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!