Useful phrases for visitors of Kyoto

Two-thirds of SHK's bloggers are currently in Kyoto, and the remaining third is jealous. But in the spirit of solidarity, I'll give some short, handy expressions I've heard during the past few days, listening to a large number of Beginners' lessons on the japanesepod101.com Web site.
I selected these words or short phrases specifically for practical use in conversations: you can easily put into any sentence or even often say them on their own. They're also in romaji just to make it easier. Groeten uit Amsterdam!

kakkoi	cool
maji desu ka?	Are you serious?
muri	impossible
dame	absolutely not, no way
saikou	the best, great
yappari	just as I thought/I knew it!
kedo	but, however, use as 'ga'.
subarashii	fantastic, breathtaking
X ga ippai	full of X
X ga hitsuyou desu	I need X
mochiron	of course, obviously
kochira koso	same here!
gojuushin	place of origin, where you're from
ryoukai	got it!, I understand
yossha!	all right then!
uso	That's a lie! Get out of here! You're kidding!
kitto	surely
tatoeba	for example
hotondo	mostly
zettai (ni)	absolutely, unconditionally
tonikaku	anyway, anyhow
tondemonai	outrageous, offensive, bullshit

New Japanese keyboard

One of the biggest problem with typing Japanese on a computer is that you can't type a kanji. Luckily, Google Japan unveiled its special Japanese keyboard yesterday. Check it out, it looks awesome!

Stuff I learned from one Japanese conversation

Finally, I had the chance to sit down with a native Japanese speaker and spend an hour or so speaking Japanese as best I could, and listening to it. It went better than expected, but far from smoothly. The best thing is that I took notes and apart from hearing all kinds of new words, I also picked up some of the little remarks or adverbial phrases that you won't easily find in written text. They should come in handy for certain unnamed parties who will be visiting Japan shortly. Here's a list:

• は - used after a number and 回 (かい), this means 'at least'. So ６回は = 'at least 6 times'.
• 大事 (だいじ) means 'important', but in written Japanese, you'd sooner see 重要 (じゅうよう).
• ～様になる (～ようになる) is a standing expression, which means 'to reach the point that ~'. My conversation partner used it in the sentence しゃべれる様になる. しゃべれる is a form of しゃべる, to talk or to chat. The form means to be able to talk. Combined with the (～ようになる), it means roughly 'to become proficient', 'to become able to talk' (Japanese in our context).
• たまに (normally written in kana) - once in a while, sometimes
• そんなに - in combination with a negative verb, this means 'not so much'.
• 気づく (きづく）- to notice. The 気 ('mind', 'spirit') is also found in 'genki', 'tenki' (weather), and 'kibun ga warui' (I don't feel well).

Subtle, very subtle. Thanks, guys.

You're gonna love these two kanji:

• 水 (みず) meaning: (cold) water
• 氷 (こおり) meaning: ice

Furigana for Firefox

So, you were translating the webpages in Japanese only because you didn't know all the Kanji? With this nifty little Firefox plug-in, you can get Furigana for the Kanji. You can even set it up from add-on settings to automatically inject the Furigana in pages.
This plug-in requires Ruby Support add-on to function correctly. Just follow the steps after installing the Furigana Injector plug-in, and the gates to the world of indecipherable Kanji is suddenly opened  before you.

Listening exercise

The monster without a name is a short animation. A good way to hear Japanese and, if you get lost, pause the video and check the subtitles. I'll be trying (veeeery slowly) to transcribe this video as much as I can.

Get Your Kun On

Koichi of Tofugu explains the difference between kun-yomi and on-yomi better than I can.

Clauses revisited

In the last few classes, we've learned a number of powerful ways of creating complex sentences from clauses: using when, before and after, for example.

But if we look back, we can find a lot of constructions we've learned that let us create sentences containing multiple clauses, some of them very specific. So for your benefit, here's an overview.

