So much to learn.....thanks oniichan please keep them coming. Anything I don't understand I'll ask you when I need too.... I will help you with that fail summon.

Boured :

Maybe a dumb question, but since you said that Kanji will be introduced along with the words and phrases, does that mean we'll be learning about Radicals, On'yomi and Kun'yomi and we'll be shown the Kanji or Kanji combinations for each new word we learn?

EDIT: Also, in addition to having the correct English translation, could we also have the literal translation?

I have been very busy recently, so I've decided to suspend my learning for now since I have little to no time to practice. I will start learning again some time later but until then I cannot.

I've got to dedicate much more time to studying. I think my progress has actually been reversing...

m(_ _)m please forgive me, Eirinn-senpai.

m0ssb3rg935 :
Mynamescox44 :
EX Palen :
A user of this :
deggle :
SacredShadow :
ZeroTails :
sevencube3 :
Jygin :
Frodlex :
Zlinqx :
Eniitan :

Not trying to be annoying, but we have a pretty big decision to make about future lessons, and only two people have offered an opinion on it. If it makes a difference to you how much we cover in each lesson, please remember to send me a PM as soon as you can, since the lessons usually take me roughly a week to put together. If we cover too many you can always go back if needed for a refresher, but you could also get overwhelmed if you only manage to grasp a third of the words in a lesson before the next one comes out. On the flip side, if we cover only a third of what you want to cover in a lesson, you might get bored and lose interest.

Also to the two who answered: I apologize for summoning you here, but I didn't want to point out who has or hasn't responded yet.

Eirinn : Sorry oniichan....I actually need a one on one talk about this, and something else to you as well. '-'

Eirinn : Thanks for the reminder! I just sent you a PM now.

Eirinn :   I wish I had seen this back in November.  I have always wanted to learn Japanese.  The little I do know, I got from watching insane amounts of anime which, as you said, is no way to learn the language.  If you are still doing this, I would love to get involved.  I know it is kind of a late response, so no worries if class is closed.  That is really awesome of you to offer this though, and I hope it is going well for you both language and business-wise.

m0ssb3rg935 :
Mynamescox44 :
EX Palen :
A user of this :
deggle :
SacredShadow :
ZeroTails :
sevencube3 :
Jygin :
Frodlex :
Zlinqx :
Eniitan :
lordbelial669 :

Just letting everyone know it'll be another week before the lesson is up. Sorry about that. We'll resume the regular schedule starting next week. I'll also address any questions or comments left then.

Eh, I'll give it a try, might be fun!

Eirinn :   I am going to be without internet for an undetermined amount of time.  AT&T keeps switching my install date and it's really starting to make me angry.  I currently have suddenlink, but that gets cancelled in a few days.

だいじゅういち。 Dai juuichi.

Welcome to lesson number eleven, where we'll learn things! Go figure, right?

This week we'll learn words to describe people with. Based on the feedback I received, which included three votes, two that were polar opposites, and one that was somewhat undecided, we'll normally be covering between fifteen and twenty words and/or phrases a week.

However, we'll be starting things off with a mix of thirteen words and phrases this week. Not a huge chunk, but not too bad either.
Remember: if these lessons move too fast or too slow, please let me know and I'll see what I can do about it.

Now for those new words and phrases!


Vocabulary:

さん
san
An honorific without a direct English translation.

せんせい
sensei
Doctor, Professor, or Teacher.
Example: なかむらせんせい, or, Professor Nakamura. And yes, the name なかむら came before the word せんせい in that example. This is proper sentence structure, much like なかむらさん, or, Nakamura-san. The title comes after the name.


ひと
hito
Person. Be sure to listen to the pronunciation of this one, as it's a little different than you might expect.
Frankly it sounds a bit like a hiss.


おんな
onna
Female.


おとこ
otoko
Male.


おんなのひと
onna no hito
Woman. Literally, female person.
Your eyes aren't deceiving you, the word for woman is just the words female and person put together with the character "no" in the middle.
We'll discuss "no" later.


おとこのひと
otoko no hito
Man. You probably saw this one coming, didn't you?


