you refer to your own mother as okaasan when you address her but refer to her as haha when you are talking to others about her.
Likewise, you refer to your brother as ani when you are talking to others but you call him oniisan　when you address him. Nothing has changed regarding this, except that maybe these days some kids may prefer more modern terms like "mama" or affectionate terms like okaachan etc. Perhaps also there is the issue of the perceived decline in language standards and etiquette among the young. Some of my Japanese acquaintances complain that every time they go back home to Japan, they don't understand what the youngsters are saying anymore
I'm not denying what you said, but what you experienced is perhaps partly due to the social environment you are in. Since I tend to deal more with older Japanese, usage of the language tends to be more "correct" in a sense.

It's quite amazing how the rigid social structures of Japan has allowed the language to evolve..
Even by going by just a sentence (and not hearing it spoken), one can almost tell the gender of or how old a person is.
I recall an occasion a Japanese acquaintance related to me the concept of ashi-kun, meshi-kun and honme.
When I related it to another friend of mine (another Japanese), he guessed correctly that whoever taught me those terms was a 30-something OL....

apparently there 3 types of boyfriends:
ashi-kun, meshi-kun and honme

ashi (足）refers to the male friend a girl calls up when she needs someone to fetch her around or take her places.
meshi (飯) refers to the male friend a girl can trust to belanja her makan
honme is the real McCoy, the guy a girl can trust and can pour out her feelings to.

ごめんね。。。。I think it was supposed to be
honne 本音

personally my given name can be converted into a fairly common japanese pronounciation: hidetoshi
(but the kanji will differ a bit from more common variants)

I think usage of -dono is still fairly common in certain corporate environments or in formal or official settings, especially in written form. In my workplace, I occasionally receive emails where the Japanese address each other with "ｘｘ殿"
However, usually this tends to be used by the older Japanese

ちゃうねん。。。

「これは兄（あに）のくるまです。」　の方が正解でしょうが。。。

rules of social standing apply. あに implies the listener is ”outside” the speaker's social circle, which is the typical/logical case here. You use it to refer to "my own elder brother" when talking to someone who is not your family. The usage of honorifics is dependent on the interaction between whether the listener is 目上or目下or of the same social standing, and whether the person is from within or without one's social circle.

e.g. when u address your boss or refer to him when talking to a colleague, lessay...中原部長(Dept Manager(buchou) Nakahara) he is a 目上and you address him thus (as "buchou"). When you speak of him to a customer or client (therefore, an outsider), you only refer to him by his name (Nakahara-san)

similarly, when you talk about your family, you refer to your elder brother as お兄さん within the family, but you refer to him as "兄" without the honorific when talking to an outsider.

shika　(しか) , like dake (だけ) both express the English word "only" as in "I only have 1 dollar”

usage of shika implies a state of lacking, and is used in conjunction with a negative form, as opposed to dake which is more of a neutral state and is used with a positive verb

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test.

there are 4 levels of difficulty, ranging from 4 kyuu (easiest) to 1 kyuu (hardest). Difficulty increases exponentially, and the hardest are 2 kyuu and 1 kyuu. 1 kyuu is roughly the standard of a high school student and a 1 kyuu graduate should be considered competent enough in the language to enter a Japanese university. 2 kyuu is probably the minimum requirement to be able integrate with Japanese society comfortably. 3 kyuu/4 kyuu by comparison, is kacang putih and a typical Malaysian studying the language in a part time course should be able to clear them after 2 years of study, if not quicker.

IINM there will be a change in the frequency as well as the difficulty level of the exam in the next couple of years. For a long time, there were grouses over the once-a-year frequency, as well as the perceived difficulty gap between levels 3 and 2, and especially levels 2 and 1

The first problem will likely be addressed starting next year: there are plans to have the JLPT test 2x a year.

The 2nd problem will be addressed with the addition of another level 5 (5 kyuu) in 2009 or 2010 (I forget when). This will result in the current 4 kyuu and 3 kyuu "downgrading" to 5 and 4 respectively, while the current (old) 2 kyuu will be replaced by a 3 kyuu of slightly less difficulty than the old 2 kyuu and a "new" 2 kyuu that is between the "old" 2 kyuu and the current 1 kyuu in terms of difficulty.

My kanji sux. I last tried level 1 in 2005...didn't pass T_T
The higher one goes, the more kanji one needs to master, and the gulf between level 1 and 2 is huge. That puts non-chinese educated people like me at a distinct disadvantage.
I always seem to do well for the listening, but not the reading or vocab....

