Last time we covered 1 - 20, & today we’ll go all the way to 100! The nice part is that counting 20-30, 30-40 etc, uses the same pattern as 10-20.
10 + 1 = 11
juu + ichi = juuichi

2 * 10 = 20
ni * juu = nijuu
20 + 1 = 21
nijuu + ichi = nijuuichi

** I mentioned before that sometimes you need to use certain pronunciations for certain things. This is one of those times
It would be incorrect to say “shijuu” for 40, or “shichijuu” for 70. I’m not sure why that is, but it is

This lesson will cover すうじ (suuji- numbers) 1-20. There are Kanji for each number, but that will be covered later.
Eventually I’ll do bigger numbers up to 10,000 & じかん (jikan- time). But today, we’ll start small.
1 -10 is pretty straight forward, and very important. It’s the base for all the rest of the numbers, as we’ll see later.

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I got Chocobo Tales last weekend & let me tell you, It’s wicked fun! I’ve always loved the Final Fantasy Chocobos, and this game serves `em up with extra helpings of kawaii.

I’ve read several reviews that said that square-enix did some research & found that younger players liked chocobo the best of all the FF characters. So they made this Chocobo game for that target audience. If you’re not in that age group, never fear this is still a hugely entertaining game for anyone, especially if you’re a fan of the FF series.

Basically, it’s a full game of minigames. (And microgames!)

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ひらがな 6!? Ok, I know that you gotta be thinking to yourself, “Now Arcsis, I thought you said there where 46 hiragana. How can we be on to lesson 6? You lied to me!”
If you got that impression, you’re not alone. I felt the same way when I discovered there were more than 46.

There really are 46 basic hiragana, but then there’s variations on those. You don’t need to learn to write any new ones, only what they mean when to add a tenten or a maru. (These were what I was taught to call them. In Kana de Manga, they’re called a dakuten & handakuten)

So what is a tenten? It’s the 2 little lines on the top right that make ka turn into ga

—>

And Maru actually means circle. So adding a maru to ha makes pa.

—>

Lets take a look at the 5 lines that change, shall we?

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I went home this weekend & while I was there I picked up my books that I inadvertently sent to my house, not my school address. Mostly it was textbooks & what not, but there were 2 fun things: Chocobo Tales (which will have it’s own post) and Kana de Manga.

Kana de manga teaches it readers hiragana & katakana at the same time, using manga drawings to illustrate the point. Each page is 1 character with Hiragana on the left, & Katakana on the right. Each page has a Japanese word using the featured letter, and in the description, there are often related words. At the bottom of each page there’s space to practiceyour penmanship

Just inside the front & back cover is a full Hiragana & Katakana chart (respectively) and 6 pages of blank graph paper for even more practice.

Full retail price is $9.99, but of you look on amazon or ebay you can find it for less. (I got mine, brand new, for $1.31 +shipping.) I’d totally recommend this to anyone looking to study Japanese. It’s a great review for those that want a refresher, but don’t want to stare a flashcards.

It gives some neat background about Japanese culture all in typical manga style.

Some samples taken from Amazon’s  online preview:

We’re up to 38 Hiragana now & making good progress!

あ い う え お a i u e o
か き く け こ ka ki ku ke ko
さ し す せ そ sa shi* su se so
た ち つ て と ta chi* tsu* te to
な に ぬ ね の na ni nu ne no
は ひ ふ へ ほ ha hi fu* he ho
ま み む め も ma mi mu me mo
や ゆ よ         ya yu yo

*Irregulars

After the rest of today’s lesson, you’ll be ready for the next writing video!
http://www.ehow.com/video_4498963_write-japanese-alphabet-hiragana-part.html

On to part 5! The last of the 46 Hiragana!
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Wow! 30 Hiragana covered already! We’re almost there! (Well, kinda as we’ll see later)

** These are irregular

I don’t really have any good tips just yet, but I did buy Kana De Manga & will have a full report on it for next week. ^_^ Until then, here’s a little preview.

Onto Lesson 4!

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かきじゅん — Kakijun, or Stroke Order is the order in which you must draw hiragana for it to be correct.

The video below shows the correct way to right Hiragana A - N.
Just remember that traditionally, Japanese is written from top-down, & read right-to-left.

If the Video doesn’t show up the permanent link is here: http://www.ehow.com/video_4498380_write-japanese-alphabet-hiragana-part.html

I also found a Java-based application that will draw individual characters by stroke & at whatever speed you like.
http://www.geocities.com/takasugishinji/japanese/hiragana_stroke.html

So far we’ve covered 20 of the 46 basic Hiragana.

あいうえお   a i u e o
かきくけこ   ka ki ku ke ko
さしすせそ   sa shi* su se so
たちつてと   ta chi* tsu* te to

** Keep in mind these are irregular, they differ from the regular “aiueo” pattern.

If you don’t have a chart handy, how do you know what order they go?
Well, in Japanese elementary school, they teach the little 1st graders (about 6-7 years old) this little phrase:

A ka sa ta na,    Ha ma ya ra wa
…which is the 1st column of the chart if you look at the whole thing.

Ready for hiragana part 3?
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In the last ひらがな post I covered the 1st 2 lines,

あいうえお
a    i  u  e  o

�

か き く  け こ
ka ki ku ke ko

If you did any research on your own (like I did) you’ll notice that sometimes the characters look different.

That’s due to 2 things:
1) Over time the “official” way to write has changed over the years. Sometimes they’re changed to be easier to write, etc.
2) Different fonts are used. Just like in English (and pretty much any language), there are a bunch of fonts that change the look of the letters.
Some main variations look like this:

This shouldn’t be too much of an issue, just something to keep an eye out for!

On to the new stuff!
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