I finally got things working! The way this works is that every Monday, unless something major happens, I intend on posting up a lesson on the Japanese language. I will be providing audio clips from anime, TV shows, movies, etc. to kind of give you an idea of how things sound in context. Hopefully, this will also keep you motivated to keep learning. So, lesson one is done. No audio in this (at least not yet, I haven't decided), as it's just focused on the kana. If you're using XP and can't see the text, .

For the first lesson, I want to focus on written Japanese. Why? Because it’ll help you loads when we get to the fun stuff, that’s why. The first form of written Japanese was 漢字 (kanji (gotta love how the meaning of it means “vague characters”, at least the way I chose to write “kanji” in this instance)), which are nothing more than Chinese characters that were imported into Japan back when the Japanese did not have written language. Chinese characters are pictographs, as you can see earlier in the paragraph. You’ll be learning what all these are in a bit, but their main function is to give a word its meaning. This is great with names, because in English, we have to figure out from which language are name is derived, and we get the meaning from that. In Japanese, they just rely on the kanji to tell them.

Now, Chinese pictographs worked pretty good until it dawned on them that kanji just didn’t work too good with the nuances of Japanese grammar. Backing up a bit, the writing of Chinese characters was considered an art, and it was also considered to be way too difficult for women, so the Japanese had come up with ひらがな (hiragana). The hiragana characters don’t represent words, but sounds. Any Japanese word can be written in hiragana and therefore women had a written language of their own. Going forward again, the Japanese decided to combine kanji and hiragana in order to have a complete written language that would be able to work well with Japanese grammar and yet contain that wonderful art of kanji.

Let’s move forward and introduce the third written language, カタカナ (katana). You may hear from people that hiragana is like cursive and katakana is like print, but that’s about as far removed from reality as you can get. They are both alike in that each katakana represents a sound that can already be written in hiragana; however, katakana is strictly used for foreign words or names. I would like to note, though, that a lot of Japanese now write their given names (first names) in katakana just because they think it’s cute or some such thing. You typically won't find this in the Tenchi Muyo anime (Kajishima's too formal), but a lot of anime and manga do this.

With these three writing systems combined, modern Japanese looks like this: 私はアメリカの映画を見ます。 That sentence reads, “I watch American movies.” Now, that may look really confusing right now, but don’t worry! You’ll get it just fine. I have confidence in you, just like Maria had confidence in herself when she sang merrily down Austria’s streets.

Now, onto Japanese sounds. Don’t forget to check out the links provided, as they’ll help you retain this information, and you’ll want to remember it because after a while, I’ll stop using romaji (or roman letters) to tell you what things say and rely exclusively on the kana. On that note, I won’t be making a list of katakana letters, because they’re exactly like hiragana. Just study the chart and the links I provide to get a good grasp of it. If you can’t read Japanese text, you’ll need to get your computer to do so. Vista is already capable of this, I believe. In fact, most new operating systems are (‘cuz Japanese is just that cool), but XP will give you some troubles. See top of post.

あ – A as in “father”. か・が – ka/ga
い – I pronounced like the two e’s in “bee”. き・ぎ – ki/gi
う – U pronounced like the two o’s in “food”. く・ぐ – ku/gu
え – E as in “eggs”. け・げ – ke/ge
お – O as in “oatmeal”. こ・ご – ko/go

さ・ざ – sa/za た・だ – ta/da
し・じ – shi/ji ち - chi
す・ず – su/zu つ・づ – tsu/dsu
せ・ぜ – se/ze て・で – te/de
そ・ぞ – so/zo と・ど – to/do

な - na は・ば・ぱ – ha/ba/pa
に - ni ひ・び・ぴ – hi/bi/pi
ぬ - nu ふ・ぶ・ぷ – fu/bu/pu
ね - ne へ・べ・ぺ – he/be/pe
の - no ほ・ぼ・ぽ – ho/bo/po

ま - ma ら- ra
み - mi り - ri
む - mu る - ru
め - me れ - re
も - mo ろ - ro

わ - wa
を – wo (often pronounced “o”)

や - ya
ゆ - yu
よ - yo

ん – n (sometimes sounds like “m”)

しゃ - sha
しょ - sho
しゅ - shu

ちゃ - cha
ちょ - cho
ちゅ - chu

じゃ - ja
じょ - jo
じゅ - ju

にゃ - nya
にょ - nyo
にゅ - nyu

ひゃ・びゃ・ぴゃ – hya/bya/pya
ひゅ・びゅ・ぴゅ – hyu/byu/pyu
ひょ・びょ・ぴょ – hyo/byo/pyo

みゃ - mya
みゅ - myu
みょ - myo

りゃ - rya
りゅ - ryu
りょ – ryo

Before I go and clear up some pronunciation difficulties you might have, go and pat yourself on the back, for you have just read through each and every sound in the Japanese language. Yes, that’s all of them! Not nearly as many sounds as in English, eh? For instance, the Japanese don’t have a “v” sound, a “si”, or a “ti”, or an “l” of any kind. That’s why Mihoshi always pronounces the Galaxy Police (ギャラクシーポリス) as “Gyarakshi Porisu”. More on devoiced vowels later.

