Tenses... Oh Dear

So I've been working on my Japanese studies, though at a slower pace because of midterms/finals this month/grad school admissions/other fun stuff.

Today I learned that stuff like です does not mean "It is", but rather is a tense modifier, making a sentence present positive. Growing up, I was always good at reading and writing, but grammar was something I struggled with. I could use it correctly the vast majority of the time from reading so much, but I couldn't tell you what a participle was. I could just tell if a sentence was incorrect and fix it, but not WHY it was incorrect. Apparently I'm going to have to relearn some grammar terms.

です- makes a sentence present positive
でした- makes a sentence past tense
じゃありません- makes a sentence negative (present negative?)
じゃありませんでした- makes a sentence past tense negative

Also, yay particles! o_o

Vocab Words:
じてんしゃ- bicycle
おてあらい- restroom (polite)
みず- water
しお- salt
でんしゃ- train
ちかてつ- subway
せんせい- teacher
ともだち- friend
こどま- child
びょういん- hospital (struggling to pronounce this one, byo-u-i-en?)
くすり- medicine
しごと- work/job
きょうかしょ- textbook
はる- spring
あき- autumn
ふゆ- winter
なつ- summer
ゆき- snow
あめ- rain
こうえん- park
ねこ- cat
つくえ- desk
りんご- apple
さとう- sugar
いぬ- dog
しんぶん- newspaper
しゃしん- picture
じしょ- dictionary
はこ- box

一人- alone, one person

Stop, Grammar Time!

I finished memorizing hiragana, and have moved on to very slowly learning katakana. My main focus lately though has been grammar, since that is where I am in TextFugu.

So far, I've learned that です means "it is" (sort of, the textbook promised we would understand it better later on), and that か at the end of a sentence makes it a question. I can ask　さるですか？ and answer はい、さるです。 (assuming we are talking about my little brother, of course ;)).

Now I'm supposed to read the first 3 kanji learning chapters. Whoa. I didn't expect to be touching kanji for a while, until I had more grammar under my belt at least. It sounds scary and overwhelming from reading what people say about it. O_O;;

Update: Definitely not scared of kanji anymore. It is still overwhelming, but TextFugu explained learning kanji in a way that makes it actually seem possible (I've never been good at memorization, so just the thought of just rote-memorizing thousands of complex kanji made me dizzy).

I knew there was a list of 2,000 kanji commonly used, now I know it named the Joyo Kanji List. :) Also, I think I have an idea of what radicals are, and have started learning 1 and 2-stroke radicals! This whole on-yomi versus kun-yomi thing is a little complicated.

がんばれ、にほん。

More Hiragana Memorization

I haven't posted lately, but that definitely doesn't mean I haven't been studying! I'm still enjoying studying Japanese, both the language and the culture. I have all of the main hiragana down, and pretty much have the dakuten and combination hiragana.

Within a couple more days, I'll start studying katakana! That will open up a huge world of study materials. I have 3 Japanese manga (Sailor Moon, Cardcaptors, and Marmalade Boy, which were recommended as fairly easy reads), and a nice furigana dictionary. I also picked up a couple more textbooks to supplement TextFugu, because I like having the option to read different explanations on a single subject.

Now, my hand is not cramped anymore, so I'll head back to my combo hiragana worksheet.

Lesson Four

Down to the real meat of the lesson, beginning to really memorize hiragana. My text breaks it down by groups of ten(ish). I used Anki flashcards and played a hiragana matching game with the first ten kana. I also did a worksheet by hand, and filled up a sheet of paper writing each one over and over. Hopefully, muscle memory will help me remember the stroke order. I'm planning to run through the flashcards a few more times, maybe play the game, and do the worksheet once more tonight. Then I'm going to set it aside and give my mind a break.

I really want to zoom through this stuff, but I know memorization is something that takes time.

If I can do the worksheet and flashcards tomorrow without looking at my chart, then I'll move on to the next ten. Otherwise I will just keep repeating these ten until I get them down. Must remember that a house built with a poor foundation is inherently unstable. I won't build my 'language house' on sand!

Working on: あいうえおかきくけこ

Lesson Three

I know, I know, I told myself I was done for the day. This stuff is addictive though, especially when the alternative is studying for my upcoming Child Psychology exam. =P

I'm through all of the hiragana except the combo and dakuten. I was actually under the impression that I was supposed to have memorized all of the kana at this point, but apparently this chapter was mostly about pronunciation (sweet, having started memorizing, I'm ahead of the game!). The ら row is kind of hard, by the way, because I don't know if I am pronouncing it correctly. I think one of my cousin's wife is fluent in Japanese, maybe she won't mind letting me know.

Next covered was the dakuten. A dakuten kana is a hiragana with a tiny quotation mark to the right of it. Apparently, that little mark changes the sound of the hiragana. Interesting. The little mark is called a dakuten. Oooh, the は row gets two different kinds of dakuten.

Also, took a quick look at combo hiragana, and ran through all the pronunciations.りゃ and the like were still tough. I also struggled with the dzya column (having trouble making that one show up correctly now).

Onto the reading and writing tomorrow. For now, it is definitely bedtime.

Lesson Two

I spent a lot of time throughout the day yesterday working on memorizing the first five kana:
あ (a)
い (i)
う (u)
え (e)
お (o)
I think I've got them down pretty well to read/say, though I still mix up the first and last sometimes. Got to keep practicing!

The next lesson was about patterns in hiragana. Like na, ta, sa, ka, a row or na ni nu ne no column. I know, I know, I should have written that in hiragana. I haven't quite figured out how yet. So far I've just copy-pasted kana, but I will look that up after the lesson. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll have it figured out somewhat. The next part of the lesson is about exceptions to the pattern.

I'm probably just going to repeat this last lesson over a few times to get it firmly in my head. Lots of memorization to do here. I wonder if there is a Japanese hiragana song, like the ABCs.

EDIT: Found a cute alphabet song for hiragana, so I've been listening to it. It is slightly addictive. Also! こんいちわ！ I can type in Japanese, so no more copy pasting the kana from my lesson. :P Of course, I don't really have much vocab yet. Back to the ABCs... or rather the あいうえおs.