Beginner Japanese Lessons! (UPDATED: Lessons 3-5 up!)
Jun 29, 2017 1:47:56 GMT -5
via mobile
🎃❅❖.Şp໐໐kฯຟiຖ໓.❖❅🎃, 𝓣𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓿𝓲𝓮𝓵, and 6 more like this
Post by Haleigh on Jun 29, 2017 1:47:56 GMT -5
Beginner Japanese Lessons!
Japanese is seen as a difficult language by many people. Of course, this all depends. There are easy things about it, and hard things about it, like any other language. I've gotten a fairly good grip on the language, enough to teach the basics, anyway. So that's what I'll be doing.
Lesson 1: The Basics of the language
Japanese has 3 writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji.
The first two systems represent the same amount of sounds, and there is a reason for this that I will get into later. Each sound is either one of the five vowels (a, i, e, o, u), a vowel sound paired with a consonant (ka, gi, sa, yu), or a solitary "n" sound.
(These sounds are all rough ways to say them. For the best results, listen to a native speaker pronounce them!!)
The vowels:
a-"ah" as in "hat"
i- "ee" as in "see"
e- "eh" as in "net"
o- "oh" as "cold"
u- "oo" as in "new"
Hiragana (ひらがな): used for grammar, such as particles (lesson 2) and verb tenses. If the word "opened" was in Japanese, the -ed end would be in hiragana, showing it's the past tense. Also used to show kanji readings.
Katakana (カタカナ): used for foreign words and names. Mainly used for the tons of English loanwords, or borrowed words, in Japanese. In fact, if you speak English fluently, you already know 10% of Japanese vocabulary!
Kanji (漢字): adopted from Traditional Chinese characters. Used for nouns, verb stems, adjective stems, native names, and just about everything I haven't covered yet. If the word "opened" was in Japanese, the open-would be in kanji. Each kanji have at least one meaning and at least two ways of reading them, depending on the situation. Approximately 2000 are basic-knowledge kanji needed to get by.
***if anyone has an account to the Duolingo app "Tinycards", I have made two card sets for Hiragana and Katakana. I'll link to them here:
Hiragana: tiny.cards/decks/6de8a02f-98d9-4009-97da-bd1aec98d4c9
Katakana: tiny.cards/decks/b4d4c4e0-569e-4d0f-82b9-66be1817b2be
I'm going to assume that by this point on, you can (slowly) read all hiragana, katakana, and understand the basics of how kanji works and where it goes in a sentence. If anyone is still unsure, feel free to pm me and I'll be happy to clarify!
Lesson 2: AはBです/A is B
Vocabulary/語彙(ごい):
私 (わたし): common word for "I"/"me". (noun)
これ: "this"
は: particle. Used for the topic of a sentence.
です: "to be". (verb) (formal)
か: question particle (formal)
Japanese has a different sentence structure to English and many other languages. We call English an "SVO" language. This stands for Subject, Verb, Object.
For example:
I eat sushi.
"I" being the subject, "eat" being the verb, and "sushi" being the object.
Japanese, on the other hand, is an "SOV" language. So you might be able to guess what that stands for.
If we keep the English words but replace the grammar with Japanese, it would look something like this:
I sushi eat.
It may seem like a tough switch to make, but it'll quickly become natural. I'll teach you how to make a simple sentence, to start with.
Japanese, like many other languages, especially Asian ones, has particles. These are small words that act as indicators of a word's relationship with the rest of the sentence. For instance, if the word is the subject or object. Or if it's part of a list, or on its own. Words like, "to" "from" "is" "and" are in the form of particles in Japanese. Using the correct particle is extremely important. Lots of times in Japanese, words are left out if not needed. It's very context-heavy. So choosing the right particle is the difference between saying "Eat the sushi" and "The sushi eats". In Japanese, the only difference between these sentences is the particle. Don't worry if this seems confusing, it'll make sense later!
For now, we'll be talking about one of the most basic particles, は. IMPORTANT NOTICE: this is clearly the hiragana for "ha". However, in this case, it is ALWAYS pronounced "wa". This is the case for one more particle, which we'll get to in another lesson.
は indicates the topic of a sentence or clause. In some cases, including what we'll be covering today, it represents the words "is", "are", "am", etc. It's easiest to think if it this way, but don't rely too much on this translation. For now though, it works fine.
