[Demonskid]

yea.. its why i joined livemocha xD

[Fauxreal]

Oh! I'll have to look that up. I still haven't practiced my Japanese tonight - but I will soon.

[Demonskid]

I should try to get back onto livemocha

[Fauxreal]

I'm learning more words! And I'm going to start watching anime with the English subtitles then without them and see what I can pick out.

[Demonskid]

がんばって　よ！
ganbatte yo!

Good Luck!

:3 I can pick out certain phrases and stuff but thats about it ^-^,

[Coda]

I remember when I was at that level. I'm a little farther along than that now -- I can generally follow the basic idea of the conversation if they're not talking too fast -- but I'm really out of practice. ^^;

[Demonskid]

ouo I need to practice more

[Fauxreal]

We all need more practice! If not we'd all be talking in japanese.

[Demonskid]

xD I hope i can one day speak it.. =w= for now I'm settling with "toire wa doko desu ka"

=w= this way I won't wet myself

[Coda]

Originally Posted by Fauxreal

We all need more practice! If not we'd all be talking in japanese.

それで、どうしてそれは日本語じゃなかった？
sore de, doushite sore wa nihongo ja nakatta?
Then why wasn't that in Japanese?

;)

[Demonskid]

*pretends she's saying this in japanese*

I don't know enough japanese to form sentences other then how to ask for the toilet =w=

I tried though ouo I know that at the end the word 'wakarimasen' will be there buuuut... i dunno what else goes in the sentence other then nihongo. xD

[Coda]

The important thing is to try, even if you have to look up every other word in a dictionary and you're completely guessing at the grammar. Truthfully I don't even know how to make that particular statement; I would probably approximate it as "Because I only know a little Japanese, the only sentence I can make is 'where is the toilet?'." ("nihongo ga sukoshi dake wakaru kara, tsukutteru bun wa 'otoire wa doko desu ka' shika arimasen.")

[Demonskid]

OnO

コダさん　すごい！
Coda's awesome ono

[Coda]

Crap! I was typing up a mini-lesson and accidentally hit my browser's back button and lost the whole post. ;_;

[Coda]

Here's the mini-mini lesson now >.> Instead of breaking down the whole sentence like I was going to before, I'll just teach a single construction from it that I think is really useful: "kara".

"kara" can basically be read as "because." If you say "X kara, Y" then you are saying "because X, then Y". Combined with the "X wa Y desu" ("X is Y.") formula that most Japanese students should learn right away, you can express a lot of relationships with this. (Note that "desu" + "kara" turns into "dakara". It's not a requirement -- "desu kara" does exist, but it sounds kinda formal -- but it makes it sound more natural.) So for example you might say "inu wa ookii dakara, kowai desu." ("Because the dog is big, it's scary.")

[Demonskid]

I've heard Dakara used before 8D so thats what it means x3