New Vocabulary

To talk about another person's family members or directly to your own, add さん to the end of their title to make it honorific.

Family = 家族 (かぞく)

Parents = 両親 (りょうしん)

Grandmother = 祖母 (そぼ)/ お祖母さん (おばあさん)

Grandfather = 祖父 (そふ)/ お祖父さん (おじいさん)

Grandchild = 孫 (まご)

Mother = 母 (はは)/ お母さん (おかあさん)

Father = 父 (ちち)/ お父さん (おとうさん)

Son = 息子 (むすこ)

Daughter = 娘 (むすめ)

Siblings = 兄弟 (きょうだい)

Younger Brother = 弟 (おとうと)

Elder Brother = 兄 (あに)/ お兄さん (おにいさん)

Younger Sister = 妹 (いもうと)

Elder Sister = 姉 (あね)/ お姉さん (おねえさん)

Relatives = 親族 (しんぞく)

Young Aunt = 叔母 (おば)

Old Aunt = 伯母 (おば)

Young Uncle = 叔父 (おじ)

Old Uncle = 伯父 (おじ)

Niece = 姪 (めい)

Nephew = 甥 (おい)

Cousin = いとこ

Husband = 夫 (おっと)/ご主人 (ごしゅじん)

Wife = 妻 (つま)/ 奥さん (おくさん)

Boyfriend = 彼氏 (かれし)

Girlfriend = 彼女 (かのじょ)

Friend = 友 (とも)

Lesson 1

Particle = と

Related Translation = And

と is used when you want to specify two or more nouns, like the English conjunction ‘and’.

Example:

1. Oliver, Olivia and Ms. Smith. = OliverとOliviaとSmithさん。

Particle = や

Related Translation = And/Or

や is like と but is less specific. For example, you can use や to say “this or that” to mean that you could have one or the other, or you can use や to say ‘and’ but imply to the listener that there is more that you haven't mentioned.

Examples:

1. Morning or afternoon (but only those times). = 朝や昼過ぎ。 (あさやひるすぎ。)

2. Family and relatives (and maybe some others). = 家族や親族。 (かぞくやしんぞく。)

Particle = の

Related Translation = ‘S

の expresses possession, similar the English use of pronouns (my, your, his/her, our, their) or adding an ‘S to the end of a name or a noun. Add の to the end of the word if the last object belongs to the first.

Example:

1. Aiden McCain’s apartment. = Aiden·McCainのアパート。

In the example above, the apartment belongs to Aiden rather than Aiden belonging to the apartment.

Particle = も

Related Translations = Also, Too

も introduces a subject in addition to another sentence, but both tenses must agree with each over.

Examples

1. Her singing is also amazing. 彼女の歌声も凄い。 (かのじょのうたごえもすごい。)

2. Her singing is amazing, too. 彼女の歌声は凄いも。 (かのじょのうたごえはすごいも。)

The first sentence could’ve followed on from someone saying that her acting was amazing. The second is more about the way she sung and could’ve followed on from a previous comment about her voice.

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New Vocabulary

Before each lesson, I'll introduce a new set of words to learn. If you can't write the kanji, practice the hiragana in the brackets.

Second = 秒 (びょう)

Minute = 分 (ふん)

Hour = 時 (じ)

Day = 日 (ひ)

Week = 週 (しゅう)

Month = 月 (がつ)

Year = 年 (ねん)

Leap Year = 閏年 (うるうどし)

Morning = 朝 (あさ)

Breakfast = 朝食 (ちょうしょく)

Noon = 昼 (ひる)

Afternoon = 昼過ぎ (ひるすぎ)

Lunch = 昼食 (ちゅうしょく)

Evening = 夕 (ゆう)

Dinner = 夕食 (ゆうしょく)

Night = 夜 (よる)

Midnight = 夜中 (よなか)

Monday = 月曜日 (げつようび)

Tuesday = 火曜日 (かようび)

Wednesday = 水曜日 (すいようび)

Thursday = 木曜日 (もくようび)

Friday = 金曜日 (きんようび)

Saturday = 土曜日 (どようび)

Sunday = 日曜日 (にちようび)

Interjections

When you are in a situation where you might use one of these interjections in English, you’ll be able to give the same response in Japanese.