です is something you may have heard before if you've ever watched anime. It's the verb "to be" and means nothing unless with another word. For instance, if you wanted to point out to someone that, yes, the California roll you are eating is indeed considered sushi, you'd say:
これは寿司です。
(これはすしです)
This is sushi.
This might be an answer to a question they asked you. They might have said:
これは寿司ですか?
(これはすしですか?)
Is this sushi?
By adding か to the end of any formal sentence with a verb, you can ask a question.
With this, you can now introduce yourself.
私は___です。
(わたしは___です)
I am ___.
(Lesson 3 will be conjugating です and ですか. I'll write it when I'm not super lazy agghghgh)
Lesson 3-を and Basic Conjugation of Formal Verbs
*desperately skims through the last lesson to figure out what the heck I even said*
Vocabulary/語彙(ごい):
食べます (たべます): to eat
飲みます (飲みます): to drink
水 (みず): water
を: object particle
Conjugation of Japanese verbs isn't too difficult. There isn't a further tense, so that makes things easier.
We'll start with です (to be)。
Past tense=replace です with でした
Note: ALL formal verbs (excluding です) end with ~ます. This is commonly called the ます form, or ますフォーム.
IMPORTANT NOTE: in many occurrences, certain sounds are omitted in speech, such as い and う. This is one of those times.
ALL FORMAL VERBS INCLUDING です HAVE THE う SOUND OMITTED.
です-sounds more like "dess"
ます-sounds more like "mass"
The future tense of all verbs is the exact same as the past tense.
Context helps someone figure out if you eat sushi, or you already ate sushi. Based on whether or not you are currently eating sushi.
By the way, how do you even say that?
寿司を食べます。
(すしをたべます)
I eat sushi.
Where's the は? And what is を?
All of this and more, in the next lesson.
Nah, I'm just messing with ya.
は is the topic particle. It shows that the noun in front of it does the verb behind. If I used は in the example sentence, it would mean "The sushi eats". Which...doesn't make a ton of sense. But is scary to think about regardless.
を (pronounced the same as お in this case) indicates that the verb happens to the noun instead of the noun performing the verb. So,
寿司を食べます is "eat sushi".
We can use は and を in the same sentence as well. For example, say you need to be more specific about the fact that you eat the sushi:
私は寿司を食べます。
(わたしはすしをたべます)
I eat sushi.
(Referring to me, eat sushi.)
Or, you could also just say
私は食べます。
(わたしはたべます)
(I eat).
What if you already ate? We know how to do this with です, but what about verbs?
With polite ます verbs:
Past tense: replace ます with ました
Negative/ don't do: replace ます with ません
Negative past tense/ didn't do: replace ます with ませんでした
寿司を食べません。
(すしをたべません)
Don't eat sushi.
私は水を飲みませんでした。
(わたしはみずをのみませんでした)
I didn't drink water.
Hopefully this is making sense to you guys so far. I'm thinking of making a chat for anyone who's interested, where you can ask me any specific questions and practice. Maybe on Skype? Not sure yet.
Lesson 4: は vs が and Noun Conjugation
Vocabulary/語彙(ごい):
が: subject particle
好き (すき): to like
あなた: you
犬 (いぬ): dog
Here's where things get a bit tricky.
This is the bane of many a Japanese learner. If I can't explain it well (believe me, I probably can't) then Google is your friend. But I'll do the best I can
が is the subject particle. Sometimes it's used instead of は for specific situations for implied meaning. So you can pick and choose depending. The best I can explain this is that は is closer to "a"(not sure about everything else, but this is a thing) in context and が is closer the "the" (this specific thing and nothing else).
That's all I can do. If you're still confused, Google it. Sorry.
There are some cases where が is always used instead of は.
For instance,
犬が好きです。
(いぬがすきです)
I like dogs.
が is used with 好き.
好き is a strange verb and to be honest I have no idea why. Here the conjugations:
Present/ future tense: 好きです
Past tense: 好きでした
Negative/ don't do: 好きじゃないです
Negative past tense: didn't do: 好きじゃないでした
じゃない is normally a negative for Verbs.
寿司じゃないです。
That's not sushi.
犬じゃないでした。
(いぬじゃないでした)
That wasn't a dog.
