How to Speak Japanese

Konnichiwa, minnasan! If you've watched enough anime or spent some time surfing the fanweb, you probably already know what that means, and you've likely picked up quite a few other words, too. That's a good start, if you've got it, but we're going to go a bit farther here--these are some real lessons if you really want to speak some Japanese.
Since this isn't just a simple phrasebook, it's going to take more than just skimming over these lessons to get anything out of them--the examples may be silly, but the learnin' is real. You're going to have to read carefully, talk to yourself (make sure you're alone--people probably think you're weird enough already), and actually spend time thinking.
Just like homework, only with any luck you'll enjoy this more.
A few warnings, so you're good and scared before you start:
Japanese is not an easy language. It's not a terribly difficult language, either (try Chinese for that), but the grammar is different, and most words are very different from English and other European languages.
It's going to be a while before you can actually do anything useful. Learning a language is always like that--to most people, everything is very confusing at first, but at some point things start to stick. That can take a while, though.
Although these are real Japanese lessons, they're not necessarily good ones. They are, however, free, and they should be a lot more fun than the standard "This is a Pen." and "My name is Smith." stuff. If you're serious about learning Japanese, you should probably go take a class at your local community college, or at least buy a professional book.
Are you quaking in abject terror, shaken to the very core of your being? Ok, so it's not that bad. Here's an index of what's available so far; Lesson 1 is mainly if you want to try speaking the language, so if you'd rather just start with grammar, you can skip to Lesson 2.

Lesson 1

Before we even get started with grammar, let's get ourselves a little more familiar with how the Japanese language works. If you already know how to pronounce Japanese or you're itching to get started with some grammar (or you just don't care about speaking), you can skip to lesson 2 and come back if you need to. Otherwise, we're going to start with the foundation.
Syllables
The first thing that's good to know (and you may already) is that Japanese is made up of individual syllables, each of which is one specific sound. Here's an example word (and complete sentence, in the right situation):
"Hentai!" ("Pervert!")
This word has 4 syllables: "he" "n" "ta" and "i".
Japanese syllables are a good thing. Why? There is exactly one, and only one, way to pronounce each of them. Since words are made up of these sounds--and only these sounds--once you can pronounce the sounds right, you can pronounce everything right. The "ta" in "hentai" sounds exactly the same as it does in "tasukete", as well as any other word with a "ta" in it. Best of all, for the purposes of these lessons, there will also be one and only one way to write each of those sounds. No funky spelling to learn--rejoice.
Pronunciation
Without further ado, here's a great big list of how to pronounce everything. The syllable is in bold on top, and an English word with a similar sound is underneath, with the important part of the word underlined. The only general tip is that all of these sounds are short and tight--don't draw any of the vowels out (for example, don't say "Boooo", just a short little "bu"). If you happen to speak Spanish, you're in luck, because a lot of them sound quite a bit like Spanish sounds (except no rolling the "r"). Even if you don't speak Spanish, there are notes about some of the trickier sounds at the bottom.
Vowels
afather
itea
utube
elet
oload
These are very important, since all the other sounds are based on them, so work at getting them right. Remember: It's "a" as in "are", "i" as in "weak", "u" like the end of "you" (or better yet, "uber"), "e" as in the end of a Canadian sentence (or "let"), and "o" like "Oh." (or "load").
If you really need a mnemonic, try to imagine a Canadian Yoda: "Oh, weak are you, eh?"
Consonant + Vowels
kacar
kikey
kucool
keKelly
kocourt
saLisa
shishe
suSue
seset
soso
tatar
chicheer
tsuthat's (+u)
teTed
totoe
na"Naw..."
niknee
nunew
nenet
nono
ha"Ha, ha, ha!"
hihe
fufood or who
hehead
ho"Ho, ho, ho!"
mamama
mime
mu"Moo"
memet
momotor
yayard
-
yuyou
-
yo"Yo!"
ra-
ri-
ru-
re-
ro-
gaguard
gigear
gugoo
geghetto
gogo
zaCzar
-
zuzoo
zezed
zozone
jajar
jijeans
jujuicy
-
joJoe
da"Ta dah!"
-
-
dedead
dodough
ba"Bah!"
bibee
bu"Boo!"
bebet
boboat
papapa
piPeter
pupoodle
pepet
popoem
All these sounds, which are most of what's left, are just a hard sound with a vowel at the end, and they're almost all pronounced pretty much how they look. Here are some finer points, but you don't need them to get pretty darned close.
KA, KI, KU, KE, KO
Just a run of the mill "k" sound.
SA, SHI, SU, SE, SO
Same as an English "s" sound, with "shi" being like the word "she".
TA, CHI, TSU, TE, TO
"Ta", "te", and "to" are pretty easy (remember that "to" sounds like "toe", not "too", though). "Chi" sounds like... well, "chi" in "Tai Chi", or the beginning of "Cheech and Chong". Tsu is just a tad more tricky... if you have trouble try sticking a "u" onto the end of the "ts" sound in "that's". If that doesn't help, fake it.
NA, NI, NU, NE, NO
"No" sounds like the English word, and the others all have the same "n" sound. Be careful with the spelling, though--"ni" sounds like "knee" and "ne" sounds like "net" without the "t".
HA, HI, FU, HE, HO
The sounds are simple, but watch out for more confusing spelling; "Ha" and "ho" sound like somebody laughing, "hi" sounds like the English word "he" (not like "Hi, how's it hanging!"), and a Japanese "he" sounds like "head" with no "d". "Fu" is sometimes written "hu", but even though it's a little softer than an English "f" (don't touch your teeth with your lower lip), it probably sounds more like an "f"--think "food".
MA, MI, MU, ME, MO
Just an "m" sound, but watch the spelling again--"mi" sounds like the English "me", while the Japanese "me" sounds like the "me" in "medicine". "Ma" is like "Mama!", "mu" is like the sound a cow makes, and "mo" is like the Stooge.
YA, YU, YO
"Yo!" (like Sylvester Stallone). There is no "yi" or "ye"--in fact, most Japanese people can't even say "yi" (but it's fun to watch them try).
RA, RI, RU, RE, RO
Ah, here's the hard one; this is where the Japanese get revenge for all the English sounds they can't pronounce properly. We may write it with an "r", but it sounds like exactly equal parts "R", "L", and "D"--kind of like a "D", but you flick your tongue against the same bumpy part at the top of your mouth you hit with an "L". Try listening to somebody say it on a video, but don't worry too much--an English "Rah!" or "row" sound works well enough.
GA, GI, GU, GE, GO
All of these are more or less (don't worry about the details yet) a hard "g" sound.
ZA, ZU, ZE, ZO
The Japanese "z" sound is a little more like a "tz", but it's not a big deal--saying "zu" like "zoo" is fine, for example.
JA, JI, JU, JO
Just "j" sounds.
DA, DE, DO
Nice easy "d" sound; watch the spelling on "de", which sounds like "dead", and "do" which is like "Dodo" (the bird), not the english word "do".
BA, BI, BU, BE, BO
All easy "b" sounds; "ba" like the sound a sheep makes, "bi" like the bug that stings you, "bu" like the sound a ghost makes, "bo" like the girl who herds the sheep, and "be" like the word "bet".
PA, PI, PU, PE, PO
Again, just "p" sounds. And yes, they sound like children's words for bodily functions. Deal with it.
Freaky Extra Sounds
wawater
wo"Woah!"
ndim/din
These three syllables are the odd men out.
WA
Sounds exactly like the start of "water"
WO
Also written just "o" sometimes, it is like a stiff version of "Woah, dude." This is the only sound that doesn't show up in words--it's always alone (you'll see where later).
N
This n-ish sound can come out sounding like an "m" or "n" depending on where it is in the word, but an "n" sound works pretty well (it more or less comes out as an "m" when it's easer to say that sound, like right before a "b" sound).
