I have taken 1 year of Spanish, but my true passion has always been Japanese. I have 1 year to take one of these courses. I want to learn the easiest of the 2. I don’t make good in Spanish, so help me out and gimme hints on what I should do.
I understand that Japanese is a very hard language, but I’m willing to learn. Can anyone give me some guidelines? Is there any way that doesn’t involve a teacher? OK, I’m confused, should I learn Katakana or Hiragana first?
Basic Japanese Phrases Start using the following short Japanese phrases at home. You may need your family’s cooperation, but if you make it a habit, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you pick up a bit of Japanese.
Giving And Receiving Invitations Hanging out with friends is always fun. Sasou (sah-soh-oo; invite) your friends out for a night on the town or simply invite some people over to watch a movie. To start with, conjugate the u-verb sasou (sah-soh-oo; to invite):
How do you order in a restaurant? Do you carefully go over the menyu (meh-nyooo; menu), or do you look to see what other people are eating? Do you ask the ueta (oo-ehh-tahh; waiter) or uetoresu (oo-ehh-toh-reh-soo; waitress) for direction as to what’s good? Do you routinely order a zensai (zehn-sah-ee; appetizer), an o-nomimono (oh-noh-mee-moh-noh; beverage), and [...]
Meeting Someone New We are often asked by our students learning Japanese how to introduce oneself to someone new. The interaction is normally very formal and filled with a few bows. Below is a typical Japanese conversation between two people meeting for the first time:
Adjectives and Adverbs There are two different types of words that can be used to modify nouns and verbs. One group is much like what we would call an adjective but they can also modify verbs as well. We will refer to these as “dv”. The other group can, in most cases, stand alone like [...]
Ichidan Verbs – 一段動詞 The second group of verbs are called Ichidan (一段) verbs. It is usually an Ichidan verb if it ends with the sound “iru” or “eru”. Some well used verbs which appear to be Ichidan but are really Godan are listed . Ichidan verbs also follow a simple conjugation pattern that is [...]
Godan Verbs – 五段動詞 Now, before you can start making up sentences of your own, you need to learn how to conjugate verbs. Verbs are the most important part of the Japanese sentence. Often times Japanese people will leave out everything but the verb.
Grammar – 文法 Japanese words and the Japanese alphabet need to come together with proper Grammer!