～てもいいですか。(-te mo ii desu ka)

Means 'would it be OK/alright if...?' For example, しゃしんをとってもいいでせか。(Shashin-o totte mo ii desu ka.) "Is it OK if took a picture?"

[S1] が[S2]

Used as a 'gentle' contrast, where が can be translated as 'but' or as 'and', depending on context. For example, Aさんは　とうきょうに　いきましたが　Bさんは　いませんでした。 (A-san wa Tokyo-ni ikimashita ga B-san wa imasen deshita.) "Mr A went to Tokyo, but Mrs B wasn't there."

[S1] が [S2]

Looks exactly like the previous one, but here it's an expression of politeness; roughly, が translates as 'but more importantly', indicating that S2 is more important than S1. For example, もしもし
すずき　ですが　おはよう　ございます。(moshimoshi, Suzuki desu ga, ohayou gozaimasu.) "Hellok, this is Suzuki; good morning."

[S1]から[S2]

Translates as "Because S1, S2." or "S1, so S2." Note that S1 is a normal sentence, which means it would typically contain the polite form. For example, あさくさでおまつりがありますから、いきます。(Akasuka de o-matsuri ga arimasy kara, ikimasu.) "There's a festival in Akasuka, so I'm going (there)."

More to follow!

Oh the joys of kanji

By now, we think we know this kanji, maybe?

行

It's fairly easy to draw, and we see it a lot because it's 'to go': 行く ('iku') is the plain form, 行きます ('ikimasu') is the polite form.

Well, think again. How do you think you would pronounce 銀行? But of course, it's 'ginkou' - a bank. (If you look closely, the left half of the left kanji is 金 or money, gold. So it's where your money goes.)

Now look at this verb:

行う

That's not a く at the end but an う. So how do we pronounce it? 'iu'? Maybe 'kouu' or something?

None of the above. This is pronounced 'okonau'. It means 'to do, to carry out'.

The secret life of subclauses

It's taken about a year and a half, but finally we're learning about subclauses. We did some exercise from the J4BP2 Workbook, and in true J4BP fashion, a lot of mysterious grammar was slipped in without any explanation.

Let's look at a sentence and try to figure it out:

まり子さんは真一さんが何さいのとき生まれましたか。

(Mariko-san wa Shin'ichi-san ga nansai no toki umaremashita ka.)

The translation of this sentence is:

"How old was Mr Shin'ichi (真一) when Ms Mariko (まり子) was born?"

(umareru = to be born, -sai = years old.)

This sentence combines two clauses using 'when':

1. How old was Mr Shin'ichi?
2. Ms Mariko was born.

Let's look at the sentence again. I put clause 1 between ( and ), and "when" between [ and ].

まり子さんは(真一さんが何さい)[のとき]生まれましたか。

Mariko-san wa (Shin'ichi-san ga nansai) [no toki] umaremashita ka.

The first thing you'll notice is that 'when' is applied to clause 1, not to clause 2: the subclause is 真一さんが何さいのとき, which translates to 'When Mr Shin'ichi was how old?' So where we would normally say in English, "How old was S when M was born?", the Japanese literally says, "M was born when S was how old?" The reason we're not given the normal order is simply because we haven't learned that yet (a verb followed by とき is in the next chapter of the book). But I checked with a native speaker, and both sentences mean the exact same thing, he says.

The second thing to note is that the subject of the subclause has a が after it, instead of a は. If this was a standalone sentence (like sentence 1 above), it would translate into Japanese as 真一さんは何さいでしたか ("As for Mr M, how old was he?"). But when it's used as a subclause, the は turns into a が. This helps you to identify 真一さん as belonging to the subclause, not the main clause. In this case, it's pretty obvious anyway, but it still helps you to place the ( and ), so to speak.

The third thing is that there is a の between 何さい and とき. We've just learned that のとき follows nouns only, so that must mean that 何さい is strictly speaking a noun or noun phrase. Literally, it doesn't mean "how old" (an adjective, which you might expect from the -い at the end) but more something like "how many years" (a noun phrase).