Combination Sounds
Those are all the basic sounds, but here are a few more. This collection of sounds is a combination of one of the consonant sounds above, with a "ya" "yu" or "yo" stuck onto the end. Many don't have a good English equivalent, but for example "ki" + "yu" = "kyu", which sounds like "cute", and "mi" + "ya" = "mya", which is the sound Ryoohki makes. Here's 'yer full list:
kya
kyu
kyo
gya
gyu
gyo
sha
shu
sho
cha
chu
cho
nya
nyu
nyo
hya
hyu
hyo
bya
byu
byo
pya
pyu
pyo
mya
myu
myo
rya
ryu
ryo
Conclusion
And that's everything. If you don't remember how to say any of them, that's ok--just keep checking the list or listening to subtitled anime until they stick.
Once you're feeling ready to absorb more, part two of this lesson will offer a bit more on how to properly pronounce words and sentences, and how the writing works. Go for it... you know you want to.


Now that you've completely mastered how to pronounce all those syllables (actually, don't worry if you haven't--it can take a while to get the hang of them), it's time to learn how to put some of them together and pronounce some words.
Accent
The Japanese accent is easy to learn, because there isn't one.
Once you've got all the sounds floating around in your head, putting them together into words is easy. Just remember: all syllables are created equal. There isn't an accent on the beginning, middle, or end of a word--just nice and even. Every syllable in a word also gets exactly the same amount of time (including short-looking ones like "i" or long-looking ones like "kyo").
It's not too hard to notice if you listen to some anime, but try it for yourself: It's "he-n-ta-i", not "hen tai" or "hen tai".
Long Vowels
The only time this gets tricky at all is with (cue evil music) "long vowels." All that really means is that you put two of the same vowel sound together, so it takes twice as long in the word. You (or rather I) will be writing these with (surprise, surprise) two of the same letter.
For example:
"Ryooko"
That "oo" in there sounds like a long "oh" sound in the middle, exactly twice as long as a regular "o" sound. It's not an "ooh" (as in "dude") sound, so don't get confused. Another example: "ookii" ("big"). That would be two "o" sounds plus a "ki" plus one more "i" sound. The result is a long "o" and a long "i" with a "k" in the middle.
Two more notes: One, "oo" is also sometimes written "oh" or "ou" or even as an o with a hat on it (ô) or a line over it. They're all correct, but I'll just stick to "oo". And just in case you were wondering how important this is, remember these two words: "Ryooko" and "ryokoo". The first one is the name of a friendly space pirate, while the second one means "trip".
Sentences
Now you know that words are pronounced with a nice, even, non-accent. How about sentences? Even easier, because it's close enough to English to not worry about too much. Sentences that are questions go up at the end, sentences that are statements go down a little bit at the end, sarcasm sounds pretty much like English (that may be a universal language, in fact), and that's about all you need to know for now.
Double... Not Vowels?
There's just one more thing to learn about pronunciation, and then we're ready to roll: "bikkuri" ("surprise"). The extra "k" in there basically shows you where you should insert a little pause (the length of one syllable) into the word, right between "bi" and "ku". To do it right, say "bi", then get your mouth all ready to make the "ku" sound, but hold that position without making any sound for a beat, and then say the "kuri".
These little pauses can appear before any type of non-vowel sound. Some more examples: "Happosai" (that creepy old dude from Ranma 1/2--say it like "hap... poe-sigh"), "rittaa" ("liter"), and "acchi" ("that way"). The "cchi" sound is also sometimes written "tchi" since it sounds sort of like that--kinda like "achoo".
Conclusion
Whee! We're done with all the important background stuff, and it's just about time to get rolling with some grammar. If you're interested, there are a couple more things to cover--writing and politeness levels--that are good to know, but not necessary. If you're feeling brave, Or: "Two things you were afraid to know, but always wanted to ask.")
In part three of our introductory lesson, I'm going to explain a couple of very important things about the Japanese language that you don't need to know to start studying it. They're interesting (if you're into that sort of thing), and they're very common, but you can get by without knowing these things at first. So, if you're itching to get started, feel free to skip this section and go straight to lesson 2. Otherwise, here goes...
Writing (AKA: Insane Scribbling)
At this point, you just might be wondering about how to write Japanese. For these lessons, we'll be writing Japanese in what's called "Romaji". The word means "Roman characters" in Japanese, which is appropriate because that's what they are. There are a couple of slightly different ways to write Japanese using letters you recognize (for example that "oh"/"ou" stuff from before), but they're all pretty similar.
If you were Japanese, though, writing your own language is a little more complicated. The Japanese have three--count 'em, three--different writing systems. Two of them are phonetic writing systems, called "Hiragana" (which have curvy lines) and "Katakana" (which are boxy-looking). Each of these contains 46 different characters, and each character represents one of those cool sounds you're going to be pronouncing perfectly (if you've been counting, you're paying too much attention for your own good, but you have to add dots or combine characters to write a few of the sounds).
Here's an example of what they look like:
Romaji: a i u e oHiragana: Katakana:
Even though Hiragana and Katakana have the exact same set of sounds, they're used for different things. Generally speaking, Hiragana is used for writing Japanese words, and for all the little things that fill in sentences. Katakana, on the other hand, is used for writing foreign words that are brought into Japanese (there are lots of these), as well as sound effects (like "Boom!"). These two systems aren't so bad, especially since there's no tricky spelling to worry about.
However... (add particularly evil music here) there's also "Kanji". Kanji are those characters, imported many centuries ago from China (and still used there, too), that look like a bunch of random (but pretty) scratches on paper. Each character represents one concept, but depending on the word it's in, it can represent several different sounds. If that's not bad enough, there are a grand total of upwards of 13,000 (read that again--thirteen thousand) Kanji.
Ok, it's not really that bad--most of those are used for obscure place names or technical words, and even most Japanese people don't know them. In everyday life, you only need to know a couple of thousand or so characters. If that sounds easy, then you're alone--get away from me you freak. If you're Japanese, you'll have learned to read (and write) enough of the generally used Kanji to read a newspaper by about the time you're in high school. There is thankfully the phonetic systems to fall back on (pity the Chinese--it's a miracle anybody can read), and it's not impossible to learn to really read Japanese, but don't get your hopes up unless you're serious.
Here's an example of what kanji looks like:
Romaji: Takahashi RumikoKanji:
In any case, don't worry about writing for now, and be thankful if you only had to learn 26 letters in school.
Politeness + Formality + Reverence = Confusion
One of the trickiest parts of the Japanese language is unfortunately also very common: multiple levels of politeness and formality. In English, there are lots of way to be polite or rude, but they all use more or less the same words. In Japanese, not only can you be polite or rude, but different words actually have different levels of formality associated with them, and you're supposed to use different words depending on who you're talking to (whether they're higher or lower in social status than you).
As far as these lessons go, we're mostly going to start with what is considered "polite" Japanese. Not particularly formal, but not exactly "hangin' with friends" either, and it doesn't imply that the speaker is higher or lower in status than anybody else. This a good place to start, because polite language is used frequently, and you probably won't end up offending anybody by talking to them that way (we will get into more informal Japanese, though, since you're an anime fan, not looking to move to Japan... and if you are, go take a proper class). If you're interested, though, here's some more detail.
I'd like to be able to say "there are three levels of politeness" or something like that, but sadly it's not that simple. There is a lot of subtlety (way more than I understand, to be sure), but here are some of the basic levels. The grammar is basically the same, but there are a number of words (particularly the type of verb) that are only used with one of them.
Blunt - usually only used by men, and informally at that. You do hear this a lot in movies, particularly coming from rough-type guys.
Plain - anybody can use plain language, but it's only appropriate for relaxed situations with people you know well. Common, particularly with young people.
Casual - closer to polite than plain Japanese, but with some changes to make it flow a little more smoothly when you're talking.
Polite - what you start out learning in most Japanese classes; not too stiff and can be used in most situations where a lot of formality isn't necessary. Also very common.
Formal and humble - used when you're referring to yourself while talking to someone of superior social status, or who you're "at the service of", such as a business client.
Formal - used when talking to the same type of social superior, but when you're talking about them.
Formal and reverential - same as above, but even more so. Yes, there's actually another set of words if you want to be this polite.
Exactly when to use each of these types of speech depends on enough things to make your head hurt--your social standing relative to the person you're talking to, your age relative to them, your position in an organization relative to them (they're in a higher/lower grade than you in school, or higher ranked in your company), if they're a client of your company, whether you're related and in what way, and more.
