Sentence Structure

Hello, people

Wazzaaa? I'm just gonna start off right where I left off in the last post.

Learning Japanese. As a speaker of the English language, it is certainly more difficult than learning a language like Spanish. First of all, the grammar is totally different. In the case of Spanish, you can usually translate word for word and it will mostly make sense. Not so with Japanese. English an Japanese are totally different. You basically have to learn to put sentences together from scratch.

In Japanese sentences are structured "*Subject* *Object* *Verb*", unlike English which is structured "*Subject* *Verb* *Object*." Lemme explain that in a different way for people who are not understanding. In English you would say "the girl drinks water." In Japanese you would say "onnanoko wa mizu o nonde imasu" (おんなのこわみずおのんでいま) which word for word is "Girl *Subject Particle* Water *Object Particle* drink *Verb ending*."

As you can see: totally different. I would love to write more but my friend is calling me and we need to talk about something important. Seeya!

-Neo

Japanese

Hey guys, sup? Yeah its been forevs since I made a blog post. Not that any one actually reads this bullcrap.

So do you know what I've been doing over the summer? Absolutely nothing.

Ok I guess "nothing" is a bit of a hyperbole. I began learning Japanese. I was also gonna start learning Chinese, but I decided I don't have the time for that. I'm going to get my Japanese really good first, then I will work on Chinese. Probably won't start Chinese for a year or two.

So seeing as I've brought this up, i might as well share some of the basics with you

Good Morning
Ohayou gozaimasu (Ohio Go-za-ee-mass)
おはようございます

Good Afternoon
Konnichiwa
こんにちは

Good Evening
Konbanwa
こんばんは


I'll consider writing up some more of these little lessons as I learn. If a native speaker notices any errors, please do not hesitate to correct me.

So I'm sure you guys are wondering how I am learning. I'm learning from multiple sources. I'm learning from several websites like these:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Japanese
http://www.genkienglish.net/genkijapan/menu.htm
http://www.freejapaneselessons.com/
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/
http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/


Of course I'm learning a significant bit from a cool little program (which I'm sure you've all heard about), Rosetta Stone. I'm using V3, and I have to say, I've learned more from it than from all those sites combined. It's really quite amazing, cause it teaches you without translation, so that you learn the same way you learned your first language. Instead of getting translations, you just get pictures. That way you associate the word with what you see in the picture, instead of associating it with the English word.

So you might see something like this:

ねこ
猫
Neko













Anyways, it's a cool program, but mad expensive. (lol I made a typo while typing this, instead of writing "program," I wrote "prorgasm") Japanese Level 1 costs $219 on the official website and Levels 1, 2, and 3 in a a pack together costs $499. But I hear there are places on the internet where you can "buy" it for pretty "cheap" ;)

I'll talk about what I find difficult and what I find easy about learning Japanese in my next blog post, but right now I need to go jogigng so I don't turn into a fatty.


-Neo