Caught up on iKnow at Smart.fm

Today I did the usual 10 w/ 2 new, then one with 3 new... then an all 10 new!
The all-ten-new ones are harder usually... but this one had a lot I've just done myself.

First off ,there was:
高校生 - koukousei - High School student
上手 - jouzu - good, skilled

Then:
強い - strong - tsuyoi
七 - nana - seven (alternate 7 pronunciation)
they covered 二十日 / hatsuka / 20 days, surprisingly.

The two ones I had trouble with were:
触る - touch,feel - sawaru
痛い - pain - itai

The ten new were mostly numbers and family members.
Curious? See Numbers#1, Numbers#2, and Family.
The few truly new ones are:
暖かい - atatakai - warm
有る - aru - exist,possess
良い(いい)- good - often just in kana
上 - ue - up,above
動く - ugoku - move

I picked out two words from sentences:
誕生日 - tanjoubi - birthday
桃 - momo - peach

"Happy Birthday" is 誕生日、おめでとう。(tanjoubi, omedetou)

For you who are interested in this, but not particularly 私の日本語, it's pronounced
(tawn-joe-bee, oh-med-et-ohh).

My sentences for today are:
banana ga nanahon arimasu.
バナナ が 七本 あります。
(There are 7 bananas)
I love saying this fast... lol... there aren't spaces in 日本語.

The other was had wind in it (kaze)
kyou wa kaze tsuyoi.
今日は風が強い。
(the wind is strong today)

I'm getting better at understanding the sentences without the translations... yay.


和
(peace.)

Recognition... and More Numbers

Today at iKnow I covered a few interesting words. I'm at 33%! a third of the way...

酸っぱい - suppai - sour
細い - hosoi - thin,slender,narrow
違う - chigau - wrong, different

I've never handled right/wrong before... now I have "wrong".
I wonder what "correct/right" is... maybe I heard it and forgot...
I reviewed つける(tsukeru) - "switch on" today... I also know 消す-kesu-"switch off".

I got two non-vocab words out of the sentences I picked out:
葡萄/ぶどう(budou) - grape(s)
美味しい - oishii - delicious

Hmm... bet I could make a sentence for practice...
この ぶどう が 美味しい です。
kono budou ga oishii desu.
these grapes are delicious.

There were two I keep screwing up on...
渇く - kawaku - to be thirsty (can't seem to remember)
ミーティング - mi-teingu - meeting (pain in the butt to spell)

I forgot about the # of things words last post... they're: (1-10)
一つ - hitotsu
二つ - futatsu
三つ - mittsu
四つ - yottsu
五つ - itsutsu
六つ - muttsu
七つ - nanatsu
八つ - yattsu
九つ - kokonotsu
十 - too
I think the numbers afterward are plain 訓読み ones, juuichi, juuni, juusan, etc.


Also on a last note, I had brand-new sentence I understood before I first saw the translation:
カップ を 三つ 買いました。
cappu o mittsu kaimashita.
I bought three cups.

I'm getting better! I might try to find some serious reading material...

iKnow Is Now A Part Of Smart.fm

Today sucks. iKnow is GONE.
By gone I mean they removed the iKnow website.
iKnow was a learning application that the iKnow site provided. Now it's Smart.fm.
The iKnow application is still there, but iKnow's website that held my items in progress, etc. appears to be gone. I had to create a new username for Smart.fm.
the iKnow address redirects to Smart.fm now.
well... it's not all bad.
I'll just move on to the Part 2 of the Core 2000 series I had been in.

The review over section 1 was getting old, anyways.


Today I worked some, but the site keeps going up and down, so I am not sure it saved...

Here's what I have to cope with for now:
時 - toki - time
閉じる - tojiru - close
切る - kiru - to cut
米 - kome - rice
線 - sen - line
決まる - kimaru - to be decided (I know i've used this kanji somewhere before... hmm...)
楽しい - tanoshii - fun, enjoyable
服 - fuku - clothes
後ろ - ushiro - back, behind
嬉しい - happy, glad

日曜日 - Nichiyoubi - Sunday (redundant... i know this)
開ける - akeru - to open, unlock (scarily close to makeru-to lose)
腰 - koshi - hip, lower back
昼 - hiru - daytime, midday
お母さん - okaasan - mother (huh... a form i didn't know)
留学生 - ryuugakusei - student studying abroad (i.e. foreign exchange student)
大学生 - daigakusei - college student (thought i did this... must remember 大学校 (college))
終わり - owari - end, conclusion (the noun form of owaru-to end I suppose)
背 - se - height
手伝う - tetsudau - help, assist

