| Nephie15 |
| Web Headmistress |
 |
| |
| Joined: 27 Apr 2008 |
Posts: 91
|
| Location: California, wondering what was before space |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
We will focus on beginning speech in this lesson.
Japanese particles are the 'cement', if you will, of the sentence. This is mostly because of the Japanese sentence order. Japanese is a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) word order language. For instance:
Mary Jello Likes
(subject) (object) (verb)
This order doesn't make much sense in English, but that's because English is an SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) word order language. The 'particles' in English are called past-participles. In some cases, SVO is stricter than SOV.
These are a few basic particles we'll cover today. We already know 'wa'.
ga (が)- subject marker
People with little or no background in Japanese think 'wa' and 'ga' are the same. Hence the statement 'wa and ga are interchangeable'.
WRONG.
If I was a certified Japanese teacher and had a dollar for every time I heard this I'd be swimming in money instead of typing this up.
'ga' is similar to 'wa', but not the same. Firstly, it only equals 'is' like 'wa' does when your topic is an ‘active’ or ‘moving’ object like a person. Secondly, you have to understand that topics are different than subjects. We’ll cover that too, pay attention to how they are used in the example sentences.
no の- possessive particle
You know what possessive means, right? Well, this particle is a possessive particle for turning 'I' into 'My'; A few examples would be:
Jhon-san no hon
(jhon's book)
Mary-san no tokee
(Mary's watch)
Watashi no heya
(My room)
Watashi no chichi no boshi
(my father's hat)
It can also stand for 'of' for combining two different nouns into one thing, like:
watashi no T-shatsu
(my T-shirt)
hana no ai
(Flower of love)
ai no hana
(love flower)
In short: 'no' uses a 'possessor-possessee' pattern. Whatever you put after it is what is being possessed. These last two examples I put here is an example of how a word switch can affect the translation outcome.
You can also say just ‘watashi no’ to say ‘mine’. Like:
Kore ga watashi no desu
(This is mine)
Lastly, ‘no’ is used also as an object pronoun, but we’ll get into that along the way.
(w)o を - direct object marker
I know I didn't cover this character in the Hiragana list, and I'm sorry for that. But why did I put a 'w' in parenthesis in the romanization? Because this particle is sometimes pronounced as 'wo', but we'll get into that later.
This is mostly used before verbs clarifying you are doing the action (verb) to whatever you put before it. It’s also a more direct version of 'ga'.
ni (に) - for time, places, and goals
The particle 'ni' has a few different uses; the two most common uses are for time and places. By 'places', I mean the location of something or someone. We'll get into time later.
to (と) / mo (も) – and
‘to’ and ‘mo’ both mean ‘and’, but ‘mo’ is more limited than ‘to’. ‘mo’, you can’t use more than twice without sounding weird, it’s more like ‘too’. With ‘to’, you can list as many things as you want as its closer to the ‘and’ when listing objects.
ka (か) – question particle
This is for asking questions. The Japanese do have question marks, but the verbs can not be put in questioning tones, it sounds weird. So that’s why ‘ka’ is after the verb at the end of a sentence. (Informal verb forms can be put in questioning tones as in English, but only with close friends)
Lesson 2 Vocabulary
Nouns and Pronouns
eego (ええご) - English
Otoko (おとこ) – male
Onna (おんな)- female
Otoko no hito (おとこ の ひと)– man
Onna no hito (おんな の ひと)– woman
Hito (ひと)– person (the honorific term is ‘kata’ (かた))
Kuni (くに)– country
Tomodachi (ともだち)– friend
Namae (なまえ)– name
Sou (そう)– right/yeah (less formal)
Boku (ぼく)– I (for guys)*
Watashi (わたし)– I (for girls)*
Kochira (こちら)– this way, this person
*There are various ways to say ‘I’ in Japanese, you won’t necessarily have to know all of them, just know the rules of using them for males and females. I’m pretty sure it is not really socially acceptable to use the word for ‘I’ that is usually reserved for the other gender.