~ではありません。
...de ha arimasen.
A verb that means To not be.

Example: わたしはがくせいではありません。 Watashi ha gakusei de ha arimasen.
I am not a student.

More on this in a later lesson.


~がいます。
...ga imasu.
A verb that means To have, or There is, for a person or animal. Literally this verb means "To exist".

Example: なかむらせんせいはおとうとさんがいます。 Nakamura-sensei ha otoutosan ga imasu.
Professor Nakamura has a younger brother. Or literally, Professor Nakamura younger brother exists.

More on this later.


~はいますか。
...ha imasu ka.
Do you have, or Is there, for a person or animal.

Example: なかむらせんせいはおとうとさんはいますか。Nakamura-sensei ha otoutosan ha imasu ka.
Does Professor Nakamura have a younger brother?


~はいません。
...ha imasen.
To not have, or There is not, for a person or animal.

Example: なかむらせんせいはおとうとさんはいません。Nakamura-sensei ha otoutosan ha imasen.
Professor Nakamura doesn't have a younger brother. Or literally, Professor Nakamura younger brother does not exist.


きょうだい
kyoudai
Siblings. This is only used to refer to your own siblings — there's another word for referring to someone else's siblings, which we'll cover next.

When saying this one, be sure to drag the o sound out a little more than normal, as this contains a long vowel. More on those in a later lesson.
Also notice that the word is spelled using a small ょ, rather than the usual sized one. More on this later as well, but for now suffice it to say that when spelling きょうだい, you must use the small ょ.


ごきょうだい
gokyoudai
Siblings. This word is used to — you guessed it — refer to someone else's siblings.


Particles: part one:
As promised, we'll cover some particles this week as well. To keep it simple, we'll only cover two particles in this lesson.

But first, what is a particle exactly?
A particle is a character used independently of any words, that is, the particle is spoken separately from the word it's attached to. However, remember not to separate a particle from the word it belongs to when writing them. You'll notice I did so in the lesson, but that was done to show you where each word began and ended. Normally you wouldn't do that. In fact, normally you wouldn't use spaces at all. More on that in a later lesson.

Particles are used for various purposes, such as marking the subject of a sentence, asking a question, identifying something, adding emphasis, and more. Particles are what make the grammar rules of Japanese so much simpler than those of English in many ways.

For example, if speaking about your cat, as you know, you can't just say "White is." in English and expect anyone to know what you mean, but you can in Japanese. In fact, that's often exactly how you would say it in normal conversation in Japanese! Why? Because Japanese uses particles that rid dialogue of ambiguity (a fancy word for "what the heck does that mean?").

Simply put, particles make it easy to understand what's being said without the need for strict grammar rules or words like "the" or "an" and the like.
If that doesn't make sense, don't worry: you'll get the hang of particle usage and the how's and why's of it all as you go. Feel free to ask any questions, here, in PM, or in chat.


Now, on to our first particle!
は — ha (pronounced wa when used as a particle).
は is called a topic particle, but let's refer to it as a subject particle in our lessons, shall we?
You may have noticed this one being used earlier, in sentences like 「なかむらせんせいはおとうとさんがいます。」"Professor Nakamura [ha] has a younger brother." In fact, all of our example sentences used the は particle.

However, in the flow of a conversation, you wouldn't always say は after Professor Nakamura's name, and here's why: say User and I are discussing Professor Nakamura and User asks me if Professor Nakamura has any siblings. I wouldn't have to say なかむらせんせいはおとうとさんがいます。Or, Professor Nakamura [ha] has a younger brother. Since we're already discussing Professor Nakamura, all I would say would be おとうとさんがいます。Or, has a younger brother (literally, there is a younger brother, or, younger brother exists). Why? Because we already know what the subject of the conversation is: Professor Nakamura. Otherwise I would have said so.

So saying は is like saying "Hey, I'm changing the subject to this now." Saying は every time would be unnatural and just plain annoying to a Japanese speaker. It would be like me answering User's question of "Does Professor Nakamura have any siblings?" by saying "Hey, I'm changing the subject from Professor Nakamura to Professor Nakamura now. He has a younger brother." User would think I was weirder than he already does if I said that! And that's saying a lot.

