#duolingo lessons

[shinyrhinestones]

The fuck do you know?

[zelihatrifles]

Kind of a low bar for her to have such a swagger, no?

[kitsunenonihongo]

DUOLINGO Japanese lesson 5: Basics 1 part 3

Vocabulary:　Tango：　たんご：　単語

Eat:　Taberu:　たべる：　食べる

The: (Like "a" and "an" "the" doesn't exist in Japanese.)

Bread:　Pan:　パン (this is a loan word, so it's written in Katakana)

Drink (verb):　Nomu:　のむ：　飲む

Water:　Mizu:　みず：　水

GRAMMAR：

Okay. We're going to learn a little bit about verbs today. Our verbs are "Taberu" and "Nomu". Right now they are in "Dictionary Form". Technically speaking you can use these verbs in the form their in, but they're informal. So, like, for friends and family members it's fine. Some other native speakers may not mind either, but you'll be a lot better off if you properly conjugate them. Tenses:

Japanese has a couple of different verb conjugations, but the verbs DO NOT conjugate depending on who you're talking about. EG: It doesn't change for "I", "He/she/it", "they", "you", "you (plural)", etc. So you don't have to worry about that.

For right now you'll be dealing with past, present, and future tense. ... which isn't true. Duolingo's レッスン３ (lesson 3)... and a few more lessons past this one... don't even touch past tense. But I'll explain it to you anyway.

So first and foremost. Japanese actually only has 2 tenses. Present and future are mashed together in to one tense.

There's also a continuing action tense... which can be percieved as a present tense of sorts... but it's got some rules and conditions and doesn't apply right this second. So we'll be covering that later.

So back to Past and Present/future tense.

Past tense is "-mashita"

Present/Future tense is "-masu"

Those two are positive endings. They mean you did or are going to do an action. But what if you want to say you didn't or are NOT going to do an action? There are conjugations for those too!

Past negative: "-masendeshita"

Present/Future negative: "-masen"

But before you can tack these on to the end of your verbs you have to manipulate your verbs a little bit depending on how it's dictionary form ends.

There are 3 kinds of verbs.

RU verbs (aka "iru" "eru" verbs)

like the name states these are verbs that end in "ru" (rather 'iru' and 'eru' but I remember them as simply 'ru' verbs)

To conjugate these verbs just pull "ru" off the end and replace it with "-masu", "-mashita", "-masen", or "-masendeshita"

Our lesson today has a "ru" verb. So to conjugate "Taberu" to "eating" "will eat" we remove the "ru" and add "-masu"

Taberu → Tabe → Tabemasu ✓

To change it to "ate" we use the same basic process

Taberu → Tabe　→ tabemashita

"Didn't eat"

Taberu → Tabe → tabemasendeshita

"Am not eating"/"Will not eat"

Taberu → Tabe → tabemasen

-U verbs

These are verbs that end in any consonant with a "u" vowel after it. EG: ku, su, bu, mu, etc.

For these, you replace the "-u" sylable with an "-i" sylable from the same family... if that makes sense. so:

ku → ki

su → shi

bu → bi

mu → mi

Once you've done that you can add "-mashita" or "-masu" Lucky for us, we have one of these verbs in this lesson too! "Nomu"

Nomu → Nomi → Nomimasu (drink/drinks/drinking)

Nomu → Nomi → Nomimashita (drank)

Nomu → Nomi → Nomimasen (am not drinking/will not drink)

Nomu → Nomi　→ Nomimasendeshita (didn't drink)

There are also Hiragana U verbs (tsu verbs as well) and Ireggulars. But I don't want to overwhelm you with grammar right now and what we've covered will get you through this lesson. So again, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!

Let's go ahead and work on sentences now. :)

SENTENCES

I eat:　Watashi wa tabemasu:　わたし　は　たべます：　私は食べます。

We continue to use "wa" 「は」as our particle because the action "eat" (taberu) is not happening to "I". Rather "I" is doing the action.

Yum accidental bad English.

