LEARN JAPANESE FOR FREE

Hello everyone,

I decided to start some posts on learning Japanese for free, for those of you who might be interested in the language, for traveling, or just for fun.

Japanese has three different types of writings:
- logographic Kanji, using ancient Chinese 
- Katakana (for words with foreign origin)
- Hiragana

A forth type of writings is used to transliterate Japenase into Latin characters and it is called Romaji.
I will mostly use Hiragana+Katakana and Romaji in the beginning. Kanji words can also be transliterated into hiragana to make it easier for children or foreigners to read.

Let's start with the basic:

Hello ->  Konnichi wa   こんにちは

こ   = KO
ん  =  N
に  =  NI
ち =  CHI
は  = WA

----------------------------
Good evening!  ->  Konban wa  こんばんは

こ   = KO

ん  =  N

ば = BA

ん = N

は = WA

----------------------------

I am Marco ->  Watashi wa MarUko desu 私はマルコです

In this sentence you have all 3 types of writings, here is why:

私 = it means   "I"   it is read "watashi" you can also write it as わたし  

where:

わ  WA (different from は )

た  TA

し  SHI

The word I is written using the old Chinese characters, but you can also write in Hiragana at the beginning, to make it easier for you to remember.

は WA is the particle used in Japanese after the noun, it does not have a translation in English

マルコ  is Maruko in Katakana, being my name foreign origin it will be translated using Katakana

note that in Japanese they do not have "RK" so you will have to add a "silent U"in between and the name will be MarUko instead of Marco

マ  MA  Katakana

ル RU Katakana

コ KO Katakana

です  = desu is the verb "to be"

で  DE

す  SU