Eclectic Mix

あけまして おめでとう (akemashite omedetou- Happy New Year!) With a new year comes fresh, new posts!
We ended 2009 with Various すうじ (suuji- numbers) & age, and now it’s going to take a different route- GRAMMAR. (dun Dun DUN!) As I’ve said in the past, I’m not fluent, so if I’m incorrect, feel free to let me know.
I’m just trying to share my knowledge.

• tabeRU -> tabeMASU
  たべる ->   たべます
• miRU -> miMASEN
  みる ->   みません

Original Posting: October 22nd, 2008
Today I’ll be covering age, along with asking & answering how old you are.

On the basic level, you say the number of years you are the then add さい (sai.) If you’re 10 yeah old it’d be じゅうさう (juusai)

As always, there are exceptions. 20 when counting is nijuu, but as an age it gets a special name. Hatachi is used to describe 20-year-olds (this is like turning 18 in the U.S.) since this is the age when people are officially adults.

In Japan at the beginning of the year a person will turn 20, there’s a big celebration for all of them, even though it my not be their birthday yet. Read the rest of this entry »

じかん (Jikan – Time) is the next section of numbers we’ll be covering. This post will cover hours & half past. (i.e 4:30)

Fist things first: Questions & Answers.
What time is it?
Ima nanji desu ka?
いま なんじ です か?

It is ___.
___ desu.
___です.

To get the hour, basically take the number & stick じ (ji) on the end.
3:00 would be さんじ (sanji). Ji is kind of like adding “o’clock,” but it literally means hour.

**Take note of 4,7 & 9. They use these specific forms of the numbers.

To get half-past you just add はん (han). Han actually means half.
4:30 is よじはん.

Also, to differentiate between am/pm you’d use gozen for am & gogo for pm.

3:00 am
gozen sanji desu
ごぜん さんじ です

5:30 pm (This one makes me laugh)
gogo goji han desu
ごご ごじ はん

Original Posting: October 12, 2008
Now we can count from 1-20, 20-100, 100-1000 & 1000-10,000. This post will cover the 10-thousands.

I mentioned before that in Japanese there’s a separate unit for Ten-Thousands. It took me a bit to wrap my head around it. Say we have a huge number like 98,765.
In English, we’d read it 98 thousand, 7 hundred, 60, 5.

In Japanese it’s essentially read like this: 9 Ten-Thousand, 8 Thousand, 7 Hundred, 60, 5.

To me, it’s really hard to think that there’s something else to put in there. It almost makes sense, because Japanese currency ￥ (Yen, or えん [en] in Japanese) is usually listed in much larger numbers than we’re used to with dollars.
￥100 is about $1.00 give or take.
If our big number above was ￥98,765… it’d be $987.65 roughly.

1,000.	sen	せん
10,000.	ichiman*	いちまん
20,000.	niman	にまん
30,000.	sanman	さんまん
40,000.	yonman~	よんまん
50,000.	goman	ごまん
60,000.	rokuman	ろくまん
70,000.	nanaman~	ななまん
80,000.	hachiman	はちまん
90,000.	kyuuman	きゅうまん

Using this new list, lets look at the big number again, & break it down:

90,000	kyuuman
8,000	hassen
700	nanahyaku
60	rokujuu
5	go

So all together 98,765 would be read:
きゅうまん はっせん ななひゃく ろくじゅう ご
kyuuman hassen nanahyaku rokujuu go

It’s alot to take in, but I found for myself that breaking it down helps.

Original Posting: October 11th, 2008
Over the last bunch of posts, there’s been lots of numbers!(1-20, 20-100, 100-1000!) And this one will be no exception, hehe. Now We’ll be doing 1,000-10,000!

I’m pretty sure the next will be the last *strictly* numbers post for a while. We’ll get to time & age soon.

