Sunday, May 3, 2009

I'm back!!!

Okay. So I'm back. But hopefully I'll have time to post here some time as possible. But this time, I'm not teaching one by one since this is neither a school nor a class room.

This is a blog.

So this time, if I teach on this blog, it's either random lessons or revision stuffs. Or perhaps something you might as about.

In the manga series, Hokuto No Ken (Fist of the North Star), Kenshiro said おまえはもう死んでいる。(おまえは もう しんで いる)

He is the main character of Hokuto No Ken.

Anyway, what he said means, "You are already dead."

死ぬ(しぬ)means "To die" and believe me, it is not a very good word to use when speaking to elders. Unless you want to threaten someone...

The word おまえ(お前)means "you". If you're speaking to someone older, please don't use おまえ。Please use あなた。As for me, when I speak to friends or someone close to my age, I use 君(きみ)。But when I speak to someone older or someone with higher rank, of course I use あなた。

Yeah there are actually many different ways to say ”You" in Japanese.

あなた、君(きみ)、お前(おまえ)、あんた。

I don't recommend anyone to use おまえ and あんた。Unless you want to be aggressive and unless you want to insult someone. But it depends on how you use them, actually...

Here's another example from Hokuto No Ken.

Jagi, the antagonist of the story says おれの名をいってみろ!!(おれの なを いって みろ)Which means "Say my name!"

俺(おれ)means "Me".

How shall I explain this... Let's just say that おれ is a manly way to say "Me".

And here are ways to say "Me" in Japanese:

私(わたし)、わたくし、俺(おれ)、僕(ぼく)、あたし

I recommend not to use わたくし ... otherwise some of you might be confused between this and タクシー (Taxi).

あたし is for girls to use...

Okay, so here's the deal:

If you want to be polite or if you're speaking to someone who is older than you or those who are of higher rank, you use あなた and わたし。

If you want to speak to friends or those who are close to your age or those who are the same age as you, use きみ and ぼく。

If you're a girl who wants to make her sentence sound cute, use あなた and あたし。

For example:
ご主人様、あたしは今、お茶を作ります。(ごしゅじん さま あたしは いま おちゃを つくり ます)
”Master, I'm making green tea now"


EDIT: 2009/5/5

Due to copyright laws, I have to remove the images from Hokuto No Ken. I don't want to get sued by someone who owns the website.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

I'm so sorry... I don't think I'm able to continue teaching with this blog...

みなさん、ごめんなさい ね。ぼくは もう このブロッグで おしえることを つづけなくなりましたね。

I'm so sorry everyone. I don't think I'm able to carry on teaching on this blog. I'll probably be too busy to teach as I might be starting my first semester at an Academy.

I haven't post here in a while because I couldn't think of what to teach or to explain here. I'm so sorry to disappoint you all as some of you might want to revise your Japanese here. So for now, I'll just leave the teaching to the real teachers/senseis.

So for now, I'm going to stop posting on this blog. But I'll be posting on two of my usual blogs.

ごめんなさい。

And thank you for understanding what I'll be going through starting in May of 2009.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Explaining about a Japanese sentence...

こんにちは。

For this post, I'm going to explain about something in a Japanese sentence or the Japanese grammar...

Usually in the English language, you connect words in a sentence by starting with Proper noun follow by a verb and end with a noun.

For example:

"I want to eat pizza."

"I" is a proper noun.

"want to eat" is a verb.

"Pizza" is a noun.

But if you want to say it in Japanese:

私はピザを食べたいです。
(わたしは ピザを たべたい です)

私(わたし)(I/Me) is a proper noun.

ピザ (pizza) is a noun.

食べたい(たべたい)(want to eat) is a verb.

食べる(たべる)(To eat)


So let's take a look at the difference between an English sentence and a Japanese sentence:

For English:
Proper noun ---> verb ---> noun

For Japanese:
Proper noun は noun を verb

In a Japanese sentence, when you see the letter は connected, it will not be read as HA, it'll be read as WA. The letter を is used for connecting the noun and a verb together into a sentence.

When you combine ピザ and 食べたい(たべたい)with を in between and you get the sentence ピザを食べたい(ピザを たべたい) which means "want to eat pizza".

Literally わたしは means "I will" but if you combine that with a sentence, it'll become a different meaning.

It's not just わたしは。It can also be あなたは and so on. (which I will explain next time).

です Literally means "It's" or "It is" but it depends on what sentence you use with it.

I'm sorry that I have to make this short. But I hope I will explain some more soon in another post.

