Let's learn some Japanese!
If you're reading this thread I hope you've at least begun your understanding of hiragana. Hopefully you have memorized most of them and know the combinations. I'd suggest that you try your memory in one of the quizzes I linked in the previous thread. The reason I am saying this is because in this thread we're going to partially study the second alphabet of Japanese, katakana, but also learn more about making sentences. We're going to go through; Usage of & creating sentences with hiragana, Usage of katakana & Introduction to Particles. When you're done with this thread you will be able to create short sentences, write your name, introduce yourself in text form and use katakana. You will not be able to write any longer sentences but you will understand how the language works, and when/why/how to use these two alphabets. Now let's begin!
Katakana - カタカナ
The purpose of katakana is very simple. It's used when you are writing non-Japanese-origin words. Japanese has a lot of these kind of words, this means that the usage of katakana is kind of frequent in Japanese texts. Some typical words used a lot which are written in katakana are: coffee, tennis, TV, T-shirt, CD, page etc. Foreign names are also written in katakana, Japanese however are written in kanji and sometimes hiragana. This means that Katakana is the only one of the alphabets that you do not need to hardcore study. For the record I did not completely learn katakana until the final exam of my first semester. This chart also show a lot more combinations than the hiragana chart does. This is simply because normal Japanese does not have a lot of the pronunciations we have in western languages. Take Sweden for example, Sweden is spelled like this: スウェーデン and pronounced [Su-weeh-den]. This will be way easier to explain in a later lesson which I intend to hold over skype. More on that later though.
Here are a couple of the words I mentioned before, written in katakana.
Spoiler: Words in Katakana
The grammatical differences between katakana and hiragana are not many, they tend to follow the same principles and does not deviate a lot. The only difference you need to learn is that when making a vowel "long" you do not write two vowels but a " - " instead. As seen in the example words above.
This is really all you need to know about katakana. The alphabet has a rather simple use and structure, meaning that the only tough thing to learn is the actual alphabet. To learn it you can use these links and us the same method I taught you in the last thread.
Spoiler: Quiz links
Particles
Particles is one of the most important things to learn when it comes to learning Japanese. I have previously mentioned that this is one of the things that differs Japanese from other Asian languages like Chinese. The concept is also very foreign to westerners and as far as I know it's completely unique to Japanese. Even though there are not a lot of particles, people have problems with the usage of these in their 2
and even 3 year of University. So do not worry if you make any mistakes or do not get it correct right away. I will do my best to try and explain how to use the particles in basic sentences. It's when we are talking about a bit more advanced sentences that the particles become a bit more of a problem. First of you need to understand the concept of grammatical structures. What we use in English and Swedish at least are S V O Subject, Verb, Object. However in Japanese the structure is different. Here we use S O V. You will see what I mean in the examples of the particles below. Japanese is a language that does not work at all in the same fashion as western languages does. You will come to realize this after understanding a couple of these lessons. However in my opinion, as well as a lot of my classmates, the Japanese system makes waaaaay more sense than English, Swedish, Spanish, French etc.
は
は is certainly the first particle you should learn. It can be described as a way of saying "is/are/am" however not really. But you can begin with thinking of it like that to make it easier. Particles themselves have no direct translation. は is used as a particle in between your "Subject" and your "Object". You never use more than one は in a sentence. In the same way there are never more than one subject in a sentence.
Western languages have the structure of S V O while Japanese has the S O V structure.
Spoiler: Examples
を
を is a particle used before a Verb, bear in mind, it's not the only particle used in front of a verb. But that is it's only purpose. It might be the simplest and easiest particle to remember. It has no other complicated use like most of the others. Just this. The only issue is later when you are not certain when and where NOT to use it. But we will get in to that much later. For now remember that you use it in front of a verb. The exceptions will be shown in examples of the other particles.
Spoiler: Examples
* As you may have noticed by now, there are no "spaces" in Japanese. It may look a bit confusing at first but when we begin adding kanji later on, everything will look really smooth.
に
The particle に is a direction particle. Basically when something or someone is moving towards something you use the particle に instead of を. At least this is the main use of に. There are maaaany ways of using this particle, and it certainly is one of the two hardest ones to use. Hell I myself am not completely certain without looking it up half the time. However the basic use is fairly simple.
Spoiler: Examples
Like I've mentioned, there are other uses of に, such as when telling the time. You would then use it after the time, but I will teach you guys about this later on. There are many more ways, but they are complicated and would only mess up your learning curve if I were to write them down now.
へ
へ is by far the easiest particle. Because you technically never have to use it. It has the exact same purpose as the main purpose of に. In other words you would use it as a direction particle instead of を/に. In what sentences do you then have to use へ? None, really. When you've studied Japanese for some time you will notice that it "sounds" better to say へ instead of に. But that's about it. If you want to you could never actually use へ.
Spoiler: Examples
も
も is also a very simple particle. It is used instead of the word "too" or "also".
Spoiler: Examples
We will talk more about this later on, when forming longer sentences or having a conversation.
と
と is used in a few different ways but the first one is the only one you need to learn for now. We use と when describing several things. Or when you would normally use the word "with"
Spoiler: Examples
や
や means "and". That's it. The difference between や and と is that と is definite. If you use と then those things you describe is the only ones. But when you use や, there might be other things than the ones you mentioned.
Spoiler: Examples
が
が is together with に are the two hardest and most difficult particles to learn. However が also have a simple basic use. So we will simply stick with that one for now. It is used together with adjectives. It is also used when expressing the existence of something or expressing an emotion. (Because most emotions in the Japanese language are classified as "adjectives". More on this later on.)
Spoiler: Examples
This is the end of the first lesson! I originally wanted to include an introduction to Kanji in this lesson but that would probably be too much for one thread. I will however go through it in the next thread. I might even make the thread today since I have a lot of spare time at the moment and there is no reason not to.
Spoiler: List of Japanese words used in today's lesson.
I mentioned in the beginning that I intend to hold a lesson over skype at a later occasion. I will use this to answer your questions, help with your pronunciations and explain a few thing that are hard to explain through text.
Have you now understood the way Japanese forms sentences? Did you understand the SVO and SOV part? Was there any word or part you did not understand? Do you have any question or any word you'd like to learn? Leave a comment and I will definitely answer it to the best of my abilities.
