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Writing Japanese- Lesson 1
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Published: 2008-06-09 02:20:10 +0000 UTC; Views: 38278; Favourites: 1110; Downloads: 697
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Writing 日本語 in Japanese: Lesson 1I prefer this layout much better, don't you?
Well anyway, this is the followup to my previous lesson on how to read romaji
Again, this is just my test to see how it will look. I still think it will be a while before I put these tutorials up regularly. I also wanted to see every-one's opinion on it.
Any suggestions would be great
In the future I plan to include practice worksheets that you can download as PDFs. Flashcards too!
But it's hard to have that sort of thing when the students only know 5 of the hiragana so this lessons has just the explanations. As the lessons go on the methods of practice will become more elaborate. I'll include things like practice words/sentences that you have to translate back and forth between Hiragana and Romaji.
Like I said, any suggestions on what I can do to help improve your studies will be greatly appreciated.
Good luck!
がんばります！
*edit*
Fixed some spelling errors
Related content
Comments: 230
Chinese is still easie for me...
But awesome tutorial!
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How long have you been studying Chinese?
I would say that Chinese is easier if they didn't have the tones 
Tones just throw me off a little
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Since I was super young.... Chinese is supposed to be my mother tongue... ^^
Ahh..I see..
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quick question, when you say top to bottom do you mean that you go to the next line going down every word or every letter, or every sentence.
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you go one line down for every character.
Each character has it's own space.
Does that make sense?
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ues like if you where saying hi (just to make it simple im not going to translate hi.
h
i
like that?
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Yes That is how it goes
So "Hi" which is "Konnichiha"
こ
ん
に
ち
は
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My computer lets me copy and paste Japanese with no blank boxes but I cant write it myself, I have tried and tried to fix it but I don't have an xp disk, anyways can we language exchange, if you have time. I know you already know English but I need some extra help. I have also noticed on japanese websites they write right to left not down the page on the website...?
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Ya I can definitely help.
And as for the direction that text goes, I explain this in my lesson on Kanji.
Traditional Japanese is written vertically (up to down)
However modern western influence has lead to Japanese being written horizontally (Left to right) as well.
Horizontal text is most often seen on websites, some books, advertisements and signs, television,
Vertical text is most often used in official documents and essays, newspapers/magazine articles, advertisements, novels
Does that help? Let me know if you have any more questions. And if you would like to do chat just send me a note and we can trade skype or msn names or something
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I personally find that kanji is the easiest. Maybe because I lived in China for like 2 and a half years now. Anyway, thanks for this! I've been trying to learn Japanese since the beginning of this year (even if it's only halfheartedly ._.), but I haven't been succeeding.
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Ya, it can take a while to learn if your not using it regularly.
That's cool that you've been introduced to Kanji because that definitely helps!
Good luck with your studies
Hope my lessons help
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Sugoi!! I'm learning Japanese.. And was surprised, when I just calculated 5 minutes ago.. That I've already been learning it/ studying it for 2 and 1/2 years. Like- "Naannniiii?!?" was my reaction, lol.
So this was pretty kewl. I have a REALLY tough time remembering the characters tho. >.< So hopefully your stuff will help. I self-taught myself japanese, and I can hold an average conversation with my friend Juanna online. = ) So I MUST be good at it..
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That's awesome! Just keep up with stuff like that.
Even though my Japanese is still just below fluent I get comments about how natural it sounds. And a lot of that "natural" I think was developed from chatting online. Even if your not hard core studying it's amazing how much you can develop through chat.
When I was learning Hiragana, it probably took me 3 months before I started to read and write without constantly looking up characters. Just try to incorporate the characters into your studying and life as much as you can. You'll start becoming fluent with the characters and not even realize it. If you got your computer to type in Japanese you could include Hiragana in your chatting and that would help you even more!
Thanks for the comment. I love to hear about other people and their experiences with the Japanese language
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-One question.
How do you GET your computer to type Japanese. I've tried sites, and nothing.. So do you know how to do it? because I tried about 4 months ago, and failed with results.
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Do you have xp or mac?
Did you see that deviation where I put a list of resources for learning sites? I'm pretty sure there's one on there that explains how to set up your computer for typing Japanese
I'm happy to help if your having trouble
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XP. Always used XP, always will. = )
And uh, I'll check it out [I'm on the laptop right now, but I'm gonna do it to my computer, because this isn't my laptop xD .. ]
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Helpful tutorial is helpful. I'm not doing much this summer, and instead of trying to learn Spanish shut up I know Spanish is suppose to be easy but I just can't do it. again, I'll give Japanese a go.
