A good way to sharpen your skills in this area is to switch your whole computer over to the Japanese for a day. On the mac, you can change the language in your System Preferences -> Language & Text and I’m sure it’s a similar place in Windows.

System Preferences – English and Japanese

It’s a scary thought but having to work out all the menu items and buttons can be a fun way to improve your Japanese vocabulary. It’s amazing how much you can learn when you have to translate just to get around your computer. ^_^

ファ

The word “File” as you would know is at the top of the first menu of most applications on your computer. It is written as ファイル, which is broken down as “ファ (fa) イ (i) ル (ru)”. The tricky part is the first two Katakana.

You may not have noticed but the katakana after フ is actually a small “ァ” and not the normal size “ア”. So when you pair “フ (fu)” with a small “ァ” the combination becomes “ファ” and is pronounced “Fa” and not the expected “Fua” with the larger ア.

The combination of “ファ” and “イ” gives us the “Fai” sound like in “Taiwan”. That sound together with ル (ru) gives us “Fai-ru” or “File”. Remember there is no “L” in the Japanese language.

ウィ

The ウィ sound is another katakana combination that you may not have encountered before. While it’s not rare, it’s certainly not something that you will see in most everyday textbooks.

The combination consists of “ウ (u)” and a “ィ (i)”. As with the example above the second katakana is smaller than normal and as such it performs a different function than a regular “イ” – like in the word for internet (インターネット).

So when you find the combination of “ウィ”, it is pronounced “Wi”. The easiest way to remember it is that Nintendo’s Wii console is spelt “ウィー”. We have the “Wi” followed by the long dash (chōonpu), which doubles the vowel so we get “Wii”.

I hope that has given you enough to work on. Apart from the chōonpu, there are also plenty of little Katakana tricks below such as the small “ョ” in “ショ”, which gives you “sho” (shi plus o). There’s also “ディ”, which is “de” plus “i” to give us “di”.

Work through the explanations below and please leave a note in the comments if you have any questions.

Download my free Katakana Beginner’s Worksheet to practice the basic Katakana and also check out my small tsu article for a little bit more about how the small hiragana and katakana work.

• Japan Vocab: Around My Home
• Japan Signs: Tokyo Fruit Juice Bar
• Japan Signs: Virgin Bourbon
• WTF….$70 Grapes!
• The Tale of the Little Tsu

I found this sign hanging on a fence around a small public park, which also doubles as a kindergarten playground, near Tokyo Tower.

Perhaps they thought subtility wasn’t going to get the message across ^_^

For the Japanese beginners out there, “とびだし” means “something that leaps” and “注意” means “warning or caution”.

So remember kids – don’t jump the chain and fall on to the road as you will get hit by car and blood will stream out of your feet and the car tyres and go everywhere! ^_^

• WOTW: Doubutsuen
• Japan Signs: A Day At Ueno Zoo
• Japan Images: Park Fishing Tokyo Style
• Learning Japanese: Never Give Up
• Japan Signs: Watch The Door

Dogs getting pampered at the DogMan dog-grooming salon below Hotel Claska in the trendy Tokyo suburb of Meguro.

The quiet, tree-lined Meguro area with its designer furniture stores and restaurants is a real surprise for those expecting the Ginza-like experience of Tokyo.

• Hotel Claska, Tokyo: About
• Japan Images: Park Fishing Tokyo Style
• Hotel Claska, Tokyo: Room 502
• Hotel Claska, Tokyo: To and From
• Romaji Is Evil

All booklets from Level 0 through the Level 4 are written in hiragana, along with the appropriate level of kanji mixed within the text.

Furigana is used extensively throughout the series, so as long as you have a good knowledge of hiragana you’ll know enough to at least be able to read through any text at this level.

A Look Inside – ジョンさん日本へ

The feeling you get from being able to read actual Japanese text yourself is a powerful one for beginners.