The bottom line is, don't worry about it too much. Once you get the hang of polite Japanese, it's easier to get a feel for other types, even if you can't really understand them. Oh, and watch out for Samurai movies if you're practicing listening--they tend to speak very formally.
Conclusion
And that's the end of your introduction to Japanese. If you still want to keep going, congratulate yourself. In Lesson 2, we'll start with grammar...


Lesson 2

You might (if you're an anime nut) already be able to make a few one-word sentences: "Gomen nasai." ("Sorry."), "Konnichiwa." ("Good day."), "Tasukete!" ("Help!"), and maybe even "Ranma no Baka." But what say we learn some grammar.
Word Order
Let's start with word order. In English, we have a subject-verb-object order to our sentences; "This is a starship." Japanese, on the other hand, puts the verb at the end of the sentence--the order is subject-object-verb. Check out our first example sentence:
"Kore wa uchuusen desu." ("This is a spaceship.")
In this sentence, "Kore" ("this") is the subject, "uchuusen" ("space ship") is the object, and the verb, "desu", is at the end. This verb at the end of the sentence business takes some getting used to, but you'll adjust to it eventually. Try it color-coded:
"Kore wa uchuusen desu." ("This is a spaceship.")
You now know more than most of the world's population about Japanese grammar. That wasn't so bad, was it?
To Be (and To Am, and To Are...)
While we're here, take note: "desu" is the general "to be" verb in Japanese, so it's very useful. It covers the same ground as "is", "are", and "am" in English, and if you listen closely, you'll hear it a lot in anime.
Just one important thing: Although people (me) will tell you there are no silent letters in Japanese, they're sort of lying--in this (and pretty much only this) case, the "u" at the end is usually not pronounced (much, anyway). So you'll usually hear "des" instead of "desu", and it's ok to say it that way.
No Articles
The next important thing to know about Japanese is that there aren't any articles--"a", "an", and "the" are nowhere to be found. So, in the sentence "Kore wa uchuusen desu.", there is nothing that takes the place of "a" in the English "a starship". It's just "starship".
Ok, so now you might be wondering what's with that "wa" sitting in "Kore wa uchuusen desu." That's part three of our basic grammar lesson. Japanese may not have articles, but they do have something usually called a "particle".
Particles
Particles are little words with no meaning that are used to mark different parts of a sentence or connect words. "Wa" is a particle used to mark the subject of a sentence. The only tricky part of this is that it comes after the subject; the same holds true for other particles and the different parts of a sentence that they mark, but don't worry about those quite yet.
So, in the sentence "Kore wa uchuusen desu.", we have "Kore", which we know is the subject not only because it is at the beginning of the sentence, but also (and more importantly) because it is followed by "wa". Then comes the object, "uchuusen", and finally the "is" verb, "desu".
No Subject, Either!
Take note that it's usually better to pay attention to "wa" (and other particles when you learn them) than to where a word is in the sentence, because Japanese is rather flexible about word order. Worse yet, Japanese speakers have a tendency to drop the subject of a sentence if it's clear what the topic of conversation is.
For example, let's say you were standing around admiring a huge piece of machinery, wondering what it was. Since it's obvious what you're talking about, it wouldn't be strange for the person you're talking to just say "Uchuusen desu." (literally, "Is spaceship."). This is about the equivalent of saying "It's a spaceship." in English.
Another situation where it's common to leave out the subject is when you're talking about yourself. Unlike in English, it's not necessary to say "I...", "I...", "I..." in a conversation. Since you're probably wondering, "watashi" means "I" (and also "me"--there's no difference in Japanese), so remember it.
Putting it all Together
Now we know our basic sentence structure:
"[Subject] wa [something] desu." ("[Subject] is [something].")
Right now, you know (at least) two subjects, "kore" and "watashi", so let's try playing with them. If "Kore wa uchuusen desu." means "This is a spaceship.", how about:
"Watashi wa uchuusen desu."
Yep, "I am a spaceship." (Hey, computers can talk.) Now let's try changing the other part:
"Kore wa katana desu."
You already know what a katana is (I hope--a curved Samurai sword, right?), so this sentence would mean "This is a katana."
More Sentences
Here are a selection of sentences using this same basic pattern. Look at all the fun things we can describe:
"Kore wa pen desu." ("This is a pen.")
"Kore wa raito seibaa desu." ("This is a light saber.")
"Kuruma desu." ("It's a car.")
"Watashi wa Haruna desu." ("I am Haruna.")
"Haruna desu." ("I'm Haruna.")
"Watashi wa neko desu." ("I am a cat.")
"Watashi wa Shinigami desu." ("I am the God of Death.")
"Watashi wa baka desu." ("I am an idiot.")
In the first three sentences, only the objects are new, and you probably already recognize the first two. And yes, "pen" (with a Japanese accent) means "pen"--you'll be seeing a lot of words like that. In the third sentence, the subject ("kore" in this case) has been left out, so it must be clear what the person who said it is talking about (no, not clear to you right now, clear to whoever they're talking to).
4 and 5 are both ways to introduce yourself, and mean the same thing (although 5 is a bit more informal than 4). Remember, if it's clear you're talking about yourself, you don't have to say "watashi wa" in this and many other situations.
In 6, 7, and 8, we're using "watashi" again, but this time instead of a name, we're using different words to describe ourself. Note that although English would use "a", "the", or "an" depending on the noun in these sentences, there is no difference in Japanese.
Conclusion
And that's it for your start in grammar. Oversimplified points to remember: Verb comes at the end, there is no "the", and "wa" doesn't mean anything. In part 2, we'll learn how to be egotistical and talk about ourselves.


You now know the basic sentence structure (say it with me: subject-object-verb), so now let's be self-centered and use that to talk about ourselves.
Howdy
Hopefully you're going to study more than this before you start trying to talk to anybody in Japanese, but for reference (since every textbook has this in the first lesson), let's introduce ourselves. You really only need to know three words to do that, plus our handy old "Watashi wa [name] desu." sentence pattern: "Hajimemashite." means something to the effect of "How do you do." in English, and it's a sentence all by itself. And, "Doozo Yoroshiku" means something like "Pleased to meet you." Put those together and you get:
Barbie"Hajimemashite. Watashi wa Baabi desu. Doozo Yoroshiku." ("How do you do. I am Barbie. Pleased to meet you.")Fist of the North Star: "Kenshiro desu. Yoroshiku." ("I'm Kenshiro. Nice to meet you.")
Notice that in the second sentence, the wandering martial artist Kenshiro left off both "Watashi" and the "Doozo" in "Doozo Yoroshiku". This is a less formal way of introducing yourself; we already learned about leaving the subject off of sentences (Ken can do this because it's clear he's talking about himself), and "Doozo" basically means "very", so "Yoroshiku" by itself means the same thing, but is a bit less formal.
That's enough introducing for today.
I, Me, and Myself
If you were paying attention to the last lesson, you already know the word for "I": Watashi. Conveniently enough, this is also the word for "me". This is nice, since you can just use "watashi" any time you want to talk about yourself. That said, we only know how to make sentences that would translate as "I" anyway, but this at least lets us identify ourselves, as in this example conversation:
Person A: "Watashi wa bengoshi desu." ("I am a lawyer.")Person B: "Watashi wa Samurai desu. Shine!" ("I am a Samurai. Die!")
Just for example's sake, here's a new expression that shows "watashi" in a phrase that would use "me" in English:
"watashi to issho ni" ("with me")
I, I, I, and I?
Most Japanese lessons won't cover this for quite a while, but this isn't most Japanese lessons. If you start listening for "watashi" in anime, you're going to realize that you don't hear it very much. This is because in Japanese, there are way, way too many words for "I". Like "watashi", they're all used the same way--that is, there's no difference between "I" or "me"--but each word is used by a different sort of people. Here are a few common ones, but there are others:
"Watashi" (male or female; relatively polite)"Atashi" (used only by women; slightly less formal than watashi)"Boku" (used only by men; generally younger men or people without a macho image)"Ore" (men only; not so polite, has a bit of a tough image)"Watakushi" (male or female; extremely formal)
Keep those in mind, but we're going to mostly stick to "watashi" for now.
