Agatsuma wrote:

how do you say the phrase " how are you doing in school? " pleeezzz!!!

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gakkou wa dou desu ka.
How are you doing in school.

Nismo is correct and the way he mentioned is a good way to say it informally. I do have to say thought that if you are planning to learn more Japanese, if you are talking to adults, make sure you learn your politeness levels because trust me... certain Japanese people depending on age or their background can really get pissed off if you don't have your politeness level in check.

Example: Many years ago when I was fresh of learning basic Japanese and learning Japanese words from Japanese doramas, one thing I learned was the way people said goodbye in Japanese informally and that was "ja na". I had a writer who I assisted with an article for one of Japan's "Auto Fashion" magazine visit my home with her mother who is wife of a well-known celebrity autobiography writer. The evening went well but when my friend was leaving with her mother out the door, I said "ja na" to my friend. I knew I was in for it when the mother came racing back inside with a mad look on her face and wanted to learn who taught me "rude" Japanese and it was a very tense discussion. Granted, the goodbye was meant for her daughter but nevertheless, I learned to be careful especially since now I am in contact with many Japanese for business and that for some, politeness levels of they way you say things can be important. So, use your informal or slang words that you learn wisely.

I have a friend who wants to learn Japanese and he is learning Japanese from a girl who likes to talk very yanki like (like those Japanese gangster potty mouth girls). Not sure if she's doing it as a joke or something for him to say since he has the image of someone who would talk that way. She told him to talk that way because it's cool. So, when he tries to talk Japanese to me...it's so friggin' rude. It's funny...but not something I would test out on Japanese for conversation purposes.

As for electronic means of translating from Japanese to English...there is Babelfish or world.altavista.com. It's not perfect though, so don't expect it to translate things 100% but for reading articles that have a lot of kana or kanji that you may not understand, it will help you learn the gist of certain sentences or paragraphs.

As for Urluzers comment, I agree. Definitely learn kana if you plan to learn Japanese, if you want to read certain things that you see on Japanese entertainment or magazines or plant go to Japan. I use romanizations for translations for music especially for karaoke because my friends can't read kana and for some people who are starting out, it can be made easier in the early stages. But definitely it is important to learn kana in the beginning and it won't take long to learn. You can find good books which you can learn kana and write it over and over and over and you can learn it fairly quick.

Good luck in your learning of Japanese. ����΂�I

�P�l�f�C

Hi I'm Japanese.
I'm living in Japan of course.
Now im in a college and my major is English!!
And I like to translate so trust me=-)
I can handle it.

"You don't even understand his songs"
is

"Anta(...if its man:Omae if its woman:Kimi) kare no
uta no yosa mo rikai dekinai kuseni"

"always pray to the gods for safety"
is

"itsumo anzen no tameni kami ni kigan shi na sai(or kigan shi ro)"

Something like that(^0^)
Is there anything i can do for you guys??
Just ask me!!
I'll be happy to help ya!!

Japanese girl wrote:

Hi I'm Japanese. I'm living in Japan of course. Now im in a college and my major is English!! Is there anything i can do for you guys?? Just ask me!! I'll be happy to help ya!!

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About that run in with the mother in law. Certainly for you it was a good learning experience, but as for me, screw em if they can't take a joke. I'm not going to speak "gaijin Japanese" for the benefit of a few old ladies. Do learn polite Japanese, but not at the expense of learning real Japanese. Polite forms will not be spoken by your friends.

Furthermore archaic greetings and salutations and the masu form (which is what Japanese teachers, most of whom are stuck in a time warp, insist on ramming down our throats) makes you sound aloof and really pegs you in the "gaijin" stereotype. Just as some Americans make fun of Japanese by saying lice for rice when the Japanese imitate gaijin they do it by saying everyday things in overly polite forms which sound retarded to them.
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Actually you make a good point. When I first started at Kansai Gaidai I was used to using a more polite form of Japanese, and noticed I'd get some interesting responses from some Japanese students. Nothing big, but just enough to be annoying though. After a while obviously I adopted speaking a more practical casual style, which I use with my friends.

However there is something to be said for being able to use polite Japanese at any given time, if nothing else at least for talking to some strangers (ie: asking directions ), teachers, work superiors, and some family members (in this case the mother in law) of course this applying if you live in Japan. Actually while in Japan I found some Japanese thought it to be a bit of a "gaijin stereotype" to hear foreigners speaking too casually at all times. While it sounds like a lose-lose situation, I think if you are proficient enough in Japanese knowing when to use certain forms should come natural after a while anyway.
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I agree with your message. I just wanted to mention the problems with polite speech.

