Japanese 1
So I'm back into Japanese and figured I would help track my progress here. Plus, explaining it will help me better understand is. So, why not?
I'm learning from the Basic Kanji Book Vol. 1 which includes the lessons and the exercises (oh yeah). Lesson one HOOO! if you don't know Hiragana, here is a list of the entire hiragana alphabet.
Firstly, we are going to look at a few basic kanji on their own. I will show you the kanji, then how it is pronounced in hiragana, then english in brackets, and THEN the meaning. Let's get started!
日 - ひ (hi) - the sun, a day
月 - つき (tsuki) - the moon, a month
火 - ひ (hi) - fire
水 - みず (mizu) - water
木 - き (ki) - a tree
金 - かね (kane) - gold, money, metal
土 - つち (tsuchi) - ground, earth soil
Now I know it's a bit confusing because some of the kanji look to be pronounced the same, but the truth is for single and very simple kanji like 日 or 木, it will be rare for you to use it and pronounce it on it's own. I'll show you what I mean in the next part.
To create bigger and more compound words, you put several kanji together. An easy example are the days of the week:
日曜日 - にちようび (nichiyoubi) Sunday
月曜日 - げつようび (getsuyoubi) Monday
火曜日 - かようび (kayoubi) Tuesday
水曜日 - すいようび (suiyoubi) Wednesday
木曜日 - もくようび (mokuyoubi) Thursday
金曜日 - きんようび (kinyoubi) Friday
土曜日 - どようび (doyoubi) Saturday
That is just PURE craziness I tell you! None of the kanji kept their original pronunciation after they were placed into the new word. This doesn't always happen, an hopefully I'll find out as I study further how I will be able to tell when it should and shouldn't affect each kanji.
Here are a few more examples:
車 - くるま (kuruma) a car
電車 - でんしゃ (densha) a train
門 - もん (mon) a gate
専門 - せんもn (senmon) a specialty
口 - くち (kuchi) mouth
入口 - いりぐち (iriguchi) an entrance
学 - がく (gaku) study
生きる - いきる (ikiru) to live
学生 - がくせい (gakusei) a student
Well that's it for now. I studied several more kanji than what I have posted here, but it would take quite a bit of time to type them all out here. I'll post more as I learn!
I'm learning from the Basic Kanji Book Vol. 1 which includes the lessons and the exercises (oh yeah). Lesson one HOOO! if you don't know Hiragana, here is a list of the entire hiragana alphabet.
Firstly, we are going to look at a few basic kanji on their own. I will show you the kanji, then how it is pronounced in hiragana, then english in brackets, and THEN the meaning. Let's get started!
日 - ひ (hi) - the sun, a day
月 - つき (tsuki) - the moon, a month
火 - ひ (hi) - fire
水 - みず (mizu) - water
木 - き (ki) - a tree
金 - かね (kane) - gold, money, metal
土 - つち (tsuchi) - ground, earth soil
Now I know it's a bit confusing because some of the kanji look to be pronounced the same, but the truth is for single and very simple kanji like 日 or 木, it will be rare for you to use it and pronounce it on it's own. I'll show you what I mean in the next part.
To create bigger and more compound words, you put several kanji together. An easy example are the days of the week:
日曜日 - にちようび (nichiyoubi) Sunday
月曜日 - げつようび (getsuyoubi) Monday
火曜日 - かようび (kayoubi) Tuesday
水曜日 - すいようび (suiyoubi) Wednesday
木曜日 - もくようび (mokuyoubi) Thursday
金曜日 - きんようび (kinyoubi) Friday
土曜日 - どようび (doyoubi) Saturday
That is just PURE craziness I tell you! None of the kanji kept their original pronunciation after they were placed into the new word. This doesn't always happen, an hopefully I'll find out as I study further how I will be able to tell when it should and shouldn't affect each kanji.
Here are a few more examples:
車 - くるま (kuruma) a car
電車 - でんしゃ (densha) a train
門 - もん (mon) a gate
専門 - せんもn (senmon) a specialty
口 - くち (kuchi) mouth
入口 - いりぐち (iriguchi) an entrance
学 - がく (gaku) study
生きる - いきる (ikiru) to live
学生 - がくせい (gakusei) a student
Well that's it for now. I studied several more kanji than what I have posted here, but it would take quite a bit of time to type them all out here. I'll post more as I learn!