There are other times when this happens, and there is no rule or pattern as to when. You just have to know
Welcome to the Japanese language.
Lesson 5: Informal Verbs and Conjugation
The last couple example verbs are all good if you are speaking to someone you need to respect, such as a stranger or elder. That's the only reason why I taught the ます form first. But the informal verbs are tougher, and much, much more important. I'll start on introducing informal verbs, and how to conjugate them from ます form.
Otherwise known as the "dictionary form" (guess why) here are two types of informal verbs, at least how I classify them:
る verbs and う verbs.
る verbs always end in る, and う verbs end in う or most hiragana in the う section (す, く, ぐ ぶ, む, ぬ,つ, {あ,い,う,え,お}+う from a list I found online because I couldn't remember all of the endings).
Conjugations can vary in the dictionary form, but here's a general list to go off of, I don't want to be held accountable for mistakes, and I just know the exceptions, so I can't remember them. Or explain why.
When a form is introduced (there's more, but that's too advanced for now), whatever it's called doubles as the present tense.
Past tense: た
Negative: ない
Negative past: なかった
To conjugate to ます form:
る:
Take out る and replace with ます
う:
Change the last う end to い (く toき, す to し, む to み, etc) and add ます
食べる (たべる)=食べます
飲む (のむ)=飲みます
why is this so exhausting.
I've only written three of these tonight.
To end this off, now that I've introduced the dictionary form, I'm going to give you guys 20 Useful or Common Verbs. Not including the ones already shown.
する-to do
ある-to exist (inanimate object)
いる-to exist (animate object)
分かる (わかる)-to understand
見る(みる)-to see, to watch
聞く(きく)-to hear, to listen
信じる (しんじる)-to believe
勉強する (べんきょうする)-to study
学ぶ (まなぶ)-to learn
話す (はなす)-to speak
作る (つくる)-to make
死ぬ (しぬ)-to die
言う (いう)-to say
始まる (はじまる)-to begin
終わる (おわる)-to end
愛する (あいする)-to love
助ける (たすげる)-to help
感じる (かんじる)-to feel (emotion)
思う (おもう)-to think
考える (かんがえる)-to consider
Lesson 6 will be します and する
Lesson 7 will be basic survival phrases
Lessons 8 and 9 will be adjectives and adverbs
Lesson 10 will be ending particles
I'm making promises I can't keep probably
Japanese is seen as a difficult language by many people. Of course, this all depends. There are easy things about it, and hard things about it, like any other language. I've gotten a fairly good grip on the language, enough to teach the basics, anyway. So that's what I'll be doing.
Lesson 1: The Basics of the language
Japanese has 3 writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji.
The first two systems represent the same amount of sounds, and there is a reason for this that I will get into later. Each sound is either one of the five vowels (a, i, e, o, u), a vowel sound paired with a consonant (ka, gi, sa, yu), or a solitary "n" sound.
(These sounds are all rough ways to say them. For the best results, listen to a native speaker pronounce them!!)
The vowels:
a-"ah" as in "hat"
i- "ee" as in "see"
e- "eh" as in "net"
o- "oh" as "cold"
u- "oo" as in "new"
Hiragana (ひらがな): used for grammar, such as particles (lesson 2) and verb tenses. If the word "opened" was in Japanese, the -ed end would be in hiragana, showing it's the past tense. Also used to show kanji readings.
Katakana (カタカナ): used for foreign words and names. Mainly used for the tons of English loanwords, or borrowed words, in Japanese. In fact, if you speak English fluently, you already know 10% of Japanese vocabulary!
Kanji (漢字): adopted from Traditional Chinese characters. Used for nouns, verb stems, adjective stems, native names, and just about everything I haven't covered yet. If the word "opened" was in Japanese, the open-would be in kanji. Each kanji have at least one meaning and at least two ways of reading them, depending on the situation. Approximately 2000 are basic-knowledge kanji needed to get by.
***if anyone has an account to the Duolingo app "Tinycards", I have made two card sets for Hiragana and Katakana. I'll link to them here:
Hiragana: tiny.cards/decks/6de8a02f-98d9-4009-97da-bd1aec98d4c9
Katakana: tiny.cards/decks/b4d4c4e0-569e-4d0f-82b9-66be1817b2be
I'm going to assume that by this point on, you can (slowly) read all hiragana, katakana, and understand the basics of how kanji works and where it goes in a sentence. If anyone is still unsure, feel free to pm me and I'll be happy to clarify!