An example dialogue:
User —「なかむらせんせいはごきょぅだいはいますか。」 Nakamura-sensei ha gokyoudai ha imasu ka.
"Does Professor Nakamura have any siblings?"

Me — 「おとうとさんがいます。」 Otoutosan ga imasu.
"Has younger brother." Or "There is a younger brother."


Next: の no
の is used to connect two nouns, just like how we joined "male" and "person" earlier to make "man". おとこ (male) + the particle の + ひと (person) = おとこのひと (man).
One more time: male の person = man.

の can also be used to show ownership. We'll cover this usage in another lesson.


Links:

Yahoo! A video link!
and
Shh...listen: an Mp3!
NOTE: There will be some inconsistencies between the written and video lessons with the Romaji. The written lesson is the one you should follow in these cases. A few times I used "wa" in Romaji when it should have been "ha" in the video. Both are considered correct, but we've been using the former, so that's the way I should have spelled it in the video.



Test time!
NOTE: Don't try to force yourself to learn all of these in a single day. Study for a few days before taking the test. You have a week to test and retest all you need.


Translate the following Japanese words and phrases into English.

1. さん
2. ひと
3. せんせい
4. おとこ
5. ~ではありません。
6. おんな
7. おんなのひと
8. おとこのひと[
9. ~がいます。
10. ~はいますか。
11. きょぅだい
12. ごきょぅだい
13. ~はいません。

And again, send me your answers if you will, or grade yourself using the following system:
Divide 100 by 13, multiply the number of questions you get correct by the total of 100 divided by 13.
Next, check your total by the chart linked below. If you get less than a B, retest.
Click here for chart


Give your brain a rest!
That does it for this lesson. As always, feel free to ask any questions here or in private. I'd be glad to help you understand anything that you may need help with if I am at all able.



______________________________________

EX Palen : はい、とてもおもしろいです。 (^__^)

We ended up settling on 15-20 a week. If you want more, feel free to ask and I can send them to you via PM. I'd still save the grammar and such for these lessons just to make sure you couldn't bail on us. just because it takes most of the week for me to prepare that part. The grammar and the video are the most time consuming parts by far.

O__O Do you think you might do that (add the words and phrases to a spreadsheet or doc)? If so it'd be awesome if you could make it public.
If not, I'll probably include links to each lesson in the opening post at some point...maybe.


m0ssb3rg935 : To tell you the truth man, I have no idea how the Kanji will be introduced since I haven't really looked into that yet. All I know for sure is that by the time we reach the third book it'll all be in Kanji. Well that and that the reading and writing book starts off with the radicals. I don't plan to get into that until after the first book at least. To give an idea of how much that translates into, we'll probably polish off the first book in lesson twenty five or so.

As for literal translations, I'll do so as often as I can. I started that with this lesson (after reading your request), but I only did so on words and phrases that I was sure about. I could try offering literal translations on a few more than I did here, and I'd probably be right, but I'd hate to guess.


A user of this : No worries, User-san. You're doing well I'm sure, and you've learned a lot already, just from what you have retained, right? We'll be chatting in fluent Japanese before you know it! (^__^)v Give or take a year... lol


lordbelial669 : I know I posted already on your profile, but when you come back, if you want in the lesson summon list again, just let me know. Take care, man.


tytytec04 : Glad to see you joining us! Have fun learning with us, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask.



Summon list:
Mynamescox44 :
deggle :
SacredShadow :
ZeroTails :
sevencube3 :
Jygin :
Frodlex :
Zlinqx :
Eniitan :

Considering how busy I am for the remainder of (at least) this month I'm not going to vote whether we have more or less things to learn. This lesson was rather easy because I was able to figure everything out thanks to the anime, but future lessons won't be like this.

So that's what particles are... They indeed are important and widely used. Good thing they're only called particles, I really doubt it would have such an easy name in other languages (Spanish and Catalan first and foremost and you don't want to know any further).

