Welcome to Gaia! ::

I have the kana edition of that book whee heart

Good to have ya sicu!

konbanwa! watashi wa sukoshi nihongo ga hanasemasu ne, demo, chotto heta desu. anoo---- nihongo ga daisuki da yo xd
umm... i'm not really sure if that's right or not, but it's supposed to say something like "good evening! i can speak a little bit of japanese, but, i'm kinda bad at it. um... i love japanese xd "
anyway... sweatdrop this guild sounds cool!! can i join?

in the interests of promoting kanji (kanji is my favorite thing about japanese)



One thing to keep in mind is that sometimes vowels are long, sometimes they're not. If you mix it up, than Uncle (Ojisan) and Grandfather (Ojiisan) will turn into the same thing.

Father: 父（ちち/chichi）お父さん（おとうさん/otousan）
Mother:母（はは/haha）お母さん　（おかあさん/okaasan）
Parents: 両親　（りょうしん/ryoushin）
Grandfather: 祖父（そふ/sofu）お祖父さん（おじいさん/ojiisan）
Grandmother: 祖母（そぼ/sobo）お祖母さん（おばあさん/obaasan）
Grandparens: 祖父母（そふぼ/sofubo)
Uncle: 叔父・伯父（おじ/oji）伯父さん・叔父さん（おじさん/ojisan）
Aunt: 叔母・伯母（おば/oba）伯母さん・叔母さん（おばさん/obasan）
Elder Brother: 兄（あに/ani）お兄さん（おにいさん/oniisan）
Younger Brother: 弟（おとうとotouto）弟さん（おとうとさん/otoutosan）
Elder Sister: 姉（あね/ane）お姉さん（おねえさん/oneesan）
Younger Sister: 妹（いもうと/imouto）妹さん（いもうとさん/imoutosan

More information than you ever wanted to hear:
The deliberate observer will have noticed that there are two ways to write aunt and uncle. Confucian-influenced China is to blame -- the two ways refer to whether the aunt or uncle is older or younger than one's parent. While they are the same in spoken Japanese, they differ when written. 伯 indicates an elder sibling, while 叔 indicates a younger sibling. The two may be combined as 伯叔　（はくしゅく/hakushuku）rendering "uncles," though it is a word rarely appearing in spoken Japanese and you risk being misunderstood.

One must use care with word processors -- while お祖父さん refers to a grandfather, お爺さん, with the same pronunciation, refers to an old man. Similarly, お祖母さん and お婆さん refer to a grandmother and an old woman, respectively.

There are two ways to write "elder sister," 姉 and 姐 (similarly お姉さん and お姐さん). The first way has been designated by the Japanese government as the one for general use, but you may encounter the other character elsewhere. It may also refer to a maidservant.

It is possible to attach the honorific prefix "御(ご・go)" to the word for parents rendering 御両親（ごりょうしん/goryoushin). The honorific prefix means you should use it when referring to someone else's parents, lest you sound arrogant beyond comprenension.

Color Kanji:
It is convenient to divide the colors into nouns and adjectives. The adjectives will take an "i" ending when modifiying nouns, though not necessarily when used as predicate adjectives or when not followed by nouns. I'm not certain of what the rule is for these adjectives -- anyone care to elucdiate?
Noun colors will use the all-purpose noun connector "no" when followed by nouns they are modifying. Other particles may follow depending on sentence construction, however.
Examples of noun adjective usage variance:
庭の花はすべて黄色だ。All the flowers in the garden are yellow.
白や黄色の花が咲いていました。 There where white and yellow flowers..
木の葉は秋には黄色になる。Tree leaves turn yellow in fall.

Adjective Colors:
Red - Aka(i) 赤い
Blue - Ao(i)　青い
Black - Kuro(i)　黒い
White - Shiro(i)　白い

Noun Colors:
Green - Midori (no) 緑の
Yellow - Kiiro(no)　黄色の
Pink - Pinku (no)　ピンクの
Brown - Chairo (no)　茶色の
Grey - Hairo (no)　灰色の
Light blue - Mizuiro (no)　水色の

Non-Standard Readings:
There are two other characters which have the same meaning and reading as the characters above. If you write them, you are technically not wrong, but it is non-standard usage, and you may have to get a Japanese Kanji Dictionary to prove you are right, as they are not taught with these readings in Japanese schools.
blue - aoi - 蒼い - often appears in people's names
red - 紅い - almost never used with this reading, though very frequently with the kun-readings "kurenai, beni" and the on-readings "Kou, Ku."

EDIT: neither of the above readings appear in my kanji dictionary. I rest my defense on the fact that your word processor will list them as options if you enter the readings for them. Somewhere, in some 200 year old thick dictionary used by the word-processor programmers, they must appear, but if you use them for class or something you will most certainly be WRONG unless your sensei happens to be using this same, apocryphal dictionary.