Three pretty important points, and both the book and our sensei just skipped right over them.

Goed practice site

This is a newspaper for kids:

http://www.asagaku.com/article.html

To be or not to be

After yesterday's lesson, there was much confusion about a verb as simple and basic as 'to be'. Hopefully, this post makes things a bit clearer.

To begin, let's make a clear distinction between two meanings of 'to be':

The auxiliary verb or copula 'to be'. You use this word to say that two properties belong to the same thing.

For example, in 'John is a doctor', you say that the thing that has the property of being named John, also has the property of being a doctor. In 'The book is blue', you say that the thing that is a book is also a thing that is blue.

In short, the stuff on both sides of 'is' refers to the same entity. This is different from a verb like, say, 'punch': In 'Jim punched a doctor', 'Jim' and 'a doctor' are very clearly two different things.

This sense of 'to be' is expressed by the Japanese です.

The existence verb 'to be'. You use this word to say that a certain thing exists. Often, you also say something more about the thing, such as where it exists.

For example, in 'The cat is in the room', you can replace 'is' with 'exists' to create an equivalent, if slightly odd-sounding, sentence. (Compare 'Jim exists a doctor', which is plain wrong.)

This sense of 'is' is also often found with there: 'There's a book that explains this' means 'There exists a book that explains this' or 'A book exists that explains this.'

This sense of 'to be' is expressed by the Japanese ある (for things without a heart) or いる (for things with a heart: animals and people).

Confusingly, ある is also used to mean 'to have'. This sounds weird to us, but it's the product of the Japanese way of saying things in an impersonal way. So the sentence 私は本があります。literally means, 'As for me, there's a book', but what it actually means is 'I have/own a book'.

Fudeuchi-sensei also made a complex diagram showing all the forms of です; I'm reproducing it here in (hopefully) a simpler form.

Tense:	Plain form	Polite form
present positive (is)	だ	です
past positive (was)	だった	でした
present negative (isn't)	ではない	ではありません
past negative (wasn't)	ではなかった	ではありませんでした

In this table, the positive forms seem pretty straightforward: a plain past ending in -ta, a -su ending turning into -shita: this is all similar to a normal verb like たべる (if a bit more irregular).

But the negative forms look decidedly odd: they actually consist of a number of parts:

• で, which we learned is the -te form of です;
• は, which is the particle 'wa', as we can tell from the difference between the character and the pronunciation;
• a form of the verb ある that corresponds to the tense (e.g. ない is the plain present negative of ある, so the plain present negative of です is ではない) .

If you remember this as a basic rule (で＋は＋form of ある), the negative forms are already easier to remember.

As for the literal meaning, that's a bit harder (you can stop reading now if you want ;). We haven't yet encountered the construction "-te form + は", so we don't really know what は means here.

What I think it means literally is something like 'As for (a case of) being X, it doesn't exist' or 'There's no instance of being X'.

For example, これは本ではない breaks down as "this[topic] book be[topic] exist[plain neg]" which you could literally translate as "As for this, it being a book doesn't exist." or "As for this, there's no case of it being a book." which ultimately means, "This isn't a book".

The wonderful world of ～んです

For several lessons now, we've been introduced to ～んです, a replacement for the more direct or more neutral です at the end of a sentence. I just thought I'd summarize what we've learned so far, to help me remember and to have it all in one place.

Meaning

Depending on context (how often do we use that phrase!), the meaning or shade of meaning expressed by ～んです can differ and can be very difficult to translate. Here are the various meanings:

To make a point or to explain something

Example: you are buying an item of clothing for someone, but the one they give is too small. You ask for a bigger one, adding the explanation: これは わたしより たかい んです。If you disregard the ん, the sentence reads simply 'He's taller than me.' Adding the ん makes clear that this is meant to clarify your earlier statement. A good translation would be ,'He's taller than me, you see.'

