The hiragana for this lesson is:

りいんご

The romaji is:

ri i n go (reeng go)

The only note I have here is that the “n” sound here is the “ん” which is more of an “ng” sound, than an English “N” sound.

To learn more Japanese online, I recommend checking out Alex Brooke’s LearnJapanesePod.com (also visit his site AlexBrooke.com to check out what else he’s up to). You might also check out JapanesePod101.com or pick up the book Japanese from Zero: Volume 1 if you want to learn offline.

Did I get something wrong? Tell me! I’ve got a LOT to learn still, so please help me and others by commenting. ありがとうございます！ (arigatou gozaimasu - thank you very much!)

ThePete’s 12 Second Japanese Lesson #7 Good-Bye on 12seconds.tv

Here is “good-bye” in hiragana:

さよなら

In romaji:

sayonara (sah-yo-nah-rah)

All the “a” sounds in Japanese are long “a” sounds like in the word “alternative”–NOT like in the word “Albert”.

“R” sounds sound almost like “d” sounds in Japanese (but not quite!).

PLEASE NOTE: While Pimsleur’s Japanese lessons on CD tell us that “sayonara” is the standard way to say good-bye to people in Japanese, THIS IS NOT CORRECT.

According to what I’ve been told by an actual Japanese person, you only say “sayonara” when you are saying good-bye forever.

When you’re just saying good-bye at the end of the day or when you’re done meeting with someone for coffee, you want to say something like “see ya later”. No, I’m not going to tell you how to do that now. I’ll cover how to do this in the next 12 Second Japanese lesson!

Ja, ne!

D’oh!

To learn more Japanese online, I recommend checking out Alex Brooke’s LearnJapanesePod.com (also visit his site AlexBrooke.com to check out what else he’s up to). You might also check out JapanesePod101.com or pick up the book Japanese from Zero: Volume 1 if you want to learn offline.

Did I get something wrong? Tell me! I’ve got a LOT to learn still, so please help me and others by commenting. Thanks!

12 challenge: Talk like a Pirate! Arrrrr! on 12seconds.tv

This both my answer to the 12seconds.tv challenge for Talk Like a Pirate Day and today’s 12 Second Japanese Lesson! Sorry for the long explanation below…

Today’s lesson teaches you how to be a party pooper (like me!) on “Talk Like a Pirate” Day and how to do it with style.

Mind you, I’m far from fluent but if I were, the Japanese I speak in the video would have taken much less time than it did and my pronunciation would have been better, too. Still, by listening, you can at least hear each syllable. My mistake was putting the emphasis on the “zo” in “kaizoku” (the Japanese word for pirate). A general rule of thumb in Japanese for me is that each character of kana (kana=hiragana or katakana) should take up about the same amount of time to speak. This isn’t always true, but when I first started learning, thinking this way helped my accent, I think.

So, in the vid, I say “kaiZOku” when really it should just be “kaizoku” spoken very quickly.

ANYway, so here’s how that phrase looks in hiragana:

かいぞくのはなしをやめてください

And here’s how it breaks down in romaji with phonetics in parenthesis:

かいぞく = ka i zo ku (kah-ee-zo-ku) = pirate

の = no (no) = possessive marker. It’s my understanding that you say “no” after adjectives. In this case we’re describing talk as being pirate.

はなし = ha na shi = speak or talk

を = wo = topic marker - I’m still learning about markers, there are a couple of different types of these, not sure why “wo” is here instead of “ga” or others.

やめて = ya me te (yah-meh-teh) = one of the many ways to say “stop it” in Japanese

ください = ku da sa i (koo-dah-sa-ii) = one of a couple ways to say “please”.

Special thanks to Alex-san (Forum Ninja) and Coffeebot3000 as well as Mushrooshi and Nexusc over at the forums at LearnJapanesePod.com for their help in translating my feelings into Japanese. You guys rock! I’m smarter now because of you!

ThePete’s 12 Second Japanese Lesson #3 Good Morning on 12seconds.tv

Good morning:

おはいよ
o ha i yo

You say this to people until around 11am. Then you switch to “こんにちわ” See 12sJ lesson #2 for more on “konnichiwa”.

To learn more Japanese online, I recommend checking out Alex Brooke’s LearnJapanesePod.com (also visit his site AlexBrooke.com to check out what else he’s up to). You might also check out JapanesePod101.com or pick up the book Japanese from Zero: Volume 1 if you want to learn offline.

Did I get something wrong? Tell me! I’ve got a LOT to learn still, so please help me and others by commenting. Thanks!

So, here’s my attempt to make Japanese much more approachable than most people think it is! It’s ThePete’s 12 Second Japanese Lessons where you’ll learn Japanese in tiny, bite sized chunks–like sushi! Only I’ll make it easier since you won’t need chopsticks. :P

I won’t get too detailed in these–expect to learn basic, informal stuff only. I’ll mention it if I’m going over stuff I know to be formal Japanese. Just please remember that I’ll be going over informal Japanese unless otherwise noted.

In lesson #1, I cover the most important words to know if you’re interacting with a Japanese person: “yes” and “no”.

ThePete’s 12 Second Japanese Lesson #1 on 12seconds.tv

Here’s how both look when you write it in hiragana:

はい and いいえ

Here they are in romaji (almost phonetic spelling)
hai and iie (hah-ee and ee-yeh)

The two basic sets of characters in Japanese writing are katakana and hiragana. The latter is for words native to Japanese and the former is for words taken from other language. Most of the words I’ll be teaching are going to be in hiragana. You can recognize the difference when you see the more angular katakana for the foreign words versus the more curvy hiragana for the indigenous Japanese words.

Special thanks to Alex Brooke for teaching me a good chunk of what I know through his free podcast available at LearnJapanesePod.com (check out his music and other cool stuff at AlexBrooke.com!).

In case you’re curious, I’m not terribly qualified to teach Japanese, but I consider myself at a tourist level. In other words, I know how to ask for directions. What I know I’ve taught myself by listening to Pimsleur’s Japanese, Alex Brooke’s podcast, the podcast at JapanesePod101.com, the book Japanese from Zero Volume 1, the computer program “Power Japanese” and, of course, watching hours and hours of Japanese films and anime.

If you know Japanese better than I and see me make a mistake, please speak up! I want to learn, too! ^_^