[日本語] Japanese Help/Discussion/Community Thread: Learn Japanese through Pokemon!

[Khengi]

[Sample of what we'll be doing]

Excerpt from first line of Prologue:

{　ここはポケモン達だけが暮らす、とくに争いもないとても平和な世界。}

ここは - As for here

ポケモン達だけが - Only Pokemon... [the 達 makes the noun before it plural; the が refers to it being the object]

暮らす - to live

とくに especially; in particularly

争いもない - No wars/strife (the も is making emphasis here, and the ない refers to there being no 争い - war. It modifies the adverb coming next)

とても平和な世界 - very peaceful world. [とても being 'very', and 平和な being a な adjective modifying 世界 - world]

=(Translation/Interpretation)=

"This is a world inhabited only by Pokemon, a peaceful world with not a single war."

(Note: The translation will never be direct. It's difficult to translate certain expressions from JP -> English and vice-versa. The translation will usually be more of an interpretation, meaning that the sentences/expression will be translated to what would make sense in English in that area, even if it doesn't mean that in Japanese. This causes some things to be lost in translations, but sure beats weird sounding Engrish).




Let's get some feedback before we get into it!



[Staff]~

Khengi
Hitomi☆


[Students]

QuilavaKing
EmeraldSerenade
Team Fail
Hairbear
Zeffy
Buoysel

[Hitomi☆]

Reading something you like is the best way to learn new language!
And this is the best story for you since you all like Pokemon.

Now Khengi are fluent in Japanese after he read lots of SHOSETSU like this(with a little bit of my help )
So if you are interested in learning, we are here to help you! It would be fuuuuuun!!!

[Khengi]

Yup.

So! Anybody interested? We need at least 5 people to start out with, and anyone can jump on from there.

[QuilavaKing]

I'm in for sure!

I had kind of given up learning awhile back, figuring that I would just do it in college later anyway... So, I've kind of forgotten some of what I learned... specifically in the grammar department. (Conjugations and sentence structure etc.)

I watch a lot of the niconico singers, so I've been constantly picking up new kanji, and my hiragana/katakana has stayed strong. (I'm always trying to talk to them. lol) I'll go back and start re-reading all of the stuff I learned about grammar though.

[Khengi]

よし！　

One down, four to go.

[EmeraldSerenade]

I tried learning Japanese a year or two ago, but I gave up :( I forgot mostly everything as well... aha. This seems really interesting though.

I'd LOVE to do this, although I have one question:
How often will we be translating chapters? Because I'm very busy overall and I don't really want to be wasting a spot for an eager Japanese learner..

If I can somehow fit this into my daily schedule, I'm willing to join ^_^

[Khengi]

Feeeeear not, only Hitomi and I will be doing translations (mostly me, as we'll be going from Japanese to English, so we'll be going into my native language. If it was vice versa, Hitomi would be better suited for the job).

After five people sign up, I'll start a mini-lesson on what you need to do/learn before starting this project. After that, you can check up and do whatever you want! :D

Three to go! *scratches notebook*

[QuilavaKing]

I have a friend who would definitely want to do this... if I can convince him to swallow his pride and join a pokemon forum. (He likes pokemon... I don't know why he won't join. lol)

[Khengi]

You should definitely get him to join! If anything you'll at least learn to read Japanese. This method doesn't really help with your listening skills, though. For that, I listen to radio. Hours upon hours until I couldn't get the title out of my head (馬場章夫新大阪大発見！！)

[Team Fail]

I know a few Katakana characters and some Hiragana characters, so I'll join. +1

Originally Posted by Khengi

よし！.

I know the second character is "shi".

OMG. Now, I can translate from French-Japanese if I learn it!

[Hairbear]

I would gladly learn Japanese. I know the basics of how to learn a new language done 3 years of German so learning a new language will be easier than going through from scratch (well in a way :D) Please let me join I have so much free time as long as it is past 16:00 GMT from mon to fri and weekends are completely free.

[Khengi]

One more to go!

後一人だけっ！ Then we can start!

[Zeffy]

I guess I could join. I've been bugging myself to learn Japanese for a while now. n__n

[Khengi]

Alright! Let's get this started tomorrow, I've got a ton of work to do right now D:

[Buoysel]

I too would like to join. I started to learn Japanese on my own. I managed to memorize most of the hiragana I was about to start the Katakana and then I got very busy. I know have more free time, and I haven't really put much effort into it since. This would be a good excuse for me to get back into the swing of things.　

おねがい

[Khengi]

You got it! Let me add you too.

[Kura]

How would we understand the kanji you post? Will you do like what a lot of Japanese kiddy manga does and have the kana at the top?
I was just curious.

I'd love to join.. but sadly have not much time.. plus I'd have to relearn some hiragana and katakana.. haven't used them in a long while so I forgot like half of 'em..

[Team Fail]

Could I have PMs of the first lessons? I'm going to be moving soon, and my Computer is being disconnected tomorrow, and the internet is being cut off for a few days.

[Khengi]

Originally Posted by Kura

How would we understand the kanji you post? Will you do like what a lot of Japanese kiddy manga does and have the kana at the top?
I was just curious.

