Think Japan!

 While you're learning Japanese, it is a very good idea to make yourself familiar with Japan's culture. If you can not go to Japan, bring Japan to you. How? Bring Japan into your daily life. Listen to Japanese song, watch japanese tv (you can watch youtube or online tv), read japanese books or magazine, eat japanese foods and everything related to Japan. I know it sounds silly but if you want to master Japanese language, it is all depends on how much effort or time you are willing to put in. Doesn't matter if you don't understand now. Keep listening and slowly you'll get the meaning. This is no joke. Listen to japanese song, keep watching those japanese youtube, over and over again. Keep reading those hiragana signboard, product package or anything you can find. There are a few nice sites we have in this blog. Check out those interesting link in the sidebar. Good luck!

 

Hiragana - next step

  Have you memorize all the hiragana character? Can you read  " おめでとう" without referring to the hiragana chart? I hope you can. It means congratulation. If you can't read it, please try to memorize hiragana as soon as possible.  I won't teach Japanese in romaji. Sorry. I just feel that won't work. Remember, romaji is for you to learn the pronounciation of the kana. That's all.

Please read these words before we move to the next step.

1) おはようございます 

　-Good morning　

2) はじめまして  

   -Nice to meet you

   -始めまして　　　  (kanji)

3) おげんきですか？

   -How are you?

   -お元気ですか？　(kanji)

4) さようなら

  -Good bye

5) がっこうへいこう

    -Lets go to school

　-学校へ行こう     (kanji)

　

Can you read all of them correctly?

*Watch out for the pronounciation:

 よ    - yo

 よう - yō  (long "o", as in "more" ) Even though in romaji we write "you" , the correct pronounciation is yō, not yo-u

 (eg: おはようございます）

The correct pronounciation is ohayōgozaimasu, not ohayo-o-gozaimasu

The same goes to いこう, refer to no 5) がっこうへいこう. 

The correct pronounciation is gak-kō-e-ikō, not gak-ko-u-e-iko-u.

Another example, おめでとう。

The correct pronounciation is omedetō. 

Confused? Don't worry, you will find more of these a lot later. You will get used to it in no time.

Each time when お、こ、そ、と、の、ほ、も、よ　and 　ろ  meets  う、 just pronounce it longer.

Please refer to hiragana chart, most right vertical line.

よう　- yō

そう   - sō

とう    - tō

のう   - nō

ほう   - hō

もう    - mō

よう   - yō

ろう   - rō

がんばりましょう 

(remember, it's gan-ba-ri-ma-shō, not gan-ba-ri-ma-sho-u)

Let's put more effort.

How to write a good blog post?

 I found a good article about how to write a good blog post. (Yea, I found that article because I don't know how to write a good blog post). I want to share my experience of learning Japanese but I'm afraid people will get bored. I myself get bored LOL.

 Anyway maybe I could add some other post about Japan or anything else, not only about learning Japanese. Maybe some news or something interesting on the web. Something I could share with other people. 

 Writing blog is not as easy as I thought. It is easier to make a website because you can create a page and leave it. Not like blog where people expect you to update almost everyday. How to do that? I've no idea. Not to mention your post must be interesting enough. 

 The good news is I've just finished writing  a new post. Haha.. Wait for my next post ^_^

 

 

akasatanahamayarawa

This is Hiragana chart. The first basic you should learn. You really should memorize hiragana as soon as possible. Do not use romaji to learn Japanese. You won't go far. Romaji is for learning hiragana. That's all. 

 What should I learn?

 Learn how to read,write and pronounce hiragana correctly. You can refer to the right bar of this blog under "Interesting site: Learn Hiragana" to learn the stroke order and sound. 

Learning the stroke order is important because later you are going to use the same skill to write kanji.

Please practice to write it down on paper because that's the fastest way to memorize it.

There is another technique I want to share with you. 

Look at the top vertical line of the chart : あいうえお or aiueo.

Then look at the left vertical row :  あかさたなはまやらわ　or akasatanahamayarawa.

Please memorize this. The rest is easy.  After a: aiueo, ka: kakikukeko. Next is sa: sashisuseso and so on. It will help you to memorize the order of hiragana and trust me, you won't forget hiragana easily.  This is very useful because you'll need to know hiragana order to find word in Japanese dictionary.

   ^_^ ♪ akasatanahamayarawa ♫ Have fun!