です / じゃりません and はい / いいえ

Ok, so this blog is more like a personal log, since I hate hand-writing things. But I figured it doesn't hurt much to let other people see it too (if anyone even reads this blog that is). Anyway, learning some grammar finally. Learned a few words as well, 3 of which I kind of already know, and 1 of which I did not... all of which I learned how to properly use in a simple sentance/question. It's actually more than 4, but the 4 are the main ones.

Anyway, the words are: です (desu)　じゃりません (jarimasen)　はい (hai (yes))　いいえ (iie (no))　か (ka). Now はい and いいえ are pretty easy; simple yes or no. です basically means "it is" while じゃりません is the opposite, or "it is not". And lastly, か is used at the end of a sentence to make it a question; the same as a "?" in English.

There're also a few nouns I've learned:
ぶどう = grapes
みかん = tangerine
いちご = strawberry
かぶちゃ = pumpkin
りんご = apple
もも = peach
ねこ = cat
いぬ = dog

So in other words, to ask if something is a dog ("Is it a dog?") I would say "いぬ　です　か". and to respond, I would say "はい、いぬ　です" if it is, or "いいえ、いぬ　じゃりません" if it isn't. Pretty simple really. Basically it's the way Yoda speaks... for the most part.

I've also started learning some 感じ　（かんじ (kanji)）. Or more accurately, Kanji particles. The actual kanji will be a little different, and I haven't gotten to it just yet, so that'll be another post. Anyway, short post this time, but that's what I've been learning so far.

ひらがな！

Ok, been a little while since last post, so figured it was time for another. Anyway, been kinda busy with work, so haven't gotten as far as would like. I have, however, finished the free lessons for ひらがな (hiragana) at Textfugu.com and now simply need to make enough to get a subscription (doing lifetime rather than monthly since it makes more sense). Learning the ひらがな was actually quite simple once I learned all of the standard kana. The だくてん (dakuten) and combination hiragana pretty much contain the same characters with a very minor difference that changes the way they sound. For example か (ka) becomes が (ga) by adding the " to か. This is called a Dakuten. They're really quite easy to learn since they follow the same pattern as their base kana... the K column becomes G column, T becomes D, etc. The only difference is with the H column, which can become B or P. For example: ひ (hi)　び (bi)　ぴ (pi)。 If you notice on the last one of those 3, the " is instead a small circle. This only happens with the H column to make P sounds. Other than that, it's pretty simple... just have to look for the little だくてん mark and recognize what it's changed to.

The one that's a little bit harder are combo hiragana, but even these are fairly simple, as they use the base kana combined with a small　や (ya)　ゆ (yu) or　よ (yo), like so: しょ to make different sounds; in this case sho, which is shi - i + yo - y = sho if you were to write it like a math equation. Basically, you remove the vowel sound from the base kana and replace it with the one from the や　ゆ　or　よ。 Note: I'm still unsure why Japanese periods are hollow... but it's kinda cool IMO。 There are some cases, however, where you do not remove the Y sound. きょ for example is pronounced Kyo. I'm not certain, but I believe this applies to all single consonant sounds (ka, ni, ma, to, etc.) and not to 2 consonant sounds (shi, tsu, chi, etc.). And to make them just a little more interesting... they too can use だくてん　(dakuten), such as びゃ (bya).

One last kana that can be a little confusing is the small つ (tsu). Which provides for double consonants. For example, nippon would look like this: にっぽん　rather than: にぽん. The hardest part about this one is knowing when to use it and when not to. Actually speaking a word with the small tsu is quite easy... you simply do a quick pause on the consonant sound that is used, then finish the word starting with that sound again. Kind of similar to to saying "Bookkeeper" with 2 K sounds.

There were a few other bits of info, but for the most part it kind of repeated the use of some key words that are seen a lot in Japanese grammar, like です (desu (typically pronounced des)). Now that I'm done with the free ひらがな lessons, I will probably try to learn カタカナ　（かたかな (katakana)） until I can afford my subscription. Anyway, That's pretty much all for now. Since PSN is down, I've been kind of bored outside of work and Japanese learning. Been on a White Knight Chronicles drive for some reason and really tempted to pick up the Japanese version. Just wish I knew more words so I could understand them. Oh well. Farewell (さよなら) for now!

Work sucks.... up all my free time

Ok, so work doesn't necessarily "Suck" per-say. Kinda hard to hate work when you work from home. But it does suck up a lot of my free time. For those of you that didn't already know (if anyone even reads this blog anymore that is), I've started working for a company called Preferred Interactive. Basically they run a website for contractors that allows their customers to chose what they want in their house before it's built and see how it would look with those features before it's even built. The concept is kind of along the lines of the 3D home walk-through, but with easier controls since you're only editing one room at a time. Anyway, kinda going off topic here now, so back to the point of this blog.

As I was saying, work's been sucking up my free time, so it's made it hard to study my ひらがな(Hiragana). As a result; instead of being done with learning the ひらがな "alphabet" (I say alphabet in quotes cause they're actually syllabifies), I've only learned the "alphabet" from あ(a) to ほ (ho). This leaves about 2 more columns of standard ひらがな to learn, followed by all the だくてん　(Dakuten) which look like standard ひらがな but have a little quotation or circle to change their sound (the first character in だくてん is a Dakuten; the " change a Ta sound to Da sound for example).

So anyway, my studies right now are slow; but as I get quicker at my job and start getting some extra income, I'll be able to study more, and hopefully purchase access to the more advanced studies that actually teach you how to speak in proper Japanese sentences, as well as the other 2 "alphabets" かたかな (katakana) and かんじ(kanji).

That's all for now though; time for me to get go work. Two projects due by tomorrow morning, with 2 more possibly coming in later today. さよなら

I'm baaaack!

So kinda changing the topic, and didn't really feel like making a new blog for it. A few days ago, I found an awesome site for learning 日本語 (Japanese)! Ok, so I cheated on that one... I haven't learned Kanji yet, I'm still on Hiragana. Anyway, the site is called Textfugu.com. There's an interesting story behind how it came to be, and the person who made it is pure genius when it comes to teaching Japanese; or at least I think so. I tried learning Japanese on my own a while back, but was unsuccessful since A) I didn't really have any one to study it with/for B) I didn't know HOW to study it and C) I was letting myself get overwhelmed by it too easily. Well, all that was solved when I found Textfugu.

In the first 5 hours I felt like I had learned more than I had in the previous 2-3 years. And to top it off, I'm actually learning to read Japanese before I can understand it... the opposite of how I was doing it before. The benefit I do see from my previous attempts is, I can now type at least some words in Hiragana instead of Romaji. So to those that are checking out my blog こんにちは　みんな！