Sorry... No manga illustrations on today's post... Been feeling tired at the moment...

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Greetings. What's your name? How are you?

Here are manga marker sketch samples of what the characters say:
The big guy with two teeth says 「こんにちは」(reads as "Konnichiwa") which means "Hello" or "Good afternoon". So the small guy below replied and said back to him 「こんにちは」.

By the way, the small guy looks surprised as the big guy with two teeth is very lively. Now who do you think the big guy with two teeth reminds you of? ^___^

Here you can see three cats. The cat on the left is asking for the other two cat's names. He asked them 「お名前は?」(おなまえは)(Reads as "O namae wa")which means "What is your name?"

The small cat replied 「クッキーです」(Reads as "Kukkii desu") which means "It's Cookie" or "I'm Cookie" and the squinty eyed cat replied 「ミャミャです」(Reads as "Mya Mya desu") which means "It's Mya Mya" or "I'm Mya Mya".

Here you can see two school students seeing each other everyday maybe before or after school.

The boy asked the girl 「お元気ですか?」(おげんき ですか)(Which reads "O genki desu ka") which means "How are you?" (Literally it means "Are you energetic?" or "Are you healthy?"). So the girl replied 「あたしは元気です」(あたしは げんき です)(Which reads as "Atashi wa genki desu") which means "I'm fine" or "I'm fine thank you" (Which literally means "I'm energetic" or "I'm healthy").


Okay! Now that you've seen the greetings and the conversations in the above manga, now to proceed...

Starting with greetings:
おはよう/おはようございます ー Good Morning
こんにちは ー Good Afternoon/Hello
こんばんは ー Good Evening

Let me explain the literal translation for each words above (I hope this is not too complicated for you):

おはよう ー Litereally means "You're early"

Because the kanji for 「おはよう」is written as 「お早う」, it actually means "You're early" because of the word 「早い」(はやい)(Which reads "Hayai") Which means "Early". When you say 「早く!」(はやく)(Which reads "Hayaku") It means "Hurry up!"

If you want to say "Good Morning" in Japanese in a polite way, you add ございます At the end.

That's why some people say 「おはよう ございます」


こんにちは ー Literally means "Today is"

Now some of you who just started learning Japanese might say I wrote something in Japanese wrong because some of you might think it's written as 「こんにちわ」. But the correct way to write it is 「こんにちは」。

Sure these days, on the internet, people who are close to my age type 「こんにちわ」Instead of 「こんにちは」Because of the sound of the word or how it's pronounced.

Now if you see something that's written as こんにちは, Some of you might think it's read as Konnichiha... Yes... It does seem like that. But no... Because in a sentence, when you see the letter は Instead of reading it as HA, you read it as WA. Which is something I might explain later on.

It's because the kanji written letters for こんにちは is 今日は 。The kanji for 今日 can also be read as きょう(Kyou) which means "Today". Now you know why... That is why I rather write it in hiragana which is こんにちは So that I can avoid the confusion... sort of...

But what's important is that you read こんにちは As KONNICHIWA not KONNICHIHA.


こんばんは ー Literally means "Tonight is" or "This evening is"

The same case as こんにちは Because the letter は At the end. Because the word こんばん Means "This Evening" or "Tonight" which is written in kanji as 今晩。So if you write こんばんは In kanji, it would be 今晩は Which is why (AGAIN) I rather write it in hiragana.

Before I proceed to the next lesson, I want everyone to practice this with their parthers:

Person A: 「こんにちは。」
Person B: 「こんにちは。」
Person A: 「おげんき ですか?」
Person B: 「げんき です。Person Aは?」
Person A: 「わたしも げんき です。」

*NOTE: You can substitute "Person A" and "Person B" with anyone's name or your name. Because this is just for example and practice.

To ask someone for his/her name:

Person A: 「おなまえは?」
Person B: 「わたしの なまえは さくら です。」 Or 「さくら です。」

There are many ways to tell someone your name when they ask for your name.

You can say 「わたしは (Insert name here) です」 Or 「(Insert name here) です」

The polite way to say it is 「わたしの なまえは (Insert name here)と もうします」
(Watashi no namae wa (Insert name here) to moushimasu)

Here's another example:

Person A: 「おなまえは?」
Person B: 「みゆき です。おなまえは?」
Person A: 「ゆみ です。」

After you ask for his/her name, of course he/she will ask for your name.

