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| Japanese | English |
| アメリカ | America |
| 日本［にほん］ | Japan |
| 人［じん］ | Person |
| どこ | Where |
| -さん | Mr., Ms., or Mrs. |
| は | (Indicates topic) |
| いる | Exists (living) |
| に | At, in, or to |
| 日本語［にほんご］ | Japanese |
| 英語［えいご］ | English |
| を | (Indicates direct object) |
| する | (Do) |
| 勉強(する)［べんきょう］ | Study |
| 分かる［わかる］ | Understand |
| が | (Indicates subject) |
| はい | Yes |
| うん | Yeah |
| いいえ | No |
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Nationality
In order to say an American or a Japanese all you have to do is take the name of the associated country and append the word for person. For instance to say an American we take the word for America "アメリカ" and add "人". So we get "アメリカ人" and for a Japanese it would be 日本人. AはBです。 The AはBです sentence simply says A is B. First you start with your subject we'll use 田中 here and since 田中 is a person we'll add さん to her name. Next add the topic marker は followed by what we're going to say she is, in this case a Japanese 日本人. And finally we conclude the sentence with the word for is です. So to say Tanaka is a Japanese it's 田中さんは日本人です。 ます Form In these lessons verbs are given to you in standard form like you would find them in a dictionary. To be more polite when speaking in Japanese though it's better to use the ます form. In order to conjugate a verb from standard form to ます form we must first determine to which verb group the verb belongs. There are two forms of regular verbs and there are irregular verbs. The regular forms are the ichi-dan verbs and the go-dan verbs. An ichi-dan verb ends in る and the next to last syllable is from the い or え dan (row) in a kana chart. In order to change an ichi-dan verb from standard form to ます form just drop the る and add ます. So いる in ます form is います. To change go-dan verbs from standard form to ます form change the next to last sylable to the い dan from the same gyo (collumn), drop the る and add ます. For example, for する the next to last sylable is す which we change to the sylable in the い dan of the same gyo and get しる; now we drop the る and add ます to get します. Some words require する to be placed after them to be used as verbs. 勉強 is an example of this as indicated in the vocabulary list. So in order to say I study just add the ます form of する します to the end of 勉強 and you get 勉強します. Particles This lesson has included a few new particles: に, を, and が. に is sometimes translated as in, on, or at and usually what preceeds it is a place or sometimes time. We can use it in this lesson to say where someone is. For example I can say Brian is in America ブライアンさんはアメリカにいます。 Notice います is often used as "is" when talking about where a person is. を is used to indicate that what preceeds it is the direct object of the sentence. Here is an example of using it to say I study Japanese where Japanese is the direct object. 日本語を勉強します。 が is usualy used to indicate that what preceeds it is the subject of the sentence. However, this is not always true. In this example it is used for what one would think is the direct object. To say I understand English it's 英語が分かります。 There's really no easy trick to learning where to use が opposed to certain other particles such as を or は you just have to practice reading and writing in Japanese. |
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Japanese
1) 田中>おはようございす 2) ブライアン>こんばんは 3) 田中>ブライアンさんは日本人ですか。 4) ブライアン>いいえ、アメリカ人です。 5) 田中>アメリカにいますか。 6) ブライアン>うん、アメリカにいます。田中さんは何歳ですか。 7) 田中>19歳です。 8) ブライアン>英語が分かりますか。 9) 田中>いいえ。ブライアンさんは日本語を勉強しますか。 10) ブライアン>はい、勉強します。田中さんはどこにいますか。 11) 田中>日本にいます。 12) ブライアン>じゃまた。 13) 田中>さようなら。 English 1) Tanaka>Good morning 2) Brian>Good evening 3) Tanaka>Brian, are you Japanese? 4) Brian>No, I'm American. 5) Tanaka>Are you in America? 6) Brian>Yes, I'm in America. Tanaka, how old are you? 7) Tanaka>I'm 19 years old. 8) Brian>Do you understand English? 9) Tanaka>No. Brian, do you study Japanese? 10) Brian>Yes, I study. Tanaka, where are you? 11) Tanaka>I'm in Japan. 12) Brian>See you later. 13) Tanaka>Good bye. |