z for zen

z for zen
ぜん is zen
zen means meditation/dyana.
ぜ=ze
ん=n
禅 = is the kanji for zen in Japanese.
Zen buddhism.

More information about zen is in the following wikipedia link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen

y for yoroshiku

y for yoroshiku
Yoroshiku means to pleased to meet you. It is used in different ways in japanese. Doozo yoroshiku means pleased to meet you/nice to meet you. Literally it means I ask you a favor/good treatment.

どうぞよらしく- DoozoYoroshiku


ど=do


う=o


ぞ=zo


よ=yo


ら=ro


し=shi


く=ku

x for xtra

x for xtra
Since there is no x in Japanese, I can give you an extra/xtra letter in Japanese. It is the ya letter.
や=ya
When it occurs with other consonants as in the case of kya, gya etc it is written smaller in size. 


きゃ=kya


ぎゃ=gya

W for watashi

W for watashi
Watashi also means I.
Watashi and Watakushi are both formal and watashi is perceived more feminine.
Watashi wa gakusei desu means I am a student.
In Japanese, when the subject is known it is better to omit the pronouns.
gakusei desu ka? - are you a student?
hai, gakusei desu. (yes, I am a student)
iie, chigaimasu. (no, I am not lit. It is different.)

V/W for watakushi

V for watakushi
V and w are interchangeable in Japanese and represented by wa わ in hiragana.

Wakakushi wa - means I am

So to say " I am Smith"
Watakushi wa Sumisu desu.
desu is is/am/are and is always written at the end of the sentence. The sentence formation is subject object and verb. (sov) unlike English where it is SVO(subject verb object).

So to say your name
just say Watakushi wa _______________ desu.
In Japanese, there is no way you can write sm(two consonants together). So a dummy sound (u) is introduced. So Smi - Sumi and there is no th and hence it is replaced by su.
So Smith is Sumisu. Also since our names are foreign to Japanese, there should always be written using katakana instead of hiragana.
スミス - Sumisu
 - Jakuson(Jackson)

U for uuru

U for uuru
ウール means wool
Since it is a foreign word(from English) it is written in Katakana. In katakana the doubling of vowels can be denoted either by writing the vowel twice or by using the a bar like symbol ー.
ウ=u
ル=ru
ー is used in horizontal script and | is used to denote the long vowel.

T for takushii

T for Takushii

Takushii is Taxi (written in Katakana)
タクシー
タ=ta
ク=ku
シ=shi
ー=i
takushii noriba is Taxi stand
basu noriba is Bus stand

S for san

S for san
san means the number 3
さん
さ=sa
ん=n
In Japanese, the months are as follows
ichi-gatsu - 1st month - January
ni-gatsu - 2nd month - February
san-gatsu - 3rd month - March
shi-gatsu - 4th month - April
go-gatsu - 5th month - May
roku-gatsu - 6th month - June
shichi-gatsu - 7th month - July
hachi-gatsu - 8th month - August
ku-gatsu - 9th month - September
Juu-gatsu - 10th month - October
Juuichi-gatsu - 11th month - November
Juuni-gatsu  - 12th month - December

R for Roku

R for Roku
roku is six.
ろく


ろ=ro
く=ku




roku-sen is 6,000(six thousand)
roku-man is 60,000(sixty thousand)
roku-gatsu is June (ろくかっ) or sixth month.

Q for kyuuri

Q for kyuuri
kyuuri means cucumber

Q does not occur in Japanese but the equivalent of q-kyu is found in Japanese.

きゅうり=kyuuri


きゅ=kyu


う=u


り=ri


きゅう=kyuu is nine


Having introduced some letters till now, I think I can give some of the letters in order(The first three sets of 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


To remember the alphabets always use some codes/sentences. For example, し - she has long hair, ku - sound of a bird like it is opening its beak to sing a song etc. You can find many like these on the internet or in Japanese learning books.

P for papa

P for papa

papa means daddy
I should say I had to use a dictionary to find a word starting with pa. I should assume(with my limited knowledge of Japanese), that Japanese words don't usually start with pa. The words that start with pa must be foreign words as all the words I found in the dictionary I have (Langenscheidt's Pocket Dictionary - Japanese) have the words in katakana(meaning foreign language words - words from English written in Japanese)

パパ - papa


パ=pa
This is pa in katakana.


ぱ=pa (hiragana)
ha with a circle on top is pa.


ば=ba
ha with two double lines on top is ba.

o for ohayoo gozaimasu

o for ohayoo gozaimasu
ohayoo gozaimasu means good morning.
おはようございます
お=o
は=ha
よ=yo
う=o
ご=go
ざ=za
い=i
ま=ma
す=su

O for origami
おりがみ
お=o
り=ri
が=ga
み=mi
ori means folding and kami means paper. when they combine, ka becomes ga. So origami is paper folding.

n for ni

n for ni
にmeans 2
This is hiragana. To remember this hiragana, when you see this hiragana, you will see that it looks like knee and knee cap - that is, ni.
But numbers are written in Kanji as well. But the first few numbers are easy to write.

