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First, do you know your English parts of speech? That will make this explanation much easier to understand.

In English, your basic sentence goes like this:
Jane threw the ball.
(Subject) (verb) (direct object).

In Japanese, it goes like this:
(Subject) ha (direct object) wo (verb).

The "ha" (pronounced "wa" in this case) is a particle and denotes the subject of a sentence. Whatever came just before the ha is the subject. Similarly, "wo" (pronounced "Oh!" in this case) is the particle used to denote a direct object, so whatever came previous to the wo is the direct object of the verb.

In Japanese, the verb very often comes at the end of the sentence. However, because particles tell you what part of speech the previous word was, the rest of the word order is pretty flexible. Still, for beginners it's best to go with the word order above.

If you have other things like adjectives, it goes like this:

Jane threw the blue ball.

In Japanese:

(subject) ha (adjective) (direct object) wo (verb).

The adjective generally goes just before what it's modifying. You can also use nouns to modify other nouns, and that uses the particle "no" which is often translated as "of." For example:

Jane ate a dinner of fish.

"Fish" is modifying "dinner" in this case, so in Japanese:

Jane(subject) ha fish(modifier) no dinner(direct object) wo ate(verb).

Some verb conjugations change these rules a bit, but this is a good start to begin with. I hope that helps! Any questions?

Well, first that is two sentences spliced by a comma, so it's not grammatically correct in English. It would be two sentences in Japanese, too.

Also, remember, there's no future tense in Japanese, except to express "intend to do." So...

Long time(direct object) wo take(verb) ka? ("ka" makes a sentence into a question.) Home(goal of movement) ni (or he) soon(adverb) to go(verb) need to(a verb conjugation added on to the end of the verb to express "have to do")

If you were going for more of an "if...then" clause, it goes a little something like this (I don't know what a lot of the parts of speech would be here, but this would be the best word order, I think):

If you need to get to school before 8 o'clock, you'd better leave now.

If("moshi") 8 o'clock("hachiji") before ("mae") school("gakkou", goal of movement) ni to reach("tsuwa", verb) need to("nakucha ike", verb conjugation) if("tara," another verb conjugation that always goes with "if...then" clauses), now("ima") to leave("deru", verb) had better("hazu") to be("desu", this has to be added on to the "had better" word).

I know that's pretty confusing. Really, when you get into longer sentences like this, you'll have to learn new verb conjugations and stuff. Anyway, I hope that helps you out... But ask me anything you're confused on. 3nodding

also I've seen at least 2 different spellings of the Japanese word for "thank you" does anyone know the actual spelling??

Well I am trying to learn Hiragana but it's going kind of slow because I'm not sure on the stroke order...

Also can't I type on the computer as mine crashed so I'm using my dad's computer under strict instructions not to download anything so I'm kind of stuck...

I want to get this thing I've seen for DS that's to do with learning Japanese but I'm not sure if it has anything on Hiragana... have you seen it??

Ok I'll check them out... thanks...

His is a mac... I don't know if it has it as well though...

Check out this website, it will help: http://redcocoon.org/cab/mysoft.html