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Well I'm not Japanese, but I know how to read, write, and speak, though only a little bit of it. I cannot seem to get kanji, its really hard and I haven't had the time to fully absorb the material when I took the class.

Its been nice chatting with you biggrin ja mata.

A few things I've observed in my studies. They're not important, overly, but it can help your Japanese sound more authentic.

The sound commonly romanized as "R" [that is, transcribed into the Latin alphabet (the one we use)], and sometimes also "L" [flied lice, for instance], is actually neither. The sound they use is something that sounds a bit l, a bit like r. Form L and R in your mouth and take note of the position of your tounge, exactly. The L should be something where the tip of the toungue is near or is touching the top row of teeth, in the front. The "R" should have the middle of your tongue arching up to the back, near the uvula. I believe [although I am not sure] that the Japanese sound is more like L, but places the tip of the tongue closer to where the tongue reaches in the R sound. It's a bit hard to explain, but think L and pull the tip of the tongue back further. It might sound a bit like rla or something.

The "fu" sound is another misleading romanization. If you notice, it's actually in the /h/ phoneme series (that is, ha, hi, fu, he, ho). This is because the "f" sound is not pronounced like "f" in English, where you force air between a small gap of your lower lip and front teeth (the teeth kind of "shredding" the air). Instead, it's force through a small gap in your lips, and your lips alone. I believe this developed because the lips are already close together to form the "u" sound, so the fricative developed naturally.

In response to this:


There are 3 Japanese writing systems, they use 4. The other is actually just romaji, that is, Latin characters, which you already know (you're reading them).

The others: Katakana, a syllabary for imported words and some Japanese words, Hiragana, a syllabary for Japanese words and particles. Because they are a set of specific symbols with only pronunciations as their meaning, these are easy to memorize; memorization and, as I said before, practice can make these as natural to you as the Latin alphabet.

The last one is the one that turns most people off. Kanji, symbols imported from Japan, represent ideas. These are much more difficult to learn, are much more complex than Hiragana and Katakana, and generally are a pain in the a**. Adult texts (that is, for adults, not necessarily indecent) are written mostly in Kanji. Children's books are written mostly in Hiragana. Intermediate books are written about half and half, and complex kanji often have furigana (small hiragana letters beside the kanji to tell you what the symbol means.)

Eh, I know about 5 kanji. I really need to get my a** in gear and study Japanese.

What if it's a Japanese person learning Spanish?

quick translation of this?

watashi gotoku omaesan.