Practice with Useful Japanese Phrases

Guess what? The hiragana practice games I found were really effective. I almost have all the characters memorized. Sa (さ) and chi (ち) kinda confuse me though. But I'll try to figure out a way to remember which is which.

Anyway, I found phrases in hiragana and translated them to romaji and english. I had a bit of trouble figuring out where the spaces should go since I'm not that familiar with all the Japanese words yet. But, I still got through it with the help of Google.

• おっす (ossu) - hello (used between close male friends)

• もしもし (moshi moshi) - hello (used on the phone)

• ようこそ (youkoso) - welcome

• どこからですか (doko kara desu ka) - Where are you from?

• どちらからですか (dochira kara desu ka) - Where are you from? (formal)

• おやすみなさい (oyasumi nasai) - good night

• さようなら (sayounara) - good bye

• じゃあまたね (jaa mata ne) - see you later

• どうぞめしあがれ (douzo meshiagare) - enjoy your meal (said by the cook)

• ごきげんよう (gokigen you) - good bye/good luck

• わかりません (wakarimasen) - I don't understand

• すみません (sumimasen) - excuse me

• いくらですか (ikura desu ka) - How much is this?

• ごめんなさい (gomen nasai) - sorry

• どうもありがとうございます (doumo arigatou gozaimasu) - thank you very much

Whew, that was a lot! I'm getting the hang of it though. :-) 'Till next time... さようなら!

Hiragana Practice Games

Memorizing hiragana characters can not only be difficult, it can also be pretty boring. Maybe people with photographic memories can do much better, but I'm going to need something more than a table of characters. These two "hiragana games" might do the trick...

• Hiragana Drag-n-drop - this game is great for beginners, since it's very simple. Just drag and drop the hiragana characters into their correct spot on the table. Correctly dropped characters stick while wrong ones get dumped back to the bottom.

• Hirargana and Katakana practice - this one's a bit tougher. You can choose to include either or both hiragana and katakana characters. The game flashes a random character and you have to type in the correct romaji in the box at the bottom. This game includes all configurations of hiragana and/or katakana.

Source
Usagi-Chan's Genki Resource Page
Phil Gyford’s website

More Hiragana Practice

I found more basic Japanese words and phrases. Looks like it's time for more hiragana practice. I'll use the same format as before for consistency:

romaji (english meaning) - hiragana

• konnichiwa (hello) - こんにちわ
• hai (yes) - はい
• iie (no) - いいえ
• sumimasen (excuse me) - すみません
• sayōnara (goodbye - long term) - さよおなら
• sore dewa (goodbye - informal) - それでわ
• konbanwa (good evening) - こんばんわ
• ohayō gozaimasu (good morning) - おはよおございます

Technically, written Japanese has no spaces between groups of characters that constitute words. Because of this, it would be really hard to read Japanese text if everything is in hiragana. That's where kanji comes in. But, I'll save that for another lesson.

Hiragana Practice

Here are some basic Japanese words in the following format:

romaji (english meaning) - hiragana

• wakaru (understand) - わかる
• tabemono (food) - たべもの
• taberu (to eat) - たべる
• kuruma (car) - くるま
• ashita (tomorrow) - あした
• hiru (midday) - ひる
• satto (quickly) - さっと
• dekiru (be able to) - できる

Hey, hiragana is quite easy once you get the hang of it. I want to do more exercises but I'm too sleepy to think straight at this point.