Lesson 2: AはBです/A is B
Vocabulary/語彙(ごい):
私 (わたし): common word for "I"/"me". (noun)
これ: "this"
は: particle. Used for the topic of a sentence.
です: "to be". (verb) (formal)
か: question particle (formal)
Japanese has a different sentence structure to English and many other languages. We call English an "SVO" language. This stands for Subject, Verb, Object.
For example:
I eat sushi.
"I" being the subject, "eat" being the verb, and "sushi" being the object.
Japanese, on the other hand, is an "SOV" language. So you might be able to guess what that stands for.
If we keep the English words but replace the grammar with Japanese, it would look something like this:
I sushi eat.
It may seem like a tough switch to make, but it'll quickly become natural. I'll teach you how to make a simple sentence, to start with.
Japanese, like many other languages, especially Asian ones, has particles. These are small words that act as indicators of a word's relationship with the rest of the sentence. For instance, if the word is the subject or object. Or if it's part of a list, or on its own. Words like, "to" "from" "is" "and" are in the form of particles in Japanese. Using the correct particle is extremely important. Lots of times in Japanese, words are left out if not needed. It's very context-heavy. So choosing the right particle is the difference between saying "Eat the sushi" and "The sushi eats". In Japanese, the only difference between these sentences is the particle. Don't worry if this seems confusing, it'll make sense later!
For now, we'll be talking about one of the most basic particles, は. IMPORTANT NOTICE: this is clearly the hiragana for "ha". However, in this case, it is ALWAYS pronounced "wa". This is the case for one more particle, which we'll get to in another lesson.
は indicates the topic of a sentence or clause. In some cases, including what we'll be covering today, it represents the words "is", "are", "am", etc. It's easiest to think if it this way, but don't rely too much on this translation. For now though, it works fine.
です is something you may have heard before if you've ever watched anime. It's the verb "to be" and means nothing unless with another word. For instance, if you wanted to point out to someone that, yes, the California roll you are eating is indeed considered sushi, you'd say:
これは寿司です。
(これはすしです)
This is sushi.
This might be an answer to a question they asked you. They might have said:
これは寿司ですか?
(これはすしですか?)
Is this sushi?
By adding か to the end of any formal sentence with a verb, you can ask a question.
With this, you can now introduce yourself.
私は___です。
(わたしは___です)
I am ___.
(Lesson 3 will be conjugating です and ですか. I'll write it when I'm not super lazy agghghgh)
Lesson 3-を and Basic Conjugation of Formal Verbs
*desperately skims through the last lesson to figure out what the heck I even said*
Vocabulary/語彙(ごい):
食べます (たべます): to eat
飲みます (飲みます): to drink
水 (みず): water
を: object particle
Conjugation of Japanese verbs isn't too difficult. There isn't a further tense, so that makes things easier.
We'll start with です (to be)。
Past tense=replace です with でした
Note: ALL formal verbs (excluding です) end with ~ます. This is commonly called the ます form, or ますフォーム.
IMPORTANT NOTE: in many occurrences, certain sounds are omitted in speech, such as い and う. This is one of those times.
ALL FORMAL VERBS INCLUDING です HAVE THE う SOUND OMITTED.
です-sounds more like "dess"
ます-sounds more like "mass"
The future tense of all verbs is the exact same as the past tense.
Context helps someone figure out if you eat sushi, or you already ate sushi. Based on whether or not you are currently eating sushi.
By the way, how do you even say that?
寿司を食べます。
(すしをたべます)
I eat sushi.
Where's the は? And what is を?
All of this and more, in the next lesson.
Nah, I'm just messing with ya.
は is the topic particle. It shows that the noun in front of it does the verb behind. If I used は in the example sentence, it would mean "The sushi eats". Which...doesn't make a ton of sense. But is scary to think about regardless.
を (pronounced the same as お in this case) indicates that the verb happens to the noun instead of the noun performing the verb. So,
寿司を食べます is "eat sushi".
We can use は and を in the same sentence as well. For example, say you need to be more specific about the fact that you eat the sushi:
私は寿司を食べます。
(わたしはすしをたべます)
I eat sushi.
