How to study Japanese

How to study Japanese for the first week and why kanji is so cool.

There is spoken language and the written language. Kanji has deep meanings contained within each one. This is much different from what we are expecting, because we have become through continuous use of our own native language, stifled by the alphabet. We can see the meaning of things inside the kanji. Therefore from the get go, we should try to wean ourselves from the temptation to look up words in Romaji to decipher meaning. We should use a dictionary like Sanseido’s daily concise wa-ei jiten.

Week 1

Verbs –
Drink, nomu, 飲む, のむ,
Sleep, neru, 寝る, ねる,
Eat, taberu 食べる,たべる,
Go,
Work hataraku, 働く, はたらく

- Be able to put learned verbs in all their bases. Bases I – V
- create sentences using all base forms from I – V
- Test your created sentences on an actual Nihonjin to make sure they really work.

Nouns:
Coffee, kohi, コーヒ-,
Tea お茶 おちゃ,
milk, water, coca colaコカ-コラ-, sake, Aquarius, beer, juice (ko-hi, o-cha, gyu^nyu^牛乳
ぎゅうにゅう, mizu, koka kora, sake, akuariusuアクアリアス, bi-ruビール, ju-suジュウスウ)

Adjectives – oishiiおいしい, suteki naすてきな, benri naべんりな, okii大きい
おおきい, nagai長い
ながい, samui寒い
さむい
, atsui熱い あつい, chisai, mijikai 短いみじかい

(Delicious, cool, convenient, big, long, cold, hot

, small小さいちいさい, short etc.)
- Adjectives- are fun to play with. Practice putting the adjectives in front of nouns etc

Grammar - Know the masuます, masenません, mashitaました, masen deshitaません でした. etc (polite formations of verbs)
- Become acquainted with the various levels of politeness; humble, honorific, plain form

Example Grammar Construction –

Verb (Base II) + Tai desu = I want to verb - polite form. - Without desu, its plain form or P.F.
~ たい です tai desu

Verb (Base II) + masho^ = Shall we +verb or let’s +verb
ましょう

Pronunciation - (distinguish between long and short vowel sounds) =

Be careful when studying Japanese for the first couple of times to make sure and pay attention to detail. The Romanization methods employed by the various types of Romanization of the Japanese Syllabary should be duly noted. For example in Japanese vowels can extend themselves into their double impressions where two vowels are connected into one yet the true pronunciation will be an elongated double vowel sound.