this place, here

kinoo - yesterday

Also, I'm sure there's an easier way to get hiragana into these posts than copy and pasting from Wikipedia, but I haven't discovered it yet, so here are the hiragana characters that I've learned so far:

あ - a

い - i

う - u

え - e

お - o

か - ka

き - ki

く - ku

I think yesterday I referred to katakana by accident instead of hiragana... I keep getting them confused. These characters are definitely hiragana, though: hiragana is the writing system 'with a roundish shape', used for 'conjugation endings, function words, and native Japanese words not covered by kanji'. Oh the three different writing systems... why? Why? Mind you, it probably makes just as much (or as little) sense as the 'consistency' of English spellings.... what a maze that is for non-native speakers. 

Learning hiragana makes me feel like I'm four again, though, because when I write them, they never look the same twice. Or even close to the same, really. I feel like I'm not enough of an artist to create hiragana properly. But then, perhaps native Japanese speakers feel similarly when learning Western characters? 

Vocabulary

Here's what's in my little book of words so far:

ikimasu - to go

kimasu - to come

oyogimasu - to swim

tabemasu - to eat

These verbs are all in the polite/neutral present/future affirmative form.

mainichi - every day

hisho - secretary

gakkoo - school

daigaku - university/college

kaerimasu - to go/come back

kore kara - starting from now

kyoo - today

ashita - tomorrow

issho ni - together

oyasumi nasai - good night

doo itashimashite - you're welcome/don't mention it

kuni - nations

kissaten - coffee shop

honsha - headquarters (of a company)

ryokoo - trip

shutchoo ryokoo - business trip

kankoo ryokoo - sightseeing trip

hon - book

enpitsu - pencil

I'll also post the kana that I've learned if I ever figure out how to get it in here. I may have to be creative with copy and pasting, or else thief one of my more tech-savvy friends to assist me. 

New beginnings and travel plans

I've never blogged before, so I'm not entirely sure how exactly I should be doing this. I feel like this is going to end up very stream-of-consciousness, which is probably boring for people to read (take that, Virginia Woolf) but chances of people actually reading is probably slim to none, so this will probably end up mostly as me just organizing my thoughts. Just like my old junior high diaries, except wordier, because I type faster than I write, and with less pining over boys. 

I embark upon my quest to learn Japanese because I want to move there. I recently graduated from university with an English Language degree, and though teaching is not something I want to do with the entire rest of my life, I want to move to Japan for a while and teach English. I have done some ESL tutoring before (volunteer work only, and mostly one-on-one) and I know I love it, and I think that it would be a wonderful way for me to truly experience Japanese culture and have a job at the same time. 

Why Japan? This is a good question, actually, especially since my mom's family is Chinese and they all want to know why not China. Honestly, Japanese culture interests me more, perhaps because it's more foreign to me, but also perhaps because it does feel a little closer to home. Japan's definitely more Westernized than China, and the political situation is much less delicate (censorship is not something I am fond of). At the same time, because I live in Vancouver, sometimes it feels like I live in China already, so moving there would feel much the same. Probably just as many people would speak Mandarin at me; I just wouldn't be able to read the signs... 

I've learned a bit of Mandarin before, in my second year of university, but very little of it stuck with me, and I feel like I didn't learn much anyhow because we were trying so desperately to learn how to write as well as speak. A 100 word vocabulary is really nothing to brag of. 

I don't speak any language other than English fluently, but I did take French for most of my elementary/high school years so I can speak that with some confidence, I can read German fairly well but can't put a sentence together to save my life, and I also have a smattering of Swedish. In hindsight, actually sticking with one language or another would probably benefited me more in the long run, but the wannabe linguist in me (I discovered the wonder of linguistics after I'd already changed my degree plan twice) just wanted to learn a bit about the structure of all the languages and not actually commit. 

I will become fluent in Japanese, though, I swear. Because I have a goal and a time frame, and because I will actually be immersed in it in a way that I'd never been with any other language that I've studied, I think that this venture will be more successful. 

My plan is to be in Japan in September of 2010, approximately. Some cursory research indicates that the first school term begins in April, but I'm fairly certain that the JET programme (one of the ones I'm considering applying to) recruits for September. As the time comes closer, I'll look into more details, but I've still got a year before I can even think of applying anywhere, so right now I'm just going to focus on language skills. 

I have a variety of textbooks to play with, but the one I will be using primarily is Living Language's Ultimate Japanese: Beginner-Intermediate. You can find it at

http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Japanese-Beginner-Intermediate-Book-Basic-Intermed/dp/140002112X/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219728972&sr=8-1

if you're interested. So far I've gotten through chapter one, vocabulary, grammar, and katakana all, and I'm working my way through chapter two.  

I'm finding the grammar fairly easy to understand, grammar nerd that I am (SOV, SOV, SOV), and I've resolved to learn five new words per day and one kana character.