Welcome back to Japaense Weekly!
Last week the lesson was centered on explanation of new pronunciations and new vocabs. It is a good idea to start learning how to write hiragana. Before you start, go to this website and quiz yourself on hiragana: http://www.easyjapanese.org/kanaquiz.html
The objective of this lesson:
Learn vocabs centering around self-introduction.
Learn numbers and colors.
Learn sentence structures relating to the above vocabs.
Vocabs:
Anata = You (formal)
Shusshin = Hometown/place of origin
~ sai = ~ years-old
Nihon = Japan
Nihonjin = Japanese (people)
Amerika = America
Amerikajin = American (people)
Chuugoku = China
Chuugokujin = Chinese (people)
Kankoku = Korea
Kankokujin = Korean (people)
Igirisu = England
Igirisujin = English/British (people)
Furansu = France
Furansujin = French (people)
Taiwan = Taiwan
Taiwanjin = Taiwanese (people)
Numbers:
1: ichi
2: ni
3: san
4: shi/yon
5: go
6: roku
7: shichi/nana
8: hachi
9: kyuu
10: jyuu
10+: jyuu-[other number here] (for example, 11: jyuu-ichi, 12: jyuu-ni, etc)
20+: ni-jyuu-[other number here]
30+: san-jyuu-[other number here]
40+: yon-jyuu-[other number here]
50+: go-jyuu-[other number here]
60+: roku-jyuu-[other number here]
70+: sichi-jyuu-[other number here]/nana-jyuu-[other number here]
80: hachi-jyuu-[other number here]
90+: kyuu-jyuu-[other number here]
100: hyaku
100+: hyaku-[other number here], 110+: hyaku-jyuu-[other number here], 120 to 190+ are similar.
200, 400-500, 900 are similar to 20, 40, 50, 90 but replace "jyuu" with "hyaku"
300: san-byaku** notice it's byaku!
600: roppyaku
700: nana-hyaku
800: happyaku
1000: sen
8000: hassen
10,000: ichi-man** Japanese (and Asians) have one more of this counter that Western countries don't have. It's ten thousand but they call it "man" instead of "jyuu-sen".
20,000: ni-man, 30,000-90,000 are so on.
And the counter keeps going with "jyuu-man (hundred thousand)", "hyaku-man (million)", and "sen-man (ten million)" until you hit 100,000,000 (hundred million), which is called "oku".
Colors:
Color = iro
Red = aka
Orange = orenji
yellow = kiiro
green = midori
light blue = mizuiro
blue = ao
purple = murasaki
white = shiro
black = kuro
pink = pinku
brown = chairo
golden = kin'iro
silver = gin'iro
So now, you can make a real self-introduction.
Hajimemashite. Watashi ha _______ desu. Watashi no shusshin ha Amerika desu. Watashi ha _______ sai* desu. Kore ha watashi no meishi desu. Douzo Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.
Nice to meet you. I am _________. I'm from America. I am _____ years old. This is my business card. Please regard me with patience.
*For age, there are some exceptions to some numbers:
8: hassai (not hachi-sai)
18: jyuu-hassai (not jyuu-hachi sai)
20+ and so on are the same for any age with 8 in the ones place.
To add a personal touch to the self-introduction:
I like the color blue.
Watashi ha ao ga suki desu.
Notice the new "ga suki" after "ao (blue)".
Here, "ga" is a new particle. It is an adjectival particle used when describing an object. In this case, it is describing the color blue. Describing how? It describes blue with "suki", which means "to like/to favor".
Therefore, this sentence is combining "I am" with "like the color blue", giving you "I like the color blue".
The sentence structure frame is this:
Subject ha Object ga suki desu.
Subject like(s) Object.
Object can be anything; from colors, to food, to people. For you anime lovers, you might have heard this a lot of times when those girl characters confess to their crush. But you might have heard something like this:
Watashi ha ________ kun/san no koto ga suki desu.
"kun" or "san" is the way to address someone, equivalent to "Mr./Ms./Mrs." in English.
"________ kun/san no koto" means "the koto of Mr./Ms./Mrs. ________" since "no" is the possession particle.
"koto" means "thing/matter", so the sentence will literally translate into:
I like the thing of Mr./Ms./Mrs. ___________.
It sounds very weird when translated literally, so generally people understand that "__________ kun/san no koto" means "everything about Mr./Ms./Mrs.____________", and so the sentence's real meaning is:
I like everything about Mr./Ms./Mrs. _____________; or simply: I like Mr./Ms./Mrs. ____________.
So now, in the self-introduction, you can say:
Hajimemashite. Watashi ha _________ desu. Watashi no shusshin ha Amerika desu. Watashi ha _________ sai desu. Watashi ha _______ ga suki desu. Kore ha watashi no meishi desu. Douzo Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu.
Notice this self introduction has a lot of "watashi ha". This gets tiring after a while, and in Japan, it is often that people will omit pronouns altogether because it can be considered (very mildly) offensive to address people with pronouns. Therefore, the self-introduction can be turned into:
Hajimemashite. Watashi ha _________ desu. Shusshin ha Amerika desu. Watashi ha __________ sai desu. ___________ ga suki desu. Kore ha watashi no meishi desu. Douzo Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu.
The people will understand by context that you were referring to yourself.
Speaking of pronouns, I listed up there that "anata" is the formal pronoun for "you"; however, it is usually only used by women (by men in formal occasion when necessary) and often when the women are addressing their husband or someone close to them. It is either kind of intimate or estranging and will sound awkward between two friends. However, when used to a stranger, it is considered okay since it belongs to formal language.
All the other pronouns for "you" can be considered rude and so Japanese people sometimes omit the whole pronoun or address by the person's name directly.
Other "you" pronouns: "kimi" (used by people of higher social/age rank to people of lower rank), "anta" (used by people of higher rank to lower rank and between friends), "omae" (offensive; used mainly by men between close friends and people of higher rank to lower rank), "temee" (extremely offensive; used by men and users are often considered uneducated).
More than often, people of younger age or lower rank don't use "you" pronoun at all, and instead address people of higher rank directly by name and title.
Summary:
New vocabs
Numbers: ichi, ni, san, shi/yon, go, roku, shichi/nana, hachi, kyuu, jyuu, hyaku/byaku/pyaku, sen, man, oku.
Colors
Sentence structure: Subject ha Object ga suki desu (Subject like(s) Object).
Pronoun usage: omission of pronoun use altogether.
Keep working on those hiragana!
