Murasaki and Daidaiiro

Okay, I have been self studying Japanese (Nihongo - 日本語) for more or less 3 years now. I have not been able to continuously study though because of other things I have to worry about my life. But starting today I would again study right at the beginning to fully ingrain all the lessons to my head. During that time I was able to learn some basic sentences structures (how to make japanese sentences, they really are different from English and other languages, It's like studying math formulas). I was able to fully memorized Katakana, Hiragana and about 500 Kanji's. I want to create this blog to share my progress (and to motivate me) and also to provide some little help to those people who wanted to learn 日本語 too.

I first studied how to make sentence structures and stuff but really it was of no use if you don't know the words so it was my mistake. The very first things that you people would want to learn is their "ALPHABET" called KATAKANA and HIRAGANA. Hiragana and Katakana are virtually the same. Katakana is used for foreign or borrowed words. (e.g. ハンタｘハンタ - Hunter x Hunter, Hunter is a foreign word). This is the primary building blocks of learning Nihongo and it would take you about a week or two to learn both Katakana and Hiragana. Easy right?

Here is a chart i got from www.fanpop.com:

Besides that chart u can also add modifiers:

1.Double Apostrophe:

For the
　　 Ka, Ke, Ki, Ko, Ku
Hiragana （か、け、き、こ、く）
Katakana （カ、ケ、キ、コ、ク）

adding double apostrophe will convert them to:

　　　 Ga, Ge, Gi, Go, Gu
Hiragana （が、げ、ぎ、ご、ぐ）
Katakana　（ガ、ゲ、ギ、ゴ、グ）

The double apostrophe applies to these:

Ka, Ke, Ki, Ko, Ku becomes Ga, Ge, Gi, Go, Gu
Sa, Se, Shi, So, Su becomes Za, Ze, Ji, Zo, Zu
Ta, Te, Chi, To, Tsu becomes Da, De, Ji, Do, Zu
Ha, He, Hi, Ho, Fu becomes Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu

2.Small Circle:

Besides the double apostrophe we have a the small circle which only applies to:

　　 Ha, He, Hi, Ho, Fu
　　（は、へ、ひ、ほ、ふ）
（ハ、ヘ、ヒ、ホ、フ）

adding a small circle will convert them to:

　　　Pa, Pe, Pi, Po, Pu
（ぱ、ぺ、ぴ、ぽ、ぷ）
　　（パ、ペ、ピ、ポ、プ）

3. Combining "I" vowels with "small" ヤ（や）Ya, ヨ（よ）Yo and ユ（ゆ）Yu:

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　(add a small Ya, Yo or Yu)
Ki キ（き）　 = Kya キャ（きゃ）、Kyo キョ（きょ）、Kyu キュ（きゅ）
Shi シ（し）　 = Sha シャ（しゃ）、Sho ショ（しょ）、Shu シュ（しゅ）
Chi チ（ち）　 = Cha チャ　（ちゃ）、Cho チョ（ちょ）、Chu チュ（ちゅ）

You can add small Ya,Yo,Yu to all I vowel characters:

Ki　= kya, kyo, kyu
Shi　= sha, sho, shu
Chi　= cha, cho, chu
Ni　= nya, nyo, nyu
Hi　= hya, hyo, hyu
Mi = mya, myo, myu
Ri = rya, ryo, ryu
Gi = gya, gyo, gyu
Ji　 = ja, jo, ju
Ji　 = ja, jo, ju
Bi = bya, byo, byu
Pi = pya, pyo, pyu

4. the small　ツ（つ）tsu

If 　ばき　 = Baki 　（reads as Ba.Ki）

then adding a small tsu between the characters makes it (always inserted between two characters)

ばっき　= Bakki (reads as Bak.Ki)

another example

もと　　= Moto (Mo.To)
もっと = Motto (Mot.To)

5. Prolonged Sound or Long Vowel by adding A, I and U.

For ア（あ）vowel sounds　 add ア（あ）
For エ（え）and イ（い） add イ（い）
For オ（お）and ウ（う） add ウ（う）

Examples:
ぱた　=　Pa.ta.
ぱたあ　= Pa.Taa~ (you don't read it as Pa.Ta.A.)
ぱあた = Paa~.Ta (you don't read it as Pa. A. Ta.)

So these are the basics of Hiragana and Katakana. Just study for a week or two. A good tip i have learned is that never study translate in your head. Make the character pure in your head. For example if you saw まこと and you translate each character (Ma... Ko... To...) then it'll take too much time and it is a bad habit. Make this characters as pure as they can be in your head, don't think about any English letters or stuff, just this characters when studying Japanese. Never translate.

Another tip. Use flash card programs or just plain real cards to learn these characters. and WRITE them. again and again and again, it'll help in memorizing and It'll be better if you can read and write.

I hope you guys learned something from a Bad teacher like me lol. I'm primarily doing this for my own benefit though so i get inspired learning again but i do hope it helps other people. Next time i'll be posting about Kanji's, Cya (^_^)/