Japanese Language Basics | The Japan Guy

Japanese Language Basics

Learn Hiragana Two: Stroke Order

December 12, 2012
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Learn Hiragana Two: Stroke Order

Welcome to part two of our three-part, learn hiragana, article series. Didn’t get a chance to read Part One? Click Here! In our previous article we took a look the pronunciation of the 46 hiragana characters. If you haven’t read part one of this series (especially for any beginning Japanese students) please click here to read it now. For those who have read it, I have a surprise for you, a 15-question pop quiz! Mwuhahahaha…ahem: How do you pronounce the following, characters? No cheating! The answers are at the very bottom of the post 1. ら 2. つ 3. ろ 4. す 5. い How did you do? I hope you got them all...

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Learn Hiragana One: Pronunciation

December 10, 2012
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Learn Hiragana One: Pronunciation

Welcome to part one of a three-part, learn hiragana article series. If you’ve ever had any interest in the Japanese language, you may have heard about hiragana before. Hiragana is the most basic of Japan’s three writing systems (hiragana, katakana, and kanji). In a previous article we discussed four important reasons to learn hiragana. Now that you know why hiragana are important, let’s take things a step further. Today let’s focus on an essential aspect of understanding hiragana: pronunciation. The primary hiragana are made up of 46 characters, right? Each of these 46 characters has a sound, meaning 46 different phonetic sounds. For many people who start studying they see 46, alien characters: Seeing...

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The Five Japanese Demos

December 17, 2011
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The Five Japanese Demos

I know this is a bit out of order, but I recently did a post about Doraemon’s dokodemo door. In essence it’s a door that allows you to go anywhere. After writing that post I decided to make this quick post about some very important “demo” words that I hear in Japanese. The five Japanese demo words that you might find useful are 1. いつでも　Itsudemo – Anytime 2. なんでも　何でも　Nandemo – Whatever 3. どこでも　Dokodemo – Wherever, Anywhere 4. だれでも　Daredemo – Anyone, Anybody (pronounced “dah-ray demo” but make sure it sounds like a Japanese ‘r’ sound) 5. どちでも　Dochidemo – Whichever I know this post is incredibly short, but I hear these words quite often, and even...

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The Introduction to Japanese Antonyms

October 26, 2011
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The Introduction to Japanese Antonyms

Is anybody out there a Nickelodeon fan? No, I mean a REAL Nickelodeon fan! I want you to rewind the clock…Snick!? Oh man, that would be an awesome place to stop because it was the first time I ever saw Doug, Rugrats, Ren & Stimpy, and Are You Afraid of the Dark…but keep going. I’m talking about the first Nickelodeon show I ever saw that used slime. I’m talking about You Can’t Do That On Television! This show was a classic and I was looking at a little bit of it on You Tube. There were two skits that I really liked about the show. There was one where the kids on the show...

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Learning Hiragana Like a Baby?

August 27, 2011
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Learning Hiragana Like a Baby?

I found this toy at a Japnese second a shop quite some time ago. I won’t say it was for babies, but maybe for toddlers. It was in perfect working condition and I thought I would be a great way to practice hiragana. For some people studying Japanese, they feel insulted or belittled if they have to study using child-based learning tools. I take a completely opposite approach. If it works, I say use it. But I didn’t always feel this way. There was a time when I would be just a little embarrassed to walk into my local library and be the biggest thing moving in the Japanese children’s books section. I felt...

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Adopting a Child’s Attitude to Learn Japanese?

July 18, 2011
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Adopting a Child’s Attitude to Learn Japanese?

Earlier this week we were talking about learning via osmosis. My take on the whole “learning a language via osmosis” was that for adults it’s not as effective. However for children (the younger the better) I think osmosis works extremely well. Sadly, I’m not a kid anymore, so I think my learn by osmosis days may just be a fantasy now. However, there is one thing I can pick up from the children I teach on a regular basis…their attitudes. It is very very rare indeed that I walk into a classroom and see I child with their face all contorted, lips poking out…sulking because they don’t want to study English today. It’s quite...

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Does Learning Japanese Via Osmosis Really Work?

July 14, 2011
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Does Learning Japanese Via Osmosis Really Work?

I have truly been falling behind in my Japanese studies. “I’ve been exhausted lately.” “I’ve been sick.” “I’ve been busy.” I can sit here and fabricate any half-as*ed excuse that assuages my pride, but the fact remains…my Japanese skills are becoming stagnant. After work, I go home type a bit, surf the Internet, type some more, eat, and (as of late) end up crashing on my apartment floor. I sometimes get that urge to crack open my Japanese textbooks and get back to it. My brain then goes through this detailed feedback loop as to the reasons studying isn’t a good idea: “You need to work on your blog tonight, “ or “You’ve listened...

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Using Embarrassing Moments To Help You Improve Your Japanese

June 27, 2011
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Using Embarrassing Moments To Help You Improve Your Japanese

Summer is upon us here in the land of Rising, Scorching, Hot Sun. That endearing, humid heat that’s oh so characteristic of Japanese summer is starting. Granted is not as bad as it’s going to get, but we’ve had a couple of those “more humid than normal” days already. Today, it rained ever so lightly, and then the sun started coming out. I felt kinda sticky going to to work. Do you know the kind of weather I’m talking about? The kind of weather that makes sweat in your no-no places, that weather that makes you have bad hair days (not me, because my head is as smooth as a cue ball), the weather...

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The 10,000 Hours Approach to Japanese

January 9, 2011
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The 10,000 Hours Approach to Japanese

Visiting forums about the Japanese language, or any language for that matter, can provide some great insight into people’s presumptions about learning languages. There is always one common tiff as to whether an adult who starts learning English can ever truly be fluent. There is that age-old adage you have to start learning a language as a child to truly gain mastery over it. Most people fall into either one of two groups: 1) You believe this adage or 2) you don’t. I happen to fall into the the latter group. I teach a discussion class at AEON and we once had a discussion about an article called 10,000 hours. The article was written...

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A Japan Guy Review: Genki, An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese

December 27, 2010
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A Japan Guy Review: Genki, An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese

(updating…)Do you want to learn how to speak Japanese? Honestly, I do, too. I remember once I found out that I got the AEON job I started thinking “Oh snap! I can’t speak a freaking lick of Japanese!” So I started researching the best ways to get started. I went straight to Internet…of course…and started Googling Japanese programs for complete beginners. I ran across several different programs, some of which you may be quite familiar with: Japanese for Busy People, Japanese Demystified, Japanese for Dummies, Pimsleur Basic Japanese, Pimsleur Conversational Japanese, Genki, Let’s Learn Hiragana, The Basic Kanji Book, Basic Japanese Grammar, Rosetta Stone, etc. To be frank, just seeing all of the possible...

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