Don't Be Too Egotistical
Remember how you can leave the subject of the sentence off if it's clear what you're talking about? This is especially important when you're talking about yourself, because in Japanese if you keep repeating "watashi" over and over again, it sounds kinda funny and a bit egotistical. This is different from English, where it's weird not to say "I" at the beginning of any sentence that's about you. Here's an example:
"Watashi wa Yamamoto Yooko desu. Pairotto desu." ("I am Yohko Yamamoto. I'm a pilot.")
As a small side note, in case you didn't know: Japanese names are backwards. So, if a person's name is Yamamoto Yooko, that means her "first" (given) name is Yooko, and her "last" (family) name is Yamamoto. People never have middle names, either. Japanese people always switch the order when they give their names in other countries, though, so you only have to worry about this when listening to Japanese.
Mine, Mine, Mine!
Ok, so let's try something a bit more useful than just "I am...". Let's own something. How do we say "my" in Japanese? "Watashi no". Example:
"Watashi no katana" ("My katana")
If you put that into a sentence, it'll work like this:
"Kore wa watashi no katana desu." (This is my katana.")
That wasn't too painful now, was it? Here's a similar sentence:
"Kore wa watashi no desu." (This is mine.")
Since no noun comes after "watashi no" in this case, it just means "mine".
Oh, no!
Now that you've been introduced to "no", let's go on a little tangent and have some more fun with it. "No" (in Japanese) is another particle (remember, like "wa"?). That means it has no meaning by itself. What "no" does is mark the word before it as the owner of something else. There are a few variations, but basically you can think of it exactly like an apostrophe s (" 's " that is). Here are some examples:
"Watashi no" ("Mine")
"Watashi no uchuusen" ("My space ship")
"Watashi no mono" ("My thing" or "Mine")
"Kenshiro no chi" ("Kenshiro's blood")
"Minmei no uta" ("Minmay's song")
"Samurai no katana" ("Samurai's sword" or "The sword of a Samurai")
"Kaze no Tani no Naushikaa" ("Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind")
Check out number 3; "mono" just means "thing" or "object" in Japanese, so "watashi no mono" means "my thing" or "my possession". This works in English, but we usually just say "mine".
Number 7 is a bit trickier. Number 6 should give you an idea of how "no" can also mean something like the English word "of". The only problem is, you reverse the order in English when you use "of" instead of " 's ", but "no" always follows the thing that does the owning in Japanese, so it's easier to just think of it like an apostrophe s.
Coming back to "Kaze no Tani no Naushikaa", since "kaze" means "wind" and "tani" means "valley", you could literally translate it as "The Wind's Valley's Nausicaa." But, that sounds funny in English, so it's better to translate it using "of" instead.
All you Ranma 1/2 fans are wondering how "Ranma no Baka" fits into this pattern, aren't you? Well, it doesn't. That's a special case, and it pretty much only works in a sentence with that exact pattern (where the "object" being owned is stupidity, that is).
Putting it all Together
Ways to use "watashi":
"Watashi wa [something] desu." ("I am [something].")"Atashi wa [something] desu." ("I am [something]." --female only)"Boku wa [something] desu." ("I am [something]." --male only)
And, ways to use "no":
"Watashi no" ("Mine")"Watashi no [something]." ("My [something].")"[Something] no [something]." ("[Something]'s [something].")or "[Something] no [something]." ("[something] of [Something]." --pay attention to the order)
Let's try combining those two. Pay close attention to where the "no" and the "wa" are in this sentence:
"Watashi wa Yooko no uchuusen desu."
Since "Yooko" is a name, can you figure that out? How about "I am Yohko's space ship." Talking space ship--get it? (Yeah, it's silly, and really not a good example--I'm making a point here.) Anyway, for fun, check out what happens if we switch the positions of "no" and "wa":
"Watashi no Yooko wa uchuusen desu."
That sentence is even weirder, but it could still theoretically make sense. It would now mean "My Yohko is a space ship." (Say, for example, that you had named your spaceship Yohko, and you were explaining to somebody that "Yohko" was a machine, not your girlfriend.) Just be careful where you put your particles, and you'll be fine.
Here's a better example:
"Watashi no namae wa Gokuu desu."
There's a new word in there, but it's easy to remember: "namae" means "name". They look pretty similar, don't they? Remember that you pronounce "namae" like this, though: "na - mah - eh".
Anyway, it shouldn't take too much to figure out that that sentence means "My name is Goku."
Here's one more example, this time where both the subject and object use "no":
"Supeesusuteeshon no kuuki wa minna no mono desu."
As you might have guessed if you tried to pronounce it, "Supeesusuteeshon" means "Space station", and "kuuki" means "air" (the good ol' stuff you breathe). "Minna" means "everyone" (it's the same as the beginning of "minna-san"), so "minna no mono" means... yep, "everyone's thing", or if you want to make it sound better in English "belongs to everybody". If you put all those ideas together, the sentence ends up meaning: "The space station's air belongs to everybody."
More Sentences
Here are a selection of sentences using this same basic pattern. Look at all the fun things we can describe:
"Ore no namae wa Ryuu desu." ("My name is Ryuu.")
"Kore wa atashi no kuruma desu." ("This is my car.")
"Kore wa ore no okane desu." ("This is my money.")
"Ore no okane wa ore no mono desu." ("My money is mine [my thing].")
"Anata no okane mo ore no mono desu." ("Your money is also mine.")
"Anata wa watashi no tomodachi desu." ("You are my friend.")
A few new words in here and some interesting combinations of what we've learned; in number 2, "kuruma" of course means "car" (and, since the speaker said "atashi", it must be a woman talking).
Number 3 the same pattern, except "okane" means "money", and the speaker is male and being less formal, since he said "ore". Number 4 and 5 go with that one; in number 4, "ore no mono" means "my thing" or "mine", as we've gone over, and in number 5 you'll see "anata", one of the many words for "you" (we'll go over more in the next lesson). There's also a "mo" in there; "mo" is yet another particle. It's used exactly the same way as "wa" (and replaces it in a sentence), but adds the meaning of "also" or "too" (we'll go over that one a bit more in a future lesson, too).
In number 6, you'll see "anata" again, and "tomodachi", which is a word for "friend".
Conclusion
In part 3, we'll finish up our basic vocabulary lessons by learning about this, that, and a variety of ways to say you.

One more lesson to beef up your vocabulary a bit before we get into more grammatical fun.
This, That, and The Other Thing
You already know "this" ("kore"), and "that" is similar: "sore". But in Japanese, there's a third word, "are", which means basically "that over there". They work this way:
"kore" = something near the person talking"sore" = something near the person being talked to"are" = something that's not near anybody
Here are a few examples:
"Kore wa pisutoru desu." ("This is a pistol.")"Sore wa bakudan desu!" ("That is a bomb!")"Are wa hikooki desu." ("That over there is a plane.")
In the first sentence, the person is talking about something that they're holding. In the second one, the person they're talking to is either holding a bomb or standing near one. In the third sentence, the plane ("hikooki"--handy word if you travel) isn't near either person in the conversation. In regular conversations, "sore" and "are" are a bit more flexible than that, but it's better to remember it correctly.
It's possible you're wondering about "which" at this point; the answer is "dore", but since you don't know how to ask questions yet (unless you've been studying elsewhere), we'll save that for next time.
Ko-So-A-Do, A Deer, A Female Deer...
You might have noticed a bit of a pattern with these words--they all end in "re". This is very handy, because there are several other sets of words in Japanese that use the same pattern--that is, they have a "ko-something", "so-something", "a-something", and "do-something". These are sometimes cleverly called "kosoado kotoba" ("kotoba" means "word").
For now, to keep your head from exploding, we'll only look at one more set. These will be your very first set of adjectives, which all end in "no":
"kono katana" ("that katana")"sono terebi" ("that TV")"ano hito" ("that person over there")"dono bakudan" ("which bomb")
They all work just like the same words in English; you just stick them before any noun, and then, instead of talking about just any old object, you can identify one in particular. Very handy for pointing out something if there are many similar ones nearby. For example, compare these two sentences:
"Terebi desu." ("It's a TV.")"Kono terebi desu." ("This TV.")