Countries
Amerika (アメリカ)– United States
Oosutraria (オストラリア)– Australia
Kanada (カナダ)– Canada
Kankoku (かんこく)– South Korea
Supein (スペイン)– Spain
Chuugoku (ちゅうごく)– China
Nihon (にほん)– Japan
Furansu (フランス)– France
Itaria (イタリア)– Italy
Afurica (アフリカ)– Africa
(As you can see, alot of countries are spelled in Katakana)
Question Words
Doko (どこ)– where
Dochira (どちら)– where (polite)
Nan/nani (なん・なに)- what*
*‘nan’ is the informal form.
Location words:
Kore - this
Kono - this [noun]
Sore - that
Sono - that [noun]
Are – that over there
Ano - that [noun] over there
Dono – which
Dore – which (plural; three or more)
Beginners’ verbs
Nomimasu (のみます)- to drink
Mimasu (みます)- to see (or watch, depending on context)
Yomimasu (よみます)– to read
Imasu (います)– to exist (living things)
Arimasu (あります)- to exist (inanimate things)
Tabemasu (たべます)- to eat
Kimasu (きます)-to come
These are the formal present tense of these verbs, as we go on we will get into formal past tense verbs, then informal (‘dictionary form’) present tense, then informal past tense. Making ‘-te’, ‘-ta’, and ‘-nai’ forms will also be covered.
Take note the there is no future tense in Japanese, you use present tense for the future, it just depends on the context.
Japanese Suffixes
-gaku – study of-
keezaigaku – study of economics
-go – language
nihongo –Japanese language
chuugokugo – Chinese language
-jin – nationality
hawaiijin – Hawaiian
nihonjin – Japanese
amerikajin – American
-nen – year
ichinen – one year
-see – student
As in ‘ichinensee’
Other
Iie – no
Hai/ee – yes (formal)
Soshite – and (at the beginning of a sentence, ‘demo’ is a little less formal)
Teachers’ vocab:
Tatoeba (たとえば) – For Example...
Now, I have explained these particles' purposes and covered the vocab, now to get down to business.
Asking はい・いいえ questions
‘あなた は たなかさん です か？’
‘anata wa tanaka-san desu ka?’
‘Are you Tanaka-san?’
‘Yes’ answer:
‘はい、そうです’
‘Hai, sou desu’
‘Yes, I am.’
Or, to say no:
‘いいえ、ありません’
‘iie, arimasen’
‘No, I am not’
Cultural note: For the record, ‘iie’ is very uncommon in contemporary Japanese, a lot of younger people say ‘no’ in some form of slang, especially in expression terms. For example, ‘いや’
As you can see, setting up basic はい・いいえ questions are formed with the typical ‘— は ~ ですか‘ pattern. This pattern is also used in ‘what is-’ questions; たとえば～
‘Kore ga nan desu ka?’
‘これ が なん です か？’
‘What is this?’
‘これ が とけい です’
‘kore ga tokee desu’
‘This is a clock’
How to ask someone’s Name
‘なまえは なん です か？’
‘namae wa nan desu ka?’
‘What is your name?’
There are two ways to answer this. The completely formal way:
‘わたしの なまえは みちこです。’
‘watashi no namae wa michiko desu’
‘My name is Michiko’
Or the shortened way:
‘みちこ です’
‘Michiko.’
Japanese is pretty flexible, so don’t be too worried if you make a formality mistake, native Japanese don’t expect you to know the rules.
Asking Names and where something is: Sample Dialogue:
Jhon-san と Miki-san
Miki-san: あぁ、きっさてん（Café）は どこ ですか？
Jhon-san: きっさてんは それに います。
Miki-san: あぁ！ そうです。 なまえ は なん です か？
Jhon-san: ジョンです。
Miki-san: ジョンさん、ありがとう。
(Okay, I suck at creating examples; bear with me, here)
Examples with を + verb
In case the dialogue overloaded your brain, I’ll explain this process again. The を + verb pattern charts out like this:
object は noun を verb
たとえば：
わたし は ほん を よみます
I read a book.
みきさん は おちゃ を のみます
Miki-san drinks tea.
We won’t get into incorporating the English ‘-ing’ continuation pattern for quite a while, so just practice the basics. To give you more vocab to work with, I’ll give you two more verbs possible for this pattern:
ベンきょうします – to study
あいます – to meet
Next Lesson
Practice with います・あります
Practice with こ・そ・あ・どの/れ patterns
More vocab
Object pronouns
Verb negation
Introduction to double particles: には
|
|
