Sunday, October 25, 2009

Sentences and nouns

いま は なん時 です か? (What time is it now?)
いま は 十時二十一分 です。(It is 10:21.)

どこ から きました です か? (Where are you from?)
私 は カナダ人 です。(I am Canadian.)
おかあさん は どこ から きました です か?(Where is your mother from?)
私 の おかあさん は 中国人 です。(My mother is from China.)

なんさい です か? (How old are you?)
私 は 二十三さい です。(I am 23 years old.)

おんあのひと
女の人
woman

おとこのひと
男のひと
man

おんあのこ
女の子
girl

おとこのこ
男の子
boy

でんわばんごお
telephone number

Saturday, August 29, 2009

And... fail

Wow, I'm really bad at this game.... blogging, I mean. Which is ironic, considering I'm on my computer every single day. Apparently I can't spare 10 minutes of my time to learn some Japanese? That is lame. Here is my new school year resolution: 10 minutes a day, minimum! Although, once I get going, I always go for more than 10 minutes -- it's just that darn getting started stage.

Once again, I haven't been totally inactive in my blogging hiatus. I've reviewed my カタカナ via an internet flashcard program (quizlet.com - I love it!), and I've been practicing kanji and reading signs everywhere I see them.

My kanji review:
一 - ichi - one
二 - ni - two
三 - san - three
四 - yon - four
五 - go - five
六 - roku - six
七 - nana - seven
八 - hachi - eight
九 - kyuu - nine
十 - juu - ten
円 - en - yen
百 - hyaku - hundred
時 - ji - hour, time
月 - gatsu - month, moon
日 - hi - day, sun

Tomorrow, I will post again!

Sunday, May 17, 2009

A complete collection

I have finally completed my set of days of the week! 

I guess it may have made sense to learn them all at once, but for whatever reason I decided to learn them slowly. I feel like I don't have to count through them all in order to figure out which is which (like I do with numbers... I can never remember the number for 8 unless I count from 1).

The last day of the week I needed to learn was kinyoobi, or Friday.

Nichiyoobi - Sunday
Getsuyoobi - Monday
Kayoobi - Tuesday
Suiyoobi - Wednesday
Mokuyoobi - Thursday
Kinyoobi - Friday
Dooyoobi - Saturday

Hooray!

My other words of today are:
naka - inside
kami - paper (like with tegami, the origami reference helps me remember this)
kookoku - advertisement
yuumei - famous, well-known
yasashii - easy (this is the one that's giving me the most trouble)

Monday, May 11, 2009

A few more words

Still slowly learning, am I. 

Watashi no okasan wa Vancouver de ikimashita. (My mom came to Vancouver.) She visited last shuumatsu (weekend) and various crazy events conspired to give me another atarashii uchi (new house). So I'm moving again, which is inconvenient and irritating, but I will be happy once it's just all over. Also, my new place is much nicer, though it's a furuii uchi (old house) - over 80 years old! 

Watashi no nihongo hanashimasu no tomodachi Katie san wa Australia de ikimashita! (My Japanese-learning friend Katie went to Australia!) She's going to be there for the next four months, so I don't really have anyone to learn with, which is definitely slowing me down. Katie san to watashi no tomodachi Amanda san mo nihongo o hanashimasu demo Amanda san wa atarashi desu. (Our friend Amanda is also studying Japanese, but she is new.... to language learning. 

I have learned a few words since my last post:
honya - bookstore
machi - town, city
mokuyoobi - Thursday (almost done my days of the week!)
imasu - (a person) is in, stays at... (I don't really understand how to use this one yet)
hitori de - alone 
ushiro - back (direction)

Time for new words!

Monday, April 20, 2009

Lots of vocabulary

I moved recently (kono goro) into a atarashii uchi (new house), so my life has been crazy busy. Now that I'm mostly settled, though, I have more time for Japanese, and I'm going to try to get better about learning new vocabulary every day. Six words a day is looking to be my norm.

I'm going to break down what I've learned in the last little while by category.

Days of the week
doyoobi - Saturday
nichiyoobi - Sunday
getsuyoobi - Monday
kayoobi - Tuesday
suiyoobi - Wednesday

I haven't learned the rest of them yet, but I will know them in a few days! I'm trying not to learn similar words at the same time so that I don't get confused. 

In no particular order:

Directions
right - migi
left - hidori
front - mae

Verbs
okimasu - to get up (this one I remember because it's similar to 'kimasu', which means to go... and to go, you first need to get up)
nemasu - to sleep
arimasu - there is
wakarimasu - to understand
machimasu - to wait (the dictionary form of this is matsu; the final syllable goes through a strange sound shift that I don't quite understand. However, I haven't really explained dictionary forms yet, so I will wait for more dissection of this until I do.)