We'll learn some questions that will make these words very handy in the next lesson.
This and This
You might be getting confused by the difference between "kono" and "kore", since they both seem to mean "this". They do; in English, "kore" and "kono" are both written "this", but even in English they're two different this-es.
The important thing to remember is that "kore" is a noun; that is, you can use it for the subject of a sentence. "This is something."--that "this" is "kore". "Kono", however, is an adjective; you use it to modify a noun. "This car is wicked cool."--that "this" is "kono". Get it? More confused now than before? If so, forget you ever read this ("kono") paragraph.
Hey, You!
Now that you've got lots of thises floating around in your head, we'll look at one more word for the day: "you". Sadly, just like with "I", Japanese has more than one version of "you". The basic, textbook "you" is "anata". That is simple, polite, and works well for most situations, but there are lots and lots of others. Here are some of the more common ones:
"Anata" (polite)"Anta" (a short version of "anata"; not polite at all)"Omae" (informal, can be used between close friends)"Temee" (rude, and generally insulting)"Kisama" (rude, and even more insulting)
Be very careful about what word for "you" you use; anything other than "anata" is best avoided until you know what you're doing. The reason? This might seem odd, but in Japanese instead of using creative insults like we're fond of in English (loser, slush-for-brains, nerfherder, putz, etc) you basically just use an impolite word for "you". So the next time you hear some angry guy say "Temee!" to his nemesis, even though the subtitles will probably say something like "You bastard!", all he really said was "You!"
There, you've learned your first insult. A bit disappointing, isn't it? If you want good insults, I've heard that Chinese is a worthwhile language.
Just in case you're not confused enough at this point, I'll add one other note. Several of these words can have different connotations depending on how they're used. For example, "anata" is common, but it is also used by married couples to refer to each other, something like "Honey" or "Sweetcakes" in English. Similarly, "omae" can be used by two guys who are close friends talking to each other, but if you say it to a stranger it's pretty insulting (and can even be used as a milder insult than "Temee" or "Kisama").
Basically, though, sticking to "anata" is good enough for now.
Hey, Bob!
Ok, having said all that about "you", now I'm going to tell you not to use the word at all if you can avoid it. Huh?
Hey, you can't expect everything to be the same. In Japanese, people just don't use words for "you" all that frequently in a conversation--it's basically the same as with "watashi". In the place of a "you" word, they'll usually either leave it out entirely if it's the subject (get used to that, it's not going to go away), or use the person's first name. (They might also use a title or something like that, but we'll save that for later.) This is actually a bit easier than English, but it takes getting used to. Compare these examples:
"Kore wa anata no ken desu." ("That is your sword.")"Kore wa Bobu no ken desu." ("This is your sword.")"Kore wa Bobu no ken desu." ("This is Bob's sword.")
In case you didn't know, "ken" is a general word for a sword, as well as a name. See how the last two of these sentences are exactly the same, but can have different English translations? In the middle one, you would be talking directly to Bob--you can think of it like saying "This is your sword, Bob." In the bottom one, you would be talking to somebody other than Bob, explaining that the sword belongs to him.
Bottom line #1: Unlike English, if you use a person's name in a sentence instead of "you", you can still be talking to them, and it won't sound like you're ignoring them. Go ahead and say "This is Bob's sword." to his face, it works.
Bottom line #2: If you know a person's name, you should avoid saying "you" at all.
Putting it all Together
Remember your useful nouns for this and that:
"kore" = "this""sore" = "that""are" = "that over there""dore" = "which"
And equally handy adjectives for this and that:
"Kono [something]" ("This [something]")"Sono [something]" ("That [something]")"Ano [something]" ("That [something] [over there]")"Dono [something]" ("Which [something]")
And a couple of ways to say "you" (including just using a person's name):
"Anata wa [something] desu" ("You are [something].")"[Name] wa [something] desu" ("You are [something]." --if you're talking to Name.)
Let's combine several of the things from this and past lessons into one cool sentence:
"Kono bakudan wa anata no mono desu."
Remember that "bakudan" means bomb? What do we have with all this put together? How about: "This bomb is yours." One more:
"Onizuka wa kono gakkou no sensei desu."
That's a bit trickier, so if you can't get it immediately, try breaking it down. Since "gakkou" means "school", and you probably already know that "sensei" means "teacher", it comes together like this: We're talking about Onizuka (the Great Teacher, if you're not familiar with him), and he is "kono gakkou no sensei". "Kono gakkou" is... "this school", so that becomes "this school's teacher". It sounds better in English as "teacher at this school", so the whole sentence means: "Onizuka is a teacher at this school."
More Sentences
And, in closing, a selection of sentences using our words of the day:
"Anata wa baka desu." ("You are an idiot.")
"Omae wa hentai da!" ("You're a pervert!")
"Sore wa boku no mono desu." ("That belongs to me.")
"Are wa Oni desu." ("That over there is an Ogre.")
"Ano uchuusen wa boku no mono desu." ("That spaceship over there belongs to me.")
"Sono kami wa okane desu." ("That paper is money.")
"Watashi wa Ruuku no chichi desu." ("I am your father, Luke.")
"Omae wa mou shinde iru." ("You're already dead.")
The first one is a nice simple insult. The second one uses "omae" for a bit of added force, and "hentai" is an ever-popular word for "pervert". You'll notice in number two that "desu" is replaced with "da"; "da" is a very common informal version of "desu", which we'll get into in detail later. Had this sentence used "desu" it would have been awkward, since you wouldn't generally combine a polite verb with a not-so-polite word for "you".
In number four, you'll see "are" (remember, that's pronounced "ah-re", not "R"), so the subject (an "Oni", the ogres of Japanese folklore and alien invaders of Urusei Yatsura) isn't near the speaker or the person they're talking to. Also, just like English, you don't usually use "thing" words about people, but since Oni are monsters "are" it works.
Numbers five and six are relatively self explanatory; in five, the space ship isn't near anybody in the conversation so you get "are". In six, "okane" means "money" and "kami" means "paper", but the structure is similar. Incidentally, "kami" can also mean "god", but hopefully the context makes it easy enough to tell the two apart.
In number seven, "chichi" is a word for "father" (there is more than one in Japanese; "chichi" is the one used by a person talking about themselves). And although it's not clear from the sentence whether it's directed at Luke or not, the translation given assumes that it is. And before your imagination goes wild, this isn't Vader's line, even if the translation looks like it--it's much too polite for the Dark Lord of the Sith.
The final sentence involves a bunch of words (including new verbs--next chapter!) that you don't recognize, but it is the classic quote from the ever-popular Fist of the North Star ("Hokutou no Ken", originally), and it also uses "omae". You'll have to fill in the exploding head effect from your own imagination.
Conclusion
And that concludes Lesson 2. In the first part of Lesson 3, we'll start learning how to ask questions, and later get into some new, improved verbs. Cool.


Lesson 3

Before we start having fun with new verbs and other sentence patterns, let's learn how to ask questions, which is cool and highly useful.
Asking Questions
Let's get right to the point and check out the basic way to ask a question in Japanese. Compare these two sentences:
"Kore wa juu desu." ("This is a gun")"Kore wa juu desu ka?" ("Is this a gun?")
Notice the little "ka" at the end of the second one. That's a new particle, and it marks any sentence as a question. That's right, all you have to do to turn any sentence into a question is add "ka" to the end. Is that easy or what? Better yet, as I mentioned in lesson one, questions sound the same in Japanese as English--your voice goes up at the end of the sentence.
Although there are ways to ask questions with more complicated answers (which we'll get to), and all of them are marked as questions by sticking a good ol' "ka" on the end, simple yes or no questions are so easy to make it's not even funny. As in the example above, just take any statement and stick "ka" on the end. Bingo! Question city! A couple more examples using statement patterns from previous lessons:
"Kore wa uchuusen desu ka?" ("Is this a spaceship?")"Sore wa boku no tamashi desu ka?" ("Is that my soul?")"Anata wa Oni desu ka?" ("Are you an Ogre?")"Tiima wa ningen desu ka?" ("Is Tima human?")
