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'.