1	ichi	一
2	ni	二
3	san	三
4	shi/yon	四
5	go	五
6	roku	六
7	shichi/nana	七
8	hachi	八
9	kyuu/ku	九
10	juu	十

To form other numbers like 11, juuichi, juuni, juusan,juushi, juugo, juuroku,
20 is nijuu, 21 is nijuuichi, 22 is nijuuni, 23 is nijuusan, 24 is nijuushi, 25 is nijuugo etc
40 is yonjuu
50 is gojuu
60 is rokujuu
hyaku is 100 is 百

M for Marunouchi

M for Marunouchi
Marunouchi is a place in Tokyo.
丸の内
The first and third letter are kanji while the middle one is no(which is hiragana).
While there are limited number of hiragana and katakana characters, there are nearly 100,000 kanji(from wiki) but only 2000 to 3000 kanji are in common use in Japan.
There are various levels to learn Kanji.
For more information about learning Kanji, visit the following wiki article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji_kentei#Level_1
There are also many books and applications available to learn Kanji.

l for film

l for film

There is no syllable for la in Japanese hiragana and katakana. Words of foreign origin that have a "l" sound in it are replaced by r.
For example
milk = miruku(ミルク)
film = fuirumu(フィルム)
television=terebi (テレピ)
building= biru(ピル)

k for konnichiwa

k for konnichiwa
konnichiwa means Good afternoon
こんにちは
konbanwa means Good evening
こんばんは
こ=ko
ん=n
に=ni
ち=chi
は=wa (hiragana ha)
Actually は is ha. But there is a rule for writing hiragana wa and ha. When wa is used as a particle, it is written as hiragana ha. "Konnichiwa" is now a fixed greeting. However, in the old days it was a part of sentence such as "Today is _ (Konnichi wa _)" and "wa" functioned as a particle. That's why it is still written in hiragana as "ha."

J for jaa

J for jaa
じゃあ
じゃ=ja
あ=a
jaa means well(then)
ja arimasen = am/is/are not
じゃありません
じゃ=ja
あ=a
り=ri
ま=ma
せ=se
ん=n
wakarimasu means I understand
wakarimasen means I don't understand
if you replace su with sen in the end of word it means negation.
hai, wakarimasu
yes, I understand
Iie, wakarimasen
no, I don't understand

i for Irasshaimase

i for Irasshaimase
Irasshaimase means welcome/come in.
いらっしゃいませ
い=i
ら=ra
しゃ=sha
い=i
ま=ma
せ=se
っ= denotes doubling of consonant. In this case it denotes doubling of sh
Irashshaimase!!

H for hajimemashite

H for hajimemashite 
はじめまして
は=ha
じ=ji
め=me
ま=ma
し=shi
て=te
It means how do you do? Glad to meet you and lit. it means It's the first time.
Note: shi (し) and ji (じ) 
Remember how to remember shi. It is she has long hair.

g for go

g for go

ご is the number 5 in Japanese
without the two little lines on top of go would be ko.

So the following are the numbers from 1 to 10 in Japanese Romaji

1-ichi 
2-ni
3-san
4-shi/yon
5-go
6-roku
7-shichi/nana
8-hachi
9-ku/kyuu
10-juu

F for furoshiki

F for furoshiki

ふろしき
ふ=fu
ろ=ro
し=shi
き=ki

Furoshiki is a square cloth for wrapping things. To know more about furoshiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furoshiki or visit for more furoshiki techniques http://furoshiki.com/techniques

Some clues for remembering shi and ki are shi is like she has long hair(learnt from some book whose name I can't recollect) and ki is like a key.

E for Eigo

E for Eigo

えいご is the word for English (language)
え-e
い-i
ご-go


-----------------------------------------------
こ - ko and two lines on top make it  ご - go


ええ ee is the word for yes. The other word which means yes is hai (はい)


Kore wa nan desu ka
kore - this
wa - particle that goes with the noun
nan - what
desu - is
ka - question indicator


If you replace nan with any other word like Toyko, Tissue etc then it would be kore wa Toyko desu ka? then it means "is this Tokyo"?


eki in japanese means a (train) station. This is written in Kanji.

D for Doomo

D for Doomo
どうも
ど=do
う=o
も=mo
どうも means thank you. As you know arigatoo earlier you can add doomo arigatoo to say Thank you very much.
doomoarigatoo = どうもありがとう


Also desu means is. d for desu.


doomo arigatoo for visiting my blog. Happy learning Japanese!!

C for chigaimasu

C for Chigaimasu
ちがいます
It literally means it is different.

So if some one asks you kore wa Tokyo desu ka?(meaning is this Tokyo?)
You can say No, it is not or it is different with iie, chigaimasu.

ち-chi
が-ga
い-i
ま-ma
す-su


iie-no (いいえ)
chigaimasu - it is different.

To make ka to ga, adding two lines above ka as shown below.

か-ka
が-ga


To make to as do, adding two lines above to as shown below.
と-to
ど - do


In English, we have Mr, Mrs, Ms before the names but in Japanese we add -san after the names. 
Yamada-san
Yamanaka-san
And we add -san only when addressing others and we never use it when we say our name.

b for biru

ビ for biru

ビル 
ビ-bi and ル-ru
Biru is a loanword meaning building and hence it is written in Katakana. Japanese does not have sound for la and hence all words which have a "la/l" sound in it are replaced by r.
Some examples of loanwords from English - elevator is erebeetaa, esculator is eskareetaa, Salad is sarada.

A for Arigato gozaimasu

A for Arigato Gozaimasu

ありがとうございます

(あ-a, り-ri,が-ga,と-to,う -go,

ご-go,ざ-za,い-i,ま-ma,す-su)

Arigato Gozaimasu means Thank you very much in Japanese.

Introduction to Japanese (にほん)

The main scripts of Japanese are hiragana, katakana and kanji (chinese characters).

Kanji The Japanese language had no written form at the time Chinese characters were introduced and texts were written and ready only in Chinese. In modern Japanese, kanji are used to write parts of the Japanese language such as nouns, adjective stems, and verb stems

Hiragana is a Japanese syllabary used for writing native Japanese words for which there is no Kanji (grammar and particles).

Katakana is Japanese syllabary for writing loanwords, symbols, scientific names etc.

Furigana is hiragana writing for Kanji symbols.