Gozaimasu is the polite ending to it and would be used when your saying it to most people your not close with or who are older than you. I would say Ohayo gozaimasu to my girlfriends mother and father but Ohayo to my girlfriend.
Yep. Ohayou gozaimasu is literally just a polite way of saying "it's early." "Hayai" is early and when conjugated with gozaru, a polite version of "to be/exist," it becomes "o-hayou (gozaimasu)." This is then abbreviated to o-hayou. Arigatou gozaimasu, which means "thank you," is the same. It literally means, "it is thankful." You can actually say it with anything, like "samou gozaimasu" means "it's cold," but people will think you've come from a time machine. As to learning, the Pimsleur courses are a good start for basic pronunciation and phrases. It will also kind of "break you in" to the language, helping to get over the initial difficulty and intimidation of starting a new language. (You're much more likely to give up on it earlier--the more you get into it, the more enjoyable it becomes and the more likely you are to study it to a reasonable level of proficiency). They are expensive if you BUY them, but there are other ways I hopefully don't have to describe in detail. "Japanese: The Spoken Language" and "Japanese: The Written Language," by Jordan are also a pretty good intro. series which will take you much more in-depth than Pimsleur. You'd eventually have to get a textbook devoted to Kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese), like "Kanji in Context," but that's prolly a little further down the road. It's also very helpful to watch Japanese movies and TV shows. Of course, it's a big help to make Japanese friends to practice with, but don't think that just hanging out with Japanese people all the time you'll get good at it naturally. You have to make a concerted effort to actually study the language. It won't just come through osmosis, at least not above the level of saying, "I'll have the chicken teriyaki, please."
sorry to put it so bluntly, but this is a load of crap. all the japanese people i know were really impressed that i knew hiragana and katakana. when i whip out the kanji they practically faint because they're so full of "eeehhhhhh? SUGOI! Totemo jozu desu yo!!" that they can't breathe. good morning is ohayou gozaimasu. onyomi explained the politeness thing. in hiragana, you'd use the characters for o-ha-yo-u go-za-i-ma-su or おーはーよーう ごーざーいーまーす。
That's OK, you can be as blunt as you like! I was only sharing what I was told by a Japanese friend. I can think of two possibe explainations: either I misunderstood what I was told, or else they know less about their own language and culture than what you do. Since the second possibility is extremely unlikely, then I suppose I must have misunderstood them! EDIT: I just thought of a third possibility - maybe you misunderstood what I was talking about?
Without reading up, I remember an emphasis on people who actually are Japanese, not so much foreigners. But maybe I'm wrong Anyway... Thank you very much CKava and onyomi. I do get the formal/informal thing as I've seen it in other languages. That clears that up. I was confused how gozaimasu would work in hiragana but I can see it now that I've learnt a bit more! And confirmed by succabus, thank you. Thank you for the info I know what you mean about Japanese films/TV too. I watched a Japanese film a few days ago and it sounded SO much different now that I've started learning it, was incredible
The funny thing is, they're all "SUGOI!" when you can write kana, but they don't get quite as excited when they see you can write more Kanji than they can... Another problem is that the more you speak Japanese well, the more Japanese treat you like you have a Japanese cultural radar, which I don't...I can't even take a hint in English! :cry:
this is very true. it also applies to how much of the language they think you know. there are only one of two reactions i get out of japanese people when it comes to j-go: either they treat me like i know absolutely nothing, which is irritating because i cannot stand it when people patronise me, or they treat me like i'm fluent, and just start babbling on at breakneck speed. sometimes these ones even speak hogen to me (hogen is the okinawan dialect), which is a dialect in name only- it's really a completely different language. there just seems to be no inbetween. even the people i work with have started speaking to me in crazyfast japanese, just because they see me practicing my kanji every day.
Yes, some meet the revelation with delight, while others are absolutely horrified. It's the same when you actually know more about their culture and history than they do as well and can actually back it up. Mind you, when you start talking to them in Osaka-ben instead of normal standard Kanto-ben Japanese, they look at you as if you're from another planet! :Alien: "Ehhhhhh? Doushite kansai-ben wo hanaseru no?" (Mind you, they almost expell every ounce of air with that "Eeeehhhhhhhhh? - The more unbelievable it is, the longer they go for!)
i've started saying "ehhh" now too. curse me. but i don't think i'll ever reach the astonishing lengths of my japanese friends. onyomi- you know over 6000 kanji? ehhhh? sugoi!
