Semester 2 Week 4 Part B

Introduction

Konnichiwa Minasan,
Today we'll learn our next set of Kanji and also look at how to use a useful word 'kara'. First lets get the Kanji done and dusted.

Kanji

Kanji	English (plus other meanings)	Japanese Pronunciation
目	Eye	Me
口	Mouth, Opening	Kuchi
耳	Ear	Mimi
鼻	Nose	Hana
頭	Head, top, counter for large animal	Atama, Kashira
顔	Face	Kao
足	Foot, leg, to suffice, sufficient	Oshi (to suffice=Tarimasu)
体	Body,	Karada
背	Back, Height, Betrayal	Se
手	Hand, Person	Te
広	Spacious, Wide	Hiro(i)
静	Quiet, Serene	Shizu(ka)
低	Low, Short in Stature	Hiku(i)

Kara ’から’

We use Kara to state a reason, for example in the case of, I like Koalas because they are cute. Kara can be seen as 'because'

How To Use

The basic sentence structure comes down to...

1. 'Sentence' OR 'Noun' + Kara + 'Sentence' OR 'Noun'

Let's learn how to say 'I like Koalas because they are cute.' in Japanese.

Koala は kawaii desu kara suki desu.

Kawaii = Cute

Kara = 'because' 'the reason for' 'Therefore' etc (In this case it's probably more correct to see it as 'Therefore')

Suki = 'Like'

Basically it comes out in English as 'Koala is cute, therefore I like it.' But we would probably just say 'I like Koalas because they are cute.' as this sounds more casual.

END

I hope you all learnt something from this lesson, look out for the next one!

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Semester 2 Week 4 Part A

Konnichiwa Minasan!

Introduction

Today we'll be looking at 'な Adjectives' otherwise known as 'Adjectival Noun'.
な = Is Hiragana for the sound 'Na'

な Adjectives

How do we tell if it is a true or な adjective? True adjectives always end in ai, ii, ui, oi.
So if the adjective doesn't end with any of the above, it must be a な adjective.

How To Use

Okay so lets learn how to use な adjectives. Our example is going to be 'Beautiful Sea'
Beautiful = Kirei
Sea = Umi

We must add the な before the noun when using な Adjectives

So to say 'Beautiful Sea' we must say 'Kirei な Umi'

If the な  adjective does not come before a noun, for example, Kireide Ookii Umi = Beautiful and Big Sea.
Ookii = Big

Joining Two Adjectives

You may have noticed the 'de' at the end of 'kireide' in that sentence, this is because if there is a True Adjective OR a な adjective after a な adjective we must add de. This is how we use multiple adjectives in a sentence.

However, if the True Adjective came before the な Adjective, for example, 'Ookikute Kirei な Umi' we do not use 'De' instead we drop the last 'i' from Ookii and add 'kute' onto it making it 'Ookikute'. You'll also see that since Kirei is now the word before the noun it must have な placed afterwards.

Joining Three or More Adjectives

When using multiple adjectives in a sentence the rules for joining adjectives does not apply to the last adjective used. You can see this in the examples above. If there are three or more adjectives in a row for example. 'Karakute Kireide Ookii umi' = Salty, beautiful, big sea. Karai = Salty.
Notice that Ookii uses it's normal form as it is the last adjective and does not need to be Ookikute.

END

Well, that's it for today! I hope you learnt something new and it was easy enough to follow.
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Class Presentation Incoming!

Uh oh!

The first class presentation is coming up in 4 days and our tutor thought it would be 'fun' to combine two of the Japanese classes together for it! I still haven't finished the script, technically you could say I started. I just need to put the English sentences into Japanese! lol

Anyway, what we have to do is pick 2 kanji we think relates to 'The Sunshine Coast' and present them to the class, stating their radicals, why we picked them, stroke order etc.

Better get started! Wish me luck!

EDIT:

Oh! I should probably tell you the kanji I chose!

日 for sun. Considering it's importance as being used to in the countries name and the fact it has to relate to 'sun'shine coast, I thought it'd be a good choice. I just wonder how many other people have chosen it!

汐 = ushio which means tide. There's two different kanji for this but, I chose this one for Ushio from the anime Clannad because she's really cute! As her name is written using this kanji.