はい = Yes

いいえ = No

うん = Mm-Hm/Uh-huh

ううん = Uh-uh/Nuh-uh

もしもし = Hello (phone greeting)

さようなら = Good Bye

*おはよう = Good Morning

こんばんは = Good Evening

こんにちは = Good Afternoon

*おやすみ = Good Night

*おめでとう = Congratulations

かんぱい = Cheers

どうぞ = (A word used when giving or offering someone something)

じゃ = Well then

おや = My!/Oh!

ああ = Ah/Oh

ええ = Eh?/Huh?

ええと = Er/Erm/Um

げっ = Ew/Eww

もう = Eurgh/Ugh

いた = Ouch/Ow

おっと = Oops/Whoops

ちぇ = Tsk/Tut

うわ/わあ = Whoa/Wow

やった = Hoorah/Hooray/Hurrah/Hurray/Yay

* Words marked with an asterisk (*) on its left are one of the more informal versions of the word. I.E., there are politer ways to say the same thing.

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The Alphabet, Part 2

The vowel pronunciations are regular. In the table below, I have included the Hiragana (the syllabary alphabet), romaji (Roman alphabet) and the English equivalent of the Japanese pronunciation.

Hiragana/Romaji/English Equivalent
あ /A/‘ea’ in heart
い /I/‘ea’ in heat
う /U/‘oo’ in hook
え /E/‘ea’ in head
お /O/‘o’ in hot

The Japanese alphabet is easy to learn, as each character is composed of a consonant (bdfghjkmnprstwyz) and a vowel (aeiou). For example, ka (か) is made up of k + a, making ka (pronounced ‘kahr’), and wa わ is made up of w + a (pronounced ‘wahr’). There are two other kana, ん (n) and っ. っ is used to double the consonant in front of it. For example, 赤っぽい (reddish) is pronounced ahr-kahr-poh-ee, with a slight pause before the p. In romaji, this would be written as akappoi.

When a dakuten (゛) is used, the consonant is pronounced softly. For example, か (ka) + ゛ = が (ga), and は (ha) + ゛ = ば (ba). When a handakuten (゜) is used, the consonant is pronounced harshly. For example, は (ha) + ゜ = ぱ (pa).

If a furigana is in front of a kana, then the last vowel of the previous kana is removed and replaced with that furigana (usually や [ya], ゆ [yu] or よ [yo]). For example, き (ki) + ゃ (ya) = きゃ (kya).

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The Alphabet, Part 1

There are four common alphabets in the Japanese language, and they are all important to learn as they are almost always interchangeable.

Hiragana (ひらがな)
Japanese syllabary used for grammar and with small children.

Katakana (カタカナ)
Similar to hiragana but used for foreign words, onomatopoeia and making Japanese words or sentences stand out. The difference between hiragana and katakana is that hiragana is cursive and katakana is angular.

Kanji (漢字)
Chinese characters used to represent words. The use of kanji helps distinguish words in a sentence, because the Japanese don’t use spaces.

Okurigana (送り仮名)

Kana that come after kun-yomi (native Japanese readings) kanji-stems. They are used to differentiate one pronunciation from another that uses the same kanji.

Furigana (振り仮名)
Small kana that appears above kanji and beside normal-sized kana. When they are used above kanji, they help you read the kanji’s pronunciation. When they are used beside normal-sized kana, they make a new sound (see part 2).

Romaji (ローマ字)
Romaji is the Romanization of Japanese used with foreigners who can’t read the Japanese alphabets. Hiragana, katakana and romaji use the same phonetics system.

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