新いれラベルがある!

みんなさん、今日は!
はじめるのノートのLesson 1がどうですか。
簡単ですか、難しいですか? 教えてください。

新しいのラベルがあって、見てみてくださいね!
｢お宅の好きな｣というと在ります。
沢山のアニメや漫画などがありますよ!
楽しんでください!

Hi Folks,
How do you find my Lesson 1 notes?
Is it easy? Hard? Please do let me know as I go along.

There's a new label by the right hand corner, please try to take a look.
Known as Otaku's favourites, I had put up tons of manga/animes/drama/movie related links there.
Enjoy! (^^,)//

Lesson 1b - Space / Distance Concept

Space concept : This・That・Over There

これ・それ・あれ　は　N・Adj　です。

• This/That/Over there is N・Adj.

これ - Referring to N that is within reach of speaker.
それ - Referring to N that is within reach of listener.
あれ - Referring to N that is out of reach of both speaker and listener.

Question and Answering
Q:　これ・それ・あれ　は　N・Adj　ですか。
Is This/That/Over there N?

Y:　はい、これ・それ・あれ　は　N・Adj　です。
Yes, This/That/Over there is N.
N:　いいえ、これ・それ・あれ　は　N・Adj　ではありません。
No, This/That/Over there is not N.

Example on question and answer.

アリ:　これ　は　なん　ですか。

Ali: What is this?

アンナ:　それ　は　かさ　です。

Anna: That is an umbrella.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Space concept : This・That・Over There

この・その・あの　N1　は　N2・Adj　です。

• TThis/That/That(Over there) N1 is N2・Adj.

この - Referring to N that is within reach of speaker.
その - Referring to N that is within reach of listener.
あの - Referring to N that is out of reach of both speaker and listener.

Question and Answering
Q:　N1　は　どの　ですか。
Is This/That/That(Over there) N1 N2・Adj?

A:　N1　は　この・その・あの　(N２)　です。
This/That/That(Over there) N1 is N2・Adj.

Example on question and answer.

アンナ:　アリさんのかさ　は　どの　かさ　ですか。
Anna: Which umbrella is Ali's umbrella?

アり:　私のかさ　は　この　あおい(かさ)　です。
Ali: My umbrella is this blue one.







Place concept : Here・There・Over There
ここ・そこ・あそこ　は　Pl　です。

• This/That/Over there is Pl.

ここ - Referring to a place that is within reach of speaker.
そこ - Referring to a place that is within reach of listener.
あそこ - Referring to a place that is out of reach of both speaker and listener.

Question and Answering
Q1:　ここ・そこ・あそこ　は　なん　ですか。
What is this/that/over that place?
A1:　ここ・そこ・あそこ　Pl　です。
Here/There/Over there is Pl.



Q２:　N　は　どこ　ですか。
Where is N?
A２:　N　は　ここ・そこ・あそこ　です。
N is Here/There/Over there.

Example on  question and answer.

子(こ) :　あそこ　は　なん　ですか。
Son : What is the place over there?
父(ちち):　あそこ　は　びょういん　です。
Father : The place over there is a hospital
子(こ) :　かんごし　は　どこです　か。
Son : Where is the nurse?
父(ちち):　かんごし　は　あそこ　です。
Father : The nurse is over there.

Lesson 1a - Basic Japanese Sentence Structure

Basic Sentence Structure
N１　は　N２・Adj　です。

• N1 is N2・Adj

N１　も　N２・Adj　です。

• N1 is also N2・Adj

N１　は　N２・Adj　ではありません。

• N1 is not N2・Adj

N１　は　N２・Adj　です　か。

• Is N1 N2・Adj?

は - Topic Marker. When used as topic marker は is pronounced as 「wa」instead of「ha」.
も - Also
です - Used at the end of the sentence for polite positive sentence structure ending with N・Adj.
ではありません - Used at the end of the sentence for polite negative sentence structure ending with N・Adj
か - By add 「か」at the end of the sentence, the entire sentence becomes a question sentence.

Example on basic Japanese sentence structure

わたし　は　シンガポールじん　です。

• I am a Singaporean

あにい　も　シンガポールじん　です。

• My elder brother is also a Singaporean. 

リサ　は　シンガポールじん　ではありません。

• Lisa is not a Singaporean.

リサ　は　アメリカじん　です　か。

• Is Lisa an American?

Basic Question and Answering

Q:　N１はN２・Adjですか。Is N1 N２・Adj?

Y:　はい、N１はN２・Adjです。Yes, N1 is N２・Adj.
N:　いいえ、N１はN２・Adjではありません。No, N1 is not N２・Adj

Example on basic question and answers.
Q:　(あなた)　は　がくせい　ですか。Are you a student?

Y:　はい、(わたし)　は　がくせい　です。Yes, I am a student.
N:　いいえ、(わたし)　は　がくせい　ではありません。No, I am not a student.

During a real Japanese conversation, I (わたし)  and you (あなた) are often omitted.
A Japanese language speaker will usually use listener's name instead of あなた as it is consider offensive.

Pause Pronounication Sounds!

Small tsu is known as 促音(そくおん)

• Soukon commonly known as small tsu or chiisai tsu or chisana tsu is actually a small pause pronounication sound inbetween a word.


Differenece between the size of normal tsu and small tsu

	Full-sized	Sokuon
Hiragana	つ	っ
Katakana	ツ	ッ



• The sokuon cannot appear at the beginning of a word, before a vowel kana (a, i, u, e, or o), or before kana that begin with the consonants n, m, r, w, or y. In addition, it does not appear before voiced consonants (g, z, d, or b), or before  (single), except in loanwords, or distorted speech, or dialects.
• Personal thoughts: meaning that it can only appear before consonants k, s, t, h.

