This lesson is mostly finished. I've got the framework done, except for the kanji lesson, which I'm still working on. Vocab decks coming soon, too. Basically, what I want you to do if you're really interested in learning Japanese through these lessons is to download a program called [url = http://www.ichi2.net/anki/]Anki[/url], which is a flashcard SRS (spaced repitition system). I'll be adding vocabulary, grammar, and kanji decks for download. Basically, this means I'm doing your work for you.

NOTE - After installing Anki, go to file --> download --> shared plugins, and choose Japanese support. This will make your life much simpler.

Remember, if there's anything you don't understand, just leave a post and I'll get to it as soon as I see it.

So, here we go, on to Lesson 3 – New Beginnings
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That sounds like the title to a Harvest Moon game…

Story

Mary Sue is on her way to her first day at Bakada High

メアリー　おはようございます。

けんじ　　おはようございます。　ね、留学生ですか。
　　　　　おはようございます。　ね、りゅがくせいですか。

メアリー　はい、留学生です。　三年生ですよ。
　　　　　はい、りゅがくせいです。　さんえんせいですよ。

けんじ　　やっぱり。　外人だ。　何才？
　　　　　やっぱり。　がいじんだ。　なんせい？

メアリー　十二才だ。
　　　　　じゅうにさいだ。

けんじ　　凄い！　でも、高校生は何故ですか。
　　　　　すごい！　でも、こうこうせいはなぜですか。

メアリー　それは秘密です。
　　　　それはひみつです。

Kenji recognizes where that’s from and his eyes light up.

けんじ　　あの、あなたの名前？
　　　　　あの、あなたのなまえ？

メアリー　スーメアリーだ。

Mary is a little uncomfortable with the way Kenji is staring at her.

メアリー　今何時ですか。
いまなんじですか。

Bell rings.

二人　　　大変！
　　　　　 たいへん！

That may not look like a lot, but we’ve got to cover a lot of basic grammar to understand it. As such, this lesson is going to be broken up as such) vocabulary, grammar, and kanji. I have a unique way that we’re going to approach the kanji, too. We’re going to do it with a bizarre cross of traditional, Heisig method, and my own weird thing. You’ll catch on once we get to it.

Vocabulary

Greetings

おはようございます　 Ohayou Gozaimasu Good Morning (polite)

おはよう　　　　　　 Ohayou Good Morning (casual)

こんにちは Kon’nichiwa Good Afternoon/Hello

こんばんは Konbanwa Good Evening

さようなら Sayounara Goodbye (you don’t expect to see this person for a longtime)

おやすみなさい Oyasuminasai Good Night

Basic Vocabulary

単語 たんご Tango Vocabulary

留学生 りゅがくせい Ryugakusei International Student

です Desu Am, are, is

だ da Am, are, is (casual)

はい Hai Yes (polite/casual)

ええ Ee (pronounced eh) Yes (informal)

学生　　　　　がくせい Gakusei Student

高校　　　　　こうこう Koukou High School

小中学校　　　しょうちゅうがっこう Shouchuugakkou Elementary School

大学　　　　　だいがく Daigaku College

大学院　　　　だいかくいん Daigakuin Graduate School

午後　　　　　ごご Gogo P.M.

午前 ごぜん Gozen A.M.

ー年生　　　　ーねんせい -nensei …year student (ichinensei = first year student)

外人　　　　　がいじん　　　　Gaijin Foreigner, outside person

ー人　　　　　ーじん -Jin …person

名前　　　　　なまえ　　　　　Namae Name

やっぱり Yappari As I thought

何才　　　　　なんさい　　　　Nansai How old

凄い　　　　　すごい Sugoi Amazing, great, terrific

でも　 Demo But…

何　　　　　　なん・なに Nan/Nani What

なぜ　　　　　　　　　　　　　Naze　　　　　　　　 Why

秘密　　　　　ひみつ Himitsu Secret

あの Ano Um…

今　　　　　　いま　　　　　　Ima Now

何時　　　　　なんじ Nanji What time

大変　　　　　たいへん Taihen Tough (situation)

先生　　　　　せんせい Sensei Teacher

二人　　　　　ふたり Futari Two people, both, etc.

Countries

日本　　　　　にほん　　　　　　Nihon Japan

アメリカ Amerika America

イギリス Igirisu Britain

オーストラリア Oosutoraria Australia

ドイツ Doitsu Germany

イタリア Itaria Italy

韓国　　　　　かんこく　　　　　Kankoku Korea

中国　　　　　ちゅうごく Chuugoku China


Ah, when I went to paste my list, it screwed up the wonderful format I'd typed it in... When I post it, it looks ever screwier. When I put the vocab deck up for download you won't have this problem, as I'll throw in a nice little spreadsheet with the zip file.

