TOMOKO'S JAPANESE LANGUAGE TUITION


	INTRODUCTION
	WHY JAPANESE
	HOW YOU LEARN
	PRIVATE LESSON
	ARRANGE EXAMPLE
	STANDARD FEES
	GROUP LESSON
	TEXT BOOK
	STUDENT'S FEEDBACK
	EXAMINATION
	TOPICS
	TUTORING OPPORTUNITY
	ABOUT US
	PRIVACY POLICY
	LINKS
	CONTACT


	Learn on your own?
	LOGIN
	HOME

Japanese language and Chinese language have same character sets?

Sorry for you if you are thinking that you can save your time to learn once you learnt one of these two languages. As language, Japanese and Chinese have completely different grammar system, though KANJI (or called as "Chinese character") has its origin in ancient China.

In Japanese writing system there are three character sets; HIRAGANA, KATAKANA (phonetic characters) and KANJI (ideograph).

HIRAGANA and KATAKANA are "phonetic alphabets". Therefore entire Japanese sentences can be written in HIRAGANA and KATAKANA, though adults usually use a combination of KANJI and HIRAGANA. Children start to read and write Japanese all in HIRAGANA before learning some two thousand KANJI in their elementary schools.

HIRAGANA ; used for particles and inflection of adjectives and verbs which show tenses, etc.
KATAKANA ; used for the words which are imported from other languages such as "computer", "television", etc.
KANJI ; used for many of nouns and stems of adjectives and verbs.
ROMAJI (Western alphabet) is also often used in Japanese sentences these days.

ROMAJI can be used as substitute for HIRAGANA and KATAKANA. This is especially useful for non-native Japanese speaker.

Do you know how to use Japanese language with PC keyboard?

Let's think about how to type one of HIRAGANA, " ひ " (hi) on PC. First of all, suppose your PC has a Japanese language IME (input method editor), please turn on IME. Now you press down "H" key then "I" key and then "space" bar. Then, the IME shows the possible HIRAGANA, KATAKANA and KANJI which can be translated from the sound "hi". You can then choose HIRAGANA " ひ " this time from them. When the character you wish to put is KANJI, same as this example, you will choose one KANJI.

Example: to type HIRAGANA " ひ "
1. Please click H on the keyboard shown below.

"Jim Breen's Japanese Page" is also showing in detail at COMPUTING IN JAPAN/JAPANESE http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/japanese.html#links_japancomp.

Is it true that even one character has many meanings?

Most KANJI characters can represent multiple concepts and meanings. This is why the meaning depends on the combination with other KANJI. Often the same KANJI shows slightly different meaning in different words.

Do you know "book" and "pen" have different counters in Japanese language?

"Counter" is a suffix used when counting types of objects such as books, pen, chair, etc. There are examples below, counter is in capital font and reading is in brackets.

Book = 1 SATSU (issatsu), 2 SATSU (nisatsu), 3 SATSU (sansatsu) ...
Pen = 1 PON (ippon), 2 HON (nihon), 3 BON (sanbon) ...
Pair of chopsticks = 1 ZEN (ichizen), 2 ZEN (nizen), 3 ZEN (sanzen) ...

We provide lessons with these kind of interesting topics to reinforce knowledge of students. We believe that practical lessons are very important, not only academic ones.

Lesson arrangement examples and fees can be seen here.

Contact

Please email us when you are thinking to arrange your lesson. (Lesson can be provided only in London, UK.)

CONTACT

INTRODUCTION - WHY JAPANESE - HOW YOU LEARN - PRIVATE LESSON - GROUP LESSON - TEXT BOOK - STUDENT'S FEEDBACK - EXAMINATION - TOPICS - TUTORING OPPORTUNITY - ABOUT US - PRIVACY POLICY - LINKS - CONTACT

http://www.tealeaf.f2s.com
nihongo@f2s.com