When to use iru or aru?

There are a lot of differences in how the Japanese language is used compared to English. One of these differences is in the verb "to be". Lets take a look at how to use "to be", some confusions about using it, and some example sentences.

First, there are 3 different ways to say "to be" in Japanese:

Back from Japan

Hello everyone! It's been a while! I just got back form Japan yesterday and am still a little jet lagged. It was quite the adventure and was full of surprises and fun! I was staying close by to Kasukabe in Saitama. Kasukabe is well known for Lucky Star and Crayon Shin-chan. I'll be sure to post some photos later and get back on schedule right away!

Thank you

Japanese Verbs: Present Tense

Hello again. I was in the middle of writing up the next topic when I realized, I haven't talked about verb conjugation yet. So I think this is as good a time as any to introduce polite verb conjugation. Unlike verbs in English, the basics are very easy to learn and almost all verbs follow one of the two conjugation rules.

Going to Japan

Sorry for the delay! There were some issues with my modem and my ISP took a very long time to get everything back up and running. I hope to be posting again as soon as possible! Also, next week I will be going to Japan. Please let me know if there's anything you think I should do, any pictures you want me to talk, or if there's anything you want to know about while I'm over there.

Thank you again for your patience and keep practicing!

Math in Japanese: Division

You finally made it to the last equation you will be doing in the set. You've done a great job and soon you're going to have all the skills you need to count up to 99,999,999. Quite the jump, don't you think? This is the point where numbers will take a turn from what you're used to.

Math in Japanese: Multiplication

It's that time again! More numbers! More Math! This time, you're going up to the thousands in Japanese and there are going to be some pronunciation changes again. Nothing you can't already handle, right? Let's get started!

Math in Japanese: Subtraction

It's time for more numbers in Japanese and that means another math word so you can practice your numbers! You're going to go up to the hundreds but you have to look out for two changes pronunciation this time.

Math in Japanese: Addition

For the 25th Japanese Word of the Day, I wanted to do something special for you! I know for a lot of people, numbers in Japanese are very basic and you've heard it all before so let's mix it in with how to say some math equations in Japanese.

Word of the Day #24

There's been a lot of hype  in Japan over a comedy duo named クマムシ (KUMAMUSHI) for their musical comedy sketches performed in a Japanese Idol style. The title of one of their songs published by Universal Music Japan will be our focus for today.

Word of the Day #23

You're going to get two Japanese words again today since you're all so awesome. Given how hot the last word of the day was, I think we should cool off with the opposite word and cool off a bit.

Word of the Day #22

Summer's coming up and it's time to let people know how you're feeling! I'm late giving you new Words of the Day and I'm going to make it up to you with two new Japanese words that will help you out this summer!

Great Free Apps for Learning Japanese

Since there was really good feedback to books for learning Japanese, I've decided to make another post for you on what I think are some great free apps for learning Japanese. I have used several apps to look at how people are trying to teach Japanese and I feel these apps offer the best learning experience for all levels of Japanese, are simple to use and understand, and are most importantly, free. They are in no particular order and all of them can benefit you depending on how you like to learn.

Days of the Week in Japanese

For the last 6 Word of the Day posts, you've been learning kanji that will help you write the days of the week in Japanese. By learning just one more kanji, you will be able to write out every day. I'll also show you some tips and tricks to memorize and use them in everyday life.

Word of the Day #21

The last 5 Word of the Day Japanese lessons have been preparing you on how to write the days of the week. This next character will be the last character you need to read and write days of the week in Japanese.

The Japanese word for today is "soil". This word also can mean "earth" or "ground" but always represents the idea of soil.

Kanji: 土
Kana: つち
Romaji: tsuchi

Example:

Kanji: 土に水をやって下さい
Kana: つちにみずをやってください
Translation: Please water the soil.

After today, I will be trying a new format for the Word of the Day: Japanese lessons. I hope you all find them much more enjoyable and I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Asking questions in Japanese

The Japanese language has a different way of asking questions than in English and it is surprisingly simple. In some sentences, all it takes is adding one character to the end and you're using perfect Japanese grammar.


Lets try something simple like "Is this water?"

Books for Learning Japanese

One of the things I've been asked about is what study materials would I recommend so that you are able to go at your own pace. I looked through my old books and I've put together a list of books to learn Japanese that I feel will be very helpful for beginners.

Word of the Day #20

The Japanese word for today is "Money". This word is another one of the Japanese words which will usually add お to the beginning as we saw with 水.

Kanji: 金
Kana: かね
Romaji: kane

Example
Kanji: お金がありますか？
Kana: おかねがありますか？
Translation: Do you have money?

New Poll and Word of the Day #19

There is a new poll posted on the Google+ page. Make sure to check it out and vote!

The Japanese word for today is "tree". Again, this character is going to be very useful later on in learning more words in the future. Be careful not to confuse this character with 本.

Kanji: 木
Kana: き
Romaji: ki

Example
Kanji: その木は大きいです。
Kana: そのきはおおきいです。
Translation: That tree is big.

Word of the Day #18

The next Japanese word we will be learning today is "Water". While expanding your vocabulary, it's a good idea to learn some essential words. When asking for a drink of water, you should add the honorific お to the beginning of the word. You will see this in other words too.

Kanji: 水
Kana: みず
Romaji: mizu

Example
Kanji: お水お願いします。
Kana: おみずおねがいします。
Translation: Water please.