For this kind of greetings or conversation, in the morning, you say おはよう Or おはよう ございます

In the afternoon, you say こんにちは

In the evening, you say こんばんは

So please practice with friends, family members, or whoever you want to practice with.

And before you do, here's an explanation on the Japanese sentences you use for a conversation.

私は学校へ行きます
(わたしは がっこうへ いきます)

Some of you might think that it's read as "Watashi ha gakkou he ikimasu" But it's actually read as "Watashi wa gakkou e ikimasu".

In a sentence, the way you read the letter は And へ Changes. In a sentence, instead of reading them as HA and HE, you read them as WA and E.

I know it's complicated to understand at first, but once you get them, you'll get the used to them. I know I did.

Maybe next time I'll post lessons on different ways to say "I", "Me", "You" and "Introducing yourself to someone".



If you have any questions, you can send me an email. But don't forget to put the subject or topic as "NIHONGO".

じゃ また (See you again)

Please learn to read and write in KATAKANA and HIRAGANA before proceeding to my lessons here...

Hello, boys and girls. I wanted to post my own way of learning to write and read in Katakana and Hiragana. But I don't think I feel like doing so. If I'm a certified teacher/sensei, maybe I can teach the whole thing on how to read and write in katakana and hiragana...

That is why I've found a website to where you can learn to read and write in katakana and hiragana.

So please click HERE and follow the instructions. And you can see how the animation teaches you to write. It loads a little slow but please be patient.

And if you think the website is not good enough, let me know by email and I'll see what I can do. I can't promise anything but it's the best I can do. And the reason why I don't want to do my own lessons on writing and reading Katakana and Hiragana is because I have lots to do.

And I'm sorry that I have to do this. Because I have lots to do, I want to go through with teaching in a style of manga. Without wasting any time.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Introducing some basic words for daily use...

I wanted to pose lessons in a style of manga but... at the moment I haven't drawn anything yet. So for now, let me introduce some basic words people use daily. This is what I've also wrote down for my friend Riddy when we were at the Japanese Pop Culture week event at the UBD (University Brunei Darussalam).

Words you use when you greet someone:
おはよう/おはよう ございます (Ohayou/Ohayou gozaimasu) - Good morning
こんにちは (Konnichiwa) - Hello/Good afternoon
こんばんは (Konbanwa) - Good evening

さようなら (Sayounara) You can also write it as さよなら (Sayonara) - Good bye

おやすみ/おやすみなさい (Oyasumi/Oyasuminasai) - Good night

Sorry that I haven't post hiragana and katakana lessons yet. I will soon. Because you need to learn to read and write in those kana. And because when I teach, I'm not going to write everything in Romaji. But for this post, I'll make an acception for writing something in Romaji.

What's Romaji, you ask? Take a look at the words I wrote in Japanese above and look at the words I wrote in brackets, those are Romaji. As a matter of fact, I'm writing this post in Romaji because I'm explaining in English.

Starting a blog which teaches Japanese. Introduction to katakana, hiragana and kanji

「皆さん、こんにちは。私はカイと申します。どうぞよろしくお願いします。」

Hello everybody. I'm Kai sensei. What you see above is a sentence written in Japanese (of course).

Now as I'm starting this blog, I'm starting with examples of letters (or kana) used in a Japansese written sentence or text.

Above, you can see Japanese letters like Katakana, Hiragana and Kanji.

Above, you can see 25 hiragana letters, 2 katakana letters and 4 kanji letters.

But I'm sure you're not ready for the sentence above so... Here's something simple.

私はブルネイから来ました。

Here you can see 2 kanji letters, 6 hiragana letters and 4 katakana letters.

An example of using hiragana letters - すし (Sushi)
An example of using katakana letters - アメリカ (America)
An example of using kanji letters - 学校 (Gakkou) (School)

You see, kanji letters are used for knowing the meaning of the words you say while hiragana are just letters which just makes the sounds. And katakana is used for words which are not of Japanese Language or terms.

So come to this blog often and I shall update some lessons each day or week. Hopefully I'm not too busy. And to be honest, I'm actually still studying Japanese. But I want to make good use of my Japanese since I haven't been to Japan yet.

But I've met many people from Japan. And they said that my Japanese sounds good.

So anyway. Before I start teaching, I will introduce you all to writing in hiragana and katakana first. And maybe I might introduce you to some kanji letters. (And kanji is one of the difficult kana to learn).

And I'm sorry to say that I will not teach in Romaji (the normal alphabet letters).

But for now, I'll write something in Romaji...

and thats...

Ja mata (see you again).