martedì 28 agosto 2012

Japanese lessons

Lesson 1

Before publishing, however, the two Japanese alphabets there is just a premise which may explain why the Japanese use 4 alphabet ...
You have to know that in Japan, writing was introduced very late, in fact, in the fourth century when the Chinese introduced in Japan ideograms, or kanji, the famous little drawings, there was no written language. But don't think that in Japan people speak Chinese. NO, the Japanese language is much sweeter, the Japanese language is really nice, especially that one spoken by women, but we will talk later about it.
When the kanji were introduced the problem that occurred was just that the spoken language.So the Japanese adopted only the kanji meaning. An ideogram means the same in Japan and China, but in Japan it is called in a way in China in another. Uchi means home in Japan, in china is called in another way. Each kanji has two readings one is called kun the other hon, one is Japanese the other is Chinese, but the Chinese do not pronounce it the same way. To give you an example: the word Japan is composed of two kanji, one kanji is the day one, the source is literally the source of the sun. the two kanji: 日 days you can read ni, hi, and Yobi nichi - 本 (the second), origin, but also means book, his readings are hon (h intake) and moto.
The two kanji together form the word 日本 Nihon, Japan!.
To the Japanese ideograms have subsequently added two alphabets. One, hiragana is used to write all the parts of the speech that does not have kanji, we will see it later and to write a word whom you do not know the kanji, katakana is used for all the words of foreign origin as the names of nations, the names of the people and for the words entered into common usage as bus, taxi, stop, shopping and many others, and also for all the onomatopoeia, especially in many manga. Given this premise i go to write the two alphabets. If you have trouble memorizing those or you who want to learn quickly you can write them many times. First of all I will give you basic letters later I will explain how from these derive the others.



The only problem is the English pronounce I don't know if you can pronounce exactly so, if someone knows the pronounce please help me.

HIRAGANA
あ い う え お   a i u e o

か き く け こ  ka ki ku ke ko

さ し す せ そ  sa sci su se so

た ち つ て と  ta chi tsu (pronuncia quasi zu) te to

は ひ ふ へ ほ  ha hi fu he ho

な に ぬ ね の  na ni nu ne no

ま み む め も  ma mi mu me mo

ら り る れ ろ   ra ri ru re ro

わ ん や よ ゆ  wa n ya yo yu


Katakana

ア イ ウ エ オ a i u e o

カ キ ク ケ コ ka ki ku ke ko

サ シ ス セ ソ sa shi su se so

タ チ ツ テ ト ta chi tsu te to

ハ ヒ フ ヘ ホ ha hi fu he ho

ナ ニ ヌ ネ ノ na ni nu ne no

マ ミ ム メ モ ma mi mu me mo

ラ リ ル レ ロ ra ri ru re ro

ワ ン ヤ ヨ ユ wa n ya yo yu

Now, for exercise try to write these words
Hiragana: neko (cat) ; inu (dog); ; hon (book); hana (flower) Watashi (I); Anata (you); kare (him); Masumi (?)
Katakana:
maya (?), itaria (Italy).
If you have other questions Just write below!

Lessons 2


the first thing you need to learn is the striking difference between Japanese and English.
English is an SVO language that is not a dirty word, but rather means that our sentences are composed of subject, verb and object (or object), but Japanese instead is a SOV language, composed by Subject, Object and verb. So if in English we say I'm an Italian student, in Japanese you have to say I a student am. In simple sentences is not complicated remember this, but in other kind of sentences this can be a problem and oly experience can help.
The second thing to point out, no less important than the first, is the use of particles called Joshi. What are the particles joshi?
Suffixes that are added after the word and used to determine the case of that word. for example if you say I'm a student, in Japanese you will say I wa student am. There are particles that indicate the direct object, the motion of particles that indicate the place and others, are not difficult, but not burdened you by the time I prefer to focus on は, that in this case is read wa, which is necessary to start introducing phrases. We'll talk about the others later.

Before introducing the first sentence i have to talk about the verb to be.

The verb to be (the copula to be clear, I stress this not because I think you did not know it, but you'll see later that japanese use other verb to indicate connotations of existence, if we say that there is a cat under the tree other verbs are used) is translated as DEARU, this is obviously the form of the vocabulary. Many people tell about the simplicity of Japanese grammar and I must acknowledge that the rules are not so many and verbs and are not difficult due to the fact that there are people case. THE present of dearu is desu for all people, I desu, you desu, etc.. Furthermore, the future does not exist and so the present is used also to indicate a future action. Tomorrow it's raining (of course it rains). So in Japanese you have, Present, not present (the past), present in negative form and not present in negative form. Here is the verb to be

present not present
Desu です deshita でした

present negative Not present negative
Dewa dewa arimasen では ありません dewa arimasen deshita では ありません でした
In Japanese student is said Gakusei がく せい
now we make the first sentence: I am a student
I わたし は subject (for the moment I divide them for convenience, but the words are all united) student がく せい (no particlesin front of desu) am です
here it is complete:
わたし は がく せい です
Now we turn to the negative
わたし は がく せい で は ありません I am not a student
to not present:
わたし は がく せい でした I was a student
To not present a negative
わたし は がく せい で は ありません でした I was not a student

For the moment this seems enough, but I leave you homework. So you will learn faster. I give the words with their meanings and you will transform them into sentences, turning the verb in all the four studied modes .

せんせい (teacher) sensei
おんな (woman) onna
うれしい (happy) ureshii
きれい (beautiful) kirei
If you want you can post them .. And of course do the same for any questions!

I forgot in this lessons I want to teach the first kanji.
Lady's and Gentlemen this is the kanji of book: 本 (if you found it bigger please post it), this kanji can be read in two ways hon, to indicate book moto to indicate origin. Japan, Nihon is composed by two kanji, the kanji on Ni 日 (which means day or sun in this case) and hon 本 that only in this case is an exception and is read with the meaning of origin hon ..
日本 the origin of the sun (the land of the rising sun). We'll talk about ni the next time .