If you had never heard a masu form in your life but had learned to speak in plain forms. I think you could learn masu endings in a day. Contrast that with learning masu endings as law and then having to unlearn them the rest of your Japanese study.
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That makes sense. Also from my experience it's as though Japanese teachers almost try to keep you from learning casual speech on purpose.. for reasons I don't know.
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my japanese friend use romaji at school so i dont think its really a bad thing but you know lrning the kana and others... she uses it for one reason that the schools dont have computers that translate you know they just do the (???????? ?? ???) that thing... or blocks. so yeah thnx for all the help it really has motivated me

If romaji is dirty,.. then you're going to lose your mind after you watch Japanese TV on a daily basis. That and katakana is pretty much overused in a sense on TV- I don't know which is more annoying personally. Yet it is something you must live with, most Japanese, particularly the younger generation love katakana.

Recently on Japanese TV and the trains running through Kansai, the promotion for ECC (an English Conversation School) has the Katakana written for 'Good Choice' as �O�b�@�`���C�I Yay, the Ggu Choi system.

Besides, as other people pointed out, romaji is usually the most effective way of teaching beginners the language- think about it, where did you start from? Most people start from romaji - then hiragana/katakana (several kanji too), and finally those 2000 or so 'essential' Kanji.

Your J-friend uses romaji because she has too. Ever watch them struggling over romaji? they have to read it aloud to make sense of it. It's your life and your choice, I'm just suggesting you shouldn't use that as an excuse to use romaji, because you are the one who suffers. It's hard to make the break but if you want to get fluent and really understand the culture you have to do it in Japanese. And it's not that hard, plus the day you can start writing your friend's names in katakana you'll be a big hit.

At a certain point you will no longer be able to make sense of romaji or things written all in hiragana, only native speakers can read complicated romaji because they instinctively know what word to expect next. While we need the kanji to understand what word goes there, it's much harder for us to read romaji then native speakers.
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Moccona wrote:

If romaji is dirty,.. then you're going to lose your mind after you watch Japanese TV on a daily basis. That and katakana is pretty much overused in a sense on TV- I don't know which is more annoying personally. Yet it is something you must live with, most Japanese, particularly the younger generation love katakana.

Romaji? I've never seen romaji in Japanese TV shows..katakana I've seen of course.

Anyway anyone learning Japanese should start straight away with at least hiragana. With some drills (easily found on the net) you can have them down quickly anyway.
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sorry if i sound like im trying to get out of useing kana and others... dont get me wrong i want to learn but i have friends that dont understand the kana and i have little hope for them to ever learn ...-_- they dont sound like they really what to persue japanese but they lern for fun... so any way the Romaji is for the amarican friends:p just to make that clear but i do whant to learn Kana that is true japanese is it not! Kana is great i live the way it looks !!!! and Kanji but that is harder but i really want to learn it because it would make sentances much more shorter and ezer to read...

but to tell you the truth i wish i started learning japnese in kana and not romaji .... because i can learn only some much in romaji but in japanese kana i can learn mor words every time i see it in a paper website or other japneses stuff

You don't have to apologize for it , I was just making a suggestion earlier. You learn anyway you want to..of course if you take a formal Japanese class and the teacher tells you to learn hiragana you better listen hehe..
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thnx this has helped so much

Nismo wrote:

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Hey Nismo, did you ever hook up with her?

No, she's probably frightened of foreigners now, oh well. Conversation partners are hard to come by in Tokyo .

Nismo wrote:

No, she's probably frightened of foreigners now, oh well. Conversation partners are hard to come by in Tokyo .

Zannen.

Is it that hard in Tokyo?

ahochaude wrote:

Zannen. Is it that hard in Tokyo?

Well, it's like any metropolis - everyone is on their own time so they (quite often) come off as being impolite. I prefer anywhere in kansai over tokyo, the reason I'll be moving there next year when I'm graduated. When I'm in Osaka people will just come up to me off the street and start talking with me. In tokyo, I ask for directions to the nearest koban and people completely ignore me. If I ever get lost I just end up going into the nearest konbini, buy a pack of gum and ask the clerk directions as I am paying.

Nismo wrote:

Well, it's like any metropolis - everyone is on their own time so they (quite often) come off as being impolite. I prefer anywhere in kansai over tokyo, the reason I'll be moving there next year when I'm graduated. When I'm in Osaka people will just come up to me off the street and start talking with me. In tokyo, I ask for directions to the nearest koban and people completely ignore me. If I ever get lost I just end up going into the nearest konbini, buy a pack of gum and ask the clerk directions as I am paying.

How long were you in Tokyo? Was it 3 years or something?

Yeah, Osaka is great and the people are way more friendly than in Tokyo. Well of course that is IMO.

Are you planning on living in Japan after your schooling is over?

Nismo wrote:

No, she's probably frightened of foreigners now, oh well. Conversation partners are hard to come by in Tokyo .

woah~ u must've scared the crap out of her.... great going genious that was our only
Japanese girl... now she's gone,gone,gone...