A note on pronunciation!

First of all, a note on the Japanese “r” since that is usually the one sound that troubles foreigners most, unless they’ve watched tons of anime and therefore have no trouble emulating the sound. The Japanese “r” is not rolled like the Italians and the Spanish, but it also isn’t that funky sound we English speakers call an “r”. It’s a tapped “r”. In order to make the sound, find that little ridge behind your teeth and tap your tongue there. It should sound something like a bizarre cross between an “l” and a “d” when you make it.

Next up comes the Japanese “f”, which sounds like a cross between and English “f” and an “h”. For me, this was the single hardest hurdle when it comes to pronunciation, and the only way to remedy it was by watching an overdose of Tenchi Muyo. That’s right! That’s how you can clear this obstacle. Just listen to the clip of Sasami rushing towards Funaho while happily exclaiming her name. That should clear up your problems. In fact, I used to practice the Japanese “f” just by saying “Funaho” over and over and over. People might think you’re insane, but if it works….

Now comes the “ryo” type sounds. You know, the all those annoying little things. Some of them won’t give you much trouble, because you’ve probably all heard Ryo-ohki, as well as just about every other cute little anime mascot, use those types of sounds. However, I would like to make mention of the “ryo” sound, as well as all those other sounds. Why? Because the dub of Tenchi Muyo makes it sound like it’s pronounced “Riyoko” and “Rio-ohki”. Listen to the Japanese and how they slur the sounds and this should come of no trouble to you. Oh, and just as a disclaimer, I don’t dislike the dub of Tenchi Muyo, but it can be a crutch when you’re trying to get a feel for a foreign language.

Time for those pesky つ (tsu) and づ (dsu) sounds. These aren’t that horrible, actually. Just remove the “I” from “its” and stick a “u” on the end to get “tsu” and say it properly. It’s not hard. For anyone who watches the show Monk, just remember that conversation when Randy is talking to Stottlemeyer (I can’t spell!), and is trying to spell something to him. He says, “Next is ‘t’ as in ‘tsunami’,” to which Stottlemeyer (I still don’t remember how it’s spelled!) replies, “That’s an ‘s’.” Randy corrects him pronouncing “tsunami” in the correct way, with a slight “t” at the beginning. Now, most English speakers don’t know that Randy was actually correct the way he said it. Don’t believe me? Watch a Tsunami-heavy episode of Tenchi Muyo, or one of those Sasami spin-offs. With the “dsu” sound, just do the same thing, except with a “d”.

All right, get ready for the “devoiced” vowel. We’ll be using examples of this in the future so often that if you don’t get it right away, you will later. So, in linguistics we call a devoiced sound a silent one. Think of the “e” in “take” and how we don’t actually say the “e” despite the fact that it’s there. That’s what a devoiced sound is. In Japanese, when you run into an “I” or “u” in the middle of a word, or a “u” at the end of it, it is often devoiced. This is why I chose to render “ギャラクシーポリス” as “Gyarakshi Porisu”. The “u” between the “k” and “shi” is simply omitted. A lot of times, the “u” at the end of “porisu” is also omitted, so you could also render it as “poris”. Notice how Aeka omits the “I” in Tenchi’s name when she attaches –sama to the end of it. You don’t have to understand it now, as I said, but bear it in mind.

There was one more thing I was going to touch on, but I’d better wait until we start reading and adding vocabulary before I mention it. So, I guess that’s your first lesson!

Links






Appologies for the long post. Future lessons will be shorter.

Just a warning. Next lesson may not come up this week. I've been busy trying to create a better syllabus for my other classes. Next lesson coming soon!

Where do you teach at? Generally speaking... I'm entering 201 this fall semester

Sorry it took so incredibly long. We had a death in the family, tons of stress, etc. However, I'm back and preparing to continue!

Crumpets, I'm currently teaching on Edufire.com. However, I'm not taking Japanese students right now. Sorry! However, hopefully I'll be able to keep these lessons coming at a more consistent space. Still working out the audio portion, but the lessons will be up.