I'd love to join.. but sadly have not much time.. plus I'd have to relearn some hiragana and katakana.. haven't used them in a long while so I forgot like half of 'em..

Furigana? Yeah, definitely, it's actually not just for kiddies When you have a written language made up of symbols that can be pronounced in so many ways based on context, preference, or combination words, you have to have some pronunciation clues every now and then, especially for names!

!! lol

@Team Fail: Okay!

[Team Fail]

Originally Posted by Khengi

Furigana? Yeah, definitely, it's actually not just for kiddies When you have a written language made up of symbols that can be pronounced in so many ways based on context, preference, or combination words, you have to have some pronunciation clues every now and then, especially for names!

That would be the stuff in this image, IIRC

@Team Fail: Okay!

Thank you so much. I can say moving isn't easy.

[Kura]

Originally Posted by Khengi

Furigana? Yeah, definitely, it's actually not just for kiddies :P When you have a written language made up of symbols that can be pronounced in so many ways based on context, preference, or combination words, you have to have some pronunciation clues every now and then, especially for names!

!! lol

@Team Fail: Okay!

Cool! Yeah I probably wont be taking part but I don't mind dropping by once in a while! Good luck with the lessons!

[Khengi]

Definitely! The whole 'sign up' was just for me to get a tally on some interested individuals, so I wouldn't be doing this for naught.

Anybody can drop in at any time! I'll start them up tomorrow.

[QuilavaKing]

You still alive khengi? lol

Tomorrow has come and gone.

[Hairbear]

ok.. im back now couldn't log for a bit

[Scarf]

I don't know if this thread was where the learnin' was supposed to happen or not, but I figured no one would mind if I stepped in and tried to get something started in case anyone is itching to learn.

---------

So, you want to learn Japanese, eh? One of the first things you'll learn about the language is that it is (probably) very different from your native language. For starters, Japanese doesn't have an alphabet. What it has is something called a syllabary. Instead of single letters like A, Q, and G, it has sounds (technically they're called morae) and it's easiest to think of them as syllables. (If you forget, syllables are how many 'sounds' a word has. For example, the word 'happy' has 5 letters, but only 2 syllables.)

Most of these morae will have one of 5 vowel sounds, which it letters are written: a, i, u, e, and o, and that is their "alphabetical" order. In Japanese these five sounds can be written:

あ　い　う　え　お

For most other morae you will see that they're a combination of a vowel sound (like one of the above 5) and a consonant sound like that made by the letters S, T or K. In English (or most likely whatever your native language is) if you wanted to add a "K" sound to an "A" sound you would just put the two letters side by side - ka.

This is not how it works in Japanese. In Japanese a consonant/vowel combination has its own individual kana (a single written character that represents a mora) which includes both sounds. For example, you know that the sound "a" is written like this:

あ

But to write the sound "ka" you don't include あ, you write it like this:

か

Makes sense, right? All in all there are dozens of combinations which cover nearly all of the sounds you might find in Japanese (there are sounds which aren't common for Japanese speakers and so there are a couple of tricks to get around this, but let's not worry about that now). Knowing and eventually memorizing these is important because they are going to be one of your foundations of learning Japanese.

Below is a partial list of kana with their corresponding transliterations (how they can be written in letters). These are actually from one of two syllabaries that Japanese has, this one called hiragana. Ideally you would practice writing them down over and over until you memorize them, but on the internet I suppose it's good just to familiarize yourself with them.

あ　　い　　う　　え　　お
(a i u e o)

か　　き　　く　　け　　こ
(ka ki ku ke ko)

さ　　し　　す　　せ　　そ
(sa shi su se so)

た　　ち　　つ　　て　　と
(ta chi tsu te to)

な　　に　　ぬ　　ね　　の
(na ni nu ne no)

は　　ひ　　ふ　　へ　　ほ
(ha hi fu he ho)

ま　　み　　む　　め　　も
(ma mi mu me mo)

や　　　　　ゆ　　　　　よ
(ya - yu - yo)

ら　　り　　る　　れ　　ろ
(ra ri ru re ro)

わ　　　　　　　　　　　を
(wa - - - wo/o)

ん
(n)

You'll probably notice that some of them don't quite follow the pattern that most of them do. That's because there are some sounds which aren't normally a part of Japanese. There are also some gaps where you would expect to see some kana that you won't see for the same reason.

That's probably enough for now. It's going to look like really basic stuff for anyone who's already studied it, but if you haven't done this for a while or are starting out new then it's good to learn this and learn it good well.

If you would like to test yourself a little then below is a small quiz with the answers in spoilers.

1. か
2. ほ
3. へ
4. い
5. め
6. し
7. き
8. つ
9. ん
10. て

Spoiler:

1. ka
2. ho
3. he
4. i
5. me
6. shi
7. ki
8. tsu
9. n
10. te

1. ma
2. o
3. wa
4. su
5. fu
6. re
7. to
8. ni
9. no
10 e

Spoiler:

1. ま
2. お
3. わ
4. す
5. ふ
6. れ
7. と
8. に
9. の
10. え