More hiragana

I may as well add the hiragana that is almost identical to the ones I've learned except with two little sticks on the top right hand side... they're the voiced equivalents of some of the voiceless consonant hiragana that I've learned: t changes to d, k to g, and s to z. There are a few exceptions, which I'll point out.

が - ga

ぎ - gi

ぐ - gu

げ - ge

ご - go

ざ - za

じ - ji

ず - zu

ぜ - ze

ぞ - zo

だ - da

ぢ - ji (limited use, same sound as じ)

づ - zu (limited use, same sound as ず)

で - de

ど - do

Well that was easy!

More numbers

Hooray! I now know not only the number for one hundred, but also the number for one thousand! I can count!

one hundred - hyaku

two hundred - nihyaku

one thousand - sen/issen

two thousand - nisen 

Also, the word for Japanese currency (yen, in English) is en in Japanese, and just gets tacked on to the end of the number word: ichien, juuen, nihyakuen, and so on.

Hiragana of the day: na な and ni に.

Numbers and hiragana troubles

I haven't been taking a break, I've just been learning numbers and practicing hiragana! I have to say, trying to read things in hiragana currently is extremely frustrating. I only know about half the characters, so I have to guess based on the words I already know, and since my repertoire of words is quite small, my guesses are often terrible. Not that I've been trying to read anything actual, just stuff in my textbook, but I think I'm going to give up for a while on that and wait until I know ALL my hiragana before trying to read.

Of hiragana, I currently know 20 characters, my most recent two being te て and to と.

Japanese numbers are confusing... not only are there two completely different sets of numbers to count from 1 to 10 (one Chinese-based and one Japanese-based), there are two different words for some numbers depending on context within the Chinese-based system. 

0 - zero/rei

1 - ichi

2 - ni

3 - san

4 - yon/shi

5 - go

6 - roku

7 - nana/shichi

8 - hachi

9 - ku/kyuu

10 - juu

To get to 19, you just add numbers to the end of 10: juuichi is 11 (literally ten one), juuni is 12 (ten two) and so on.

You count tens by adding a number in front of 10: nijuu is 20 (literally two ten), and anything above that follows the same pattern as the teens: two ten one, two ten two etc etc. (nijuuichi, nijuuni).

As far as I can tell, this pattern continues all the way to 99. I haven't learned the word for 100 yet... that will be next!

Random words and some numbers

So apparently this every day thing isn't going so well, but I haven't given up altogether!

The words of today:

keiko - practice

eiga - movie

rei/zero - zero

ichi - one

ni - two

san - three

And today's hiragana is tsu つ.

Up next: more numbers. 

More of the same

More of the same today... words that sound almost the same except for the long/short vowel difference. (They're minimal pairs! Hooray!) 

su - nest

suu - number

beru - bell

beeru - veil

(These last two both sound like borrowings from English.)

Since these feel kind of like they're only one word to remember (they're so short and easy and almost identical), I decided to up it a bit today with some more vowel sound distinctions:

hoshi - star (This one I know because it's the name Kel gives her horse in Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small series, in which one of the cultures is very definitely based off Japanese.)

hooshi - service

The purpose of these vowel-full words is to demonstrate that the vowel sequences don't turn into diphthongs; that is, they are each pronounced at their own full vowel and don't meld into one another. 

ue - top, up, above

akai - red

aoi - blue (This one sounds exactly like the sound you would make if you were to become black and blue. Sort of like 'owie'. Or perhaps [aʊi]. 

koe - voice (This one is very like the Mandarin word for mouth, which I think is ko or something like that. I wonder if the kanji is the same as the Chinese character.)

And the hiragana for the day:

た - ta

ち - chi

It kind of seems like if you put them together, you'd get that crazy Chinese relaxation martial art thing, but there's no diphthong [aI] in Japanese, as far as I know. That means no tai chi! Just たち, which is a completely different kettle of fish! And, I think, the plural suffix? Watashitachi means 'we', and tomodachitachi is 'friends', so yes. Plural suffix it is!

Sometimes I am weird even to myself.

Hm... waたしたち and tomoぢちたち I think. Hooray putting things together! Probably all wrong, but it's a start. 

Words that sound almost the same

This selection of vocabulary is meant to emphasize the difference between long and short vowels.

cado - corner

caado - card

chizu - map

chiizu - cheese

And today's hiragana: 

せ - se

そ - so

I think that そ looks like a quarter rest, so it should be easy to remember. :)

Slowpokishness

So I took a few days off from new words for absolutely no good reason, just out of sheer laziness. Bad me! A large part of it was that I had new books, and I'm such an addict. If books were drugs, I'd never get out of rehab. Luckily, this is an addiction that society considers acceptable, even admirable. Hooray! I'd better stay away from actually addictive substances, though, because I'd probably never escape. 