Oh look! You just learned some new kanji! :P

Semester 2 Week 3 Part B

Konnichiwa Minasan!

Read for this week's second lesson?

This lesson we will have a look at a new set of Kanji!

Kanji
*Marks the words and pronounciations that only apply when you use that particular pronounciation of the Kanji

Kanji	English (plus other meanings)	Japanese Pronounciation
安	Cheap (Peaceful, secure)	Yasu(i)
高	Expensive (High, Tall)	Taka(i)
長	Long (Chief, Principal)	Naga(i)
大	Big (Large, Great, Grand)	Oo(kii)
小	Small	Chi(sai)
細	Thin (Detail) *Fine	Hoso(i) *Komakai
太	Thick (Fat, Peaceful)	Futo(i)
軽	Light *Light, Easy	Karu(i) *Karoyaka
重	Heavy (Layer)	Omo(i)
赤	Red	Aka(i)
青	Blue	Ao(i)
白	White	Shiro(i)
黒	Black	Kuro(i)
黄	Yellow	Ki
色	Colour (Amarous)	Iro

Useful/Interesting Words

Han = Half Past

Jyugyou = Class

Fudan = Usually, Ordinary day

Kara = From

Made = To

Neko = Cat

Koneko = Kitten (the Ko makes it 'small')

Colours

There are 4 main colours, they are Red, Blue, White and Black

Saying 'I like colour car'.

'Colour' Karuma が Suki Desu

NOTE: If we do not use one of the 4 main colours, we must had の

Example: 'Colour' の Karuma が Suki Desu

Let's break down the sentence.

の = Particle, possessive meaning. In this case, the car possesses 'colour'

Karuma = Car

が = Particle, it marks the object of a like/dislike sentence

Suki = Like

Desu = Is/am/are/was etc. It ends the sentence.

END

That's all for today and the week! Lookout for the next lesson! We'll be going through how to use 'な' adjectives, how to give a reason for something etc.

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Semester 2 Week 3 Part A

Hello everyone,

Welcome to week 3. This lesson we're going to talk about adjectives.

Japanese has two types of adjectives.
1. True Adjective
2. Adjectival Noun (sometimes called Na な Adjectives)

True Adjectives

First we're going to look at True Adjectives

True Adjectives finish with Ai, ii, ui, oi

Changing True Adjectives to Present, Past, Negative, Affirmative

'i' = い	Present	Past
Affirmative	Remains the same.	Drop the last 'i'. Add 'Katta'
Negative	Drop the last 'i'. Add 'Kunai'	Drop the last 'i'. Add 'Kunakatta'

NOTE: いい (ii) = Good in English. いい is irregular. Do not follow the rules set in the above table.

'Good' = いい	Present	Past
Affirmative	いい Remains the same.	いい Becomes 'Yokatta'
Negative	いい Becomes 'Yokuna'	いい Becomes 'Yokunakatta'

Remember: Add 'desu' onto True Adjective sentences to be polite. It does not matter if True Adjective is past or present tense, just leave Desu.

Example sentence using True Adjective - 'Yasashii' which means Easy
Japanese: Nihongo wa yasashikunai desu
English: Japanese language is not easy.

Let's break it down...
1. Nihongo = Japanese (language)
2. wa = particle marking topic of sentence
3. Yasashikunai = 'Present Negative' (Is Not) form of Yasashi. Yasashi = Easy
4. Desu = 'is'

I'll leave you all with some True Adjectives.
Muzukashii = Difficult
Omoshiroi = Interesting/Funny
Tanoshii = Fun
Tsumaranai = Boring
Ookii = Big
Chisai = Small
Sukunanai = Few, little
Ooi = Many, a large number of

END

Remember when you're looking up Japanese adjectives you can tell if it's a True Adjective by seeing if it ends in Ai, ii, ui, oi. Adjectival Nouns otherwise called な Adjectives do not have these endings. We'll learn the rules on how to use Adjectival Nouns and how to join both True and な adjectives together.

I hope you all found this lesson enjoyable!

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Semester 2 Week 2 Part B

Hello everyone,

Here is week two's second lesson. It's a little light on I'd say but here goes.

