Casual Japanese Conversation

Since grammar is practically important to Japanese language student, I felt it is awkward to speak Japanese.

Hence, I am giving tips for a casual conversation with native Japanese speakers. Achtung! Do no talk like this to a person that new barely know or elderly

i) Loose the general, pronoun like "watashi".
ii) Use gender specific pronoun like "boku", "ore" or "atashi"
iii) Exaggerate by replacing "desu ne" with "da zo-" "da ze"
iv) Loose the need for marker "ha", "ga", "wo" e.g. banana wo taberu becomes "banana taberu"...
v) Use nasal pronunciation e.g "sore desu ga" becomes "sore desu (n)ga"

Any other hints to to share?

from my experience with my Japanese girl friend, she called me X-kun, and I called her Y-chan... But chan can be use to describe younger sister/brother or pet name. kun is usually used by someone with higher status like teachers, bosses, doctors (addressing nurses or apprentices) to address someone lower than herself/himself.

Get a flash card (printed) or flash card program <google "JWPce" follow the link and search for Flash Card program on that page>.

My loose translation

Playing Instructions
What the link to that game please?

This post has been edited by dopodplaya: Jul 26 2006, 06:51 PM

Bu Dong Hua is an advantage when it comes to read a lot Kanji (in context of translation). But, Japanese is Japanese, and Mandarin is Mandarin.

Yes, Benkyou means "study" (noun not verb, add "suru" to make it a verb) in Japanese.

Shall we teach those 80 4kyuu Jouyou Kanji?

Chinese proficiency level 2? or Japanese proficiency for foreigners level 2?
It is more than 1000 Jouyou Kanji for 2kyuu anyways.

This post has been edited by dopodplaya: Aug 10 2006, 07:59 AM

How about basic number, not just any kind of one two three.
We'll look more into the usage - numbering; date - seconds, minutes, days,weeks, months,year; counters; other meanings, onyomi and kunyomi and even some rare pronounciation.

Basic Lessons on Number, Commencing!

Let's start with the basic kun-yomi (the Japanese pronounciations)
For those who already learned Japanese or Chinese, observe the suprise later lessons.

Basic 0 to 10

Suprise no. 1
零 (Kanji, rarely used for number 0) or 〇 (a perfect circle) - zero, rei (rarely used)

一 - ichi (one)
二 - ni (two)
三 - san (three)
四- yon (four)
五- go (five)
六 - roku (six)
七 - nana (seven)
八 - hachi (eight)
九 - kyuu or kuu (nine)
十 - jyuu or ju (ten)

No suprising fact, do you know where the word Yakuza came from?
It's from the numbers 8-9-3 (in total 20, ya = 8, ku = 9, 3 = sa(za))

There is a traditional Japanese card game, where you need to win with 19 face instead of 21 (blackjack). 20 face meaning you are losing the game by one point. Isn't it a disgrace to lose just by one face? Later, Yakuza (8-9-3) is used to described dark, digraced and unfortunate society of Japan, the Yakuza.

Irregular kun-yomi for today - e.g. 三 three = sa or za.
The regular kun-yomi is san (さん).

Tips for today
Be careful, san could also mean (mountain) e.g. 藤山
Fujisan (regular - Fujiyama, Mount Fuji, not Mr. Fuji 藤さん, notice the kana).

For basic Japanese lessons, refer to the start of this thread.

This post has been edited by dopodplaya: Aug 13 2006, 01:13 AM

Thanks for the feedbacks. My post is rather a discussion not a teaching post. I just wonder if nobody replies.
Yes, ichi, ni, san are on-yomi and kun-yomi for ONE, TWO and THREE. However, "yon" is kun-yomi and "shi" is on-yomi, for FOUR. As for "nana" (SEVEN), the on-yomi is "sichi". "Rei" (on-yomi for "zero") usually refers to the jouyou kanji pronounciation, but for counting, "zero"; which has English origin is usually used for conversation/counting.

If there is any request, I'll post more information as soon as possible. Keep this thread alive, mmmkay.

Btw, on-yomi isn't Chinese at all. It does derived Chinese pronounciation, but it is actually Japanese, naturally tailored to suit Japanese tounge.

This post has been edited by dopodplaya: Aug 17 2006, 04:55 PM

Yes, shi-kyuu (1999) and san-kyuu (2000). Didn't take ni-kyuu, because I bailed out UM's Japanese Prepatory Program.

arigatou to Sky.Live. I freaking have no idea on how to continue at the moment but I hope to contribute more in the future.

Hey, any of you otaku here a member of JFKL library?
I am going to register myself as a member but I am wondering the benefits you guys gained from being a member of that library.

Tell me and elaborate some of your past experience if any.

kenka suru na- demo bokura wa tomo-tomo janai na no ne? iikara, hanase tsuzukero!

Oi hentai otoko, dozo~

It's more to higher rank "Master/Lord" than a regular rank "Mr./Mrs.".

You will not dare call the Tenno as "-san" in public, right, since he is the Japanese EMPEROR and bears no family name, right, one11?

Jinmeiyo is the hardest subject for non-native (or even native) Japanese learners.

One hard example is Saionji 西園寺. For someone who have no idea how to pronounce this family name, they could put it as "Nishizonodera" or "Nishisonodera".

What do you think about that?

"Uzai" is actually the corruption of "urusai", related to "jama".