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From my impression I don't think Spanish is any easier than any other language. They only nice thing about it is probably that they pronounce all of the sounds in a word (so it's easier to read/figure out) and that a lot of the words are similar to our own. That's what I've gathered from hearing from other people about how hard it is.
In any case, I hope you can get a lot of use out of my tutorial!
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Well, I just always get told it's easy by my friend and I have to keep saying "NO IT'S NOT, YOU JUST HAPPEN TO BE MEXICAN AND HAVE GROWN UP AROUND SPANISH DAMNIT." True, spelling always causes me problems.
I liked this lesson, and cannot wait for the next!
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I met this word in moero nekketsu rhythm damashii osu tatakae ouendan 2, it has 4 symbols (i try to explain what did those symbols look like
1st symbol:
looks like 2 T with "-" on top of them 1st T's horizontal line wasn't "straight", 2nd T had "hook" in bottom of it
2nd symbol:
looked just like <
3rd symbol:
looks like L with + and "
4nd symbol:
looks like I but it's not very "tall"
This word has something doing with countdown, cuz after that came words three(san), two(ni), one(ichi) and go (sure)
this is all i know about this, i hope you can help me
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It's very difficult to do this based on the descriptions but tell me if any of these look right.
First Character
行
Second Character
く
Third Character( I couldn't really figure this out)
左
Fourth Character
工
The first and second character, if figured out them correctly, would actually be one word "行く"
Which means "to go"
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I founden the third symbol: ぜ
so the full word should look like this: 行くぜ工
I'm still not sure about that last sybmol cuz it was lower (also while changing wi-fi name in metroid prime hunters there were 工 symbol and pressing some button it changed between smaller and bigger one, so I don't know does size matter)
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The small Character looked like this then right? -> ェ
It's an emphasis on sound.
Basically he's saying "ikuzee!” which is "Let's Gooo!"
Size only really matters for Hiragana and Katakana characters which is that the くぜェ are.
For kanji like 行 they will all be uniform so there shouldn't be any size changes
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YAY!
Now i know what it means
thanks
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no problem.
just to let you know, if you havent aready, at east becomming famiiar with all the characters in my lesson will help you a lot with those kind of things.
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XD thank you for posting this
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lul i know hiragana and katakana but not much kanji yet
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This will help a lot for when I continue to teach myself Japanese. 
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German and Japanese mixed up? that had to be an interesting conversation lol
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It was! The professor was all O___o and my practice partner. XD So I decided to stop J. for a while so that doesn't happen again.
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something about learning a language that seems to mess up your brain. lol
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I does, it makes me dizzy sometimes! XD
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that's pretty funny, but it happens to me sometimes too, though in different languages. I'm Dutch and I'm learning English at school. Sometimes when I get home and start talking to my parents, I unconsciously mix the languages up and don't even notice! Now my mum's all "Yeah, I know you're good at English" everytime I mess up... Other times I just can't seem to find the right Dutch word for something and just use an English word... XD
So basically, I'm mixing up my native language with a foreign language.. lol
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i am learning japanese at school now. we've learned all hiragana and katakana and make short sentences like: i go to school by bike or i eat water melon on sundays. i know about 50 kanji now and they are HORRIBLE 
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I know what you mean.
What helps me is that I focus less on the meaning and find words that the kanji is used in. If you can relate it to a word then it's easier
Also, while it may be a pain that the kanji sometimes look so similar, you can use it to your advantage.
The kanji for time is made up of two separate kanji right?
It's made up of Temple (tera) and Day (hi)
I sometimes make a phrase to help me remember it
like "It's the time of day that I go to the temple"
By remembering that it because a lot easier
I think it gets a little easier the more you learn because you start to learn the patterns and components that make each character.
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hey that is intelligent
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Ya know? This is a LOT easier than my "official" course that I'm taking...
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gosh really?
Are you taking the course at a college?
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Online high school course hosted by a college.
and yes, really!
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Yay! *smiles* lesson #1 is done!!! *runs off into sunset*
I still have a long way to go! but i will learn!!
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do you know how to write what? in japanese...?
I just wanted to know since I don't really know how to write japanese...
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LOL thanks! not at other tutorial i saw before i can see the japanese letters, i also rad the book ''kana de manga'' but i like this one! also i'm weird,strange and black aured,i prefer the kanji to kana(hiragana and katakana) because it's more usefull but it's harder... also i'm OK with kana but i need more practice, thank so much and sorry for wasting you time in this comment!LOLZ!
^^=
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Ah yes the basics, This is so well-written 
P.S. Its cuz im a bad teacher :T *low tolerance for slowness*
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