We mainly looked at the words for the days of the month and the months themselves.

So, let's look at an example of this.

Japanese: Watashi の tanjobi は roku gatsu futsuka * desu.
English: My birthday is on the 2nd of June.

Let's break down the sentence.
Watashi = I
の 'No' = Particle which turns the I into 'possessive' making it 'my'. So Watashi no = my
Tanjobi = Birthday
は 'Wa' = particle, marks the topic of the sentence. In this case, Birthday or "my birthday"
Roku = 6
Gatsu = The counter** for months
Futsuka = 2nd***, this is used for saying the 2nd day of the month.
Desu = Is/am/are etc. In this case it means 'Is'

* Here, if the number for the day of the month is over 10 you must place 'nichi' (the Kanji for nichi is 日). Nichi means 'Day'

**Counters - In the Japanese language, words called 'counters' are used for different things. There are counters for all sorts of things including months, people, general objects etc. So June in Japanese is known as Roku Gatsu (6 month)

***2nd - Another use for this is saying something like "I went to Brisbane for 2 days."

Days of the Month

1st	Tsuitachi	8th	Youka
2nd	Futsuka	9th	Kokonoka
3rd	Mikka	10th	Tooka
4th	Yokka	11th	Juuichi+nichi
5th	Itsuka	20th	Hatsuka
6th	Muika	14th	Juuyokka
7th	Nanoka	24th	Nijuuyokka

Here are what we call the 'irregular' days of the month. To say any day number not listed here we use the normal words for the Japanese numbers and add 日after. Examples....
'[number] + 日'
'Nijuuichi 日' = 21st
'Juusan 日' = 13th

Months
For the months themselves, we simple say the 'number' and add 'gatsu' after. Examples
Nichi Gatsu = January
Ni Gatsu = February
San Gatsu = March

Irregular months
NOTE: There are 3 months which are 'irregular'
When saying the 4th month, 7th month and 9th month we say...
4th month = Shi Gatsu
7th month = Shichi Gatsu
9th month = Ku Gatsu

Four & Seven - While we normally say Yon**** (4) and Nana**** (7) for the numbers 4 and 7. When saying the months we must use Shi and Shichi.

Nine - Normally nine is kyu however when saying the month we say Ku and drop the 'Y'

**** Japanese number system uses the what we call the Onyomi reading and the Kunyomi reading
Onyomi = The way of saying the number in Chinese
Kunyomi = The number in Japanese.
The Japanese for some reason mostly use the Chinese words (Onyomi) for numbers. However they do not use the Chinese words (Onyomi) in the cases of Shi (4) and Shichi (7) because they mean pain and death in Japanese so they prefer to use the Japanese (Kunyomi) words for 4 and 7 which is Yon and Nana. However, when saying the months, we must use the Chinese (Onyomi) words for 4 and 7 which is Shi and Shichi.

END
Well that's it for this week! I hope you found these lessons informative and useful.

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Semester 2 Week 2 Part A

Konnichiwa minasan. O genki desu ka? (How are you?)

I hope that everyone enjoyed the last couple of sessions. I got a fair bit of feedback from people which liked it so for now I'll stick with a similar format.

Okay, so now we're onto week 2. Fortunately my tutors said they're fine with me staying in my new class. Yay! :D

Let's start off with some Kanji! Remember the parts in the brackets must be written in Hiragana as the Kanji only covers the part of the word outside of the brackets.
Kanji

1. 記 = Shiru(shimasu) = To Record
2. 誌 = Shi = Magazine
3. 起 = O(kimasu) = To Get Up, Arise
4. 寝 = Ne(masu) = To Sleep, lie down *(lie down means to do so without sleeping)
5. 部 = Bu = Part, Section
6. 屋 = Ya = House, Store (House in the sense that it is not your own)
7. 働 = Hatara(kimasu) = To Work, Operate
8. 走 = Hashi(rimasu) = To Run
9. 泣 = Na(kimasu) = To Cry
10. 笑 = Wara(imasu) = To Smile, Laugh
11.  歌 = Uta(imasu) = To Sing, Song

Nagara

Now onto something useful, the word Nagara. This is used when saying you are doing something at the same time as something else, For example, watching Tv while eating dinner. Think of Nagara as 'while' or 'at the same time as'. Nagara is used with a 'stem'. Remember from last weeks session, a 'stem' is where we remove the 'masu' of the verb. So for example, we get 'to watch' which is 'kimasu' and it becomes 'kinagara'. You can do this with any 'masu' word. Remember that 'masu' words are verbs. 
Examples of verb being changed: 
1. Yomimasu becoming Yominagara
2. Kikimasu becoming Kikinagara

Example Sentence

Here we learn how to use Nagara as part of a sentence.