Even if you only know every third word/kanji, you’re reading in another language and that’s pretty amazing I think.

Each level has several volumes (Level 1 is available in three volumes), which come in multi-booklet packs and as the level number increases, the booklets add more vocabulary, kanji and more complex grammar.

The Level 1 booklets feature a 350 word vocabulary and each story at this level has between 400-1,500 characters.

If you’re currently studying at the N4/N5 level, these booklets are an ideal starting point for you.

Box Set – Front Cover

Basic grammar is covered with conjugations ranging from the -masu, -te and tai forms through to present and past tense, desu and several others.

The five illustrated stories included in the first volume of Level 1 are:

• おんあの子 – The Girl
• ハチの話 – The Story of Hachi
• ジョンさん日本へ – John goes to Japan
• 浦島太廊 – Urashimatarou
• 笑い話 – A Funny Story

Level 1 Volume 1 Booklets

An added bonus is the free CD, which includes the text from each booklet being read by a native speaker, which is a perfect way to improve listening comprehension while reading along with each story.

When I first started the series I ripped the CD and then listened to the booklets while reading along with the text from the booklets.

Having the audio with me wherever I went enabled me to practice my listening comprehension at any time of day.

As you move through the booklets, any new vocabulary you find in a booklet will repeated multiple times throughout the other booklets to reinforce their use and meaning in context.

I found this of particular use in quickly building my arsenal of Japanese words in the early days.

Close Up – Hiragana/Kanji with Furigana

I know I bang the “no romaji” drum quite a lot but it is something I feel strongly about and that’s what I enjoy about these booklets as they are 100% Japanese and therefore there’s no option to cheat yourself with romaji or English.

If you don’t know the hiragana or kanji then you’ll need to look it up and memorise it. It’s a powerful motivator.

While the Japanese Graded Readers Series will introduce you to new words and help to maintain your current reading and listening abilities, I think the biggest plus is to keep you thinking and reading in pure Japanese – there are no crutches whatsoever.

With it’s colourful illustrations and easy to read text, the Japanese Graded Readers Series sure beats the heck out of wading through boring lists of vocabulary and grammar.

Highly recommended.

BTW check out Harvey’s views on Level 0 of the Graded Readers Series over at japannewbie.com

• 3 Ways to Learn Japanese With YouTube
• The Tale of the Little Tsu
• Word Of The Week: Monogatari (物語)
• Hiragana: The S Line
• App Review: Japanese 101 – Particles

These contact lenses still freak me out. I wonder what they look like from the inside out?

• Curry Rice in a Can Anyone?
• Hotel Claska, Tokyo: About
• Similar Kanji: Taste vs Wisdom
• Romaji Is Evil
• Book Review: Japanese Graded Readers

The first kanji (会) means meeting, meet, join or party and has the readings – カイ, エ, あう, あわせる and あつまる. We’ll be using the カイ (かい) reading for today’s word.

The second kanji is – 話 meaning talk (or tale) and the readings are ワ, はな.す or はなし.

The meaning of 会話 becomes clearer when we join together 会 (meeting, meet, join or party) and 話 (talk) and we get a “meeting or a joining together to talk”, which gives us “conversation”.

Examples

I particularly like the last compound in the list – 世話人.

We can break these down in to their meanings to arrive at the final translation – 世 (generation, world, society, public ), 話 (talk), 人 (person). So that gives us “public”, “talk”, “person”, which is a “manager” or “agent” for a movie star or band as an example.

Any questions? Please leave a comment below.

• Word Of The Week: Monogatari (物語)
• Word Of The Week: Gaikokujin (外国人)
• Word Of The Week: Densha (電車)
• Japan Signs: Waiting Room
• Word Of The Week: Choushoku (朝食)

When you think of the super high-tech, neon saturated city of Tokyo, perhaps the word tram is not the first thing to enter your mind.

