Cultural goodness Ramen. We all know and love ramen, right? It’s that 10 cent meal in a cup for every poor college student. Being a ramen connoisseur in the US simply means adding an egg. What some people don’t realize is that ramen is so much more than instant noodles. Real ramen can cost $10USD for one bowl. And believe me, it’s amazing. Ramen with real ingredients instead of the dry packaged crap that comes with your instant noodles makes a world of difference. If you ever get the chance, try some!
The pronunciation of each character is written underneath in romaji (Phonetic spelling of characters using the Roman alphabet). The stroke order of each character is denoted by the blue numbered arrows. ゐ and ゑ are no longer used and will be skipped
Today we'll be looking at な through ほ
Pronunciation: All of these begin with a typical N sound as in, neat or new, followed by the vowel sounds we already know. な → na に → ni ぬ → nu ね --> ne の --> no
Pronunciation The は column uses the H consonant, like in the words “hope” “haven,” followed by the vowel. Make it crisp! は → ha ひ → hi ふ → hu - This is more like a combined H and F sound. Don't fully press you lip to your teeth as with a normal F. Listen to the video a few times. ふ is also frequently written as "fu" in romaji. へ → he ほ → ho
Vocabulary introduced in this lesson (not really important at this point): Kana (Kanji) - Meaning あなた - you いぬ （犬） - dog いのしし - wild boar おの （斧） - axe かに （蟹） - crab (more often written with katakana) かね （金） - money; currency きぬ （絹） - silk なつ （夏） - summer にく （肉） - meat (such as beef, pork) ねこ （猫） - cat はな （花） - flower はは （母） - mother (one’s own) ひと （人） - person ひくい （低い） - low; short ふく （服） - clothing ふた （蓋） - cover; lid; cap へそ - belly button; navel へた （下手） - unskilled; poor; patchzerg; 1a2a3a; bronze; D-; etc ほそい （細い） - thin; slender; fine ほね （骨） - bone (chicken bone, etc - not the verb to bone)
Side notes There is also a Japanese movie called Udon! about another type of noodle.
Took my last final exam earlier today - so you can expect these to be published more frequently for a while. At least until I need to start cramming again.
There are multiple ways to say the same thing depending on how polite/formal/casual you want to be. We will focus more on being polite first, because it is important to know. I started out speaking politely, but my girlfriend told me it was awkward and asked me to be more casual. For a long time following I only practiced casual speaking. Then, I met her parents and I couldn’t talk to them as politely as I should have. Thankfully they understood that I’m white and don’t know what I’m doing :D
Please practice writing! I’ve written a fairly decent amount of Japanese and my friends tell me that my handwriting still looks like a child’s! It will also help later if you choose to correspond with someone via snail mail. Learning to write all the characters will make it much easier to read them. Especially when it comes to kanji!
Feedback over the course of these entries will be much appreciated, and I will try to tweak future lessons to everyone’s liking.
Those skill-less HE-TAs in D-! They can't handle my D+ omnipotence! Nice lesson as always! I'll scan some handwriting practice soon. I've yet to write a single kana! :o
The kanji you wrote for hiragana, 平假名, doesn't seem to be a word at all. Not a Japanese one at least, google only finds a bunch of chinese results. The correct word is 平仮名.
Also you probably want to drop some words about the pronounciation of ふ, since it's not exactly a normal 'h' sound.
Not sure if marking あなた as "polite" is a good idea, since it usually isn't really polite to use あなた instead of using the person's name etc. I guess it qualifies as a polite version of the various second person pronouns.
On May 11 2013 21:15 spinesheath wrote: The kanji you wrote for hiragana, 平假名, doesn't seem to be a word at all. Not a Japanese one at least, google only finds a bunch of chinese results. The correct word is 平仮名.
Also you probably want to drop some words about the pronounciation of ふ, since it's not exactly a normal 'h' sound.
Not sure if marking あなた as "polite" is a good idea, since it usually isn't really polite to use あなた instead of using the person's name etc. I guess it qualifies as a polite version of the various second person pronouns.
Woops, fixed the Kanji. Do you think there's a better way of describing ふ? Not sure if you mean to use fewer words, or more. Like つ and ら listening is probably the best way to recreate the sound.
And yes, I marked あなた as "polite" because it's more polite than something like 君, no?
ふ, つ, and the ら set are all a bit tricky for people who aren't familiar with them. Best I got for ふ is to start saying hu and halfway through switch to fu, and that's pretty close.
And while I'm thinking of it, are you going to focus on any differences between spoken/written (eg わ vs は)?
On May 11 2013 21:15 spinesheath wrote: The kanji you wrote for hiragana, 平假名, doesn't seem to be a word at all. Not a Japanese one at least, google only finds a bunch of chinese results. The correct word is 平仮名.
Also you probably want to drop some words about the pronounciation of ふ, since it's not exactly a normal 'h' sound.
Not sure if marking あなた as "polite" is a good idea, since it usually isn't really polite to use あなた instead of using the person's name etc. I guess it qualifies as a polite version of the various second person pronouns.