Also remember! You don't HAVE to use pronouns if it's not absolutely necessary so we can remove "Watashi wa" entirely and still have a grammatically correct... erm... sentence...

I eat:　tabemasu:　たべます：　食べます

She drinks:　Kanojo wa nomimasu: かのじょ　は　のみます：　彼女は飲みます

The man drinks:　Otoko wa nomimasu:　おとこ　は　のみます：　男は飲みます

The girl eats:　Joshi wa tabemasu:　じょし　は　たべます：　女子は食べます

She eats an apple:　kanojo wa ringo o tabemasu:　かのじょ　は　りんご　を　たべます：　彼女はりんごを食べます

NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHING!! This is the particle を (wo) sounds like "oh" when it's a particle.

This particle marks objects that are having an action PHYSICALLY acted upon it by a known subject.

This is opposed to "ga" 「が」which marks objects that aren't having an action physically acted upon it... more on that later.

In this case we have "She". "She" is not having an action done to it, but is doing an action, so it gets the partical "Wa" 「は」

The "apple" is physically being acted upon by "she" so it gets the particle "o" を

Then your verb goes on the end.

She eats an apple.

She (wa) apple (o) eats.

Kanojo wa ringo o tabemasu.

かのじょ　は　りんご　を　たべます

彼女はリンゴを食べます。

I eat an apple:　Watashi wa ringo o tabemasu:　わたし　は　りんご　を　たべます：　私はりんごを食べます。

OR

I eat an apple:　Ringo o tabemasu:　りんご　を　たべます：　りんごを食べます。

He drinks water:　Kare wa mizu o nomimasu:　かれ　は　みず　を　のみます：　彼は水を飲みます。

The boy eats bread:　Danshi wa pan o tabemasu:　だんし　は　パン　を　たべます：　男子はパンを食べます。

The woman drinks water:　Onna wa mizu o nomimasu:　おんな　は　みず　を　のみます：　女は水を飲みます。

I think that will keep you busy for a while. @_@ This lesson had a ton of information in it. ^^; I hope your heads aren't spinning!!

(gack! The English for Japanese speakers chains verbs in some example sentences, too. If no one minds I'm not going to teach that right now. This lesson is plenty long enough. If you want to learn it before I get to it you can find a lesson here by Maggie Sensei. Truth be told I'm going to have to learn it too. m(_ _)m ゴメンナサイ )

Happy Learning!

[kitsunenonihongo]

DUOLINGO Japanese Lesson 4: Basics 1 part 2

Vocabulary: Tango:　たんご：　単語

Girl: (Like man, woman, and boy there are a few ways to say "girl")

Onnanoko:　おんなのこ：　女の子

Shoujo:　しょうじょ：　少女

Joshi:　じょし：　女子

↑All of these are interchangable with one another. Use whichever you like. I'll be mixing and matching this lesson.

He：　Kare:　かれ：　彼 (this can also mean "boyfriend" I believe)

Is：　Desu:　です (is/am/are)

She:　Kanojo:　かのじょ：　彼女 (this can also mean "girlfriend" i believe)

An: (Like "A" there is no corrilating Japanese word for this article. Though if you are so inclined you can use the number one and a counter. But for now we'll just ignore it's existence.)

Apple:　Ringo:　りんご

And:　To:　と (This is the version of "And" used in LISTING things. EG: Apple AND Pencil AND Paper. りんご　と　えんぴつ　と　かみ. "ringo to enpitsu to kami")

*と is a particle. Here it acts as "and", so to speak. But it has many other uses in which it does NOT mean "and" or anything close. We will cover those later.

We'll also cover the conjunction (connector for compound sentences) version of "And" later. ^_^

Man and Woman

Dansei to Josei

だんせい　と　じょせい

男性と女性

A man and an apple

Dansei to Ringo

だんせい　と　りんご

男性とりんご

Is he a Man?

GRAMMAR POINT TIME! To form a question in Japanese you add the particle "Ka" 「か」to the end of the sentence! Think of it as an audable questionmark.

Is he a man?

Kare wa otoko desu ka. (lit: He (wa) man is ?)

