Welcome to Spoken Japanese 101
Hello World,
The main mission of this site is to help all of you learning spoken Japanese. I am in middle of learning the language too, so let's follow me throughout my endeavor to learn spoken Japanese. I'll will start from the very basic and gradually move on to higher levels. So, why don't we study the language together, it's fun.
Here, you will find lessons on Japanese spoken language. I will add new lessons regularly. As the title says, this weblog focuses on the spoken and listening parts of the Japanese language. Anyway, I will also add in the written and reading parts occasionally, so please come back always to check out the follow-up lessons.
How to use this weblog.
1. In order to make the most out of this site, I highly suggest that you:
A) Go through the "Speaking Rules" page first. These are not absolute rules but rather just some of my own thoughts.
B) Go on to "Pronunciation and Romaji" page to familiarize yourself with the pronunciation and Romaji (the main writing system that is used throughout the "Lessons" pages). Romaji is the standard way of transliterating Japanese into the Latin alphabet. With Romaji, one can read Japanese without knowing any Japanese writing system)
C) Finally, go to the "Beginner Lesson" pages. There is a "Drills section" after each lesson, which provide you with the opportunity to practice what you have learned. So master the drills first before going on to next lesson.
2. If you are curious and want to learn the complete Japanese Writing System, then go to the "Japanese Writing System" page, familiar yourself with the Japanese writing system. Inside here, you'll learn the 3 scripts that make up the Japanese running texts. The 3 scripts are Hiragana (ひらがな), Katagana (カタカナ) and Kanji (漢字) respectively.
Practice the Hiragana and Katagana alphabets until you are able to recognize them at a sight. Because in order to learn the Japanese writing effectively, you first have to familiarized yourself with the Hiragana and Katagana.
For Kanji part, don't worry too much about it at this point of time, since I will post educational kanji regularly on the "Blog", and soon or later you'll get a hold on it.
3. As I've mentioned before, our main focus of this site, is on the spoken and listening parts of the language, followed by the writing and reading. So, please bear this in mind when you are using this site. Finally, wishing you all the best in learning the spoken Japanese:)
P.S. In order to view the Japanese characters correctly, you'll need to install the East Asian Language Pack or Japanese word processing programs to your computer. Google it and you'll find some helps.
* The contents of this site is mainly based on 'Japanese, The Spoken Language', by Eleanor Harz Jorden and Mari Noda. YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
The main mission of this site is to help all of you learning spoken Japanese. I am in middle of learning the language too, so let's follow me throughout my endeavor to learn spoken Japanese. I'll will start from the very basic and gradually move on to higher levels. So, why don't we study the language together, it's fun.
Here, you will find lessons on Japanese spoken language. I will add new lessons regularly. As the title says, this weblog focuses on the spoken and listening parts of the Japanese language. Anyway, I will also add in the written and reading parts occasionally, so please come back always to check out the follow-up lessons.
How to use this weblog.
1. In order to make the most out of this site, I highly suggest that you:
A) Go through the "Speaking Rules" page first. These are not absolute rules but rather just some of my own thoughts.
B) Go on to "Pronunciation and Romaji" page to familiarize yourself with the pronunciation and Romaji (the main writing system that is used throughout the "Lessons" pages). Romaji is the standard way of transliterating Japanese into the Latin alphabet. With Romaji, one can read Japanese without knowing any Japanese writing system)
C) Finally, go to the "Beginner Lesson" pages. There is a "Drills section" after each lesson, which provide you with the opportunity to practice what you have learned. So master the drills first before going on to next lesson.
2. If you are curious and want to learn the complete Japanese Writing System, then go to the "Japanese Writing System" page, familiar yourself with the Japanese writing system. Inside here, you'll learn the 3 scripts that make up the Japanese running texts. The 3 scripts are Hiragana (ひらがな), Katagana (カタカナ) and Kanji (漢字) respectively.
Practice the Hiragana and Katagana alphabets until you are able to recognize them at a sight. Because in order to learn the Japanese writing effectively, you first have to familiarized yourself with the Hiragana and Katagana.
For Kanji part, don't worry too much about it at this point of time, since I will post educational kanji regularly on the "Blog", and soon or later you'll get a hold on it.
3. As I've mentioned before, our main focus of this site, is on the spoken and listening parts of the language, followed by the writing and reading. So, please bear this in mind when you are using this site. Finally, wishing you all the best in learning the spoken Japanese:)
P.S. In order to view the Japanese characters correctly, you'll need to install the East Asian Language Pack or Japanese word processing programs to your computer. Google it and you'll find some helps.
* The contents of this site is mainly based on 'Japanese, The Spoken Language', by Eleanor Harz Jorden and Mari Noda. YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS