2011年8月20日土曜日

Japanese Pronoun

I
Watakushi (very polite, commonly used by person with high status)
Watashi (common)
Boku (polite, commonly used by boys, but today girls use this kind of
pronoun too)
Ore (used by men, it's a rough way to say "I")
Atashi (used by women)
Atakushi (like "watakushi", but used by women)
Ware (similiar to "watashi")

YOU
Anata (common, but sometimes it's used by someone to call her lover,
may be like "darling")
Kimi (commonly used)
Omae (rough)

WE
Watashi tachi
Ware ware
Bokutachi
Ore tachi

YOU (plural)
Anata tachi
Kimi tachi
Omae tachi

SHE/HE
Ano Hito
Kanojo (she)
Kare (he)

THEY
Ano hito tachi

2011年8月19日金曜日

c. KANJI : Kanji came from China, each kanji represents a symbol of
word, and some kind of Kanji can be combined to form a new symbol of
word. Kanji has more than 2000 different shapes. I guess I'll never
memorize all of this kind of letter, LOL.
I heard that ancient Japanese and Chinese communicated by using Kanji
because it has the same meaning in both China and Japanese though it's
spelled differently. For example, when a Japanese want to say "man",
he'd write this kind of Kanji : 人, it's spelled "hito" (Japanese word
for "man"). The Chinese would understand. In Chinese it's spelled
"ren", either means "man".
Here's some examples of Kanji
花=hana (flower)
日= hi (day/sun)
月= tsuki (moon)
明るい = akarui (bright)
明日=ashita/asu (tomorrow)
火= hi (fire)
木=ki (tree)
森=mori (forest)
人= hito (people)
人々=hito bito (people)

Loo at the samples above, Japanese word of sun/day is similar to
fire. If we write those word in hiragana, there will be distortion.
From this we learn the true function of Kanji, describing words
perfectly. I also write combined Kanji above, if "moon" and "sun" are
combined, it will form "bright"; "forest" is consist of many "tree"s;
and "tomorrow" in Kanji means "bright"+" day". Now you're ready to
learn any other Kanji, pay attention because there are some of Kanjis
have almost similar form.
d. ROMAJI: Romaji is Roman alphabet we usually use in writing, A,B,C, D,..etc.

Now we're finishing aour topic about Japanese letter…Next, we'll learn
Japanese grammar.

2011年8月3日水曜日

Katakana

b.       KATAKANA : Formerly only used by men, so it has a very rigid shape and looks similar each other. The function is to write loan words that have been adjusted to Japanese rules.

In addition, most syllables can be slightly changed by adding two small strokes or a small circle in the top right corner next to the character. For example, ha changes to ba with the addition of two small strokes, or to pa with the addition of a small circle, just like Hiragana.

Talking about loan words, it's often heavily Japanized in various ways (see below), which is a complicating factor not only for students of the Japanese language but also for Japanese students of foreign languages:

  • The pronunciation of loan words is Japanized, and sometimes quite different from the original pronunciation: e.g. curtain=kaaten, elevator=elebeetaa, girl=gaaru.
  • Many loan words get abbreviated in ways they do not get abbreviated in the original language: e.g. suupaa=supermarket, kilo=kilometer (and kilogram), depaato=department store, waapuro=word processor.
  • The meanings of some loan words do not correspond with the words' original meanings: e.g. "manshon" from the English "mansion" means "condominium".
  • And finally, some "loan words" are actually Japanese creations rather than loan words. For example, "salaryman" is a Japanese word for a typical Japanese company worker, while the "walkman" even found its way back into English dictionaries.

I'll give you some examples of loan words written in Katakana:

o    レストラン  = resutoran (restoran)

o    ハンバガ = hanbaga (hamburger)

o    スパゲッチ = supaghetti (spaghetti)

o    ガール = gaaru (girl)

Little "tsu" in katakana has the same function in hiragana, it's used to write double consonant.