Again, in every one of those cases, the only difference between the statement and question is the "ka" on the end. Note that, as we studied in this kind of sentence before, the subject and noun in the middle can be just about anything and the form doesn't change, even though the English sentence might use "a" "an" or "the".
Yes and No
Ok, now for some answers. You probably already know how to say "yes" in Japanese ("hai"), and maybe even "no" ("iie"), but let's do a couple of full-sentence examples. Remember, by the way, that even though "iie" is spelled funny, it's pronounced with a long "eee" sound, and a short, clipped "eh" at the end: "ee-eh". Lotta vowels in there.
These conversations involve Mirai and Ryuu, whom you'll be seeing more of in future examples. Mirai and Ryuu are making hot dogs:
Mirai: "Kore wa masutaado desu ka?" ("Is this mustard?")Ryuu: "Hai. Masutaado desu." ("Yes. It's mustard.")
Ryuu: "Sore wa kechappu desu ka?" ("Is that ketchup?")Mirai: "Iie, kore wa chi desu. Atashi no chi desu." ("No, this is blood. My blood.")
Ryuu: "Daijoubu?!" ("Are you OK?!")Mirai: "Un! Daijoubu!" ("Yep! I'm fine!")
It would be possible to just answer "Hai" or "Iie" in all three cases, but that would be a little blunt. In the first example, you can see that it's not necessary to repeat the subject when you answer, since it's clear what you're talking about.
In the second exchange, Mirai fell victim to a freak hot dog preparation accident and has something red on her shirt. The subject is repeated in the answer to show the difference between "kore" and "sore"; Ryuu used "sore" because he's talking about something on Mirai; Mirai used "kore" when she answered, since it was on her. In the second answer sentence there is no subject, though, and the subject could have been left off of both. (If you're wondering how to say "It's not ketchup.", you'll have to wait till lesson 4 for negatives.)
In the third section, Ryuu is making sure Mirai isn't bleeding to death. He uses "daijoubu", a very useful word meaning roughly "alright" or "OK". This illustrates the simplest and most abrupt (not polite, though) way to ask a question: leave off the subject and verb, and just blurt the important word in a way that sounds like a question. The answer, similarly, omits the subject and verb, which is informal but OK in the case of "daijoubu". "Un" (sounds like a short "ooh-n") is an informal "yes", similar to the English "yep" or "uh-huh".
Here's a more polite version of that last section, using complete sentences.
Polite Person 1: "Daijoubu desu ka?" ("Are you alright?")Polite Person 2: "Hai. Daijoubu desu!" ("Yes. I'm fine!")
Since "Daijoubu desu." alone means "I'm OK.", adding "ka" of course makes it into a question. By the way, it's worth noting that Japanese people usually match the politeness level of an answer to the question, so "Daijoubu!" would be a more natural answer in the first case, and "Daijoubu desu." is more natural in the second.
What?
So now that we can turn any statement into a question, you're probably just itching to learn some questions that don't have a yes or no answer. We'll get into some good ones soon, but since we'll have the most fun if we learn some adjectives first (which will happen in the next section), let's stick to noun answers for the moment.
You already know how to say "Kore wa [fill in blank] desu.", and "Kore wa [fill in blank] desu ka?", so let's ask what something is:
"Kore wa nan desu ka?" ("What is this?")
It's doesn't take a huge amount of mental effort to figure out that "nan" means "what". Just stick it in the place of a noun in our basic sentence, and Bingo! Instant question. Incidentally, "nani" is a longer version of the same word, but in this particular type of sentence "nan" sounds more natural. Here's an exchange:
Mirai: "Kore wa nan desu ka?" ("What is this?")Ryuu: "Sore wa bakudan desu. Tasukete!" ("That is a bomb. Help!")
Yet again, since Mirai says "kore", she's talking about something she's holding, and Ryuu responds with "sore", since he's talking to her. "Tasukete" is another handy one-word-sentence, meaning "Help!" or "Help me!". It's the imperative form of the verb "to help", but we'll find out what that means in a future lesson.
Putting it all Together
Basic Question Forms:
"[Statement] ka?" ("Is [Statement]?"; "Is [Statement] [true]?")
"Kore wa [thing] desu ka?" ("Is this (a) [thing]?")
"[Thing 1] wa [thing 2] desu ka?" ("Is [thing 1] (a) [thing 2]?")
Yes and no:
"Hai" ("Yes")"Iie" ("No")
Person 1: "[Thing 1] wa [thing 2] desu ka?" ("Is [thing 1] (a) [thing 2]?")Person 2: "Hai. [thing 2] desu." ("Yes. It's (a) [thing 2].")
Let's try a relatively complicated version:
"Boku no okane wa anata no mono desu ka?"
Hint: this is from a previous lesson. Since "Boku no okane" means "my money", and "anata no mono" means "your thing", the whole sentence would mean... "Is my money yours?" Make sense? (A more natural translation would be "Does my money belong to you?" Here's a possible answer:
"Hai. Ore no mono desu."
As before, the subject is usually omitted in the answer, so our bully is saying "Yes. It's mine." Incidentally, there are hints in here as to who is speaking: since "boku" is used by men, but doesn't have a particularly masculine image, while "ore" does, you can sort of guess that the first guy is being intimidated by the more aggressive second.
More Sentences
Several more question sentences, mostly using statements from past lessons:
"Watashi wa baka desu ka?" ("Am I stupid?")
"Anata wa baka desu ka?" ("Are you stupid?")
"Anta, baka?" ("You stupid?")
"Omae wa Shinigami desu ka?" ("Are you the God of Death?")
"Anata wa atashi no tomodachi desu ka?" ("Are you my friend?")
"Airi wa boku no tomodachi desu ka?" ("Are you my friend, Airi?")
"Airi wa boku no tomodachi desu ka?" ("Is Airi my friend?")
This is all pretty straightforward. The first two sentences are versions of turning everybody's favorite word into a question. The third one is a very blunt way of asking the same question; "anta" is a reasonably impolite "you", and most of the sentence structure other than the question inflection has been left off.
In the last four sentences, we've got three different ways of asking similar questions. In number 4, since the subject is "omae", we can assume that the person asking isn't being particularly polite. In number 5, the speaker is a woman (see the "atashi?", and is being reasonably polite.
In the 6th and 7th ones, the speaker is probably male ("boku"), and is talking about Airi. As was mentioned in a past lesson, from these sentences alone it's not clear whether Airi is being talked about, or whether she's being talked directly to--the English sentences are different, but in Japanese you can talk directly to someone using their name.

It's high time we learned to describe things using words other than nouns--everybody's favorite, the adjective. Japanese adjectives aren't horribly tricky, but they're a bit different from English, so brace yourself.
Split the Difference
Japanese adjectives are easy, because basically, they work exactly the same as English adjectives--you stick them in front of the word you want them to modify.
At this point, the trickiest thing to learn about adjectives in Japanese is that there are two different types of them: "na" adjectives and "i" adjectives (that's "i" as in "eee", not like the letter I, by the way). Let's pick a couple of each to play with:
i Adjectives
na adjectives
ii (good)
hen (weird)
karai (spicy)
shizuka (quiet)
"Hen" is a word fans of Urusei Yatsura are probably familiar with, meaning "strange" or "weird".
The first thing you'll notice is that the i-adjectives all end in "i". Guess why they're called i-adjectives. The na-adjectives don't, however, end in "na"... yet. Check out these example sentences:
"Kore wa ii desu." ("This is good.")"Kore wa ii katana desu." ("This is a good sword.")
"Kore wa hen desu." ("This is weird.")"Kore wa hen na katana desu." ("This is a weird sword.")
Now it should make some sense. In the case of i-adjectives, they work exactly like adjectives in English--you can either plunk them right in the middle of a statement to describe something, or put them right before a noun to modify it.
Na-adjectives are just a wee bit trickier, in that when you want to modify a noun with them--but only then--you need to put a "na" between the adjective and the noun. Simple? I thought so.
What About Kono?
