So, I thought I would post up a little about particles before I post up my newest document.
First particle that I think is one of the most important (I will only do 3 at this moment) is....
は Pronounced 'wa' when used as a particle, 'ha' in normal usage.
This is the subject particle. There is also a topic particle but I will touch on that a little later. は is used when you want something to be the subject. IE これ
は本です。 Kore wa hon desu. これ is the subject and 本です is the predicate. です (desu) is most similar to the "is/are" in the english language. There are other ways of saying "is/are" but again - it will be touched on later. For now, we will focus on using は in the "
X is
Y" sentence structure.
So if you want to say "This is a fish." What would you say? さかな is fish fyi - pronounced sakana.
I can't spend too much time on this but you can replace kore with sore or are. Two things to note though: 1- sore is closer to the other person you are speaking to while are is kind of distant from both of you, 2- kore/sore/are is not used for humans. You use kono/sono/ano - same meanings (this, that, that over there) but different usage.
Next particle that is really important is particle の (No). This is the possessive particle. In other words, if you put this after a noun (let's go with Aki-san) and before another noun (we will go with inu - dog) it would become Aki-san no inu - Aki's dog OR Dog of Aki. Do you get it? If not, here is another example. Why don't we use ourselves?
So I would want to say My T-shirt is... I would use Watashi (Me/I) no T-Shatsu (T-shirt) wa....
So practice! How would you say "This is Ann's hat."
Finally, we have を pronounced 'o' but written wo and found in the 'w' line on the hiragana chart. This is the object particle, used for verbs. It's not the only one that can be attached with verbs - you can pretty much use all of them once you know how. But in the beginning we will begin with this particle. The first verb I will teach you is します (shimasu) which means to do. It's probably one of the most common verbs in my opinion due to how often it appears. Anyways, as said before it is the object particle which if you can't guess is connected with objects and verbs that use the object particle (there are some that do not such as norimasu [to ride] and many others). So what we will practice here is the basic use of を and します.
Example: I will do homework. わたしはしゅくだいをします。 わたし-I は-Subj Particle しゅくだい-homework を-object particle します-do
For all intensive purposes we will start our sentences with watashi wa and ____-san wa for now. Long Form Present Affirmative (or what a lot of people that I have learned from call the "-masu" form) can also be used for future tense or saying "Aki eats sushi." [On a side note, we used Aki because we can write it in hiragana in the beginning of the class] We use that sentence as an example a lot in my Japanese class because it is the first one we learn since it is super easy and is a very easy example for later forms of the verbs. But since I have yet to teach you the verb for eat (and if you know it, please bear with me for now) we will go with "Aki does soccer."
あきさんはさっかあをします。（It is really サッカー but it is katakana)
aki-san wa sakkaa wo shimasu.
Aki does soccer. (proper english)----> Aki plays soccer.*
*There is another verb - asobimasu. Asobimasu means to play. But in English, we often use play for things like sports or instruments or certain other actions. Asobimasu does not cover those. It covers more of video games and other types of games. For sports it's "to do", instruments depend on the kind you play, and like playing dress up I don't know... I would think some type of "dressing/wearing".
Now time for you to try!
Do the sentence: Aki will do my homework.
That's it! =D
I will be posting the new document for practice in the next couple days! =D