Japanese

welcome back to the states.

'Tis my first time living here, actually. And thanks!

hahaha, well then, I take back the 'back'.

Of course I meant 'wakarimasu.' Fast fingers and slow brain is my only excuse. Besides, I am in no sense fluent in Japanese, just know some of the essential words and expressions. Gomen nasai.

Wow, this thread took off after I went to sleep!

"ashita" (明日） means 'tomorrow', as Monger mentioned. The characters literally mean "bright day/sun", and they are not used phonetically, so you can't pronounce each individual character in the compound; they are pronounced as a unit.

Verbs

present polite ending = -masu
past polite ending = -mashita

examples:

'go' = ikimasu; 'went' = ikimashita
'do' = shimasu; 'did' = shimashita
'eat' = tabemasu; 'ate' = tabemashita

As I mentioned in my last post, the tense you choose in Japanese doesn't always match the one you'd use in English! So saying "wakarimasu" instead of "wakarimashita" is a definite sign of a foreigner!

Names

'Yamashita' (山下）literally means 'under/below/bottom of the mountain', but it really means 'at the foot of the mountain'. A lot of Japanese family names are geographic in nature, so you can imagine why Yamashita is such a common surname. That's where a lot of people live!

Other common names:
Suzuki （鈴木）= literally "bell tree"
Yamada （山田）= "mountain field"
Satoh (佐藤） = literally "help wisteria", used phonetically

And my wife's family name (and also the name of a prefecture in Japan) is
Yamanashi (山梨） = "mountain pear"

If you ever see Japanese pears ("nashi") in the grocery store, try one! They're delicious.

Characters

For anyone interested, here are some basic characters:

山 - yama - mountain
人 - hito - person
田 - ta/da - field
川 - kawa - river
力 - chikara - power
男 - otoko - man (notice it's a combination of 田 and 力)
女 - onna - woman
日 - hi - day/sun (you can call the sun o-hi-sama, literally "honorable sun")
月 - tsuki - moon

And if you ever watch anime and have seen Ultimate Muscle, or Kinnikuman, or what ever it's called, Kid Muscle has a glowing character on his forehead 肉, that literally means "meat", but is part of the compound kinniku 筋肉 ("tendon meat") which means "muscle".

aaaw, can't see the characters! I like that character , "meat", sounds like a good tattoo.

If you can't see the characters and you're using IE, you can right click on the text, choose "encode" and then try one of the Japanese options (there are usually 3). It might ask if you want to download the language pack (Win 2000), or you might already have it (Windows XP). It takes about 30 seconds to download.

If you're using Mozilla Firefox or Mozilla, or Netscape, you can go to "View"-"character coding", and then choose a Japanese option.

I need to insert a disc..... I'll figure it out later..... thanks mezzie!

Now, I know where your avatar is from! Spirited Away! I loved that character!

Wanna know where I picked up some of the Japanese phrases I know? Well, I'll tell you anyway. Reading James Clavell's Shogun years ago, that's where. I picked up some basic Tex/Mex Spanish watching the Cisco Kid on TV. It's amazing how much you can learn if you pay attention! I'll not forget the difference between -masu and -mashita in the future.

MA, I used to have a autographed copy of Shogun until I lent it to my brother-in-law. ;(

What will be the best way of learning Japanese?

I will really like to learn it.

Look at this thread http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=25167&highlight= and take mezzie's advice. He's my brother, by the way.

Cool, thank you Cav!

hey hey hey... i took a year of japanese in college and i'd like to learn more... unfortunately, it's hard to do with work and all... any suggestions? anyone know of any good japanese story books for children? hahaha.

USAFHokie, Welcome to A2K. I knew several good Japanese story books for children, but they disappeared from my brain. I'll post again if I remember, but I'm sure some of the others can name some for you.