If you've been paying attention, you might remember the first set of adjectives from way back in Lesson 2, Part 3: "kono", "sono", "ano", and "dono". And you might also be assuming that they're na-adjectives, since none of them end in "i". Tragically, it's not quite that simple--that particular set of words is sort of a special case.
Thing is, they can't really be the object of a sentence--they can only be used to modify nouns. So really, they're more like mutant half-breed adjectives that only work in one particular situation, which is when they're stuck directly before a noun to identify it as "this whatever" instead of just any old whatever. Bottom line is, they're not either type, and you can't do a whole lot with them.
They can be combined with other adjectives to do all kinds of fun stuff, though. When you do that, the kono-type word always comes first.
"Kono karee wa karai desu." ("This curry is spicy.")"Kono karai karee wa oishii desu." ("This spicy curry is tasty.")"Sono karai karee wa abunai desu." ("That spicy curry is dangerous.")
See how you can stick "kono" and "karai" together with "karee" ("curry") to make the double-modifier "kono karai karee" ("this spicy curry"), just like in English? Piece of cake.
"Oishii" is a very common i-adjective meaning "tasty" or "delicious" (it's not terribly specific as to the level of mouth happiness). "Abunai", as many an anime fan knows, means "dangerous". It's an i-adjective, and a handy one, particularly when fighting giant robots or genetically engineered bees or things of that sort.
Random notes: Though the Japanese eat all sorts of curry, Japanese curry is light colored, mild in flavor (certainly not the tongue-scorchers popular in India or Thailand), and a popular home cookin' dish, especially among children. "Abunai!" can be yelled by itself (and frequently is) to mean something along the lines of "Look out!", although technically that's a shortened version of the sentence "Abunai desu!" meaning "It is dangerous!".
Is It?
Asking questions is way-easy--just like with everything else in Japanese, add a "ka" to a statement, and BINGO!, you've got a question.
"Kore wa karai desu." ("This is spicy.")"Kore wa karai desu ka?" ("Is this spicy?")
No problem, right? Here's an example exchange:
Ryuu: "Kono karee wa karai desu ka?" ("Is this curry spicy?")Mirai: "Hai. Karai desu." ("Yes. It's spicy.")Ryuu: "Soo desu ka? Oishii desu ka?" ("Is that so? Is it good?")Mirai: "Oishii desu yo!" ("It's tasty!")Ryuu: "Karai desu ne. Karai. Karai! Kuchi no naka ga moeteru yo!" ("It is spicy, isn't it. Spicy. Spicy! My mouth is on fire!")
Other than that Mirai, like Lum, apparently has a high tolerance for spicy foods, what have we learned from this exchange? You can see that after the first sentence "Sono karee" gets left off because the subject is obvious.
More Vocabulary
Here's a table of more useful adjectives with their English meanings in parentheses:
i Adjectives
na adjectives
akai (red)
kirei (pretty)
aoi (blue)
burei (rude)
urusai (noisy)
iya (unpleasant)
hayai (fast)
atarashii (new)
yasui (cheap)
ookii (big)
First off, you probably noticed that two of the adjectives in the na column end in "i". This is not a mistake--just because an adjective ends in "i" doesn't necessarily make it an "i-adjective, so you've got to be a bit careful.
There are several useful words in there; "kirei" is very common and falls somewhere between "pretty" and "beautiful". "Burei" is most commonly heard in anime as an insult from royalty or other high-and-mighty folks expecting politeness. "Urusai" "iya" and are two particularly useful adjectives:
"Urusai" literally means "noisy". It is frequently used to imply, in a not particularly polite way, that you should make the source of the noise stop--basically "Be quiet." The blunt "Urusai!" is most common, meaning "Shut up!"
"Iya" is tremendously useful word with no good English equivalent. You'll frequently hear the sentence "Iya desu." (or the blunt form "Iya da."), which literally means "it is distasteful". However, in Japanese, the feel is much more like "I don't want to." or "I don't like that." or just "Gross!". If you want to be really blunt, you can just go with "Iya." which covers everything from "No." (as in, "I refuse because I find it unpleasant.") to "Eew!" That version is frequently screamed in anime by women about to be assaulted by something particularly repulsive.
If Only It Were That Simple
Remember back when I said Japanese adjectives were really simple? I was actually lying. The problem is, Japanese adjectives get conjugated--that means that, like making a verb past tense, you change the adjective some depending on the context of the sentence. It'd just be confusing to go into much detail at this point, but I'll go ahead and give one quick and useful example of how to make an i-adjective negative.
To make an i-adjective negative (and, therefore, the whole sentence negative), chop off the "i" at the end and replace it with a "kunai". Examples:
"Kore wa oishii desu." ("This is tasty.")"Kore wa oishikunai desu." ("This is not tasty.")
There, that wasn't so painful, was it? We'll leave it at that for now.
Putting it all Together
Basic Adjective Patters:
"[Something] wa [adjective] desu." ("[Something] is [adjective].")
"Kore wa [i-adjective] [something] desu." ("This is a [adjective] [something].")
"Kore wa [na-adjective] na [something] desu." ("This is a [adjective] [something].")
Combining kono/sono/ano/dono and an adjective:
"Kono [i-adjective] [something] wa [something] desu." ("This [adjective] [something] is [something].")
"Sono [na-adjective] na [something] wa [something] desu." ("That [adjective] [something] is [something].")
"Dono [i-adjective] [something] desu ka?" ("Which [adjective] [something]?")
Making an i-adjective negative:
[base]i = Positive[base]kunai = Negative
Example time:
"Kono aoi uchuusen wa watashi no desu."
Remember that "uchuusen" means "space ship". Can you figure the whole thing out without peeking? "This blue space ship is mine." Another one:
"Anata no atarashii kuruma wa kakkoii desu."
Again, "kuruma" is "car", and "kakkoii" is a handy adjective meaning "cool/good looking/impressive" -- cool is probably the closest English equivalent, since "kakkoii" is a heavily used word and covers a lot of ground in Japanese (you'll hear it all the time in anime if you listen). So, if you put it together, the sentence means "Your new car is cool."
This sentence also illustrates that if you combine "anata no" (or another possessive) and an adjective, the adjective always comes last. A final example sentence
"Omae wa hen na yatsu da."
This is a less polite sentence: "omae" is an impolite version of "you"; "yatsu" is a fairly crude word for person, roughly equivalent to saying "guy" or "dude" (though it technically applies to both males and females); "da", as you've seen used a few times already, is the blunt form of "desu", which is very common in informal Japanese. So, the sentence as a whole means "You're a weird dude."
More Sentences
Here's today's set of examples, mostly involving food:
"Watashi wa kirei desu." ("I am pretty.")
"Watashi wa karai desu." ("I am spicy.")
"Watashi wa karai karee desu." ("I am spicy curry.")
"Oishii karee wa karai desu." ("Good curry is spicy.")
"Kore wa oishii yo!" ("This is tasty!")
"Hen na yatsu." ("Weird guy.")
"Anata wa kirei desu." ("You are pretty.")
"Anata wa kirei na hito desu." ("You are beautiful person.")
"Ii yo!" ("That's fine!")
The first three sentences, though weird, are all pretty straightforward. The fourth involves a two adjectives--one modifying the subject directly, and one describing it--pretty much the same as in English. Note that in this case it's more natural to say "good curry" in English rather than "tasty curry", but "oishii" is much more natural in Japanese than "ii" (basically, "ii" really means "good", as in the good guys, not "good [tasting]" or something like that).
Sentence 5 demonstrates an informal way of using adjectives--the full, polite sentence would be "Kore wa oishii desu yo!", but cutting the "desu" out is an easy way to make it casual.
Sentence number 6 is again rather blunt, in this case omitting both the subject and the verb.
Seven and eight are similar ways to say the same thing, since "hito" just means "person". In English it's natural to use "pretty" in one case and "beautiful" in the other, but although there is a stronger word for beautiful in Japanese ("utsukushii"), "kirei" works fine in both these cases.
Finally, number 9 is another informal sentence, and a very common one. Though it literally means "It's good." or "That's good.", it's a friendly way of agreeing that covers all sorts of ground in Japanese. Equivalent phrases in English, depending on the situation, would be "That's fine.", "Ok.", "No problem.", and "Sure."