Woops, fixed the Kanji. Do you think there's a better way of describing ふ? Not sure if you mean to use fewer words, or more. Like つ and ら listening is probably the best way to recreate the sound.
And yes, I marked あなた as "polite" because it's more polite than something like 君, no?
As far as I can tell, you never wrote anything about ふ. Maybe there's something in the video, but I am missing a written description. ふ is supposed to be something between an English 'h' and an 'f' sound with more air. Which is why it's frequently written as "fu" in romaji.
Sure, あなた usually is more polite than 君 (I assume you mean the pronoun きみ and not the suffix くん), but if you should know the person's name or his profession or rank (like 先生 or 先輩) or other such things, then あなた can sound rude. WWWJDIC defines あなた as:
you (referring to someone of equal or lower status)
Therefore it would be a bad idea to use あなた to adress someone of higher status, which happens to be a situation where you usually would use polite speech.
On May 11 2013 23:34 tofucake wrote: And while I'm thinking of it, are you going to focus on any differences between spoken/written (eg わ vs は)?
I would suppose that this is covered when he covers particles, since は is pronounced "wa" if and only if it is used as a particle. Same with を being pronounced as "o" if and only if it is used as a particle, but it's only used as a particle anyways...
On May 11 2013 21:15 spinesheath wrote: The kanji you wrote for hiragana, 平假名, doesn't seem to be a word at all. Not a Japanese one at least, google only finds a bunch of chinese results. The correct word is 平仮名.
Also you probably want to drop some words about the pronounciation of ふ, since it's not exactly a normal 'h' sound.
Not sure if marking あなた as "polite" is a good idea, since it usually isn't really polite to use あなた instead of using the person's name etc. I guess it qualifies as a polite version of the various second person pronouns.
Woops, fixed the Kanji. Do you think there's a better way of describing ふ? Not sure if you mean to use fewer words, or more. Like つ and ら listening is probably the best way to recreate the sound.
And yes, I marked あなた as "polite" because it's more polite than something like 君, no?
As far as I can tell, you never wrote anything about ふ. Maybe there's something in the video, but I am missing a written description. ふ is supposed to be something between an English 'h' and an 'f' sound with more air. Which is why it's frequently written as "fu" in romaji.
Sure, あなた usually is more polite than 君 (I assume you mean the pronoun きみ and not the suffix くん), but if you should know the person's name or his profession or rank (like 先生 or 先輩) or other such things, then あなた can sound rude. WWWJDIC defines あなた as:
you (referring to someone of equal or lower status)
Therefore it would be a bad idea to use あなた to adress someone of higher status, which happens to be a situation where you usually would use polite speech.
Yeah valid points for sure... I'll remove the "(polite)" from あなた so no one uses it poorly with the right intentions.
On May 11 2013 23:34 tofucake wrote: And while I'm thinking of it, are you going to focus on any differences between spoken/written (eg わ vs は)?
As spinesheath said, it will be covered with the particle は as that is the only time it's pronounced わ. Same for へ pronounced as え. I'll cover it with particle へ. I think it would just confuse people to cover that now as it needs some kind of context for understanding.
あなた, while technically acceptable for someone of the same status, is not used like that. It's considered rude even among friends. It was considered more polite historically, but atm, you use it to people of lower status. It's also used among (older) couples. I would recommend any learner of Japanese to stay away from words like あなた and きみ and stick to names since it's quite a sensitive area.
On May 11 2013 21:15 spinesheath wrote: The kanji you wrote for hiragana, 平假名, doesn't seem to be a word at all. Not a Japanese one at least, google only finds a bunch of chinese results. The correct word is 平仮名.
Also you probably want to drop some words about the pronounciation of ふ, since it's not exactly a normal 'h' sound.
Not sure if marking あなた as "polite" is a good idea, since it usually isn't really polite to use あなた instead of using the person's name etc. I guess it qualifies as a polite version of the various second person pronouns.
「假」は「仮」が旧字体で書く。
あなた is probably the default polite way to refer to someone whose name/title you don't know, but yes, the second-person pronoun is not used with great frequency in Japanese (no matter how much anime tells you that casually referring to people you don't know as お前 is okay)
On May 13 2013 08:27 scintilliaSD wrote: 「假」は「仮」が旧字体で書く。
仮 actually does seem an awful lot like it's just a really lazy way of writing 假. Two radicals in common at the same places and then a cliff radical instead of the complicated parts. In any case 假 doesn't seem to be a commonly used Kanji and as such it isn't exacly fit for this guide.
On May 13 2013 08:27 scintilliaSD wrote: 「假」は「仮」が旧字体で書く。
仮 actually does seem an awful lot like it's just a really lazy way of writing 假. Two radicals in common at the same places and then a cliff radical instead of the complicated parts. In any case 假 doesn't seem to be a commonly used Kanji and as such it isn't exacly fit for this guide.
假 is the traditional way of writing 仮, it's not used in modern japanese. It's the same as writing 國 instead of 国.
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