Sorry I haven’t been posting alot. Still getting things sorted with school, and lately I’ve been working alot more. So I just wanted to apologize >.< Anyway, since I haven’t practiced as much, I going to be doing alot of reviewing today!

This, That, That (over there), and Which one.

これはいくらですか。
(kore wa ikura desu ka)
This is how much?

それはいくらですか。
(sore wa ikure desu ka)
That is how much?

あれはいくらですか。
(are wa ikura desu ka)
That (over there) is how much?

どれはさんぜんえんですか。
(dore wa sanzen en desu ka)
Which one is 3000 yen?

このさいふはいくらですか。
(kono saifu wa ikura desu ka)
This wallet is how much?

そのさいふはいくらですか。
(sono saifu wa ikura desu ka)
That wallet is how much?

あのさいふはいくらですか。
(ano saifu wa ikura desu ka)
That wallet (over there) is how much?

どのさいふはさんぜんえんですか。
(dono saifu wa sanzen en desu ka)
Which wallet is 3000 yen?

Ahh, it’s good to have these all in one place. I’ll probably post alot more review posts today. :) Hope it’s helpful.

Remember when we went over “How are you” except it was more literally, “Are you well?” well now we can ask either of the two. Here we go!

いかがですか。
(ikaga desu ka)
How are you?

げんきですか。
(genki desu ka)
Are you well?

See they’re different. :) I’m not 100% on the meaning of “ikaga”, all I know is that phrase means, “How are you?” and now we can ask “How are you?” as well as, “Are you well?” Now how about how to answer.

げんきです。
(genki desu)
I am well.

まあまあです。
(maa maa desu)
I’m okay.

Now remember there was some confusion about what was apprpriate to say when you are going to answer with “I’m not doing well.” Well now I know for sure what it is! :)

げんきじゃありません。
(genki ja arimasen)
I am not well.

See! We just negate “I am well” to mean “I am not well”. Easy right? :)

Now say someone asks “How are you” you respond “I’m well” and to be polite you’d like to ask them in return how they are. Well instead of repeating them and asking “How are you?” you could just end your reply with “And you?” This is very easy. Check it out:

Convo between A and B.

[A]おはようがざいます。
(ohayou gozaimasu)
Good morning.

[B]おはようございます。いかがですか。
(ohayou gozaimasu. ikaga desu ka.)
Good morning. How are you?

[A]げんきです。あなたは。
(genki desu. anata wa.)
I am well. And you?

[B]わたしもげんきです。
(watashi mo genki desu.)
I am also well.

So あなたは(anata wa) means “and you?” Now, the word for “and” is actually not in this sentence, but it is implied, so it doesn’t really need to be used there. Also, I take it you noticed in the last sentence, “mo” in place of where we’d normally put “wa” This is because “mo” means “also” or “too”. All makes sense now right? :)

Hope this was helpful! :D

So in the lessons I just did, I learned how to negate a word or sentence. Now I am unsure of the hiragana spellings for some of these words, but I am going to try to spell them because I think it’d be good practice. If something is mispelled, feel free to correct me, and if I figure out how to spell something, I’ll edit this. Here we go!

Coversation between A and B

[A]すみません。
(sumimasen)
Excuse me.

[B]はい。
(hai)
Yes?

[A]あの、えいごがわかりますか。
(ano, eigo ga wakarimasu ka)
Um, do you understand English?

[B]いいえ。よくわかりません。にほんごがよくわかりますか。
(iie. yoku wakarimasen. nihongo ga yoku wakarimasu ka.)
No. I don’t understand well. Do you understand Japanese well?

[A]はい。にほんごがすこしわかります。でも、まだじょうずじゃありません。
(hai. nihongo ga sukoshi wakarimasu. demo, mada jouzu ja arimasen)
Yes. I understand a little Japanese. But, I’m not very good at it yet.

[B]そうですか。あなたはアメリカじんですか。
(sou desu ka. anata wa amerikajin desu ka.)
Is that so? Are you American?

[A]はい。わたしはアメリカじんです。あなたはにほんじんですか。
(hai. watashi wa amerikajin desu. anata wa nihonjin desu ka)
Yes. I am American. Are you Japanese?

[B]いいえ。わたしはにほんじんじゃありません。
(iie. watashi wa nihonjin ja arimasen)
No. I am not Japanese.

OKAY! THAT was alot! Right? I will elaboarate on other words in a later post, but I’d particularly like to address じゃありません(ja arimasen) This is used to negate something. We first see it at the end of じょうずじゃありません(jouzu ja arimasen), now “jouzu” means skilled, or good at. Negating that would mean to NOT be skilled or NOT good at. So we see it again after わたしはにほんじんじゃありません。(watashi wa nihonjin ja arimasen.) which means “I am not Japanese.” more literally, “I am Japanese not.” this is because if we replace, “ja arimasen” with “desu” it becomes “I am Japanese” Understand? So adding “ja arimasen” at the end rather than “desu” can negate a sentence. There are also words that are sort of combined with this, such as わかりません(wakarimasen) which means to not understand something. This is because わかります(wakarimasu) means to understand. See? :) I admit, it can cause some toung-twisters at first, but it’s helpful.

Hope this was helpful for you guys! :D

So for this, I wont be typing up any hiragana. This is because, I learned this from my audio lessons and am unsure of exact spelling, but I think you can figure the pronunciation out. :)

So to say, “Nice weather isn’t it?” you would say:

i otenki desu ne.
(ee-oh-ten-kee-deh-soo-neh)

And to agree with/respond to this, it would be:

sou desu ne.
(so-u-deh-soo-neh)

*remember sou desu is sort of a “that’s right”, so I figure adding “ne” is kind of like saying “It is, isn’t it?” agreeing that the weather is nice.