Like I said at the beginning I'm quite busy to tackle anything else, but once I'm done I wouldn't have any problem doing that document. I'll keep you updated when I'm free of these chains that strangle me work so we can discuss how we do this.

So, from my understanding, the Japanese take a step further in streamlining conversation by using the は particle. In English, we keep from having to be so redundant in saying "I don't know if Eirinn likes pudding. Does Eirinn like pudding?" "Yes, Eirinn does like pudding." by using pronouns (he, she, him, her, it, they, them, etc.), but in Japanese, they just find pronouns themselves to be redundant, as well. I know soooo many people that will just drift off onto four other subjects mid conversation and it sometimes leaves you having no idea what's being talked about. I'm sure I'm guilty of it, myself. Funny how a simple syllable can make conversation that much less cumbersome and focused.


Also, thank you for separating the particles in this example. Both that and the video and audio are both proving their worth, since I still haven't been able to guess correctly when the U in す is pronounces. Furthermore, I had initially assumed that the A and I in がいます were a diphthong instead of being pronounce separately.

EDIT: In this lesson, and a few later on as well, I say things like "はは (haha)- One's own mother and おかあさん (okaasan) someone else's mother". These differences are only made when speaking about one's own family members to someone else, NOT when speaking to those family members (or someone who shares the same relation to them). So you would call your mom おかあさん (okaasan) when speaking to her, but you would call her はは (haha) when speaking to someone (who isn't your family member) about her.

This does not apply to おとうと (otouto — little brother), いもうと (imouto — little sister), むすこ (musuko — son), or むすめ (musume — daughter)
______________________



だいじゅうに。Dai juuni
Welcome to lesson number twelve! This time we'll be learning more family titles, finishing up the basics of family that we started last week.

By the end of this lesson you'll be able to refer to any of your immediate family, as well as someone else's. You'll also know how to use the question particle, か, and how long vowels work in Japanese.


Vocabulary:
あに
ani
Older brother

おにいさん
Oniisan
Someone else's older brother

おとうと
otouto
Younger brother

おとうとさん
otoutosan
Someone else's younger brother

あね
ane
Older sister

おねえさん
oneesan
Someone else's older sister

いもうと
imouto
Younger sister

いもうとさん
imoutosan
Someone else's younger sister

むすこ
musuko
Son

むすこさん
musukosan
Someone else's son

むすめ
musume
Daughter

むすめさん
musumesan
Someone else's daughter

ちち
Chichi
Father (not pronounced exactly as it may look)

おとうさん
otousan
Someone else's father

はは
haha
mother

おかあさん
okaasan
Someone else's mother


Grammar:

A new particle has approached!
Remember how, in a previous lesson, I said to remember that adding か ka at the end of a sentence turned it into a question, and that this is why the formal Japanese language has no question mark?

Well, consider this your formal introduction to the particle か. You're going to get along great.


Examples of it's usage:
Now let's see our new particle friend in action, shall we?

1a. とてもおもしろいです。 totemo omoshiroi desu。
It is very interesting. (literally: very interesting is.)

1b. とてもおもしろいですか。totemo omoshiroi desu ka。
Is it very interesting? (literally: is very interesting?)

Notice the くてん kuten (period) at the end of the one that was a question? How could you tell that it was a question even though it ended with a くてん kuten (period)? Because it ended with the particle か.

More examples:

きれいです。kirei desu。
It is clean. (literally: is clean)
or
It is beautiful. (literally: is beautiful)

きれいですか。kirei desu ka。
Is it clean? (literally: is clean?)
or
Is it beautiful? (literally: is beautiful?)

くろいです。kuroi desu。
It is black. (literally: is black)

くろいですか。kuroi desu ka。
Is it black? (literally: is black?)

So as you can see, か, when used as a particle, is essentially a question mark that you say out loud.

Takeaway: か = spoken question mark.


Battle of the verbs: the difference between desu and imasu.
We've all been there: you want to say "All your pudding are belong to us!" in Japanese, and you totally nail it...except for that pesky verb at the end. Should it be desu or imasu ? This is quite the predicament, after all -- pudding is not something to be taken lightly!