To politely request information or advice

In this case, the ～んです is often followed by が.

Example: おみやげをかいたいんですが。Without the ん and the が, this would neutrally state 'I want to buy a souvenir'. Adding the ん and the が turns it into an implicit request. The closest English equivalent I could think of was, 'I'm looking for a souvenir' (as opposed to 'I want to buy...').

To ask for an explanation indirectly

This is used when asking a yes/no question rather than an open question ('why', 'how' etc). The two questions can be entirely different.

Example: まいあさこのじかんにくるんですか。Without ん, this means 'Do you come here every morning at this hour?' But using the ん turns it into a polite request for information as to the reason.

The answer to this question would typically also use んです, that is, if you felt a need to explain.

There isn't really an English translation, but in English, stating an observation completely neutrally would have the same effect. In this case, 'You're here early' with a slightly rising pitch.

As a prelude to an invitation

If your invitation comes in two parts: one describing the event you're inviting the other party, and another containing the actual request, then use んです in the first part.

Example: おんせんに　いくんですが、いっしょに　いかが　ですか。 Without ん, this is 'We're going to a hot spring, would you like to come along?' With ん, you sort of cushion the blow of the (perhaps unexpected) request in part 2. There is really no good English equivalent. The closest thing is something like, 'We're going to to a hot spring and I was wondering, would you like to come along?'

Declining an invitation

This is pretty much equivalent to giving an explanation and could equally well be translated by 'you see' at the end.

Example: ざんねんですが、ようじがあるんです。'I'm very sorry, but I have stuff to do, you see.' Another translation could be 'I'm very sorry, but the thing is, I have stuff to do.'

Unfinished sentence

You would use this if the rest of the sentence is either obvious or something you don't want to say (too private, embarrassing etc).

Example: くすりをのんだんですが... 'I drank medicine, but--' (Implied is that it didn't help.)

Japanese TV content

It is true that youtube hosts more than enough Japanese-spoken material. But still I would like to watch Japanese TV channels. However, only NHK premium seems to be available in Europe and it is very costly to receive through satellite (through JSTV). So I've been doing a little digging to find some TV content from Japan.

So far, I've found this site, where you can see links to channels with pre-recorded or live content. Some of the links work better if you just steal the url and open in a new browser. Some, unfortunately, don't work.

Some of the content can be viewed directly on the same site, and some will direct you to the respective website. When I'm directed to an everything-in-japanese page, more often than not I'm lost. Then, the Google translate button comes in very handy (simply drag the language of your choice and drop it onto your bookmark toolbar) . Also a Windows Media Player plug-in will be necessary if you use Firefox like I do.

I have this idea that if I listen to various content diligently, I will crack it one day.

Here are some links that work reliably:

• ChannelJ for travel and culture and amazing traditional crafts/industry content. (Here you can find the same content dubbed in English. It may be useful to watch again in English to see how much of it you were able to catch)
  
• FNN News From The Fuji News Network (fast connection)
  
• Odoroku TV and Seebit TV are particularly good for watching some young people chatting away all the time.
• Sony Music , If you're into J-pop.
• Shop Channel is one of my favourites. It doesn't require much from you to follow and consists of a lot of repetition within the theme.

I will continue updating this post for further links as I find them. I hope this helps in our quest to find entertaining ways to get better at Japanese. New tips are, of course, always welcome!

How far along are we?

I've been thinking some more about how we study Japanese, and how slow the progress are that we're making. I read a comment on a site that sounded very recognizable: a class is as slow as its slowest student. I think we're feeling that in Fudeuchi-sensei's class.
But how slow is our progress, actually? How far are we, and how long will it take us to get to something resembling actual fluency? While it may be a bit depressing to find out, it may also give us some perspective and point out the areas we should focus on.
In some areas of study, it may be hard to estimate how far we are, but in others, there's some good hard figures to be had. This is my impression of where we are:

Reading and writing

Definitely our worst score. We know hiragana and katakana, but to read and write fluently, we need to know some 2000 kanji. In reality we know about 20, a mere 1%.