Me neither but I stumbled across a post somewhere on the interwebs about Tokyo’s last remaining streetcar line, the 12km Toden Arakawa Line, which dates from 1913 and decided to check it out.

The Toden Arikawa Line runs from Waseda Station to Minowabashi Station and if you’re keen you can ride the entire route in just under an hour. The cost was great value at roughly ¥160.

We only rode a few stations and then walked between a few others to enjoy the local neighbourhood including the Zoshigaya Cemetery, which can be found near the Toden Zoshigaya Station.

So if you’re looking for a less frenetic day out in Tokyo, where life moves a little slower than the usual tourist areas, take a ride on the last tram in Tokyo.

For more information visit the Toei Toden Arakawa Line website

• Hotel Claska, Tokyo: To and From
• Japan Images: Serenity in Kichijoji
• Japan Images: Park Fishing Tokyo Style
• Japan Images: Saturday on Takeshita
• Japan Images: Get Your Seaweed Here

To get you started I’ll kick you off with a quick explanation of some of the more popular terms.

Rōmaji

Rōmaji (ローマ字), often mis-spelt as romanji or rōmanji, is where Japanese words are written in the Latin alphabet. For example, konnichiwa rather than こんにちわ.

Rōmaji is mostly used in Japan where tourists need to be able to read signs such as a railway station, hotel, airport or restaurant. The further you get out of the major cities, the less rōmaji you’ll see.

It is also frequently seen in Japanese dictionaries and textbooks for use by Japanese language beginners.

Rōmaji is commonly used to input Japanese characters into computers. Japanese keyboards mostly look exactly the same as Western keyboards. So to input a Japanese word, the user must type in the romanised version of the word (konnichiwa rather than こんにちわ) and the computer will do the rest.

I am not a fan of rōmaji for serious Japanese students as I feel it is better to learn kana and kanji than to rely on rōmaji. Use whatever you feel works best for your situation and level.

Furigana

Furigana (振り仮名) is the small hiragana or katakana printed next to or above a kanji character to explain its pronunciation. It is mostly found in children’s books or Japanese textbooks for beginners.

Furigana is especially helpful when you are making the transition to learning kanji and don’t yet know the many readings needed to be fluent at Japanese.

Hiragana

Hiragana is the first of three writing systems (hiragana, katakana and kanji) taught to Japanese children and most books for kids are written purely in hiragana. As they move in to grade one, kanji is gradually introduced and hiragana mostly removed. A typical university graduate is expected to know over 2000 kanji!

Although hiragana is used by children and replaced by kanji in grade school, it remains a very important part of Japanese as it is commonly found in the grammatical endings of nouns, verbs and adjectives, as well as for particles like が or から, and many other Japanese words that have no kanji equivalent.

Each hiragana is either an individual vowel or a consonant followed by a vowel. The exception, and there always is one, is “n” (ん).

Find out more about hiragana and download free worksheets here

Katakana

Katakana (カタカナ) is the second component of the Japanese writing system and is generally learnt alongside or after hiragana.

While a beginner may not initially be able to tell Katakana and Hiragana apart, with a little practice they are distinctively different.

Katakana is generally more angular and has short, straight strokes while hiragana is rounded and more cursive. The difference is much like in the English language where we start off writing in a printing-style before learning cursive writing as we move through school.

Katakana is predominately used to write foreign or loan words in Japanese.

In the photo above you can see the city and country names from around the world, which are all written in katakana as they are loan words.

Kanji

Kanji (漢字) are the characters that are used in the Japanese writing system along with hiragana and katakana. They were imported from China around 500AD although the timing of its use in Japan varies substantially.

Kanji are taught to Japanese children after learning hiragana and katakana and the Japanese government has strict sets of kanji that are to be learnt at each grade level. By the time a typical Japanese student finishes university they will know approx. 2000 kanji!

The list of 1,945 kanji that must be learnt be all Japanese students is known as Jōyō kanji.