Nouns
eigakan - movie theatre
basu tei - bus stop
byooin - hospital
tatemono - building
puuru - swimming pool
umi - sea
kippu - ticket
tenki - weather
hikooki - airplane
(o)miyage - souvenir
(o)tera - temple
tsukue - desk
tegami - letter (I remember this one because the end is the same as 'origami', which also has to do with paper)
kodomo - child
tabemono - food
nomimono - drink (the -mono ending seems to go with nouns)

Adjectives
furui - old
atarashii - new
muzukashii - difficult
hayai - early

goro - at about (time)
sakki - a little while ago 

Wow, when I put that all together, it seems like a lot of stuff. But it's taken me quite a while to learn it, I've just been lazy about blogging. I will get better, I promise!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Lesson 4 exercises

A. Change the tense of each sentence:
1. Mori san wa ikimasen. - Mori san wa ikimasen deshita.
2. Sakana o tabemasu ka. - Sakana o tabemashita ka.
3. Kore wa kissaten desu. - Kore wa kissaten deshita.
4. Watashi wa mimasen deshita. - Watashi wa mimasen.

B. Use proper question words.
1. Dono kutsu ga yasui desu ka. (which)
2. Dare ga makemashita ka. (who)
3. Doko e ikimashoo ka. (where)
4. Doko de terebi o mimasu ka. (where)

C. Translate into English.
1. Watashi wa tenisu ga heta desu. - I am not skillful at tennis.
2. Kore wa donata no kamera desu ka. - Whose camera is this?
3. Sumoo no hon wa omoshiroi desu. - The book on sumo is interesting. 
4. Dore ga watashi no koohii desu ka. - Which is my coffee?

D. Tell whether the adjectives are i-adjectives or na-adjectives.
1. ookii - i
2. shizuka - na
3. omoshiroi - i
4. takai - i
5. kirei - na
6. yuumei - na
7. shinsetsu - na
8. tsuyoi - i

E. Compliment your friend's new house.
1. a very magnificent gate - Totemo rippa na mon desu ne.
2. a very clean kitchen - Totemo kirei na kitchin desu ne.
3. a very quiet neighbourhood - Totemo shizuka na chiiki desu ne. 

F. Create questions with the following elements:
1. Question, you, present, like, sumo - Sumoo ga suki desu ka.
2. I, negative, past, eat, sushi - Watashi wa sushi o tabemasen deshita.
3. I, negative, drink, coffee - Watashi wa koohii o nomimasen. 

G. 
1. Dono kamera ga yasui desu ka.
2. Dore ga ii kamera desu ka.
3. Dono kuruma o kau n desu ka.
4. Dore ga ii kuruma desu ka.


Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Why I haven't been writing

Watashi wa Nyuu Yooku de ikimashita, dakara watashi kakimasen deshita! Kankoo ryokoo deshita. Watashi to watashi no tomodachi Cathy san kaimono o ikimashita. 

私わ ニュウヨオクで いきました だから 私 かきません でした! かんこおうりょこおう でした。
私と 私の ともだち カてえさん かいものお いきましあ。

I will write properly later. :)

Monday, March 2, 2009

This and that

Japanese has a larger collection of demonstratives (like this and that) than English does. They are referred to as 'ko-so-a-do' words.
Ko words indicate that the object in question is close to the speaker, or close to both the speaker and listener.
So words indicate that the object is close to the listener, but not the speaker.
A words indicate that the object is not near either the speaker or the listener.
Do words are question words.

kono kami - this paper (by me)
sono kami - that paper (by you)
ano kami - that paper (by neither of us)
dono kami - which paper

kore - this (by me)
sore - that (by you)
are - that (by neither of us)
dore - which

この その あの and どの must be used immediately preceding a noun, while これ それ あれ and どれ can only be used by themselves (without a noun).

For example:
この えいが お みました か?
Kono eiga o mimashita ka?
Did you see this movie?

それ わ ぎゅうにゅう か?
Sore wa gyuunyuu ka?
Is that cow's milk?


Thursday, February 19, 2009

My first kanji!

Okay so this is totally cheating because I learned all these when I learned Mandarin and they all mean the same thing, but here are number from 1 - 10. 
一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十

I also learned the kanji for time, or hour (pronounce ji) 時.

For example:
Ima nanji desu ka? いま なん 時 です か?
Juuichiji han desu.  十一時 はん です。
(What time is it? It is 11:30.)

Katakana and some vocab

Hooray! I finished learning my katakana! I now know all of them, so I can read! Slowly... very slowly... and the Japanese habit of not putting spaces between words really messes me up because I can't tell what belongs together, but I can still read. And, I figured out how to type in hiragana and katakana on my computer without having to copy and paste every character... it's much more convenient. However, I'm not always sure whether words that I learn belong in hiragana or katakana (although probably most of them have kanji that I haven't learned yet...) so I'm writing everything in hiragana unless it's an obvious borrowing from English. 