Speaking and listening

This one is hard to estimate and may vary among us. Personally, I'd say I can pick up about 5% of a given text, and can readily produce about 5% of a coherent sentence.

Verbs

We've learned some 18 different forms of verbs (like the dictionary form, polite past etc) when according to the Japanese Verb Conjugator, the total is something like 47. That makes 38%.

Vocabulary

This depends a bit, but I'd say we know some 300-500 words, when about 3000-5000 words of vocabulary are a rough minimum to be able to process a language more or less fluently. 10%.

Particles

Based on the previous post, we know some 35 uses of particles, when the Particle Workbook lists 178. Score: a little under 20%.

The average percentage (if we weigh all areas of study equally) is 15%. We started studying in September of 2008, which is about 15 months away. That would mean we still have 85% = 85 months away, which means that at this rate of study we'll be fluent in about seven years... I'd love to hear your thoughts about how we can lower that number.

What we should know

Hey there, here's a handy, categorized list of everything discussed in the Japanese for Busy People 1 book (apart from vocabulary).

Writing

1. Hiragana alphabet
2. Katakana alphabet

Speech, sound and social interaction rules

1. Pronunciation
2. Changing sounds in contexts (fun/bun/kun)
3. Bowing
4. Basic daily phrases (hi, bye, sorry, etc)
   
5. Refer to next meeting instead of saying goodbye
6. Levels of politeness
7. Family members: mine and other people's

Nouns, pronouns and noun phrases

1. Nouns are genderless, numberless
2. Gender, number or person of subject does not affect the rest of the sentence
3. Omitting topic
4. Personal pronouns watashi, anata
   
5. -san suffix (Mr/Ms)
   
6. Use of -san over anata
7. -jin suffix (nationality)
8. Demonstrative pronouns: kore/kono, sore/sono, are/ano
9. -go suffix (language)
10. o- prefix (polite)
11. "Noun prepositions": ue, chikaku, naka etc.
12. go- prefix (polite)

Verbs

1. Verb come at the end of a sentence or clause
2. Verb times: only present/future and past exist
3. Polite copula desu
4. Negative polite copula dewa arimasen
5. Past polite copula deshita
6. Negative past polite copula dewa arimasendeshita
7. Polite verb forms: -masu, -masen, -mashita, -masendeshita
8. Meaning of kaerimasu
9. imasu, arimasu
10. Desu as an implicit verb (p. 79)
11. Exhortation: -masen ka, -masho ka, -masho
12. arimasu as have/own
13. -te form
14. Use of -te form as sequence, or as polite command
15. Verb classes: Reg I, Reg II, Irreg
16. -nai form of verbs
17. -naide kudasai: Please do not~
18. Past tense in thanks and apologies, e.g. sumimasendeshita (sorry for what happened)
19. -te imasu (gerund): progressive or habitual
20. -tai: desire (conjugates like an adjective); impolite when used with other

Adjectives

1. Adjectives inflect for time and mood
2. Adjective before noun, before desu
3. -i and -na adjectives
4. Conjugation of -i adjectives for time, mood

Particles

1. Particles (general)
2. Particle wa: Topic marker
3. Particle ka: Question marker
4. Particle no: belonging, affiliation, possession
5. Particle no without noun after it (substantivized genitive): "Jim's", "mine"
6. Particles kara, made
7. Particle mo: also, too
8. Particle ni: direction with movement
9. Particle e: direction
10. Particle ga: grammatical subject used after interrogatives/in case of new info
11. Particles ni + (ar)imasu: existence at
12. Ga vs wa with (ar)imasu: new vs known (roughly 'a' vs 'the')
13. Particle ya: incomplete enumeration (nouns only)
    
