Japanese Language for everybody

[killerpapag]

wow this picked up quickly.

also i'd like to add that having a negative ending with a question means like ....won't you?

コヒー　を　のみませんか　
won't you have some coffee?

also the counters things they really aren't that bad but the changing numbers is, not only are there the basic numbers everyone has been going through but there are the counter numbers too they are:

hitotsu ひとつ
futastu　　ふたつ
mittsu　　　みっつ
yottsu　　　よっつ
itsutsu　　　いつつ
muttsu　　むっつ
nanatsu　　ななつ
yattsu　　　やっつ
kokonotsu　ここのつ
too　　　　　　　とお

these are some of the hardest things i find, people often struggle with these counter numbers, strange thing is after these ten the rest are all the same like じゅういち　for 11 etc. weird i know.

note those are the words used to count THINGS, stuff that don't have their own counters.

another annoying thing about counters is that sometimes the thing you're counting belongs to more than one group of counters, i.e it can be thin and flat but also long and thin

for all other counters however the normal numbers are used, except for days of a month, i.e sandai, さんだい　3 vehicles.

so here are some counters

dai だい　　　　　　machines or vehicles
mai　　まい thin and flat things
sai　　　さい years old
kai　　　かい floors to a building
*nin　　にん people

note that the first 2 counters for people are 1 person: ひとり
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　２　people:　ふたり

also note that for ages for one year olds it is issai いっさい

i guess i'll give the days of the months and the months themselves
months:

いちがつ　　　　　　January
にがつ February
さんがつ im sure you get the pattern.
しがつ
ごがつ
ろくがつ
しちがつ
はちがつ
くがつ
じゅうがつ


すいたち　　　1st day
ふつか 2nd day
みっか 3rd day
よっか again im sure you can see where this is going
いつか
むいか
なのか
ようか
ここのか
とおか

はつか 20th day (ye this one is stuffed)

after that though it continues like the normal numbers, just like those counter numbers, as these are the counter numbers.

umm ye i think thats all for now i'll add more later

ye there are particles for everything like he, pronounced e as a particle, へ　for like im going to or coming to, there are heaps but he is a good one to know for directional things
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[Buttmouth]

Wow this is awesome. I just like saying the words that end with "tsu"

I've been looking at this website too:

http://www.freejapaneselessons.com/
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[Hyperworm]

１年ぶり（？）のレスが日本語関係なのは少し恥ずべきことだろうか…
I wonder if I should be slightly embarrassed that my first reply in about a year (?) is Japanese-language-related...

There's a real mess of information here, mostly good but I'm a little concerned that this thread is trying to teach pronunciation as well, which I think is a bad idea.
My advice is to go find a good audio pronunciation guide (online video or something?) to Japanese before you get in trouble. In particular you need to pay attention to the vowel sounds, the length of vowels, the presence of double consonants or the sokuon (っ), the characters つ, ひ, ふ, らりるれろ, combinations like んあ vs な, glides like りゅ vs りゆ, and most importantly the fact that you should not stress and lengthen syllables unnecessarily, like Yokohama etc.
Anyway the point is, go listen to a lot of Japanese being spoken and copy.

I have a few other things to add:

• the first day of the month is ついたち（一日） not すいたち;
  
• the spellings of these words: hiragana, romaji (no "n");
  
• I seriously recommend the "write them out repeatedly" method for hiragana and katakana (but not kanji);
  
• you should probably follow a structured approach (online guide, textbook, or something) rather than picking up random bits of information from everywhere - and not all online guides are good. freejapaneselessons looks factually correct but by lesson 6 it seems to throw a lot of grammar at you with not much in the way of explanation and could make things quite overwhelming, I think.
  
• I post a lot at TJP, which I think is an excellent resource for more serious learners, but don't expect to be taught from scratch there (read the rules and other posts first etc etc).

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[Tristan]

For beginners there's some great flash cards out there to learn hiragana and katakana characters. My favourites have one side with just the character and on the other a sort of phonic method to remember them eg. 'Nu' looks like noodles (noo) or 'u' looks like and old person meaning over going (u/ooh).
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