Long pause in katakana is known as 長音符(ちょうおんぷ)

• Its form is a horizontal or vertical line in the center of the text with the width of one kanji or kana character. It is written horizontally (ー) in horizontal text and vertically in vertical text. The chōonpu is usually used to indicate a long vowel sound in katakana writing, rarely in hiragana writing, and never in romanized Japanese. The chōonpu is a distinct mark from the dash, and in most Japanese typefaces it can easily be distinguished.
• Personal thoughts: meaning that usually it is writen for katakana - foreign objects name.

Example of Pause sounds of similar words:

Slope :　坂(さか) saka
Writer :　作家(さっか) sakka
Scoccer :　サーカー(さーかー) sa-ka-

Refer to :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokuon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%8Don

Understanding Japanese Writing System

Japanese have 3 type of writing style - Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji.
To start off, most non-native Japanese will learn Hiragana 1st before moving on to Katakana and Kanji. However, interesting to note that most native Japanese might start off learning Katakana and Hiragana at the same time during their kindergarden days.

Hiragana - 平仮名(ひらがな)
Hiragana is the basic form of writing Japanese similar to English basic A-B-C
Example : a, i, u, e, o (あ, い, う, え, お).
To form a word, you need to join the hiragana together like the sentence "I am ____ " - "watashi wa ____." (わたし は _____ です。)

Katakana - カタカナ(かたかな)
Katakana is the writing style for foreign object/names like camera カメラ.
Example : a, i, u, e, o (ア,イ,ウ,エ,オ).
Generally, items that is imported into Japan are adopted using Katakan like
ラメン　- ramen (China),
パン　 - pan (means bread in French),
アルバイト - arubaito (Arbeit means part time job in German).
Foreigners learning Japanese, generally write their name in Katakana.

Kanji - 漢字(かんじ)
Kanji is the Chinese character writing style that migrate from China to Japan
Example : watashi -　私　(also can be written in hiragana as わたし as a break down for people who don't understand Kanji). Generally, Kanji is a set of words form from hiragana.

Furigana - 振り仮名(ふりがな)
Japanese generally write their name in Kanji with same hirgana above or below to aid with pronouncation as Kanji might have multiple pronouncation. The same hiragana used for reading aid is known as furigana.

Kanji vs Chinese Characters
A lot of people ask this on Yahoo Answers where I used to be very active in giving out answers and asking questions. I also posed this same question to my 1st sensei before on the difference on Chinese characters and Kanji.

As far as I understand, Kanji and Chinese characters have up to 70% similarity in meanings. Meaning a Chinese might be able to understand Japanese without learning Japanese! However, some Kanji have totally different meaning to their Chinese counterparts. For example, Kanji characters like 勉強(べんきょう) means study but same Chinese characters means compel!

Therefore, it is still advisable for Chinese students who are learning Japanese to be able to differentiate the meanings to avoid confusion.


Romanji ロマン字（ろまんじ）
Most non native Japanese learners started off with Romanji, which is the English alphabets of the Japanese pronouncement. However, it is strongly to recommend one to move off to Hiragana and Katakana as soon as possible. In most Japanese language school, sensei (Japanese teacher) will only use Romanji during Elementary class and will drop almost entirely of Romanji by the end of the course.


Hope with this mini explanation of Japanese writing system, you can understand Japanese better!!!

Cya and stay tune for my 1st Grammer lesson in Japanese!!! (^u^)'')

New Travel Links and More Japanese Learning Links updated!

Hi Folks,

I just pull up a list of my favourite travel links that I used for my DIY Japan trip by the side bar >>>

Feel free to use them to your liking!

In additional, I also add in some links which I think are great for learning Japanese especially jisho.org. Jisho means dictionary in Japanese and by far, this is the most reliable online J-E-J dictionary that I come across. I was refered to this website long ago by an ex-classmate when I was complain how useless Babelfish and other online translators are.

I'm still slowly putting up more and more stuff into this blog (scheduled bi-weekly) so do anticipated them with excitement. My beginning lesson/notes might be boring for some but i'm doing my best to make things easy for beginners to understand before moving on to harder grammers and stuff.

As for the Gojuuon (Hiragana and Katakana list), I will do up a recording of all the sounds and upload them to aid people learning to do the pronouncation.

PS: No Japanese text as I'm too sleepy to type them out as it is already 4.30am here before I go to work 9am in the morning. LOL. Time to catch some winks before work. Cya (^,^)'')

New Pages Up!

皆さんへ、
平仮名とカタカナのリストがあるよ。
見てみてください。

Hi Folks,
I just done up the Hiragana and Katakana list in my new page.
Feel free to take a look at my list.

I also done up a page to aid people on my abbreviation as I will type out my Japanese in short hand style to ease confusion. Please refer to them for more details.

Cya (^^,)//

またね!

始めまして!

皆さん、始めまして!

Welcome to my Learning Japanese Corner!

I'm starting a blog now to typing in all my classroom notes from various Japanese schools for my own revision and as well as sharing the joy of learning Japanese with you!

Please expect updating of notes/lists/misc tips to be every other week.

I'm still learning my Japanese but good enough for basic sentences questions as I'm JLPT N4 qualified (Japanese Language Profficiency Test).

Nevertheless, I'm still not efficient enough to hold a standard 100% Japanese conversation with a native.

Please go easy on me

それでは、よるしくお願いします。