Learning Japanese 3

Japanese can be written horizontally from left to right (Western style) and vertically from right to left (Traditional style). Both methods are used in Japan today, with a slight favor towards the Western style. However, in almost all printed materials, books, magazines, and mangas, which are written in the traditional style. Japanese punctuations are different from Western ones. A period is written with a small circle " 。" and the coma is written upside down " 、".

Katakana is basically used to write foreign words which have been adapted to Japanese phonetics. So 'computer' becomes konpyūtā コンプーター, 'part-time work' becomes arubaito アルバイト and 'prêt-à-porter' becomes puretaporute プレタポルテ. The examples are from English (computer), German (arbeit) and French (prêt-à-porter). There are also some from Portuguese (pan) パン which is bread, and Spanish (capa) カッパ which means cloak. Most of the foreign words are from the English language. All non-Japanese people's and place names must be written in katakana. The sounds we want to write must be transcribed into Japanese phonetics. Japanese has no individual consonant sounds apart from 'n'. For each consonant by itself, we add a 'u' except for after 't' or 'd' where we add an 'o'. So 'Marc' would become Maruku マルク, 'Sandra' would become Sandora サンドラ and 'Alfred' would become Arufureddo アルフレッド.

Long vowels are pronounced for a little longer as their name suggests. This subtle difference is very important, since the difference between kūso (empty, vain) and kuso (shit) is based on this distinction. To indicate long vowels we will write a 'u' after 'o' and 'u'. Ex.: Kūso くうそ, Gakkō がっこう. In katakana we will use a dash. Ex.: New York Nyū Yōku ニューヨーク, Madrid Madorīdo マドリード.

Double sounds are consonants that have a longer and more abrupt sound than normal ones. A small っ (tsu) character is placed before the consonant to be doubled in hiragana and a small ッ (tsu) is used in katakana. Ex.: しゅっぱつ - Shuppatsu (Starting, Departure), きっさてん - Kissaten (Coffee Shop), ラケット - Raketto (Racket), マッサージ - Massāji (Massage).

On'yomi (reading which comes from Chinese) and Kun'yomi (original Japanese reading). How can we tell if 富士山 is pronounced Fuji-san and not Fuji-yama or Tomishi-san or Tomishi-sen or Fuuji-yama or any other possible combinations? We can't, but we have clues. When a character is by itself in a sentence, it's usually read the kun'yomi way. If it comes with other kanji, it's usually read the on'yomi way. This rule works for about 90% of the time, but be careful of the remaining 10%!

その新しい新聞はおほしろいです。
Sono atarashii shinbun wa omoshiroi desu。
That new newspaper is interesting.
Sono - that / atarashii - new / shinbun - newspaper / wa - SP / omoshiroi - interesting / desu - verb to be
The character for new(新) appears twice in the sentence, but has different pronunciations. The first time it's pronounced the kun'yomi way atara(shii). The second time it's read the 'shin', which would be the on'yomi way and is followed by the kanji meaning 'to hear'. Shin - new / bun - to hear, together they form the word newspaper, which is something that gathers 'new reported things'. So since the characters are together and not alone, we pronounce them the on'yomi way.