14. Particle to: complete enumeration (nouns only)
    
15. Particle yo: please note!
16. Particle mo: anyX, no X
17. Particle goro: approximate point in time (but not period)
18. Particle o: object
19. Particle ni: use with aimasu
20. Particle ni: use as indirect object/receiver
21. Particle de: location of action
22. Particle kara: because
23. Particle ni: to (when giving), from (when receiving)
24. Particle gurai: approximate period, amount etc (but not point in time)
25. Particle de + arimasu: event
26. Particle ga: courteous hesitation between less relevant and more relevant clauses
27. Particle o: indicates point of passage
28. Particle made: as far as
29. Particle o: point of departure (with orimasu, demasu)
30. Particle ni: point of entrance (with norimasu, tsukimasu)
31. -te + Particle mo + ii desu ka: asking permission
32. Particle ga: but
33. Particle ni: for place of residence/employment
34. Double particles vs. replacing particles: de + mo = de mo, wa + mo = mo
35. Particles wa and ga combined: suki, jouzu etc.

Interrogatives

1. Polite interrogative donata
2. Casual interrogative dare
3. Asking origin: doko no

Numbers and time & space

1. Numbers (digits, not amounts)
2. Large numbers: the 4-digit skip (man, oku)
3. Decimal points and fractions (ten and bun)
4. Counters (default and specific)
5. Hours and minutes
6. Gozen/gogo
7. Time: last/this/next day/week/month/year
8. Days of the week
9. Days of the month
10. Month names
11. Cardinal directions (NEWS)
12. Positions and directions: before, ahead, left, right
13. -me suffix: -th
14. -kan counter for time units except months

A new regimen

I don't know how many people out there who are learning Japanese are frustrated by their lack of progress, but I know I am. I've been at this thing for about 2 years now, and I can't even hold up a basic conversation or read a simple piece of text. I didn't think I'd be fluent by now, but I expected things to move faster than this.
What's more, I notice that I keep forgetting the things I'm supposed to already know, like how to make the -て form or words I know I memorized. Obviously, I'm doing something wrong. Part of the problem is that there are many different aspects to this language, each daunting in their own way, which can easily be overwhelming. I tend to want to know the subtleties of a language, but in this case, that's asking for trouble --it's too much to handle. I'm still amazed at how important it is how you learn this language.

In short, I need a new plan.

First, I need to step back and look at what I should know already, and make sure I actually know it. I should know hiragana, but give me a piece of text to read and I'll barely stammer my way through it. I should be able to rattle off my date of birth, but actually, I'll need a minute or two to collect myself, then write it down on a piece of paper and recite it --like a schoolkid doing math with his fingers.

Second, I need to divide and conquer. I've identified the following areas of study:

• Speaking and listening
• Particles
• Vocabulary
• Reading and writing
• Other grammar (verbs, adjectives and so on)

I think it's probably best to study a little bit of all of them every day. All I'll do for now is review; that is, redo stuff I should already know. For the various areas of study, this means the following:

Speaking and listening

Listen to CD tracks from J4BP1 and write down what you hear. Take any piece of (kana) text and read it out loud.

Particles

Find a particle as learned in J4BP1. Find exercises in the Japanese Particle Workbook that test knowledge of this particle. Make those exercises.

Vocabulary

Play with the quizlet for the course 1 vocabulary. Do a smart.fm quiz.

Reading and writing

Find a piece of hiragana text and read it out loud as fast as you can. Read and translate sentences with kanji in them. Draw a few kanji.

Other grammar

Find a reference section from J4BP1. Study a grammar rule. Find an exercise that tests this rule. Do the exercise.

And now the important question: are you with me?

If even animals can do it...

This is a sea lion in Yokohama who can write the kanji for 'tiger', 寅, pronounced とら, in honor of the Year of the Tiger, 2010. So come on people! If a marine animal can learn it, so can we!