who knows japanese

Did you mean "so desu ne"?
I think the point about learning through anime might have been proved just now ;D

 

lololol i don't know T.T don't laugh at my totally incompetent self for not knowing how to spell stuff in japanese. I thought sasuke was pronounced sasooke when it's actually sas-ke

 

well you cant blame him, in the anime desu is offen said without the u, so it become des when said, even though some anime still said it as desu (offen children).

want something to laugh? i once said atashi instead of watashi to refer my self, now i use boku or ore no matter what......

 

I'm not talking about the desu...
And besides even if you can't hear it, it's still there...
The word is made up of two syllables "de" and "su"

 

man japanese is hard do you guys actually have to remember the "a e u e o, ka ki ku ke ko, sa si..." and so on? because in the back of one japanese text book it's got a table of those and it's massive!

 

I know very few words, and can't read a lick of kanji nor hiragana (Though I do recognize some words written in them sometimes). I want to take courses and fly to Japan one day, but that most likely won't be for awhile.

 

Case in point. It's tomodachi, not tomotachi.

I went to Japan last summer. It was very fun. I actually got an extendable stylus for my DS at a store there. That's my souvenir. My grandpa taught me some Japanese when I was on vacation. Only phrases and words though, no sentence structure.

 

It's usually always said as des, not desu (for an end). I've only heard of an exception where you needed to say desu, which I have forgotten, but was used in conjunction with a lot of other particles.

And the watashi is a common mistake too (my). It took a while to get around boku no to refer to "my" something (even though Boku is actually optional if you use a sentence that doesn't refer to anyone else).

 

Those are just the kana, they're quite easy to remember compared to the thousand upon thousands of Kanji or adopted Chinese characters.

Okey a bit of Japanese language lecture here.

In actuality, the "u" part in ku, mu, nu, su, ru, fu, pu, bu, tsu, gu & zu are often omitted in pronounciation such as in "Desu" read as des & "tatsunaki" (tornado) read as tatsnaki UNLESS specified like in "kunai" (throwing darts) read as is & nigiru (to grask or hold).

Watashi wa can actually be said as just Atashi IF the person you are talking to is a close friend, otherwise the former is used in formal conversation. "Boku no" used to refer to "my" whatever is usually used in formal instances, but for an informal instance atashi no would work just fine.

Ohaiyou Gozaimashita usualy read as ohaiyougazaimashta (good morning) is ONLY used up 'til 10:00 AM, beyond that you use konichiwa.

 

Actually watashi is the polite word for I/me, so it's used in pretty much every situation except when talking to friends/family.

Carlos, you wouldn't make a good lecturer....

Out of the 'u' syllablles, 'su' is the only one that takes the behaviour you described
And I can't stress enough, thinking about the 'u' just disappearing is the wrong way to go about things...
It's still there, and in many cases you can hear it pronounced albeit softly

Atashi is the informal female form of watashi, you will sound like a transvestite if you use it...
Boku is informal male, so saying 'boku no' would not be polite in a formal situation

Ohayou Gozaimashita, many people think of it like ohio gozaimashta
which again is the wrong way to think about things.
You should think about the syllablles that make up the word

o-ha-yo-u go-za-i-ma-shi-ta
When you squash them all together and say it quickly you get the right pronunciation....magic!

 

Hmm, interesting, not what my teacher had told me (although she's Canadian).

I agree, doing this just gives bad habits. Another example of this would be with deshita, so if you say it, it will sound as deshta.

 

i almost feel as though my japanese is going to improve if i come back everyday ^^ apparently i saw some of those japanese coach games/roms on the site, are they good sources to learn japanese from?

 

Well 'boku' is used by males in informal situations, and 'watashi' is used by everyone
They're both used to refer to yourself...when you need to
The 'no' particle is used to indicate ownership/possession, thus 'boku no [noun]'/'watashi no [noun]' both mean 'my [noun]'
I wouldn't take everything your teacher tells you to heart if she's saying 'watashi' isn't used

I've only used "My Japanese Coach" which is OK for learning the kana, some basic grammar and set phrases...
Nothing spectacular but a good start if that's the way you want to learn...

Edit:

I can't believe I didn't notice this before...
The phrase for good morning is ohayou gozaimasu....not gozaimashita as that is the past tense of gozaimasu
You may hear arigatou gozaimashita which is thanking someone for something they have done,
but ohayou gozaimashita doesn't make sense as far as I know

 

I speak fluent Japanese ( however if you ask me to translate biochemistry my brain will fry) I currently live in Osaka (coming up for 4 years).
Re pronunciation of desu etc - This is a personal/regional/emphasis/formality thing. I don`t pronounce the u. From my experience, it`s mainly women, formal situations, news on TV, people in Tokyo etc, who pronounce the u. There will be exceptions. But it`s more about communication - if people understand what you say, then it doesn`t really matter if you say de-su or des.
Re personal pronouns - In Osaka, atashi is a younger women`s pronoun. I`ve never heard a guy refer to themselves as atashi. Maybe in Tokyo they do, but in Tokyo the guys speak like women anyway...
Watashi is commonly used, but in Japanese the subject is often left out, so unless you`re stressing `I`, not another person, you normally wouldn`t say it. (eg I like cheese -> like cheese)
Re learning Japanese from manga/anime - In my opinion, it`s best to learn from a native speaker. But not everyone has a native speaker in their pocket. I studied for 10 years (high school/college) but when I came here, I spoke like a textbook. Learning from manga will give you a lot of natural expressions - not always grammatically correct. Most native Japanese speakers (young people) don`t speak `properly` in everyday conversation. Most native English speakers don`t either. Using a textbook/some kind of proper instruction so you understand the grammar in conjunction with natural expressions you`ve learned from manga is a good way. BUT - everyone has seen the Youtube clip of the `Japanese` family dropping the `N` word, right?? In the same way, talking like someone from Naruto or Bleach will make you look slightly stupid, in my opinion.

 

I studied Japanese... However, I have problems with games that have kanji that I don't know without furigana... T_T...

 

Hey I'm currrently doing year 11 japanese and my average is 96% on tests and things. been learning since year 7. AND I'm freinds with tons of japanese people.
...pity about my english though.

So what do you need translated?

 

Currently in my 2nd semester of Japanese....unfortunately, the transition from the first semester to this current one is not going smoothly. Not only did I end up not taking them back-to-back from one semester to the next, but I had to go to another community college for this 2nd semester, where they were using a different book and were considered 3 chapters ahead of where I was (also having learned about 50 kanji in their first semester whereas I learned none in mine).

It is painful playing catch-up, but I keep pushing myself to study a little more than I usually do each day, and it helps, no matter how little.

 

ooh... japanese coach is interesting ahhh... japanese is a beautiful language but hard to learn.... gah

 

I dinae' speaks teh Japanese. But if'n yah evers needs help with Tongan swear words, ye jess lets ole' BL4CKB34RD know!