Previous: Lesson 1
Next: TBA

Introduction

Hello and welcome back to the next installment of my blog series about learning basic Japanese! For our next lesson we are jumping right into the "nuts and bolts" if you will and basic grammar and phrases! I encourage anyone who did not read my first blog post to look at it as it explains the Japanese alphabet in detail, gives you info on sites that are useful for memorization, and how to type with Japanese characters on your computer.


Japanese Phrases

We will begin with some basic phrases used in casual speech. I figure most people know some of these so it is a good starting point. A key concept to understanding Japanese is that there is different degrees of politeness in Japanese speech. Generally formal speech is used for classrooms, people you don't know, and people you just met. Polite speech is the default speech in most cases. Then there is a more casual speech, words are shortened and said differently in casual speech. You use casual form only for people who you are close with otherwise you will come across as rude. I will mostly cover the formal speech form in these lessons. Here is some terms and examples of polite and casual form:

Polite:
ohayoo gozaimasu, おはようございます　                      (Good Morning)
konichiwa, こにちは　                                                     (Good Afternoon)
konbanwa, こんばんは　                                                (Good Evening)
oyasumi nasai, おやすみなさい　                                   (Good Night)
sayoonara, さようなら                                                     (It Means "Goodbye" but implies you will not meet for a long time)
arigatoo gozaimasu, ありがとうございます　                  (Thank You)
sumimasen, すみません　                                             (Excuse Me)
hajimemashite, はじめまして　                                      (How Are you?)
yoroshiku onegaishimasu, よろしくおねがいします　     (Nice to Meet you)
iie, いいえ　                                                                   (No)
hai, はい　                                                                     (Yes)
Watashi, わたし　                                                          (I)

Informal:
ohayoo, おはよう　                                                        (Good Morning)
oyasumi, おやすみ　                                                     (Good Night)
arigatoo, ありがとう　                                                     (Thank You)


Forming Sentences

Before we look at Japanese sentences let's first let us go over some English grammar. In English in a sentence there is several parts: the subject, the verb, and the direct object. Let’s take this sentence and use it to show which part is which:

The dog sees the fox.

Dog is the Subject, because it is what/who the sentence is about
Sees is the Verb, because it is what the dog is doing 
Fox is the Direct Object since it is what is being seen

In English we know what is the subject, verb and direct object because they are almost always in the same location in the sentence like this: Subject, Verb, Direct Object. Japanese sentence structure is not as strict as English but there is a preferred structure which goes like Subject, Direct Object, and Verb. The Verb goes at the end in Japanese unlike in English where it is usually between the subject and the direct object. In Japanese the sentence above would look like:

The dog fox sees.

Now you may be saying that sounds confusing which is true but there is something that is used to distinguish the direct object from the subject. The thing that helps mark them is called a Particle. The subject is marked by は or "wa" as it is pronounced, and the direct object is marked with を or "o" (sounds like oh). The particles go directly after the words at the end. Now if you recall my previous lesson you may notice that those 2 symbols were pronounced differently on the chart は was pronounced "ha" and を was pronounces "wo". When those symbols are used for particles in sentences their sound changes but when you use them for normal words they are pronounced like they are on the charts. When you are typing sentences on your computer also you would type "ha" and "wo" to get those particles. So now let’s put those particles in the sentence:

The dogは(wa) foxを(o) sees.

But since this is just a modified English sentence let's see what this would look like in Japanese. Here is the words in Japanese:
inu, いぬ                                                                       (Dog)
kitsune, きつね　                                                          (fox)
mimasu, みます　                                                         (sees)

inu(wa) kitsune(o) mimasu.
いぬは　きつねを　みます。

Normally in Japanese all the symbols are smoshed together with no spacing but for the sake of this lesson I will separate them out so you can see and understand.


Other Particles

There is a few more particles that I will discuss also. If you add か(Ka) at the end of the sentence you are turning it into a question, basically it is like adding a question mark at the end of an English sentence. So if we used our sentence:

The dogは(wa) foxを(o) seesか(ka).
inu(wa) kitsune(o) mimasuka.
いぬは　きつねを　みますか。

We would be asking: "Did the dog see the fox?"

Another Particle is the の (No) particle. This is used to describe possession, in English we use apostrophe "s" like this: "Maria's dog" to show that Maria owns (or possesses if you will) the dog. In Japanese it would be like:

Mariaのdog
Mariasan no inu
マリアさんのいぬ

Another important point is honorifics, which are not exactly particles but they are included after names like particles. In the above sentence I added a "san" after Maria because when you are referring to someone else you should add something called an honorific. Basically an honorific is like "Mr." or "Mrs." in English but in Japanese you are expected to use honorifics for almost everyone. There is many honorifics but I will mostly be using "san" because san refers to your peers basically, other honorifics may be used to describe someone younger than you or your superior. If you do not use honorifics it is considered very rude, you do not need to use honorifics when talking about yourself though. I will not go into much detail with honorifics but you may want to look at the Wikipedia page that lists them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics


Verbs

For starters the most basic verb is です(desu) which is pronounced "des", the u is silent. It means is, am, are, and be. So for example:
I am Dish
Watashi wa Dish desu
わたしはDish です。

We will not get into much verb conjugation( this means that you modify a verb like for example in English from run to ran) in this lesson but I wanted to note something, if you looked up words in say a dictionary they will appear in their verb stem form. You cannot just use verbs in this form and you must conjugate them for sentences. I will cover verbs in the next lesson so I will conjugate the verbs for you guys so you can practice what you just learned. The first word in the next section is the verb stem form and the second part is the conjugated form, please use the conjugated/second one which has masu or ます at the end. Masu is pronounces like "mas" sorta like how desu is pronounced "des".

Verbs:

desu, です　                                                                    (is/am/are/be)

Ru Verbs:
miru-> mimasu, みます　                                                (See)
taberu->tabemasu, たべます　                                       (eat)
neru->nemasu, ねます　                                                (sleep)

U Verbs:
iku->ikimasu,  いくます　                                                 (go)
nomu->nomimasu, のみます　                                       (drink)
hanasu->hanashimasu, はなします　                             (speak)
yomu->yomimasu, よみます　                                        (read)
au->aimasu, あいます　                                                 (meet)
kau->kaimasu, かいます　                                             (to buy)
kaku->kakimasu, かきます　                                          (to write)

Irregular Verbs:
suru->shimasu, します　                                                 (to do)

Nouns:
inu, いぬ　                                                                      (Dog)
watashi, わたし　                                                            (I)
kitsune, きつね　                                                            (Fox)
neko, ねこ　                                                                   (Cat)
hon, ほん　                                                                    (Book)
nihongo, にほんご　                                                      (Japanese Language)
hanbaga, ハンバーガー　                                              (hamburger)
mizu, みず　                                                                  (water)
eiga, えいが　                                                                (movie)
terebe, テレビ　                                                             (T.V/Television)
niku, にく　                                                                    (meat)
jisho, じしょ　                                                                 (dictionary)
ocha, おちゃ　                                                               (tea)


Homework

Use the words I listed and what you have learned about particles to make sentences in the comments. You can lookup nouns if you want to make your own personal sentences but I would hold off on using your own verbs for now since verb conjugation is in the next lesson.