Anyhow, that being said, I did learn some new words and phrases. 

Ii desu ne. - That's a good idea.

Irasshae(mase). - Welcome. Can I help you? (not too sure on the context of this one yet)

So desu ne. - I agree./That will be fine.

Ittakimasu. - (literally) I'll go and come back. In practice, this one is said when leaving home to go to work or school or whatever for the day.

Itterasshai. - (lit.) Please go and come back. The corresponding saying to the last one, this one said by the person who is staying at home.

Tadaima. - I'm home!

Okaeri nasai. - Welcome home.

Gochisoosama. - Thank you for the meal. (said after eating)

Itadakimasu. - Thank you for the meal. (said before eating)

Doozo yoroshiku. - Nice to meet you. (I'm not sure the difference between this one and hajimemashite. I think the second is more formal.)

Also, my hiragana:

さ - sa

し - shi

す - su

さ is giving me troubles because it looks different in my book than on the screen. In my book, the bottom part doesn't exactly connect... I think it's a handwriting/printing kind of distinction, but it's a bit confusing, the way it must be for English learners who see 'a' written like that and also like an 'o' with a stick on the side... し is fairly easy because it's such a simple line, and す I recognize because it's in every verb I've learned so far. Hooray! And darn this hiragana, slowing me down. 

I feel like some of this is a repeat of the last post, but that's just too bad. 

A few useful phrases

I've exhausted all the vocabulary in chapters 1 and 2 of my book, but I still have quite a ways to go on hiragana characters to catch up... I'm slow with the hiragana. The words stick in my head easily, but the hiragana not so much... I have my あいうえお / かきくけこ pretty firmly in my mind, but only if I do them in order... Well, practice makes permanent, as an old band teacher of mine used to say, so I'll just have to keep working away. Also, my character of the day is さ - sa.

Here are my phrases of the day:

Ii desu ne. - That's a good idea. 

Irasshae(mase). Welcome. Can I help you?

Soo desu ne. - I agree./That will be fine.

Ittekimasu. - I will go and come back.

Itterasshai. - Please go and come back. 

These last two are said when leaving home for the day to go to work or school or whatever. You wouldn't say sayoonara because that's just for leaving in a permanent/indefinite sense.... ittekimasu is for 'see you soon' type situations, I think. And itterasshai is what the person who is staying home gets to say, as far as I can tell. 

Verb forms

I can't believe that it's September already. I don't know what happened to my summer... well, I do know, but it seems like it went too fast, as always. It's weird for me that I'm not starting school tomorrow. I may be starting sometime in October, but I'm just not sure! Eep!

Anyhow, I realized that I've been using all kinds of verb forms but haven't explained them, so here it goes:

The basic verb form that I've been using (the one my textbook teaches first!) is the present tense polite/neutral affirmative tense. This is the tense I've been listing my vocabulary in, and they all end in -masu.

For example:

oyogimasu - swim

kaimasu - buy

kaerimasu - go/come back

(Also, though I've been listing them in infinitive form, this is not actually how they translate, it's just for my own purposes so I know that they're verbs, not nouns. Like, is 'nomimasu' a verb or a noun? If I listed it just as 'drink' I might get confused. Well, not now that I know that -masu is a verb ending. But still.)

To make this into negative form (still polite/neutral and present tense), you change the -masu ending to -masen.

For example:

ikimasen - do not go

kimasen - do not come

tabemasen - do not eat

To change your verbs into past tense (polite/neutral and affirmative), you change the -masu ending to -mashita:

kimashita - bought

ikimashita - went

kaerimashita - returned/came back

The verb ending -mashoo indicates 'let's'.

For example:

tabemashoo - let's eat

Oosaka e ikimashoo. - Let's go to Osaka.

Ocha o nomimashoo - Let's drink tea.

Laziness and more particles

So I've been slacking off for the last couple days, but I blame it on the 12-14 hour work days and the inescapable social commitments (i.e. family). Not that I'd want to escape them, because I love spending time with them, but it definitely cuts into my Japanese learning time. This means that I still don't have my vocabulary down pat, so I will not add any more until I know those ones.

In the meantime, more particles:

wa - topic particle, often used after the subject, literally means 'as for'

For example:

Watashi wa Stephanie desu. - I am Stephanie. 

Kochira wa watashi no tomodachi desu. - This is my friend.

Tanaka san wa ocha o nomimasu. - Mr. Tanaka drinks tea. 

e - literally 'to' or 'toward', indicates that the noun it follows is the direction toward which the motion is directed

For example:

Gakkoo e kimasu. - I will come to school/I am coming to school.

Uchi e kaerimasu. - I will go back to my house/I am going back to my house.

Kissaten e ikimashoo. - Let's go to the coffee shop.