Like with the rest if the Japanese numbers there’s a system. With the exception of 1000 (which is せん [sen] all by itself,) you take the number & stick せん (sen) to the end of it. 2000 is にせん (nisen), and 5000 is ごせん (gosen). And also like the others, there are irregulars. Keep an eye out for 3000 さんびゃく (sanzen) & 8000 はっぴゃく (hassen)

Read the rest of this entry »

Original Posting: October 9th, 2008
So far we’ve covered from 1-20 and 20-100.

Now we’re going to do 100-1000.

It may seem like a big jump, but it’s not nearly as taxing as it seems.

In English, we have names for the units. By units I mean ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, etc.

In Japanese, they have all those but, there’s also a unit for 10-thousands.
It’ll make more sense when you see it, but that’ll be in a later post.

Below are the “hundreds” units, including 1,000 .

** These are irregular and don’t follow the “___hyaku” pattern.
~~ Also note that these use yon & nana as the prefixes.
shihyaku & shichihyaku would be incorrect.

Read the rest of this entry »

Original Posing: October 8th, 2008
Last time we covered 1 – 20, & today we’ll go all the way to 100! The nice part is that counting 20-30, 30-40 etc, uses the same pattern as 10-20.
10 + 1 = 11
juu + ichi = juuichi

2 * 10 = 20
ni * juu = nijuu
20 + 1 = 21
nijuu + ichi = nijuuichi

** I mentioned before that sometimes you need to use certain pronunciations for certain things. This is one of those times
It would be incorrect to say “shijuu” for 40, or “shichijuu” for 70. I’m not sure why that is, but it is

Original Posting:  October 7th, 2008
This lesson will cover すうじ (suuji- numbers) 1-20. There are Kanji for each number, but that will be covered later.
Eventually I’ll do bigger numbers up to 10,000 & じかん (jikan- time). But today, we’ll start small.
1 -10 is pretty straight forward, and very important. It’s the base for all the rest of the numbers, as we’ll see later.

Read the rest of this entry »

Original Posting: December 11th, 2008
A few weeks ago, my class & I went to the Japanese restaurant called Sumo.
Most of us got べんとのとんかつ.
Tonkatsu is a running gag with our class. In one of the dialogues from our textbook, they’re ordering food, and the girl asks what tonkatsu is. (It’s basically a think sliced pork chop with a breading much like shake & bake. It’s served with katsu sauce. My description does it no justice.)
とんかつ　おいしい　ですや。

I took this with my cell… so it’s kinda crappy.

I love tonkatsu! I LOVE gyoza. Gyoza are fried pork dumplings, and are sooo good. My favorite Chinese restaurant at home makes them, and so does Ruby Tuesdays, but these are SO GOOD!

せんせい　was explaining all kinds of things to us about eating in japan. Normally, they wouldn’t give you a spoon, so you just sip from the bowl. Also, it’s ok to slurp. When eating soup or noodles, it’s almost expected.

If you go to a restaurant and they give you disposable chopsticks, many people take the wrapper & tie it in a knot to make a chopstick rest to you don’t set them on the table. (I put mine on the bento in the pic so they could bee seen.)

Before you eat (especially in someone’s home to which you are a guest) you say いたでます （itadekimasu- Thank you for this meal.) After the same meal you say ごちそうさま （Gochisoosama- Thank you for this meal.)

When ordering you’d say おべんとのとんかつおねがいします　（Bento no tonkatsu onegaishimasu -　I’d like a tonkatsu bento box please.)

My bf & I have been back to sumo several times since & we’ve tried a few other things. Tempura is good also; it’s a different breading than the tonkatsu, and comes with a different dipping sauce. The breading tastes alot like fried dough, it’s very sweet. I liked it, but it’s too much sweet for a whole meal. Worth a try if a friend orders it & you can snag a bite

So the moral of the story is: IF YOU HAVE A JAPANESE RESTAURANT NEAR YOU GO EAT THERE!

~Arcsis

Original Posting: December 8th, 2008
Now we’re just about done with katakana! Onto the contracted sounds! (Again, these are just like the contracted sounds in hiragana. That’s gotta be getting old. )