In Japanese: Watashi wa terebi O minagara bangohan O tabemashita
In English:    I watched TV while eating dinner.
Lets break the sentence down into each word.
1. Watashi = I
2. Wa / は = particle which marks the 'topic' of the sentence, in this case 'I'.
3. Terebi = TV
4. O / を* = particle which marks the 'object/s' of the sentence, in this case TV.
5. Minagara = Mimasu converted to Minagara for the purpose of the sentence, See above for explanation.
6. Bangohan = Dinner
7. O / を* = Same as Above. Particle which marks the 'object/s' of the sentence, in this case Dinner.
8. tabemashita = Past tense of Tabemasu. Tabemasu means 'To Eat'.

* を is the Hiragana for the particle O. This is very different to the 'normal' Hiragana O which is お

The End

Well that's all for today. I hope you enjoyed this lesson. If you have any feedback, please leave a comment.

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Semester 2 Week 1 Part B

Okay, for the end of week one, we are going to cover what my tutors call 'masu stem' or simply just stem. And with this 'stem' we are going to learn a new sentence structure. I guess I haven't covered any sentence structures so far so this will be the first lol. I'll go back sometime and provide a few sentence structures and examples.

Here is a new particle that we will be using today.
は
This particle uses the hiragana symbol which is usually pronounced 'ha' but when used as a particle we say 'wa' instead. This particle is used to mark the topic of a sentence.

Example: Namae wa Rob desu.
Namae = Name
wa = Particle 'wa'

In this case the topic of the sentence was Name so it was 'marked' by は

Sentence Structure

The new sentence structure we will be introducing today is

'Person' は 'Destination/Place' に 'Purpose' に 'Come/Go'

How we use this will be explained partly through learning what 'Stem' is.

Before we move onto 'stem' we will deconstruct the sentence. Using this new sentence structure we're going to learn how to say "I went to the library to read a book.

In Japanese this sentence is "Watashi は Toshokan に Hon Yomi に Ikimasu"
So in terms of the sentence structure introduced above.
1. 'Watashi' is the 'person'
2. 'Toshokan' is the 'destination/place'
3. 'Hon Yomi' is the 'Purpose'
4. 'Ikimasu' is the 'Come/Go'

Here is each part of the sentence explained.
1. First we have 'Watashi' which means 'I'
2. Second we have は which marks the topic of the sentence which is 'I'
3. Third we have Toshokan which means Library
4. Fourth we have に which marks the location where this is taking place which is Library.
5. Fifth we have Hon which is 'Book'.
6. Sixth we have Yomi which is a 'stem'. This will be explained just below.
7. Seventh we have に which in this case refers to what the action is directed to. In this case we are saying that the action of 'going to the library' was directed at 'reading a book'.

'Stem'

So the above sentence includes two verbs 'to read' and 'to go'. Remembering that all verbs must go on the end of a sentence in Japanese. How do we include two verbs in the one sentence if a verb must be at the end? We make use of what we call 'Stem'.

Verbs can be referred or categorised as 'masu' words.
Stem is where we take a verb, for example, Yomimasu = To Read
We remove the 'masu' which leaves yomi. Yomi which is left is called the 'stem'

In the sentence we have 'Hon yomi'. Which basically translates to 'Book to read'. To get this, we had to get the verb 'Yomimasu' and subtract the masu from it because we cannot have a 'masu' word in the middle of the sentence. Now we can use yomimasu in the sentence as 'yomi' to say 'to read'.

We can do this with other 'masu' words for example.
Tabemasu = To Eat
Nomimasu = To Drink
Kikimasu = To Listen (This is when we are talking about 'something', such as music. this is not used when talking about listening to a person.)