Now I could tell you the answer, but that would be too easy. No, let's get into the reasons of why the right one is the right one.


Verbology
So we know that both desu and imasu are verbs, but if, like me, you didn't really grasp all of the finer points of English sentence structure in class and instead just passed because you knew when a sentence sounded right, then you too will be uncertain about this.

See, a verb is a word that shows action OR shows a state of being. So in the sentence "I am happy." the verb is am.

In the same way, desu is a state of being verb. It literally means To be.

Meanwhile imasu is also a state of being verb, and it literally means To exist.

So then, in "All your pudding are belong to us!" do we want to say that the pudding exists belong to us, or that it has belong to us? Or do we want to say that the pudding is belong[ing] to us, or it does belong to us? We want to say it does belong to us, so we use the verb that means "To be", or, desu.
Also, in "all your pudding are belong to us!" we want to have much better grammar because...yikes that's bad.


To put it into perspective, try this:
desu = am, is, are, does.
imasu = have.

For our Spanish speaking friends:
desu = soy, son, and a few other words I forgot to ask Palen for. xD
imasu = I forgot to ask Palen how to say "have" too. lol

The words are a little more flexible than that, but it serves as a starting point anyway.


Takeaway:
Desu is for describing what someone or something is.
Imasu is for acknowledging that someone or something exists.

Desu = description.
Imasu = acknowledging.


Long vowels:
At some point you've probably heard me dragging out some syllables as I pronounce some of these words. No, that isn't my dumb accent being dumb, it's entirely intentional...this time. That's what is called a long vowel.

Long vowels are written with two vowel sounds back to back. This may be with two vowel syllables, as in words like いいえ iie, or it may be the vowel at the end of a normal syllable followed by a vowel syllable that forms the long vowel, such as in the word おにいさん oniisan. Regardless of how it happens, when you see a long vowel, you pronounce it as one continuous sound, not as two separate syllables.


Takeaway:
When two similar or identical vowels appear together in a word, they form a long vowel and should be pronounced as a single, extra long syllable.



Test time:
As always,take the test, submit the results to me, or check yourself if you'd rather.
To simplify the process, if you miss three or more, study again and retest. If you miss one or two, I'd suggest studying the one(s) you missed again.

1. あに
2. おにいさん
3. おとうと
4. おとうとさん
5. あね
6. おねえさん
7. いもうと
8. いもうとさん
9. むすこ
10. むすこさん
11. むすめ
12. むすめさん
13. ちち
14. おとうさん
15. はは
16. おかあさん

A. Son
B. Daughter
C. Older brother
D. Older sister
E. Mother
F. Father
G. Someone else's older brother
H. Someone else's older sister
I. Someone else's father
J. Someone else's mother
K. Someone else's son
L. Someone else's daughter
M. Younger brother
N. Someone else's younger brother
O. Younger sister
P. Someone else's younger sister


That does it for this week. Next week we'll cover more vocabulary, study sentence structure basics, and try our hand at translating some simple sentences.


A Link to The Present...Lesson Resources:

Video

Mp3

I leave you with this question: since we've covered the hiragana syllabary now, would you be comfortable with dropping Romaji for words that are written in Hiragana, or is it a little too soon for that still?


______________________________

EX Palen : Yeah, the family lessons are fairly easy I think. It helps too that most of them are similar to their counterparts.

Indeed, particles are used all the time, sometimes for important things like changing the subject, and sometimes for something so simple as to elicit a response or get someone's attention.

And about the potential spreedsheet, just let me know. Don't even consider it a priority though, as it just isn't important. It's be handy to have, but by no means necessary.


m0ssb3rg935 : That's about the gist of it. ha just streamlines the conversation, and keeps things simple and clear.