Now that we've got some experience with adjectives and questions, it's high time we learned a verb other than "desu". Let's start nice and gentle-like with the rather useful concept of existence. We'll be working up to more general verbs pretty quickly in a future lesson.
Here, There, and Everywhere
Before we get going, let's learn a new set of those ko-so-a-do words to go with places:
"koko" = here (place where the speaker is)"soko" = there (place where the listener is)"asoko" = over there (place near neither the speaker or listener)"doko" = where
These words follow the same pattern as all the other ko-so-a-do words, and have nice useful English equivalents.
Only one little issue: using them isn't quite so simple. You'd think that, since "desu" is used in sentences with meanings like "I am supremely cool.", that it can be used to say something like "I am here." But no, we're going to need a whole new "to be" verb for that. Enter "imasu".
Being There
Your first non-desu verb: "imasu". Check out this sentence:
"Watashi wa koko ni imasu." ("I am here.")
Woah, that's longer that you'd think. Breaking it down, we've got the subject at the beginning, marked by the trusty particle "wa", then the location where the existing is done in the middle, marked by the new (to you) particle "ni", and a verb at the end, "imasu".
"Imasu" is a general-purpose "to be" verb, meaning "am" or "is" as they relate to the existence of something. That is, "I am.", as opposed to "I am cool."--the first one declares existence, while the second one declares some property of the person. It's a subtle difference, but you'll get the hang of it.
With some color coding, we thus have:
Watashi wa koko ni imasu. = I am here.
The Knights Who Say "ni"
Convenient Monty Python reference aside, "ni" is a particle that shows up all over the place. It gets used a few ways, but for the most part marks a location or direction that applies to the verb in the sentence. It covers some of the same ground as "in" and "at" in English, but keep in mind that is also required in places where you're not used to seeing either.
"Watashi wa koko ni imasu." ("I am here.")"Watashi wa uchuu ni imasu." ("I am in space.")"Watashi wa gakkou ni imasu." ("I am at school.")
Gaahhh!
The first step in making this more confusing is a second new particle, "ga". In general terms, it's the same as "wa"--it marks the subject of a sentence. Sometimes they're interchangeable, but in certain sentences you just gotta have "ga", such as this one:
"Nyan-chan ga imasu!" ("It's a kitty!")
This is a simple sentence declaring (literally speaking) that a cat exists. This comes out more like pointing out the existence of a particular cat, hence the more accurate English meaning of "It's a kitty." "Nyan-chan", if you didn't guess, combines "nyan", the sound Japanese cats make, and the affectionate "chan", to get the baby-talk word for "cat".
So how come "ga" in this case? Sadly, when exactly to use "wa" and when to use "ga" is a tricky proposition (more than you even want to think about), but in this case it's because the emphasis is on the existence of the thing, rather than its location. For the time being, just remember that "ga" is the particle of choice when you're pointing out the existence (as opposed to location) of something.
Being There and Being There
Confusion time. There are actually two words to describe the existence of something: "arimasu", which is used only with inanimate objects like TNT, trees, and stars, and "imasu", which is used for living, active things, like people, kittens, and 15-foot sharp-clawed demons. For those wondering about robots, that's your call, depending in part how close to alive the robot is.
Examples make everything clearer:
Neko ga imasu." ("There is a cat.")Omocha ga arimasu." ("There is a toy.")Neko no omocha ga arimasu." ("There is a cat's toy.")Kyodai na bakemono ga Toukyo ni imasu." ("There is a giant monster in Tokyo.")Tokorode, bakudan ga anata no kuruma no naka ni arimasu." ("By the way, there is a bomb in your car.")
As you can see, cats and giant monsters are living things, and hence need "imasu". Also note the na-adjective in there--"kyodai" ("giant"), which is modifying "bakemono" ("monster").
The other three are all inanimate objects, so must be paired with "arimasu"; "omocha" ("toy"), "neko no omocha" ("cat's toy"--recognize the possessive "no"?), and "bakudan" ("bomb"). The last two sentences also include locations, "Toukyou" (the proper way to pronounce Tokyo) getting visited by a giant monster, and "anata no kuruma no naka", which involves both another possessive phrase, "your car" and the specific location "naka" ("inside"), which we won't get into in detail until a bit later.
Here's a short conversation that, when you skim over the stuff we haven't covered yet, involves both "imasu" and "arimasu":
Mirai: "Ashita paati ga arimasu." ("There will be a party tomorrow.")Ken: "Dare ga kimasu ka?" ("Who will be there?")Mirai: "Watashi no tomodachi. Kawaii onnanoko ga ippai imasu yo!" ("My friends. There will be a lot of cute girls!")Ken: "Yatta!" ("Score!")
Focusing on what Mirai is saying, she first comments that a party (which is not a living thing despite appearances) will be existing, so "arimasu" is required. "Ashita" ("tomorrow") is tacked on to the beginning to identify the time more specifically.
Mirai then points out that among her friends exist many cute girls, who, being living creatures, require "imasu". "Onna no ko" (literally "woman child") means "girl" (in the same sense as in English, so it covers both kids and young women if you're not being technical), "ippai" is a useful word meaning "lots"/"a lot", and you'd better know "kawaii" by now. This is a subtly different use of "imasu"--it isn't just pointing out that Mirai has cute friends (in which case she would have said it differently, perhaps using something along the lines of "Watashi no tomodachi wa kawaii desu.", which you can figure out if you remember the previous lesson). Rather, within the group of her friends, specifically, many cute girls exist. We don't say it like that in English, of course, but that's the way it goes.
If you're wondering about Ken, in his question you will see a different verb, which we'll be covering in lesson 4, and in his final comment you'll see the popular phrase "yatta", an all purpose expression of success made famous by Chun Li of Street Fighter fame.
Putting it all Together
Existence of living things:
"Watashi wa koko ni imasu." ("I am here.")"Watashi wa [location] ni imasu." ("I am (in/at) [location].")"[Living thing] wa [location] ni imasu." ("[Living thing] is (in/at) [location].")"[Living thing] ga imasu." ("There is (a) [living thing].")
Existence of inanimate objects:
"[Thing] wa [location] ni arimasu." ("[Thing] is (in/at) [location].")"[Thing] ga arimasu." ("There is (a) [thing].")
Have a shot at this sentence:
"Anata no kuruma wa Roshia ni arimasu."
If you've forgotten, "kuruma" means "car", and you can probably figure "Roshia" out if you say it out loud--"Russia". This means, therefore, "Your car is in Russia."
Let's try one that's a little more challenging:
"Ore no hiru-gohan wa soko ni imasu."
"Hiru-gohan" is a new word meaning simply "lunch" (literally, "afternoon-meal"), and "ore" is a masculine term for "me". As a result, the sentence in English means "My lunch is right there." ...but did you catch the subtle hint? Notice that the word "imasu" is used instead of "arimasu". This would imply that lunch is still alive and kicking, so the speaker either is getting ready to turn that "imasu" into an "arimasu", or likes his food lively. Plus, since "soko" was used, it's even possible that the lunch in question is the person being spoken to.
More Sentences
Have a look at a few more existence-related sentences:
"Watashi wa jigoku ni imasu." ("I am in hell.")
"Kare wa atsui tokoro ni imasu." ("He is in a hot place.")
"Miyazaki Hayao wa Nihon ni imasu." ("Hayao Miyazaki is in Japan.")
"Watashi no boushi wa uchuu ni arimasu." ("My hat is in space.")
"Aho! Deguchi wa koko ni aru yo!" ("Moron! The exit is right here!")
Only a few new words in here; in number 1, "jigoku" of course means "hell". Number 2 involves an i-adjective, "atsui" ("hot") modifying "tokoro" ("place"). Number 3 uses today's pattern to describe the location of the famous animator. Number four describes a rather odd situation, but if you know that "boushi" means "hat", should be easy enough to figure out.
The final sentence is a bit more complicated, involving both an insult, the word "deguchi" ("exit"), and the plain form of "arimasu", "aru". We'll go into plain forms in more detail eventually, but suffice it to say that if you're being blunt, very informal, or insulting, using the plain form is very common. The "yo" is, as usual, just for added emphasis.