However there are obviously times when weather is bad. If you’d like to comment on the weather, and it’s yucky outside, saying “Bad weather isn’t it?” would be:

iyana otenki desu ne.
(ee-yah-nah-oh-ten-kee-deh-soo-neh)

I apologize for not knowing the hiragana for this, but I think it’s a useful conversation phrase to know how to say. I hope this is helpful. :)

I apologize on the lack of post the past 2 days. I’ve been very busy getting ready for college. I should be setting up a meeting with the university’s adviser soon to get started. I majoring in education, and minoring in Japanese studies. I’m really excited! :) I’ll try to get back to regular posts in the next day or so. Hope your studies are going well! :)

すみません。えいごごわかりますか。
(sumimasen. eigo ga wakarimasu ka)
Excuse me. Do you understand English?

いいえ、わかりません。にほんごがわかりますか。
(iie, wakarimasen. nihongo ga wakarimasu ka)
No, I don’t understand. Do you understand Japanese?

はい。すこしわかります。
(hai. sukoshi wakarimasu.)
Yes. I understand a little.

あなたはアメリカじんですか。
(anata wa amerikajin desu ka)
Are you American?

はい。わたしはアメリカじんです。
(hai. watashi wa amerikajin desu)
Yes. I am American.

Okay so there are some new words here. But don’t worry! They’re super easy!

わかります(wakarimasu) means to understand. To negate that (to mean to not understand) you simply make it わかりません(wakarimasen) So “-imasu” negated is “-imasen” Easy right? And just like we’ve mentioned, adding か to the end of a sentence makes a question. So already, that should be clearing up alot about this conversation.

In the vocab post, I had えいご(eigo) which means the English language. And when talking about a language in a sentence, you add が to the end of it. You also probably noticed some Katakana here. :) And I don’t think it’s any less than obvious that アメリカじん(amerikajin) means American. Remember adding じん to a country name, makes it a nationality.

はい is yes, and いいえ is no. Simple right? And last but not least, すこ(sukoshi) means “a little bit”.

So I think this is EXTREMELY helpful! So if you are speaking with someone who is natively Japanese and you want to let them know you are relatively new to the language, you can let them know you only know a little at the moment. If you guys have any questions about this, feel free to ask me. :)

I’m learning so much! I hope you are too! :)

TO ALL MY FOLLOWERS!

I started the Pimsleur Approach language program in Japanese. I HIGHLY recommend this to anyone learning Japanese. After 1 lesson (each lesson is only 30min) I can ask if someone understands English or Japanese, if they are American or Japanese, AND understand and be able to respond to them when they speak back to me! :)

This is an AMAZING program! This is best for learning to SPEAKING Japanese. It’s all audio. No words are shown to you. It is also meant to help reduce the “foreign accent” in your voice. You probably wont sound native, but it’s definitely helpful how they break it down.

The program is VERY expensive, so I recommend using a torrent from ThePirateBay. I hope this is helpful to those of you who use it! :)

We’ve almost covered all of the vocab words already! Isn’t it so exciting! :)

In this, we’ll go over how to use the words for “which one”,”which…”,”who”, and “where”. Here we go! :)

The word for which has 2 forms just like “this” “that” and “that (over there)”.

どれがさんぜんえんですか。
(dore ga sanzen en desu ka)
Which one is 3000 yen?

どのさいふがさんぜんえんですか。
(dono saifu ga sanzen en desu ka)
Which wallet is 3000 yen?

Now remember, because “which” is a question word, we have to use が in place of は But this is pretty easy right? Let’s move on to our next two words. (“who” and “where”)

The word for “who”(which is だれ(dare)) can also be “whose” if we add の. Let’s see:

これはだれのさいふですか。
(kore wa dare no saifu desu ka)
This is whose wallet?

So connecting だれ(dare) to さいふ(saifu) with の turns “who” into “whose” Easy enough. :)

And now for “where” (which is どこ(doko)) Let’s jump right in!

すみません、ゆうびんきょくはどこですか。
(sumimasen, yuubinkyoku wa doko desu ka)
Excuse me, the post office is where?

*ゆうびんきょく(yuubinkyoku) is Post Office.

This is the same sentence structure we’ve been using, so again, I think this is pretty easy to grasp once you know the words. :) Hope this was helpful!

I’ll make sure to add one more post about asking where something is. Because in addition to being able to ask where something is, you need to be able to understand the basic directions given back to you right? :)

So we can say both forms of “this” and “that” and these can more literally mean, “this here with/near me” or “that near/with you” but there is another word to mean away from both speakers.

あれ means “that over there” and it is used in the same way as これ and それ Here’s an example:

これはわたしのさいふです。
This is my wallet.

それはわたしのさいふです。
That is my wallet.

あれはわたしのさいふです。
That (over there) is my wallet.

and there is a corresponding form of あれ just as there is to これ and それ that can be connected to nouns. Here’s the example:

このさいふはいくらですか。
This wallet is how much?

そのさいふはいくらですか。
That wallet is how much?

あのさいふはいくらですか。
That wallet (over there) is how much?

Now, you may have noticed あの has been mentioned before, to mean “Um…” But if you use it like this, it is meant as “that (over there)”

Hope this is helpful. :)