Japanese lesson: The は particle

[gemini_artemis]

Seeing as how I have two friends who are trying to teach themselves Japanese, I thought I should help them keep motivated with posts about the Japanese language. Also, I need to keep myself motivated, too. XD

Comments

[mayurasan]

Totally not boring and definitely useful! I love that you used the name Kiku XD

Also, I thought teacher was written like this? せんせい Are there multiple words or was I mistaken?

Another random question- how do you write in hiragana/katakana with your computer? The word above I found online and just copy and pasted it.

[gemini_artemis]

I'm glad you liked it! If you have any suggestions for future posts, let me know. Like, if you want me to lay off grammar and focus on hiragana/katakana/kanji, or if you want more grammar, or something more cultural, like the several words for "I" and polite/informal language...

Haha, I couldn't resist using that name. XD

That word, せんせい, is used when you're addressing a teacher directly, or talking about the teacher to someone else. Like, "Sensei, I have a question!" or "Sensei gave us a lot of homework today." It's also a honorific for your teacher, like "Honda-sensei" instead of "Honda-san".

I use Linux, which has a program that allows me to type in several scrips (Japanese, Chinese, Cyrillic, etc). I think there's a similar thing for Windows and Mac, but I'm not familiar with it - just Google it and you should find several tutorials. You can also install a Japanese word processor, like NJStar or JWPce (which is free). These are handy because they also come with a dictionary and kanji search features. ^^