Not a problem. I'm glad it helped. And yeah...we're even then because until you said that, I had no idea what a dipthong was. Sounds more like an insult than anything though. xD "Shut up, dipthong!" lol



Mynamescox44 :
deggle :
SacredShadow :
ZeroTails :
sevencube3 :
Jygin :
Frodlex :
Zlinqx :
Eniitan :

So that's why you asked me the translation of some words... I personally see no need for it because I'm very fluent with English (written, at least), but if somebody else sees it as a good and useful addition I'm the teacher to turn to I'll be very happy.

While I've seen all the vocabulary in use (and we could argue for a more accurate or less formal descriptions of what most of them mean), I've also seen in use the words "aniki" and "aneki". Probably they're more informal versions of what we've learned, but seeing how it's more frequent to use "oniisan" rather than "ani" to refer to an older brother, either your own or someone else's, maybe it has lately fallen into disuse.

I'm not sure how to answer your question, but if we don't get enough feedback we could always try an in-between and drop Romaji a little bit. Not sure if it's actually doable or can mean more trouble, if I manage to come up with a definite answer I'll let you know.

Also, since we've seen the suffix -san for the first time, when will we cover the rest of suffixes? I've also seen in use the word oniisama, which would make it even more formal but in a more enclosed environment, though that's just the limited knowledge I have and thus it would be nice to finally know how to properly use all suffixes.

Eirinn : Oniichan is it ok if I sort this out next week? Because I am busy this week. So next week I can take the time to sit down, and re-read ones to remember what I need for my lessons.

EX Palen : Normally I'd wait to reply, but I figured I'd go ahead and do it now, since I'm answering Eniitan anyway.

I knew you wouldn't need the Spanish part, but I wanted to offer it anyway. Just a way of showing respect and a nice gesture. Unfortunately that didn't work out too well. lol

As for Aniki and aneki, I haven't seen those yet, but they have the basic ani and ane in them, so it's probably just an informal suffix added or something. And usually your own older brother would be oniichan and oniisan is someone else's. I suspect oniichan is informal, and as such, probably what most people would use to address their brother, but ani would be used to refer to him, or perhaps in a formal setting.
That's the thing: Japanese, much like English (and probably most languages) has several words that can be said multiple ways. All of the words covered in my literature are either formal or neutral, which is best for a learner as it keeps us from unwittingly saying something in a way that would be offensive to a native Japanese speaker. Once we cover all of this material and get a good grasp of the formal and neutral, I might look into something that covers informal as well.

I don't know when we'll cover other suffixes, unfortunately. I'm currently over halfway through the first of the books and San is the only one I've seen so far.


Eniitan : That's fine, imouto. Take all the time you need.

Well, I have seen Aniki being used on someone else's brother when there's a close relationship between the talkers, so it gives the feeling of being informal. Also, I've seen Aniki being used to refer to someone you yourself see as a big brother figure, which further emphasizes the informality of such word.

The suffixes will be eventually covered, for sure. While -san is a formal one, -sama is formal as well to determine hierarchy or something, probably used when Senpai falls short, so I'm positive we'll see it in a future lesson. Also wondering if we will see some archaic suffixes like -dono which are also used as a sign of formality, but time will say.

About covering informality, I'm not sure if you can find something because anything used for learning purposes utilizes the formal and strictly correct way of using that language. However, even informal suffixes should be in your book, because calling someone by their name without any suffix is seen as rude unless there's a good and/or close relationship between the talkers, and I doubt your book wouldn't instruct us to not be rude.

OK, I get it. So 「です」 is, more often than not, used then there's an adjective? Like the difference between, say... the different meanings between the statement "There's the remote." One meaning is "The remote is there." and the other would be "The remote exists."

I couldn't help but notice that you pronounced the second U in むすこ, むすこさん, むすめ and むすめさん, where it's been silent in everything else we've learned up to this point. Are there rules for the pronunciation of the U in す, or is that just one of those funny language things that we have to memorize?

On the matter of keeping or dropping the Romaji, it really depends on the words we'll be learning. While used in an example and not one of the words we'll be testing on, I wouldn't have been able to tell where the words begin and end in とてもおもしろいです. I would've pronounced it as a single word with the end of とても and beginning of おもしろい being a long vowel. That is, unless an O extension is only written with う?