Okay, I'll go slower then. One at a time should work better.

Romaji. Have you heard of that word before now?
The letters we are typing right now are western characters.
a, b, c, d, e, f, g... They are western characters.
The original way to write in Japanese is not using these characters, but it is possible to write them in these characters by using Romaji.

Watashi is a Japanese word spelled using western characters, where in Japan it would look like 私.
Wa- ta- shi is how you pronounce it. You will likely have to start learning Japanese by using Romaji.

Does that make sense?

I learned 回 today. :B
How would you use it in a sentence?

ｈｍｍｍ
歩き回わることができますか。

and then I found someone saying this lol
一回死んで生まれ変わって来るのってどう？

Oh okay i understand so far :)

IkuAki- Did you learn it in a counter lesson or in a kanji lesson? ^^
もう一回言ってください。 is another example that uses it as a counter

Krazy- Okay so like, Romaji is what you use when you first first start.
From Romaji you want to transition into Hiragana, Katakana, and basic Kanji.
Romaji is more of a stepping stone into those three. Hiragana and Katakana are very good to learn early in the process.

These three are all saying the same thing. When you know what hiragana and katakana characters are read as, this will make perfect sense to you. Until then, you will only be able to tell how to say it in Romaji. See below.

watashi (romaji)
わたし (hiragana)
ワタシ (katakana)

I don't expect you to understand what those characters are yet, since you are just beginning. But soundwise, it works like this.

wa = わ = ワ
ta = た = タ
shi = し = シ

Soundwise, Hiragana and Katakana are completely equivalent to each other. They have all the same sounds. You will use those sounds and only those sounds in all of Japanese. They are what you might call the alphabet.

Okay i think i still understand :)

So Hiragana and Katakana are the Japanese alphabet. But instead of Aa, Bc, Cc, Dd, Ee sort of alphabet, it is
"A, I, U, E, O,
Ka, Ki, Ku, Ke, Ko,
Sa, Shi, Su, Se, So" sort of alphabet.
There are 46 of these said sounds.

That is what makes up Hiragana and Katakana. A word in Japanese is one or more of these characters. Watashi, for example, is 3 characters. Wa/ Ta/ Shi.

The cool thing about pronunciation in Japanese is that it never changes. Learn the vowels, and you have most of the pronunciation down. I say most because pronouncing "tsu" is hard for some people. Let's see... are there more that there might be trouble with? I can't think of any.

So to start you off, learn the pronunciation of the vowels. It is the same, (a, i, u, e, o). But there is not long and short.
A "ah"...... "ah, what a nice day", "father"
I "ee"...... "please come here", "I want to meet you"
U "oo" ...... "Cows go moo" xD "It's so cruel"
E "eh" ...... "Eh?", "Listen to the lesson"
O "oh" ...... "Oh, I didn't know that was the case.", "I want snow"

Try saying them aloud. ^.^

Okay i still understand and i said them out loud :)

Great ^.^ So now we can go over when they are used and briefly what Kanji is.

Hiragana: Used for Japanese words.

Katakana: Used for words borrowed from another language, and incorporated into Japanese.
Example: nekutai is borrowed from the English word Necktie. It is not spelled/pronounced exactly as "Necktie", because it has to only go by sounds they already have. They already have ne, ku, ta and i so they use that instead.

Try saying it : D **Remember to say the vowels correctly. (a "ah", i "ee", u "oo", e "eh", o "oh")
NE - KU - TA - I (necktie)
MI - RU - KU (milk)
TA - KU - SHI - I (taxi)
O - RE - N - JI (orange)
PI - N - KU (pink)

These words are becoming very common now. It's popular to say words like Westerners (now).
However, most of Japanese is still Hiragana (original Japanese words). It is more important to learn Hiragana first.

(Kanji next. I just decided to make sure this is ok lol)

So i just got to know those vowels i can say japanese 0-0

*is ready for next lesson*

:D Yup!! It's true! I just remembered the other one that might be harder. xD
R's in Japanese .... well. lol. Have you heard of the term "Engrish"? xD It's because throughout several Asian countries, people have difficulty saying "R" and "L" the same as people in America do, even if they have lived in America for years.

In Japan, R ... well. It does not stand alone, for one thing. It is Ra, Ri, Ru, Re, or Ro. But pronouncing R is like a mixture between R, L, and D. xD I'd say closer to L than R. It's like half rolling it : o But besides that and tsu, that knowing vowels cover everything ^.^

Isn't it awesome? : D you already know how to say so much! xP haha. :3 Try saying (&learning) these:
Ni-ho-n-go (Japanese)
E-i-go (English)

And besides that ^.^.....
Kanji is going to be saved for later, but just to give you a simple idea of what it is, they are picture characters.

川 river (kawa)
山 mountain (yama)
木 tree (ki)
口 mouth (kuchi)

Don't they look like their meaning?
That is how basic Kanji works. Kanji is different from Hiragana and Katakana because Kanji is a character showing the meaning. Hiragana and Katakana show how to say it.

To use only Hiragana and Katakana in a sentence is to allow room for homophones/homonyms. The more Kanji you use, the less room you allow for that. It shows FOR SURE what the meaning is. The downside to Kanji is that sometimes they can be complicated, like it's hard to guess what

曜
is just by looking at it. You can pretty much always expect some hiragana in the sentence though. Pure Kanji is something much more common in Chinese.

They do look like they meaning 0-0 and no i never heard of engrish?


*raises hand up*i have a question: in the vowels you showed me i just have to make those sounds and add them up with american sounds 0-0?

Yes, Japanese vowels, and the consonants, except for R, are the same.

Kool *ready for next lesson*

Hiragana : D your Nihongo lesson.

あ: A, "ah"......... has a sideways A at the bottom
い: I, "ee"......... like 2 i's
う: U, "oo"......... has a sideways u

Why do the boxs have to be so small :gonk:

Oh, do they appear as boxes on your computer? Do I need to make them images, instead? I can do that.

If you feel like it please do :D

Okay, I hope this works then. It should be A, I, and U. :vicky:

Okay i see!

Ok hmm :3 do you want more characters, or just practice writing for now?

Could i learn how to write online with the words?

The way to install it depends on if you have a Mac or PC.

This is a post I already made in this thread for PC.

Someone else said they needed a CD, however I don't remember ever needing one, so it might just depend.
The exact wording varies by operating system (XP, Vista, Windows 7) but it's basically the same thing. I have only done it on Mac once (at school) but information is on the internet, I'm sure. It should already be on your computer and ready to apply.

Aww i cant install anything on this computer it will stop :cry:

Originally Posted by strange_dreams_512

IkuAki- Did you learn it in a counter lesson or in a kanji lesson? ^^
もう一回言ってください。 is another example that uses it as a counter

It's in a kanji lesson. I didn't get the first two sentences you posted. XD
ごめん！I was not in the mood for translation. @[email protected] Even though I asked for it, lmao.
I learned 週 today.
What's the difference between 週and 週間?
In my book it says both mean week. O_o