Word of the Day #17

The next Japanese word we will be learning today is "Fire". This word is pretty straight forward and the character also looks very similar to 人 which we covered earlier. I'm sure you will have no trouble memorizing this one!

Kanji: 火
Kana: ひ
Romaji: hi

Example
Kanji: 火が熱いです。
Kana: ひがあついです。
Translation:  The fire is hot.

Word of the Day #16

The word for today is going to be "Moon". This character is also used to signify which month and the number of months you're referring to. However, they are pronounced differently than the word for "Moon". We will cover the other pronunciations later on.

Kanji: 月
Kana: つき
Romaji: tsuki

Example
Kanji: 月は美しいですね。
Kana: つきはうつくしいですね。
Translation: The moon is beautiful, isn't it.

Update on Voting

Hello everyone. I just wanted to make a quick up date on the feedback I received on if I should link words to their related posts and it seems like there's no objection. That being said, this task will only get increasingly difficult as time goes on. So I will be linking new posts to old ones as I make them and given time to look through old posts I will link them to new words which have been posted. I'm very happy to have received feedback from you and I look forward to making more content for everyone!

A very special thanks to +Corpse Playground, +D. A. Holton, and +Ninja Gaijin.

Happy studying everyone!

Grammar Trick and Word of the Day #15

Today I wanted to share a small grammar trick with all of you that should make it easier to learn some new words.  Today's word is "Where". It is used the same way as it is in English.

Word of the Day #14

As I had mentioned last time there is another word that is used in Japanese to reference locations which are further way. The word we're learning today is the equivalent of saying "over there" or "that place over there". It is used to identify a location which is either far away or is in a general direction. This word also demonstrates a pattern seen in Japanese words which I will identify next time.

Kana: あそこ
Romaji: asoko

Example
Kanji: 私の家はあそこです。
Kana: わたしのいえはあそこです。
Translaiton: My house is over there.

Word of the Day #13

Exams are now over and I can get back on schedule! Thank you everyone so much for your patience!

The word for today is "There". This word is used to identify a location which is near to you but not in your immediate vicinity. It can also be used if you have already identified location and are referring to something within that location. Locations which are further away use a different word which we will cover next time.

Kana: そこ
Romaji: soko

Example
Kanji: 私の部屋はそこです。
Kana: わたしのへやはそこです。
Translation: My room is there.

Word of the Day #12

Found a little bit of time for a post today. I've also posted a poll on the Google+ page for your opinion on an idea I'm playing around with. Thank you so much for your patience everyone!

The word for today is the particle の (no). This word is used to show possession the same way we use " 's " at the end of a word and is occasionally translated as "of". の is a suffix and is attached to the end of the word that is the possessor. For example, if I possess a dog, it becomes "my dog." In Japanese it would become 私の犬.

Kana: の
Romaji: no

Example
Kanji: これは私の本です。
Kana: これはわたしのほんです。
Translation: This is my book.

Word of the Day #11

Sorry for the late post today. I may not make another post until Friday this week because of finals but I will do my best to make it happen!

The word for today is "person". This word is not only used to refer to a specific person, but is also used to identify the entire people of a country like in 日本人 (Japanese). However, a different word is used to express a person's language.

Kanji: 人
Kana: ひと
Romaji: hito

Example
Kanji: 私は男の人です。
Kana: わたしはおとこのひとです。
Translation: I am a man.

Word of the Day #10 and Sentences

I wanted to touch base on the topic of sentences today. I'm sure some of you have noticed by looking at the example sentences or you might already know that Japanese sentences are not structured the same as English sentences. English uses a Subject Verb Object (SVO) sentence structure. However, Japanese uses a Subject Object Verb (SOV) sentence structure. Additionally, words will usually be paired with a suffix which marks what position it is taking in the sentence.

For example, in English we would say "I am Japanese." "I" is the subject, "am" is the verb, and "Japanese" is the object. This same sentence would be written as "I Japanese am" if we followed SOV sentence structure. In Japanese we would write this as 私は日本人です。

As you saw in the example sentence, the character は was after 私 (I). This character is usually pronounced as "ha" but in this case, it is pronounced "wa". は is used to mark the subject of the sentence. It is also important to remember that Japanese does not use particles like "the" or "a".

Kanji: 日本人
Kana: にほんじん
Romaji: nihonjin

Example
Kanji: 私は日本人です。
Kana: わたしはにほんじんです。
Translastion: I am Japanese.

I'm back again!

Hello again everyone! I'm sorry for the huge hiatus I took. School got really crazy for me again and there were quite a few changes in my life including some moving around. However, it seems the blog has grown quite a bit without me being here. So I would like to offer a sincere apology to everyone for my absence.

With that out of the way, I'm hoping to take a more realistic approach to this blog.

Schedule

Attempting to keep up with school, social life, work, and the blog was a little to overwhelming. I'm hoping to do update between every two days to once a week. I'm going to keep going from where I left off but if you guys have suggestions for a different format or requests for another topic please let me know.

Communication

I will be doing my best to reply to each and every one of you in a more timely manner. If I'm going to be gone for a bit due to a high volume of assignments or illness, I will be sure to tell you all so you're not left hanging.

Topics

I'm playing with the idea of not only introducing words to everyone, but also Japanese culture, food, and lifestyles. This is something I will probably get to after I graduate, but I will set up a poll later on to see what everyone thinks of this idea.

Thank you very much again everyone! Here's a picture of my friend's dog for your patience. I will have new content up this weekend!

Happy Studying!