In each case we would remove the masu leaving the stem. Example: Tabe, Nomi, Kiki
You could then put them in front of words such as
Ongaku kiki (music listen)
Piza Tabe (pizza eat)
Sake Nomi ('Sake' was traditionally 'Rice Wine' but now can refer to any alcoholic drink. Nomi = drink)

The End

That's it for today and for week 1. Look out for my week 2 post which the first part will be uploaded in a few days. Thank you for reading and again, if you can give me feedback that would be great.

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Semester 2 Week 1 Part A

Konnichiwa Minasan! As my tutors say at the beginning of class. It means 'Hello Everyone.'

Nooo, the start of semester 2 has come and I'm so not ready to leave my holidays behind. :(
Let's see, what happened this week? Well I swapped Japanese classes around which one of the tutors wasn't so happy with. Hopefully I'll get to stay in my new class. Turned out most people didn't do much studying over the holidays so I'm not the only one.

We learnt some new verbs, kanji, irregular particles and some new words in general. We also learnt that not doing any studying over the holidays really takes its toll. Here's the kanji we learnt...

You'll notice that part of the word is in brackets. Kanji in writing doesn't always represent the whole word, in fact a lot of them only represent part of the word and require the rest of the word to be written in Hiragana or Katakana. So basically we are unncessarily replacing Hiragana and Katakana which was too much to learn to begin with, with Kanji but we still need to use Hiragana and Katakana to finish the word... You've gotta wonder why the Japanese didn't just stick to Kanji or Hiragana really.
1. 行 = I(kimasu) = To Go
2. 帰 = Kae(rimasu) = To Go Home
3. 入 = Hai(imasu) = To Enter
4. 会 = A(imasu) = To Meet
5. 末 = Sue = End
6. 家 = Ie/Ya = House *Can also be pronounced as 'Uchi' which means Home. Used when referring to your own house. I've found Ie to be more common over Ya when saying house. I'm not sure if there's a specific time Ya must be used instead.
7.晩 = Ban = Evening
8.朝 = Asa = Morning
9.町 = Machi = Town
10.借 = Ka(imasu) = To Borrow
11.通 = Kayo(imasu) = To Pass Through
12.起 = O(kimasu) = To Get Up
13.終 = O(warimasu) = To End *Notice this is different to End which is a noun. This is a Verb.
14.始 = Ma(imasu) = To Begin
15.間 = Aida = Between *This can also be used stating a 'period of time' in other words, the 'duration'.

Notice that the words ending with "masu" are verbs. Verbs always appear at the end of a sentence.

We also learnt that the particles に 'Ni' and で 'De' have additional uses to what we have been taught in the past.

で
In the past we learnt that で 'De' marked the location that the action was taking place.

Example: 'Toshokan で Benkyou Shimashita'
Toshokan = Library
で = Particle which is marking Library as the location at which the action is taking place.
Benkyou = Study
Shimasu = To Do (in this case it was Shimashita which means 'Did' which is the past tense)

So what we are saying is 'Studied in the Library'. You could say this for example if someone asked you what you did yesterday afternoon etc.

Now we learnt that で can Mark...
1. Tool/Vehicle/Means of action
2. Marks the 'person' in a sentence who attended. Example "Person attended the concert" The Person in the sentence would be marked by で.
3. It also marks group words such as family, class, everyone. It automatically includes you in these groups.

に

'Ni' which we learnt in the past marked the 'location' in the sentence. Example: She went to the market. 'market' would be the 'location' which would be marked by に.

We now learnt that に can mark the 'location' being 'Entered'. Example: Using the verb we learnt the Kanji for "To Enter". She entered the market. Market would be marked by に. While we learnt earlier that で marks the 'location' the action took place. When using the action word "To Enter" we mark the location being entered with に NOT で.

The End

This is my first time going in depth to explain parts of the Japanese language. If you don't understand anything let me know in the comments and I'll get back to you. The more feedback I get the more clear I can make my future posts.

Well, that's all for today. I'll leave you with a useful word we learnt, 'Kondo' which can mean either 'This Time' or 'Next Time' depending on context.

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