Wonder what the world has in store for me today. I think I am well equipped to sit the JPanese exam next year. Should I or not is the question..

Learnt the kanji for head which is atama.

doomo

doomo - thanks (Japanese)
nandri - thanks (Tamil)

Sensei - Japanese

sensei is teacher in Japanese
aasiriyai/aasiriyar is teacher in Tamil

Telugu, Tamil, Japanese vowels comparison

Started with learning Japanese again from the irasshai course.

I finished watching two videos and finished two exercises. Since I knew tamil and learnt somewhere that japanese and tamil may have had the same background, I am trying to explore this idea..

onamewa - what is your name? - (un peyar enna? -Tamil) - (nee peruyemiti?-Telugu)
Japanese               Tamil                        Telugu            English
ichi                         - onnu                           okati              - one
ni                            -  rendu                         rendoo         - two
irasshaimasen  vanakkam/nalvaravu  swaagatam       welcome
ohayo gozaimasu  kaalai vanakkam    Shubhodayam    good morning
father                 machine                   fruit                         met                                  home

a                           i                              u                          e                                   o

అ             ఇ               ఉ              ఎ                   ఒ

அ           இ              உ             எ                  ஒ

あ                                  い                                       う                                 え                                                お

For longer vowels, in Tamil and Telugu we have signs or independent vowels while in Japanese(Nihongo), use the double of the word. 

ああ = ஆ = ఆ

 いい=ஈ = ఈ

  うう=ஊ = ఊ

ええ = ஏ = ఏ

おお=ஓ=ఓ

konnichiwa - good afternoon

ohayo gozaimasu - (formal) good morning

ohayo(informal)

For nouns, add -san to men, women and girls and add -kun for boys.

In Tamil, for elders after their name, - avargal is added for respect. 

Bharatiyaar-avargal

In Japanese, we form a question by adding ka? at the end of the sentence.

In Tamil, to form a question we add -yaa to the end of the question?

nee yenna kuzhandaiyaa?

nee enna kazhudaiyaa?

Telugu adding yaa, naa, aa forms the questions

nuvvu gaadidaa?

nuvvu krishna-naa?

nuvvu devi-yaa?

nee peru kavitha-naa?

Pappu thinu - Eat lentils

Pappu thintaavaa? - Will you eat lentils?

paruppu sapidu. - Eat lentils

paruppu sapuduriyaa? - Will you eat lentils?

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)