This post has been edited by oe_kintaro: Dec 7 2008, 08:12 PM

There are 2 common forms of usage of bakari I can think of:

1. depicts an action that has just been completed

usage: verb plain past form (～た） + bakari

e.g.　さっき食べたばかりです。 sakki tabeta bakari desu

meaning: I just ate (a short while ago)

n.b. that there is another similar form to depict that an action has just completed: verb plain past form (～た） + tokoro

However, the bakari form depicts the completion of action in a much more relative way: When one says "I just ate" as per the example above, the action has taken place in a relatively short period of time (in the speaker's mind) and the actual passage of time is not explicitly implied. When the speaker says he or she just ate, it could have been just 5 mins ago or an hour or two ago, the point being that the speaker doesn't feel hungry.

If one uses the (～た） + tokoro form, the emphasis is more on a time-based scale, and the action described is much more immediate.

2. depict wholly performing only one action

e.g。 遊んでばかりいないで、もっと勉強しなさい。Asonde bakari inaide, motto benkyou shinasai

meaning: Don't just only play around, and please study more!

usage: verb te form (～て） + bakari

This form usually appears in a complaint and typically expresses a degree annoyance.

This post has been edited by oe_kintaro: Dec 10 2008, 06:28 AM

yah ばっかり or ばっか should be considered conversational variants and are fairly common in everyday usage. But generally I would avoid teaching those to newbies
余計なこと教えたら、混乱させてしまうから。 ...

different terms for the same thing wrt verbs, but when I think more about it jishokei is perhaps more specific to verbs whereas futsukei maybe to a larger subset.
edit:

yes, I have confirmed that jishokei is a subset of futsuukei. If you can read japanese this chart makes it clear

http://www.kanjifumi.jp/keyword/fu/futsutai.htm

jishokei refers to positive plain verbs found in the dictionary and is a subset of the plain form


This post has been edited by oe_kintaro: Mar 1 2009, 08:48 AM

It's not a hard R: that's for sure.

it's between l and r and sounds abit like a d as in when one pronounces "better" or "betty". Again this differs from one individual to the other.

It implies events or results moving forward from the present point in time.

usage of "は"
はis pronounced as "wa" when used as a particle, especially in a topic marker function. In all other instances it is pronounced as "ha" by default
The "wa" in konbanwa is a particle in this instance which is why it is commonly written as は. However, in casual communication, it is not uncommon to see even native japanese write こんばんわ

sentence ending particles aka juujoshi 終助詞
If you want to end a sentence with a "wa" sound (i.e. using a sentence-ending particle), the correct particle to use is わ　(take note that this sentence ending is gender specific and is only used in the female form of speech within the context of standard Japanese)

long sounds aka "chou on" or 長音
Long sounds ending with う　are for syllables with base sounds of "u" and "o". This represents a majority of the long sounds for those 2 base sounds.
There are some minor exceptions where お is used together with an "o" but these are few and ought to be memorized (e.g. とおい aka　遠い)
Long sounds whether written as "oo" or "ou" are nothing more than just different romanization schemes and is a just a matter of personal preference.
It doesn't affect the way it sounds or is written in Japanese. Just recognize that different books follow either one of these romanization schemes and adapt accordingly when using.
As a teacher I absolutely dislike using romaji and consider it a necessary evil for the first few chapters. If your language school or teacher is still relying on romaji by the end of the course, I suggest you ditch it before it does permanent harm to your learning of the language.


This post has been edited by oe_kintaro: Mar 11 2010, 12:19 AM

anime / jdrama / jpop etc... whatever floats your boat and keeps your interest in the language. Just having an inquisitive mind and realistic expectations will get you far. Anime features a lot of unrealistic situations that don't apply in real/modern life, and as long as you keep that in mind, you can learn alot while separating the useful from the amusing but impractical.
Watching stuff in raw is a pretty quick way of improving your listening skills but you have to be patient and maybe watch the same thing a few times depending on your skill level.
Last year's JLPT level 1 featured an awesome listening question that only an otaku would have been able to answer

I think he meant the learning processes involved are the same, though the grammar is obviously different.

We all have to learn to read, write, listen, understand the grammar, and master vocabulary in order to learn a language.

Japanese language is relatively easy to learn because of the almost math-like nature of the grammar. In contrast, English is a relatively harder language to learn for a non-native speaker due to the numerous exceptions to the rules.

This post has been edited by oe_kintaro: Mar 16 2010, 05:10 PM