鼻- hana - nose
起きる - okiru - to occur (this is from last time! I knew 大学生 looked familiar!)
熱い - atsui - hot (something actually useful... finally.)
載せる - noseru - to place, put on (apparently you can use either kanji - 載 or 乗 )
悲しい - kanashii - sad
愛する - aisuru - to love, care for (i already know this kanji)
近く - chikaku - vicinity, nearby (another I already knew)
しゃべる(shaberu) - to chat, talk (doesn't have a kanji, oddly)
甘い - amai - sweet (food)
テーブル (teeburu) - table (an English steal)

now I have to deal with English homophones... close/clothes... lol...
well, they're not really homophones, but close enough to be disorienting.
Oh, and "sen" is also 千 - 1000. So yeah, homophones, anyone?

Anyone watch Naruto? Enough to know the character Gaara? The kanji on his forehead is love.


愛

And now for some naughty/immature humor just because I can:
彼女 は お母さん が 熱い です。
kanojo wa okaasan ga atsui desu.
ever heard that weird/dumb song stacy's mom? lol...

well... I can say more things now with my better vocab... like
昨日 私 は 新しい 服 が 買いました。
kinou watashi wa atarashii fuku ga kaimashita.
Yesterday I bought new clothes.

Well... lets keep the vocab rolling I guess... lol... I hope iKnow or Smart.fm or whatever saved my work.

Looking Up Sentences

I have a little secret I've used to help myself with learning new words and phrases. And sentences, for that matter.

At the Jisho (jisho is japanese for dictionary, fyi) (http://jisho.org/sentences/) I look up key words in their sentence search. It's taught me a lot about grammar.

辞書 is the kanji for jisho/dictionary. It's word/term + writing(s). Just a thought...

It's useful for learning new words, too.
Most of the words are links to their definitions. (infinitive, it doesn't discuss tense)
I can learn words to help me use words i already know better!

The most important ones i've learned are こと ("thing"), しかし ("but"), and ついて ("about").
こと is rather generic, and often used with another word. It threw me off a while back when i was tying to figure out something else ( the "-are" passive).

Japanese grammar, as hard as it is, once you get over it you can read almost anything (if you're looking up the sundry kanji).


アコースティックギターが欲しい！しかし、貧しい・・・。
I want an acoustic guitar! But I'm poor...

Teasing Translations

My roommates got people pumpkins for the night we carved them... he left a note on the dry erase board afterward...

I need money
for the pumpkins ($5)
Thanks!

I erased and replaced it with Japanese, just to be annoying...

わたしは南瓜の
金をください ($5)
ありがとう！

I got some kinda threat about spreading my jibberish... lol...
in doing so, I discovered a new word - kabocha, or pumpkin.
the kanji for it is 南瓜, southern+melon. Interesting, huh?

I also got down the word for fountain/spring. It's izumi, 泉 .

I never did look up the word "Halloween"... I'll probably make a list of all the holidays sometime soon.
In the meantime, I need to work on my areas of discipline, that I covered previously.

If anyone is curious, I'm beginning to translate whole sentences. If you want you can submit sentences and I'll translate them for you and post them here.
ではまた！

Grammar Particles and Pointlessness.

I have a new pointless Japanese sentence.
何のサンドイッチが欲しい？
nan no sandoicch ga hoshii?
What kind of sandwich do you want?

何の (nanno) means "what kind".
欲しい (hoshii) is an adjective, meaning "wanted" or "desired"
欲 (yoku) as a noun means greed or desire

And now I've learned something. So it's not totally pointless.


In Japanese, they have nouns, verbs, and adjectives. To explain how these relate, they use particles.

There are several, and I'll cover just a few for now.

が (ga) identifies a subject; it's used very often. don't confuse it with は.

は (WA) identifies a topic; it's usually used at the beginning of a conversation. it's the equivalent of "speaking about ___, ......". It's the symbol "ha", but pronounced "wa" when used in this way.

と (to) is "and". 左と右 (hidari to migi) means "left and right". it is used after each list object, where in english only commas would be used.

や (ya) is "and" and "etc.". you use it in place of と, and it will denote that the list is not complete.

に (ni) shows direction. It works very much like "to" and "towards". it also can be used for "by", and is used with time.

の (no) shows ownership. it's much like " 's ". for example, 私 (watashi) is "I" or "me". 私の (watashi no) is "my".