I'll see about a hard and fast rule for the i-type color adjective usage.
whew, that was a long post!

In light of what I had orignally meant for a very short listing of the characters for colors and family to be, it seems a more detailed explanation of character usage might be of use.

Nelson's Japanese-English Character Dictionary lists 5,466 characters in total. Within this set, 1945 have been designated as the "Jouyou Kanji" (general use kanji) by the ministry of education, and they are learned in the first nine years of education in Japan. The other characters are NGU (non general use characters), often referred to as "jouyougai," outside the jouyou set. Some of these characters appear in daily life nonetheless, but no one will blame you if you can't read them.

Matthew's Chinese-English dictionary lists 7,773 characters in total. Technically any of these are also fair game, though outside of the 1945 they are also "jouyougai."

READINGS:
Characters may have any number of readings, and frequently used characters like 下 will have many many readings. The correct reading is determined by context. There are also exceptions, but not so many that the language is utterly incomprensible.

Readings are separated into "Kun" and "On." Kun readings are taken from Japanese words and most frequently appear when characters appear outside of character compounds or in place or personal names. On readings are taken from Chinese and are usually used when characters appear in compounds of two or more. However, since this is not 100%, the only real way to know is to learn the word rather than relying on knowledge of potential readings. Traditionally On readings are written in caps and Kun readings in lower-case.

Some readings themselves are also classified as "jouyougai," meaning they apply to jouyou kanji but are not frequently used. Example: 創め(hajime) is a jouyou character, but the approved readings are "SOU and kura." It is not wrong to write this character for "hajime (begin)," but you will find that many people think you are wrong, and moreover that many people will not be able to read what you write if you over-use jouyougai readings.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing is when several characters share readings and meanings. The example of "hajime" above has the potential writings 創め、始め、and 初め. They all mean "begin, start." Sometimes there is a rule about which to use, for example 初め is used adverbally "in the beginning, at first," while 始め・創め is used as the verb "hajimaru/hajimeru," "to begin." There are a number of books published which describe these rules in Japanese, so clearly it is a difficulty for native speakers of the language as well.

WRITINGS:
Due to the 4000 year history of some characters, multiple ways of writing them have developed. At present, three ways dominate, the traditional character style used in Taiwan, the simplified style used in the PRC, and mix of the two used in Japan. Compare the character for think/remember, in traditional, simplified, and Japanese styles: 覺 觉 覚

The traditional style was used in Japan until post-WW2 language reforms were implemented. Older Japanese people often still use the pre-war style of writing, though younger peope can often read but not write characters in this style. The simplified character set currently used in China is a mystery in Japan.
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While kanji seem like a pain in the butt(ok, kanji make baby jesus cry), they help infinitely in increasing vocabulary as one can understand new words based on their character components. Knowing 飯 means "food" and 晩 means "night" means remembering that 晩飯 means dinner.

Maybe more importantly, some grammer points absolutely necessitate knowing kanji. For example, Japanese verbs are usually divided into three groups, the Ru verbs, the other verbs, and suru/kuru.

However, some of the other verbs also end in "ru," like "kaeru," to return home. If it was a Ru verb, it should be conjugated kaemasu, but the correct way is actually the "other verb" conjugation style, "kaeRImasu."

Why? Because the full definition of a Ru verb is that it ends in "ru" AND has an "i" or an "e" sound (e,ke,ge,se, i, ki, gi, shi, etc) in the okurigana (the kana written after the kanji before the "ru" wink .

The only way to know is to memorize it that way, or to know that Kaeru is in fact written 帰る, and since there is no "e" or "i" sound in the okurigana, but rather the sound is part of the kanji, it must be conjugated "kaerimasu." It's not a big deal for one word, but we all want to learn many, many Japanese words.

Kaemasu would instead refer to a word composed of a kanji, a hiragana "e," and a "ru." There are many words like this, most of them meaning to change (another instance of same word/same meaning differernt characters). I have received many a puzzled expression when i mix them up.

The best way to learn? Pick up a copy of Kenneth Henshall's "A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters" -- he lists all the readings, the etymology of the character (apparantly 避ける sakeru - to avoid - can be broken into components meaning "movement to escape sharp object in a**s), and mnemonic devices to remember the character.

Hey, this is a cool guild. ^^ I would like to join. I have been trying to learn Japanese from books (which didn't get me far at all), anime, and fanfiction that uses little japanese in them. I also think that it might be a good idea to have the japanese words sound it out since some people don't know how to pronouce it.

Edit: but yeah, it would be alot of work huh? ^^;;

Welcome everyone!