My vocab of a few days ago:
ぎゅうにゅう - gyuunyuu - cow's milk
まけます - makemasu - to be defeated, to lose
かきます - kakimasu - to write
この ごろ - kono goro - recently 
あっけない - akkenai - short and simple
とります - torimasu - to take, get, or obtain

Friday, February 6, 2009

Verbs and such

Some random verbs and things stolen from the university-sanctioned textbook (Genki, found  at http://www.amazon.ca/Genki-Integrated-Course-Elementary-Japanese/dp/4789009637/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233992832&sr=8-2).

yomimasu - to read
mizu - water
maiban - every evening (like konban)
asa - morning
shuumatsu - weekend
konban - evening
doyoobi - Saturday
taitei - usually 
kikimasu - to listen/hear
hanashimasu - to speak/talk




Friday, January 23, 2009

Using i-adjectives

This post involves me skipping ahead in my textbook, but I feel like I can't just accept that there are different types of adjectives without understanding WHY they are different.

There are two main categories of adjective: i-adjectives and na-adjectives. I'll describe how to identify and use na-adjectives later. 

I-adjectives
- end in i in present affirmative form
- the final i must be preceded by a, i, u, or o, but never by e
- in present affirmative form, they are followed by desu
- to create present negative form, replace the final i with ku, then add arimasen afterwards
- to create past affirmative form, replace the final i with katta and add desu
- to create past negative form, add deshita after the present negative

Examples of i-adjectives
Present affirmative - warui, takai, yasui, chiisai, akarui
Present negative - waruku arimasen, takaku arimasen, yasuku arimasen, chiisaku arimasen, akaruku arimasen
Past affirmative - warukatta desu, takakatta desu, yasukatta desu, chiisakatta desu, akarukatta desu
Past negative - waruku arimasen deshita, takaku arimasen deshita, yasuku arimasen deshita, chiisaku arimasen deshita, akaruku arimasen deshita

Some sentences:
Asagohan wa takai desu. (Breakfast is expensive.)
Hirugohan wa takaku arimasen. (Lunch is not expensive.)
Bangohan wa takakatta desu. (Dinner was expensive.)
Bangohan wa takaku arimasen deshita. (Dinner was not expensive.)

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Adjectives that I don't actually know how to use

So in desire to learn vocabulary, I realized that I have rather neglected my grammar, so I don't actually know entirely how to use all these adjectives that I have been learning, but as my time is limited right now, I shall leave that for a later post. 

Today's words (though they're still at recognizable-but-not-memorized stage) are:
rippa - magnificent
heta - unskillful, bad (at)
omoshiroi - interesting
tsuyoi - strong
dare - who 
donata - who (more formal, more often used by women)

Also, in some random news, watashi no tomodachi Risa san who is a shufu is pregnant with her second child! How's that for a random mixed-language sentence?

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Adjectives again

My other words of the day (because I have decided at this moment to be un-lazy):
shizuka - quiet
kirai - to dislike
daikirai - to dislike very much
joozu - skillful, good (at)
shashin - photograph

Kirai (dislike) and kirei (pretty or clean) are going to confuse me, I think. I'll have to think of some way of differentiating. 

Sentence of the day

Our sentence of the day:
Watashi wa Aveda de ogoto o shiteimasu.
I work at Aveda! Or...
わたしたちわ あべだで おごとを しています
... which is also true. :)
Eventually I will add some more vocabulary, but right now I'm being lazy. 

Yesterday's word of the day was:
ongaku - music
Ongaku o suki desu! 
I think that's a correct sentence. (I like music.)

Also, watashi no okaasan wa chuugokujin desu. Ojiisan mo chuugokujin desu. 
(My mother is Chinese. My grandpa is also Chinese.)

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Useless stuff

K so I didn't actually learn anything useful in the last little while (I'm preparing for a flute exam and am preoccupied, or so goes my excuse), but I acquired a few new words today:
shufu - housewife (This one courtesy of my Japanese-learning friend Katie and our word of the day. Lisa san wa shufu desu! Lisa san wa watashi to Katie san no tomodachi desu.)
ojiisan - grandfather
oneesan - older sister

The family terms totally mess with my head. They're way too similar, darn it!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

More katakana and exciting-ish news

I learned a bit more katakana recently, but forgot to post it. The n line!
ナ - na
ニ - ni (same as two in にほんご and ちゅごくご)
ヌ - nu
ネ - ne
ノ - no

A few other words that I learned:
せんもん - senmon - major
irigisu - English (I think this can't be written in hiragana, only katakana)

So my sentence of the day:
Watashi no senmon wa igirisu deshita. - My major was English. 

Also, one of my friends is learning Japanese in school this year! I am so excited! I love having people to share things with. :)


Thursday, January 8, 2009

Katakana

In my holiday adventures, though I definitely slacked off in general about learning Japanese, I did do some work while on the plane (there and back!) so I learned a bit of katakana.

Here's what I know:
ア - a
イ - i
ウ - u (this one's easy because it looks almost exactly like う, just squared off)
エ - e
オ - o
カ - ka (same as か)
キ - ki (same as き)
ク - ku 
ケ - ke (why must ku and ke look so much alike?)
コ - ko
サ - sa 
シ - shi
ス - su (this one is everywhere, so it's easy to remember)
セ - se (very close to せ)
ソ - so
タ - ta
チ - chi
ツ - tsu
テ - te
ト - to

So I think these ones are fairly well embedded in my mind, at least in order, but シ, ソ, and ツ are giving me problems... they look way too much alike!