Do you want: Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, Particals, or Phrases?

.....Japanese is a beautiful language. This webmaster has been in Japanese for three years now, and it's not easy either. There are less rules then Spanish, but there is about 5 times as much to remember. There are 46 letters in the Japanese alphabete, an additional 21 variations, three different written alphabets, and roughly 5,000 kanji (1,945 of which one must know by adulthood to be able to read). Much of the Japanese language sounds very, very much alike, and a normal Japanese person speaks 3 or 4 times faster than even Lovre Sensei. There are many words that are the exact same word, but the meaning is taken from the context of the sentence. "Kirai," which means 'hate,' and "kirei" which means 'beautiful' are only one vowel off, imagin if you made a mistake?

.....The Japanese language is a language of consanats and vowels. There are only 7 letters that are not a consenant and then a vowel (for example, "ka," "wa," "ju." These are all consenant-vowel letters). The consenants in Japanese are all hard, and the vowels are, well, special. If you learn to say the vowels correctly you can learn the rest of the alphabete easily.
The vowels of Nihongo (Nihongo, 'knee - hone - go,' means "Japanese language"):
A "ah" (as in 'claw')
I "E" (as if you were reciting the English alphabete) or "ee" (as in 'coffee')
U "oo" (as in 'moo')
E "eh" (as in 'beth')
O "oh" (as in 'oh')  ^.^

Romanji
.....When Japanese is written out using the English alphabete it is called "Romanji," the first of the three alphabetes. Obviously, one would need to learn romanji before they would be able to learn the characters that make up the Japanese alphabetes. The vowel list above is, as can be guessed, Romanji. The further two alphabets have their Romanji counterparts so that you may learn.

(Hiragana)
.....Hiragana is the main Japanese alphabete. It has 46 letters and 21 variations upon those. It is round and graceful, as well as a pleasure to read. There are some letters that look quite a bit alike, so don't get confused. Also, Japanese is written up-to-down and right-to-left. So if you're going to attempt to write a letter, that's how it's done. However, more and more these days Japan is taking on Americanism, so you will see Japanese written left-to-right horizontally sometimes too.


("wo" is actually pronounced "o")
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(Katakana)
.....Katakana is the other alphabete. In the olden days it was used for the emperor only, but today it is used for foreign words added to the Japanese language. "Foruku," for example, is "fork;" "miruku" is "milk;" and "shaawaa" is "shower." Katakana is also used for writing out certain Kanji that is to be spoken in its Chinese form.


("wo" is actually pronounced "o")
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(Kanji)
.....Kanji are the intrakit "pictures" that mean single words. Kanji was not a Japanese invention, up until the 5th century Japan had no written language, they then imported Chinese characters into Japan (the Japanese spoken language is also almost exactly like Korean as well). The two kanji that make up the word "kanji" litterally translates to "Chinese characters." Here are a few basic kanji that one day might come in handy!
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Particals
.....Particals are needed to speak Japanese. They inform the listener of the subject, posession, and question in a sentence. There are a few basic particals that you can learn now.
  Partical no
.....Partical no is a possesive partical. Using it implies that the first noun owns the second noun. It's kind of like an apostraphii.
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  Partical wa (written with "ha" but prounounced "wa")
.....Partical wa is blah blah blah blah blah.
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  Partical ga
.....Partical ga is blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
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  Partical wo (pronounced "o" as in "oh")
.....Partical o is blah blah blah blah.
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  Partical ka
.....Partical ka is blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
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  Partical to
.....Partical to basically just means "And." Also, one could use "ya" inbetween lists where and would be used.
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Phrases
.....Now that you've got a fairly extencive first year knowlage of Japanese, here are a few phrases that might be helpful if you were to ever wake up one day and find youself in Japan. You also have the basic knowlage to pick up a Japanese-English dictionary and begin making sentences of your own!


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