Japanese

Ermz, I know a couple of words and such, I'm not very fluent, but I'll see if I can't answer the ones you asked for:

Cat = Neko
Sun = Uhm... Taiyou I think
Moon = Tsukino
Things like that = ???? Hehe, juss bein silly.
What else do I know

Good Afternoon = Konnichiwa
Funny = Okashii
Idiot = Baka
Japan = Nihou
Yes = Hai
No = Ie
Bye = Ja ne ((colloquial))
Friend = Tomodochi
But = Demo
Everyone = minna
Uniform = Fuku
Cute = Kawaii
Cool = Sugoi
What = Nani
Excuse me = Sumimasen
Sorry = (Gomen) Nasai
Please = Douzo

Uhm, that's all I got

Hi moonlady I hope you don't mind...here be a few corrections, some very minor...

Konnichiwa just means hello. There isn't a commonly used way to say "good afternoon" though, so you would indeed just say konnichiwa for that. (Ohayou, pronounced basically like "Ohio", means good morning & konbanwa means good evening.)
Okashii is almost always used with a meaning closer to "strange" than "funny" (omoshiroi, which also means interesting, is usually used for "funny").
Japan = Nihon / Nippon.
Friend = Tomodachi.
Cool (as in stylish) = kakkoii (sugoi means great or amazing).
And last one...Douzo can indeed mean please if you're using it like "by all means" or "please accept this"; however, when saying something like "please do this" or "please gimme that", you'd use kudasai or onegaishimasu instead.

Oh & howdy, Sakura Girl...welcome to Able2know. Lemme see, 2 other people who've been around here before who I know can speak Japanese quite well are Rounin & Mezzie. I haven't seen either one post anything for a while though, not that I've been around much recently either...

Well hello there

A couple of yet more pedantic corrections:

Moon = tsuki (not tsukino)

No = Iie (not ie; the long 'i' sound is important, otherwise the word means "house")

Uniform= seifuku (not fuku; fuku just means regular everyday clothes; "seifuku" can be used for school uniform, company uniform, etc., while military uniform would be "gunpuku"; notice all of them contain "fuku" within them, including "gunpuku", where the 'f' turns into 'p')

Sorry = Gomen (nasai) (not (gomen) nasai; you can drop the "nasai" but not the "gomen")


One final thing. "Okashii" can actually be used to mean "funny", and even as a compliment (I just confirmed this with my wife, because I thought I'd heard it used as such.). If you just say it out of the blue, then like Monger said, it will sound like it means something like "strange", but you don't need too much context to get it to mean "funny". It's usage probably also varies from place to place.

If you have any other questions, let us know! Japanese is a fun and wonderful language

I know

Ichi bon (number one)
Sayonara (bye)
Domo iragato (thank you very much)


I have a japanese dictionary and I'm afraid to use it. Japanese seems to have so many conotations and subtle flavors attached to words.

I went to three years of Japanese school as a young boy, but that was over fifty years ago. Our mother spoke nothing but Japanese, but she's been gone since 1982. I spoke a little to my mother-in-law when she lived with us, but she died last year. I understand more than I can speak the language, so I can watch a Japanese movie and understand the general theme of what's going on. When my wife and I visited Japan last month, we used very little of the language, because we let our buddhist priest leader and our Japanese tour guide do most of the talking. What little I can read of Japanese was very helpful. I can even write my name in kanji.

Sakura Girl, Welcome to A2K. I'm a third generation Japanese American. Our grandfather came to the US in 1893 from Hiroshima. Our grandfather and grandmother had ten children, but five died in infancy. My father was the third son, and he passed away when I was two.

Ichiban very frequently also means "best" or "first", by the way. And if you wanted to add more of the "very much" effect to "thank you" (i.e. make it more formal & more thankful), you should say (domo) arigatougozaimasu. To truly add "very much" to it, you could say "hontoni (domo) arigatougozaimasu". A more casual "thanks" would just be domo.


Moonlady, my guess is that you truncated "tsukino" from tsukinode (moonrise), tsukinoiri (moonset), etc.

Domo, everyone. Karimasu.

You probably mean "wakarimasu", not "karimasu". "Karimasu" means 'borrow', while "wakarimasu" means "I understand", or "I see". Actually, in Japanese, the past tense would be used in this (and most cases): "wakarimashita", meaning "I got it".

ashita indicates the past tense? How about yamashita?

Even I won't touch the obvious puns on 'yamashita', and 'wakarimashita'...

uhoh
the reason I ask is that I have a friend with that last name.

No worries there, littlek. Given that I don't speak Japanese, the puns would have been phonetic, and in English.

oooohhhhhh, I see.

"Yamashita" means bottom of the mountain.

That sounds familiar. She told me the meaning of her name once. But Mezzie had said something about past tenses and his example ended with -ashita.

Ashita means "tomorrow", littlek. I'll leave explaining past tense up to Mezzie, if he feels so inclined, 'coz I'm not an expert at Japanese grammar. I could think up examples but might not be able to explain it.
Yamashita is a common Japanese family name...yama means mountain & shita means beneath or below.

Thanks! Did you leave Japan?

yeah, a few weeks or so ago...

by the way, when reading shita in all of the words using it above, the i is passed over very quickly which makes it pretty much silent.