だれ - Who
なに／なん - What

Doing the review then I'll be done with Season 1 of TextFugu! :)

Particles and Other Notes

Latest lessons have been focused on learning how to use the particle は. Not quite as scary as I had imagined.

Also, I've started All Japanese All The Time's SilverSpoon program. I'm on Day 15 or so, and I'm enjoying all the material. Found a copy of Remember the Kanji and started with the lessons there too, though pretty slowly (a lesson every couple days).

Current lesson:
これ- This (things in possession of the speaker)
それ- That (things in possession of the person you are talking to)
あれ- That (Over There) (not in the possession of the speaker or the person you are talking to)
なに and なん- What

Note of Reminder

わたし- standard way to say "I"
あなた- standard way to say "you"

I actually really like all the different ways to say "I" and "you". I like options. :)

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.