Most Japanese don't know 6000 Kanji... if they say they do, they're lying, unless they're a professor specializing in Kanbun or something. Go ahead--ask a Japanese young person to write "grapes," "rose" or "spinach." I probably only know about 4 or 5000 Chinese characters at most--and that's only cuz my job requires me to read reams of Literary Chinese. The Okinawans call Okinawa-go "hougen"? That's nuts. I've heard that stuff and it's definitely a "-go," not a "-ben." Then again, the Chinese call Taiwanese and Cantonese "fangyan" (=hougen), and they're both about as close to Mandarin as French is to Italian.
Did something just fly over my head? Interesting to read though. As far as foreigners knowing the Japanese culture better than some Japanese; it's similar to when people across the pond tell 'me' the history of the city I live in. It's nuts. I've got the first 30 hiragana down so far...getting there. (succubus - I have a notepad )
ahhhhh. wakarimashita. even so, 4-5000 is impressive. definitely more so compared to my paltry 200-odd. what do you do? yeh, i can't find the name on the net or anything, but here the language is called hogen. i think on the net you'll find it's probably called uchinaaguchi. i only know like 20 words in it. a bit sad considering i've lived here almost half a year. but i only really get to learn it when i'm at an izakaya with old people who are getting very drunk and showing me that the only way to say "Ayena!" (which means "Oh my god!") is very very loudly and with much waving of the hands. considering, though, that okinawa has only been part of japan for less than 100 years, it's not really surprising that it has its own language.
heh heh. we're just talking about our experiences as gaijin speakers of japanese in japan itself. well done on the hiragana! it took me about a month to memorise the kana, but that was working on it for like 4 hours a day. i love being able to write in japanese though. it fascinates me, even more so than speaking the language does. and you have no idea how awesome it was when i first started being able to read the signs here. "ohmygod that's a chocolate bar?! awesome!!" (i have a chocolate bar near my apartment. not the slab type bar, an actual bar where you sit and get served chocolate )
For a second there I thought you meant the actual chocolate bar was called "ohmygod" I thought "how would I get those letters out of hiragana?? " Anyway... Yes I had a peek at the katakana yesterday, eich! A whole other set. It's taken me a few days with the hiragana but I'm dreading learning katakana after. Especially with my memory, it's terrible I'll have to recite them before bed every night or something :Alien:
word of advice - wait a while before starting katakana. make sure you've got hiragana down properly in your mind first, and carry on working on that for about 2 weeks before starting to learn katakana. a few of my friends tried to learn them back-to-back and now continually get them confused when trying to write them. they say it's really really irritating. i took that in mind and put a break between each, making sure i had the hiragana down really really well before tackling the other.
That's a good idea. I've managed to 'learn' hiragana in a few days so I imagine I need more practice before moving on One thing though with the hiragana. Any advice on pronouncing the 'r' row? :bang: :woo:
Tongue positioning. Think of where the tongue goes when you make an 'L' sound in English(Usually to the front of the roof of the mouth, just behind the teeth.) Now make an 'R' sound. (Usually your tongue rolls back towards the throat without making contact with the roof of the mouth.) Place the tip of your tongue at the midway point when making these sounds and make contact with the roof of the mouth. (Almost the way you roll the tongue) That's about the correct way of pronouncing ら・り・る・れ・ろ
Thank you very much! Better keep practising at that - At the moment it's sounding like a "LL" in Welsh
linguistically, it's not an l or r sound. it's called an alveolar tap. think about when someone says the word "butter" in an overly american accent. something like "budr". that 'd' sound is the one you want to be making. feel the roof of your mouth - there's the little ridge there just behind your teeth (called the alveolar ridge, hence the name) where you pronounce 'l'. for the 'r' row you should be tapping your tongue against that really quickly, so it'll kind of sound like a smoosh between r, l and d. a bit of a complicated explanation, but it's quite difficult to explain through text.