かれ　は　おとこ　です　か。

彼は男ですか。

She is a girl.

Kanojo wa onnanoko desu.

かのじょ　は　おんなのこ　です。

彼女は女の子です。

I am a girl

Watashi wa shoujo desu.

わたし　は　しょうじょ　です。

私は少女です。

He is a boy.

Kare wa shounen desu.

かれ　は　しょうねん　です。

彼は少年です。

An apple

Ringo

りんご

She is a girl

Kanojo wa joshi desu.

かのじょ　は　じょし　です

彼女　は　女子　です。

Feel like you're starting to get it? :)

A boy and a girl

Danshi to Joshi

だんし　と　じょし

男子と女子

QUICK TIP: I know how tempting it is to use "desu" at the end of every sentence. Do not do this. Desu means is/am/are. So treating "desu" as a sentence ender (like a period) can become really awkward really fast.

Happy learning!

NEXT LESSON

PREVIOUS LESSON

[kitsunenonihongo]

DUOLINGO Japanese Lesson 1: Pronunciation

I thought, hey why not. I've already given all my resources, but sometimes it's still hard to get started. I could point everyone toward my Japanese blog, but all of you here at Duolingo are pretty comfortable with the order that things are taught here and I don't want to mess with that set up if it's working. Blah blah blah.

So the first thing I want to teach is pronunciation and a few basics of the language before I start with the "Basics 1" so to speak.

Okay so first off, unlike in English, Japanese consonants and vowels for the most part don't change sound. They stay pretty consistent. You don't have to deal with pesky silent letters and stuff like that.

Which is partially a lie. Sometimes "u" ends up being silent. Like in "Desu" which is pronounced "Dess" but it's not a very common thing, don't worry. Then there's "ha" and "wo" as particles... but I'll explain that when we get there.

VOWEL SOUNDS

A - ah - as in "father"

I - ee - as in "see"

U - oo - as in "Luke"

E - eh - as in "deck"

O - oh - as in "boat"

CONSONANT SOUNDS

K - like the hard C in "Car" "Cat" or "Can"

G - as in "Gift"

S - as in "Sit"

SH - as in "SHe"

Z - as in "Zoo"

J - as in "Jar"

T - as in "Tell"

CH - as in "CHair"

TS - ... this is weird and I don't remember where I got it... but like the "TS" in "FooTStore"

D - as in "Dog"

N - as in "No"

H - as in "Hat"

F - this one sounds more like an almost close mouthed sigh. More like "Fhoo" not a hard "F" sound.

B - as in "Bat"

P - as in "Pink"

M - as in "Man"

Y - as in "Yes"

R - sounds sort of like "D", "L", and "R" had a baby. Put your tongue right behind your front teeth and close to the roof of your mouth, but don't touch either. Now say "Roo" (or "Rah" or what ever combo you want). Your tongue should (or might) just barely touch the roof of your mouth when you say it. Hear that odd D/L/R mixed sound? That's it!

W - as in "Water"

N - as in "No" (adding this a 2nd time for the lone "N" 「ん」)

GREAT!

Sometimes you'll find a consonant next to "ya" "yu" or "yo" same pronunciation rules apply.

So "Kya" would be the hard C sound as in "Cat" next to the sound "Yah" "K-yah" :)

Sometimes you may find two vowels together they lengthen the sound a little bit:

OU - like the O in "show" but held just a fraction longer.

EI - like the A in "lay"

II - hold the "ee" sound (as in "see") a little longer

AA - hold the "a" sound (as in "father") a little longer

AI - pronounced "eye"

The rest should go on acting as normal:

Example: iie = "ee" + "eh"

I think this lesson has gone on long enough... so that's it for now. If you know a pronunciation I forgot or maybe a mistake I made, let me know! Also feel free to ask any questions Either myself, or someone else familiar with the language will be happy to help you!

Anyone who has something to add, feel free. I want this to be a learning community, not just a teacher and students. Don't be afraid to help others or to even give me new information! I'm still learning too! :) You might teach me something new as well!

Thank you! And good luck!

NEXT LESSON