Ohayou gozaimasu. Today I am going to be focusing on Japanese verbs, which is a little advanced if you don't know any Japanese, but since they tend to be confusing to beginners, I will go ahead and teach you common ones now so that you aren't totally lost when we get more into them. This will be a long post because it's hard to summarize Japanese verb patterns, but Japanese verbs themselves are eaaasy compared to Western languages (french, german, spanish), trust me!
You may have heard that Japanese has only two irregular verbs. That is kind of true. There are a handful of verbs that are irregular, but they have a pattern to their irregularity. The two in question, suru (to do) and kuru (to come) are the only ones so highly irregular that they require effort to memorize. The rest consist of 2 categories, godan and ichidan.
Godan verbs end in anything OTHER THAN -iru or -eru.
This includes verbs such as homasu (to speak), aruku (to walk), tsukuru (to make), and many others.
Ichidan verbs are the verbs that DO end in -iru or -eru. Remember: -iru, -eru, Ichidan.
This includes verbs like oshieru (to teach) and taberu (to eat), among others.
HOWEVER... like any other languages, there are exceptions to the ichidan rule... Some verbs that end in -iru & -eru are actually godan verbs. Ignore this for now, I'll teach you some in a later post.
Examples of conjugation:
Watashi wa pan o tabemasu.
I am eating bread.
This is what is known as the 'present-polite' form. For ichidan verbs, adding -masu in the place of the -iru/-eru will make the verb present-polite. Beginners to Japanese should always learn polite forms first, becasue it's kind of difficult to learn when to use polite and when to use casual.
Watashi wa pan o tabemashita.
I ate bread.
This is 'past-polite' form for an ichidan verb. Simply take off the -iru/-eru and replace it with -mashita.
That's all for now everybody, I'll post godan conjugation later!
5.07.2009
LANGUAGE GUIDE 1: BASICS & GREETINGS
The first thing to remember about Japanese is that they speak like Yoda. Optionally, you can watch this for mild amusement and a small explanation by the sexy guy from Tofugu:
We'll go into more detail about this later, but for now it's helpful to know that instead of
S V O (English): I (subject) eat (verb) bread (object) it would be:
S V O (Japanese): Watashi wa (I) pan o (object) tabenai (verb)
if you were wondering, 'wa' defines the subject, and the 'o' connects the object to the verb.
Aside from all that, here are some useful phrases:
Hajimemashite!- Nice to meet you!; not directly translated, but it is a common first greeting for people in Japan.
Watashi wa ____ desu. - I am _(name)_.
Ohayou gozaimasu - good morning; gozaimasu is a 'polite word' and doesn't actually translate into anything in English. So you CAN just say 'ohayou', but generally polite is a better choice.
Konnichi wa! - good afternoon!/hello! *nichi=day
Konban wa! - good evening! *ban=night
Sayounara - good bye; said when leaving for a long time
Mata ne! - see ya! (casual)
(Sore) ga suki. - I like (this). (Sore) can be replaced with anything else you like, e.x. Ichigo ga suki, or "I like strawberries".
(Sore) ga suki ja nai... - I don't like this...; polite form, literally is something like 'I don't like this very much'.
That's all for today, folks(: Next post will probably contain pronunciation tips and some common phrases! And I encourage everybody to check out Tofugu's blog site, http://www.tofugu.com .
We'll go into more detail about this later, but for now it's helpful to know that instead of
S V O (English): I (subject) eat (verb) bread (object) it would be:
S V O (Japanese): Watashi wa (I) pan o (object) tabenai (verb)
if you were wondering, 'wa' defines the subject, and the 'o' connects the object to the verb.
Aside from all that, here are some useful phrases:
Hajimemashite!- Nice to meet you!; not directly translated, but it is a common first greeting for people in Japan.
Watashi wa ____ desu. - I am _(name)_.
Ohayou gozaimasu - good morning; gozaimasu is a 'polite word' and doesn't actually translate into anything in English. So you CAN just say 'ohayou', but generally polite is a better choice.
Konnichi wa! - good afternoon!/hello! *nichi=day
Konban wa! - good evening! *ban=night
Sayounara - good bye; said when leaving for a long time
Mata ne! - see ya! (casual)
(Sore) ga suki. - I like (this). (Sore) can be replaced with anything else you like, e.x. Ichigo ga suki, or "I like strawberries".
(Sore) ga suki ja nai... - I don't like this...; polite form, literally is something like 'I don't like this very much'.
That's all for today, folks(: Next post will probably contain pronunciation tips and some common phrases! And I encourage everybody to check out Tofugu's blog site, http://www.tofugu.com .
KONBAN WA
Hey guys, this is just a little intro in case you're interested in what i intend to do with this blog(:
i'd like to make this a blog all about Japan, with everything the average Otaku wants to know, including things like..
-anime links (to help discover new anime)
-culture guides, info on stuff from kimonos to simple japanese food dishes
-language guide. learn japanese along with me ^_^
-music biographies on popular (or not) japanese bands
-information on japanese celebrities
-other miscellaneous info which i find amusing
so yeah, i hope to eventually have a few people follow me maybe, and at least get some hits :P more posts coming up soon!
i'd like to make this a blog all about Japan, with everything the average Otaku wants to know, including things like..
-anime links (to help discover new anime)
-culture guides, info on stuff from kimonos to simple japanese food dishes
-language guide. learn japanese along with me ^_^
-music biographies on popular (or not) japanese bands
-information on japanese celebrities
-other miscellaneous info which i find amusing
so yeah, i hope to eventually have a few people follow me maybe, and at least get some hits :P more posts coming up soon!
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