You can download the vocab deck for anki now! http://www.mediafire.com/?cq051vrfp4crpq8

Grammar

You’re very first grammar lesson, and I hope to fill it to the brim with examples. After all, exposure is a lot better than tedious memorization. After this lesson you’ll be able to pretty much understand all of the conversation at the beginning of this lesson. I’m not doing numbers until the next lesson, however.

1. AはBです。

私はジムです。 Namae wa Jim desu.

メアリーさんはアメリカ人です。 Meari-san wa Amerikajin desu.

We first need to discuss what a basic Japanese sentence looks like. Look at the two examples above and you’ll see that the basic pattern goes (A)wa(B)desu. In other words, A is B. The subject of the sentence comes first, just like in English. However, the word “Desu” comes at the end instead of in the middle. This is because in Japanese, the verb always comes last.

English – Subject, Verb, Object “I ran home.”
Japanese – Subject, Object, Verb “I home ran.”

So, let’s break that first sentence down.
私はジムです。

私・わたし　＝　I, myself
は　＝ This is what we call a particle in Japanese. When the hiragana は is being used as a particle, it is pronounced as “wa” instead of “ha”. I think this is just to confuse people, but it’s really easy to get used to. Anyway, what it does is it marks the subject of the sentence. In this case, since the subject is “watashi” you put the wa particle after that word.
ジム = This is the object of our sentence. “I wa Jim am.” Is how this sentence goes. As such, we put the name here.
です　＝ This means am, are, or is, and it usually goes last in a sentence.

学生です。

アメリカ人です。

日本人です。

See what happened here? It’s the same basic thing, except there’s no subject. In English this is what we call and incomplete sentence, but is perfectly natural sounding in Japanese. In fact, the Japanese prefer to leave out the subject if it’s clear to them what the subject is. I gave a few examples of this in the little skit at the start of the lesson. Unless it’s unclear as to what you’re going to be talking about, just go ahead and use this pattern of speech.

2. Question Sentences

In Japanese, it’s insanely easy to turn a statement into a question. You simply add the particle か to the end of a sentence and it becomes a question.

留学生です。　　　　　　　留学生ですか。
I am an international student. Are you an international student?

Remember, you don’t need the subject if it’s clear who you’re talking about.
In colloquial Japanese, you can leave out the か and use the intonation of your voice to make the statement sound more like a question, kind of like we do in English, except without the question words. In the skit at the beginning, you can tell a question because I omitted the “ka” and replaced it with a question mark. You don’t do this if you’re writing formal Japanese.

3. NounのNoun

I’ve been waiting to do this one, as I was looking through the Learn Japanese Free thread (which prompted me to start these lessons, originally to clear up all the misunderstandings and mistakes), and one of the last posts asks about the Japanese “no”. I hope to solve this problem.
の links two nouns together, basically. Here are a few examples of one way to use this particle.

私の小中学校は凄いです。 Watashi no shouchuugakkou wa sugoi desu.

This first example reads, “My elementary school is amazing!” The “no” after “watashi” makes the first word possessive, so it becomes “my”. My elementary school. This is the easiest way to use this particle.

日本語の学生です。 Nihongo (Japanese language) no gakusei desu.

Oh crap. You were just thinking, “Hey, that’s not too hard,” when I threw in a monkey wrench. This isn’t hard, either, though. “No” is just a particle that links nouns, possessive or not. In this case, the sentence reads, “A student of the Japanese language.”

ジョーダンの先生は凄いです。　ジョーダンのせんせいはすごいです。

アリスは日本語の学生です。　　アリスはにほんごのがくせいです。

4. Giving Your Name

Last, but not least, I wanted to point out how to introduce yourself. Namely, you give your last name before your first name. Heck, a lot of times they’ll only give their family name rather than their given name, too. Also, Japanese usually don’t have middle names.

Now, let’s take this thing line-by-line look at it.

おはようございます。 Ohayougozaimasu.

This is a standard “Good morning” and is used until around 10 a.m.

おはようございます。　ね、留学生ですか。 Ohayougozaimasu. Ne, ryuugakusei desu ka.

ね is a word that has no English equivalent. Basically, you stick it at either the beginning or end of a sentence to imply that you want to listener to agree with you.
留学生ですか is broken down to “international student are?” This is just how the Japanese talk. Remember how I said that if the subject is clear you don’t have to say it? Here’s a couple ways to translate this sentence.

Good morning. Say, are you an international student?
Good morning. So, you’re an international student, aren’t you?

はい、留学生です。　三年生ですよ。 Hai, ryuugakusei desu. Sannensei desu yo.