(Referring to me, eat sushi.)
Or, you could also just say
私は食べます。
(わたしはたべます)
(I eat).
What if you already ate? We know how to do this with です, but what about verbs?
With polite ます verbs:
Past tense: replace ます with ました
Negative/ don't do: replace ます with ません
Negative past tense/ didn't do: replace ます with ませんでした
寿司を食べません。
(すしをたべません)
Don't eat sushi.
私は水を飲みませんでした。
(わたしはみずをのみませんでした)
I didn't drink water.
Hopefully this is making sense to you guys so far. I'm thinking of making a chat for anyone who's interested, where you can ask me any specific questions and practice. Maybe on Skype? Not sure yet.
Lesson 4: は vs が and Noun Conjugation
Vocabulary/語彙(ごい):
が: subject particle
好き (すき): to like
あなた: you
犬 (いぬ): dog
Here's where things get a bit tricky.
This is the bane of many a Japanese learner. If I can't explain it well (believe me, I probably can't) then Google is your friend. But I'll do the best I can
が is the subject particle. Sometimes it's used instead of は for specific situations for implied meaning. So you can pick and choose depending. The best I can explain this is that は is closer to "a"(not sure about everything else, but this is a thing) in context and が is closer the "the" (this specific thing and nothing else).
That's all I can do. If you're still confused, Google it. Sorry.
There are some cases where が is always used instead of は.
For instance,
犬が好きです。
(いぬがすきです)
I like dogs.
が is used with 好き.
好き is a strange verb and to be honest I have no idea why. Here the conjugations:
Present/ future tense: 好きです
Past tense: 好きでした
Negative/ don't do: 好きじゃないです
Negative past tense: didn't do: 好きじゃないでした
じゃない is normally a negative for Verbs.
寿司じゃないです。
That's not sushi.
犬じゃないでした。
(いぬじゃないでした)
That wasn't a dog.
There are other times when this happens, and there is no rule or pattern as to when. You just have to know
Welcome to the Japanese language.
Lesson 5: Informal Verbs and Conjugation
The last couple example verbs are all good if you are speaking to someone you need to respect, such as a stranger or elder. That's the only reason why I taught the ます form first. But the informal verbs are tougher, and much, much more important. I'll start on introducing informal verbs, and how to conjugate them from ます form.
Otherwise known as the "dictionary form" (guess why) here are two types of informal verbs, at least how I classify them:
る verbs and う verbs.
る verbs always end in る, and う verbs end in う or most hiragana in the う section (す, く, ぐ ぶ, む, ぬ,つ, {あ,い,う,え,お}+う from a list I found online because I couldn't remember all of the endings).
Conjugations can vary in the dictionary form, but here's a general list to go off of, I don't want to be held accountable for mistakes, and I just know the exceptions, so I can't remember them. Or explain why.
When a form is introduced (there's more, but that's too advanced for now), whatever it's called doubles as the present tense.
Past tense: た
Negative: ない
Negative past: なかった
To conjugate to ます form:
る:
Take out る and replace with ます
う:
Change the last う end to い (く toき, す to し, む to み, etc) and add ます
食べる (たべる)=食べます
飲む (のむ)=飲みます
why is this so exhausting.
I've only written three of these tonight.
To end this off, now that I've introduced the dictionary form, I'm going to give you guys 20 Useful or Common Verbs. Not including the ones already shown.
する-to do
ある-to exist (inanimate object)
いる-to exist (animate object)
分かる (わかる)-to understand
見る(みる)-to see, to watch
聞く(きく)-to hear, to listen
信じる (しんじる)-to believe
勉強する (べんきょうする)-to study
学ぶ (まなぶ)-to learn
話す (はなす)-to speak
作る (つくる)-to make
死ぬ (しぬ)-to die
言う (いう)-to say
始まる (はじまる)-to begin
終わる (おわる)-to end
愛する (あいする)-to love
助ける (たすげる)-to help
感じる (かんじる)-to feel (emotion)
思う (おもう)-to think
考える (かんがえる)-to consider
Lesson 6 will be します and する
Lesson 7 will be basic survival phrases
Lessons 8 and 9 will be adjectives and adverbs
Lesson 10 will be ending particles
I'm making promises I can't keep probably