Japanese Lessons for Writers by Yumi
Summary: Okay, I've been told three times that I haven't been spelling Japanese words right, when I known darn well that I am and why. . .

Thus, I'm making short Japanese lessons for all the writers on this site. I hope you take them to heart, because I don't want to explain why I spell the word 'otooto'.

- Yumi
Categories: Essays & Tutorials > Cultural Tutorials Characters: None
Genres: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 2 Completed: No Word count: 688 Read: 4838 Published: 28/01/08 Updated: 28/01/08

1. One: Spelling by Yumi

2. Two: Tense and Plurality by Yumi

One: Spelling by Yumi
Author's Notes:
Spelling words and making them sound Japanese
One: Spelling



I'll likely update this later because I'm running out of time now.


The Japanese language has a sylibary of about 46 letters. Each one has a sound that is made up of one to three letters. All the vowels are "short" which means that "a" sounds like "ah". There are no hard endings with consanants except for "n", which is the last letter of the sylibary. All words will end in a vowel except for those that end in "n".

Some words are the same except for an elongated letter, which is usually spelled in Japanese with an "u", "i", or "a". Strangely, in the English translation, there are two different schools of thought. One is where the elongated letter (usually an "o") is spelled like it is in Japanese, with a 'u' next to it. Thus, the reader must interpret the combination of "ou" as "ooh". On the other hand, the other way of thinking is that the most important thing is the sound. Thus, an elongated "o" sound is spelled "oo" (which is how I spell 'otooto' and why).

Both are correct. Please don't tell me it's not.

The other syllables which is elongated usually, "i" and "a", are spelled in English simply as another "i" or "a". BE CAREFUL WITH THIS LETTER!! I have had to indicate several times in my fanfics the difference between "ojisan" and "ojiisan" (that's uncle and granfather). It's exactly the same English spelling, only grandfather has an extra "i". The same thing applies in the difference between aunt and grandmother (again the grandmother getting the extra "a").


Also, there are some words which have a "stopped" sound, which in Japanese is indicated with a smaller letter "tsu". This is only used with certain syllables, such as "ko" and "to". For instance, the word for "school" is pronouced "gako", but there is a hard-ish stop in the middle with the small letter and it is actually spelled "gakko". Be careful with this. Sometimes this can be the difference between the word you want to use and another word entirely.


Lastly, there are some the Japanese characters which are smashed together to make other sounds and/or have other markings on the side of them to make them different. Thus, if/when you look at a Japanese syllibary, you'll notice that some of the sounds you see in Japanese words are not there, such as "Ba", "Pa", "Kya", "Ja", "Bya", etc.

Here's where it gets interesting

And once again I'm out of time. I'll update again. . . soon -___-;;;


- Yumi ^^;;
Two: Tense and Plurality by Yumi
Author's Notes:
It bugs me when people says "ninjas" because it's wrong! Gah!! >
Two: Tense and Plurality

BTW: I updated the last lesson, but will still have to because I'm cutting these lessons close to when I have to leave the house!!



This lesson is short, because the rule is simple:



There is no future tense or plural forms in Japanese.



*shocker!!!!!*


Past tense is always indicated by the verb (which is at the END of the sentece), but if it isn't past tense, it's present tense. If something will happen in the future, you MUST indicate that with something else within the context of the sentence.

Example: Ashita gakko ni ikimasu. Tomorrow I will go to school.

"Ikimasu" is technically in the present tense, but because I added "tomorrow" (ashita), it becomes the future tense.

Confusing, but it's okay! You only need to worry about past and present tenses now! XD


Now for the plurality. In Japanese there is no differentiation between one dog and 500,000,000 dogs unless you says so. Thus "inu" is simply what you're talking about. You'll have to specify as with the future tense.

Be careful with this as well. There are different counters that go along with various objects. For people, you would add "nin" to the end (with variations. One and Two people have different words entirely).

Counters are important!! Make sure you know what you're doing before you add one!!!

Oh, so when you say stuff in English, don't add an 'S' to the end to make it plural. It doesn't work. It is simply the word itself, singular or plural.

Thanks!


- Yumi
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