I’m sure you all know what “hai” is, and if you don’t, it’s in the vocabulary list. The first sentence means, “Yes, I’m an international student.” Sannensei means third year student. Attaching 年生 to the end of a number means year student. “San” is Japanese for 3, so this means third-year student. The Japanese only have three years of high school, so Mary is a senior.
The “yo” at the end places emphasis on the sentence. It’s kind of like saying, “you know.”

Yes, I’m an International Student. I’m a third-year student, you know!

やっぱり。　外人だ。　何才？ Yappari. Gaijin da. Nansai?

This is our first exposure to casual Japanese. Notice how “desu” was replaced with “da”. This is the casual way of saying that something is something. “Gaijin” means foreigner, and even that is the shortened, casual form of 外国人/Gaikokujin, which means “outside country person”. The last sentence is simply, “nansai?” or, “How old?” The full form would be, 「あなたは何才ですか。」(those little bracket things are Japanese quotation marks, by the way), with the “anata wa” portion being expendable. However, that sounds kind of formal, and as we can see, Kenji has already switched into friendly mode with Mary.

I thought so. You’re a foreigner. How old are you?

十二才だ。 Juunisai da.

Attaching “sai” to the end of a number means that’s how old you are. In this case, Mary is proclaiming that she’s 20-years-old. Old for a high school student, but that’s why you should really read the character page I made. As you can see, she’s being casual now as well.

凄い！　でも、高校生は何故ですか。 Sugoi! Demo, koukousei wa naze desu ka.

I kind of hesitated to write “sugoi” in kanji, as you often see it in kana. We’ll look at other uses of this word and the way it’s written later.
The next sentence reads, “But why are you in high school?” Remember, since it’s obvious that he’s talking about Mary, he doesn’t need to explicitly use the word “you”. Instead he asks, “But, high school why?” literally. “Naze” is one of the words the Japanese use to ask why something is. It’s easy to remember and nice and casual to match the current tone of conversation. The “ka” at the end makes this a question, and without it the statement would read, “But you’re in high school.”

それは秘密です。 Sore wa himitsu desu.

Let’s not fret over “sore” yet. For the record, it means “that” in English, but there’s some special rules regarding its use. At any rate, “sore” is the subject, as is indicated by the fact that “wa” follows it. “Himitsu” is Japanese for “secret”, so the whole sentence reads, “That is a secret.” Anyone who watches way too much Slayers will recognize it immediately as being Xellos’ catchphrase.

あの、あなたの名前？ Ano, what’s your name?

There’s a lot of ways to ask for a person’s name. This is a very informal way, and Kenji seems to getting uncomfortably familiar with Mary now, seeing as he’s using “anata” which is generally a no-no at this stage. We’ll look at some more appropriate ways of saying this, but the reason I did it this way was to showcase the possessive form of “no”. Anata no = your in Japanese. Remember, it makes the previous noun possessive. Also, you can see he’s left off the polite “desu ka” at the end and is using intonation to convey a question.

あの、名前は何ですか。
This would be the standard way to ask this. It’s casual, but polite and nonintrusive. “Namae wa” indicates that the subject here is “name”, and “your” can be omitted. In fact, it’s best to just get rid of that pesky and impolite “your” at this point. “Nan desu ka,” of course, means “what is?”

スーメアリーだ。 Sue Mary da.

This one looks a little confusing, so I’m going to explain as best as I can. First of all, you see that little dash that comes after ス? I think I touched on this, but it basically means that you hold the last vowel sound for two counts. There’s one in Mary’s first name as well. The Japanese always give their family name before their given name. This can cause some difficulty for us foreigners until we get used to hearing it.

今何時ですか。 Ima nanji desu ka.

This sentence means, “What time is it now?” Ima = now, nanji = what time. It would seem that Mary is getting a little formal again, probably because Kenji is creeping her out at the moment. We’ll get into telling time right after we do numbers, which will probably be next lesson.

大変！ Taihen!

This single word, in this instance, means that our characters are in a tough situation. Basically, they’re late and have to struggle now to get to class.

Let’s look at this skit in English now…

Mary Good morning.

Kenji Good morning. Say, are you an international student?

Mary Yes, I’m an international student. I’m a third year.

Kenji I thought so. You’re a foreigner. How old are you?

Mary I’m twenty-years-old.

Kenji Amazing! But, why are you a high school student?

Mary That’s a secret.

Kenji recognizes where that’s from and his eyes light up.

Kenji Um, what’s your name?

Mary It’s Mary Sue.

Mary is a little uncomfortable with the way Kenji is staring at her.

Mary What time is it now?

Bell Rings

Both Crap (Not a literal translation, I know, but that’s what “taihen” amounts to in this situation.)

This post reserved for the kanji section...

Woot! I got the vocab deck up! Don't forget to download the Japanese support plugin with anki. Instructions for doing so in the OP.