Japanese school children learn 1006 kanji characters from grades one to six and a further 939 kanji characters in secondary school.

There are changes taking place in 2010 that will see the number of official “must-know” kanji move to over 2000.

The total kanji figure is debatable but is said to be around 50,000. Let’s be thankful we don’t need to know all of those!

Readings

Kanji readings fit into just two categories, On (On’yomi – Chinese reading) and Kun (Kun’yomi – Japanese reading).

The difficulty for beginners and advanced students alike is that most kanji have more than one reading. So on top of having to learn the approx. 2000 Jōyō kanji there are also multiple readings of each kanji that you must know.

Also, when you add two or more kanji together their meaning might change or expand making the concept different.

For example the kanji for “outside” is 外. This kanji has the On readings – ガイ (gai),  ゲ (ge) along with the Kun readings – そと (soto),  ほか (hoka),  はずす (hazusu),  はずれる (hazureru),  と- (to).

So when 外 is used in the context of “outside” on it’s own you might pronounce it – そと (soto). However when it is used in 外国 (gaikoku), which means foreign country (eg outside country) then you can see the ガイ (gai) reading is used along with こく (country).

The general rule is that kanji that are on their own are typically read using their kun’yomi, as in the そと (soto) example above.

Kanji that occur in compounds, which are two or more kanji together as in the 外国 (gaikoku) example above are generally read using on’yomi.

These are only general rules and there are many exceptions but that is beyond the scope of this article so I won’t confuse things too much. ^_^

Stroke Order

In Japanese, a stroke order refers to the order in which the strokes of a kana or kanji character are written.

As a general rule, strokes are written from top to bottom and left to right. When there are upper and lower parts of the kanji, the upper strokes are written first, then the lower.

It is debatable that you need to focus heavily on learning the exact stroke order for each kanji. My personal view is that it is a good discipline to have but if you are fluent with the rest of your Japanese, not knowing the stroke orders isn’t going to hold you back too much.

Kana

Kana is the word used to refer to both hiragana and katakana. When you hear someone say that you need to learn the “kana” when starting Japanese, that just means that you need to learn hiragana and/or katakana.

That’s all for now – I hope this has helped to clear up any questions you may have had about these terms. Please leave a comment if you want to know more or let me know if I have missed anything.

• Learn Katakana: The Starter Kit
• Learn Kanji: The Kanji Starter Kit
• Hiragana: The A Line
• Joyo kanji list set for 2010 overhaul
• Hiragana: The T Line

Don’t worry if you miss out on the free codes as the app is also on sale from Friday 9th July to Monday 12th July 2010 at US$3.99 – close to 40% off!

The codes below will only work in the US iTunes Store – sorry to those outside of the US (like me).

Please make a note of the code you use in the comments below so others know not to use that code.

If you snooze, you lose! ^_^

Sorry – All codes now gone! Please take advantage of the weekend sale to grab yourself a copy for just $3.99.

Redeeming The Codes

• Go to the iTunes Store
• Click on REDEEM under the Quick Links category on the right hand side
• Enter an unused code to start the free download

The Codes

• R446Y44RM6YH
• RPMJAJJLNAAK
• H4KRNEJE39R6
• 6HXMP96EHEXT
• 7PLK9MYA4JKM

Check out my video review of Japanese 101: Particles plus more reviews are available at yonasu.com, lizlearns and mobileinjapan.com

• App Review: Japanese 101 – Particles
• App Review: KanjiPop
• Japan Images: Condomania
• Japan Images: Nikko Bric-a-Brac Store
• Japan Images: Get Your Seaweed Here

A touch of 19th century England fused with 21st century Harajuku coolness lights up Takeshita-dori (竹下通り) – one of my favourites.

• Japan Images: Technicolor Girl
• Japan Images: Saturday on Takeshita
• Japan Images: Keitai Harajuku Girl
• Japan Images: Condomania
• Japan Images: Harajuku Maid