Chapter 1 Vocab

* Capitolized words are spelled with Katakana in Japanese.
* Words are grouped into relative categories

Nouns - meishi
* Nouns are slightly different in Japanese. First, there are no words for "a" "an" "the" or "some." These aren't translated into Japanese. Secondly, there is no distinction between singular and plural. So all words are similar to the English words "sheep" or "fish." You can have one fish or two fish, one sheep or two sheep, and the word doesn't change.

sushi - sushi, raw fish
gohan - rice
ringo - apple

mizu - water
MIRUKU - milk
sake - sake, rice wine

isha - doctor
gaka - artist
sensei - teacher

gakkou - school
kaigi - meeting

Pronouns - daimeishi
* Pronouns are extremely different in English. Actually, Japanese doen't have REAL pronouns. These words are just nouns that refer to people. They act just like nouns except you need to add a suffix to make them plural.

watashi - I, me
watashi-tachi - we, us
ano hito - he/she, him/her
ano hito-tachi - they, them

Verbs - doushi
* I will explain how verbs work in the lesson Verbs.

taberu - to eat
nomu - to drink
iku - to go
kuru - to come

da - to be (this includes am, is, and are; "da" isn't really a verb, but is similar to one. It is called the copula. I will explain it in the lesson The Copula.)

Postpositions - joshi
* I will explain how postpositions work in the lesson Sentence Structure.

wa - (subject marker)
o - (object marker)
ni - to (a place), to (a person)
e - to (a place)

Adjectives - keiyoushi
* I will explain how adjectives work in the lesson Adjectives.

ookii - big
chiisai - small
oishii - tastey, delicious, good (food, place to eat)
ureshii - happy, glad
hayai - fast, quick
yasashii - easy

kirei na - pretty, clean
shinsetsu na - kind

Adverbs - fukushi
* I will explain these in the adverbs lesson.

kyou - today
ashita - tomarow
mata - again

shinsetsu ni - kindly

ureshiku - happily, gladly
hayaku - quickly

Titles - keishou
* These are words that show the status of a person. Like the English words Mr. Mrs. Dr. et cetera. Japanese, though, has more and they come at the end of the name instead of before. Also, the Japanese almost always use one even with their friends unless they are very close.

-san - This is the most reknowned of the suffixes. It translates roughly to Mr. or Mrs. but it is used to more familiar people as well. The word "otousan" means "father" and as you can see, it uses this suffix. If you don't know which title to call someone by, use this one.

-sensei - This is the word for "teacher" as well as a title. As a title, this is used for people with respected jobs such as teachers and doctors.