Please help a newbie!

[Lexy]

Hello, I am a newbie Japanese student and I need some help with some basic stuff. sorry to be so forward, but would anyone please help me? I just need a couple of basic explanations and some help with a little translation. (I did try the dictionary, but that did not help with all my questions!)

Thank you so much in advance x

[QuackingShoe]

You should probably be more specific about what you want to know, but you can find basic information all over:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_language
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/
http://japanese.about.com/od/japanesele ... ibegin.htm

And others, just do some google searches with 'japanese' and 'learning' as qualifiers.

If you want to ask about anything specific (like your sentence translation), please do so

[Lexy]

If you want to ask about anything specific (like your sentence translation), please do so

Ok, specific... I need to know what these words mean:

に なります
しゅっしん (whats the symbol that looks like tsu, but small mean?)
を して います
まで います
を みる こと
すぽーつ (what's with the dash?)

Thank you very much!

[Javizy]

Most of those are function words, so you're going to need more than a quick forum explanation to understand them in any depth. Maybe somebody else will want to give it a go though.

っ represents a glottal stop, 促音(そくおん) or more informally 小さいつ in Japanese, which is created by contracting muscles against your vocal chords, and releasing them as the pressure builds up. Try saying 'uh-oh', and notice how there is a short pause after 'uh'.

A syllable in Japanese, unlike in English, is defined as a unit of time, so the っ should be allocated as much time as しゅ, し, and ん respectively. It's quite easy to learn to say yourself, but learning to recognise it by ear takes a bit of practice.

The ー in すぽーっ simply creates a long vowel, so in this case it's the same as ぼお/ぼう. It's usually used in katakana, but is also occasionally used for emphasis, especially in those onomatopoeia expressions.

[QuackingShoe]

に なります　－　なります（なる） means 'to become', and に targets what it's becoming.
しゅっしん　－　(出身) means hometown, or somewhere else you came from. The small 'tsu' signals a small pause, or doubling of the following consonant. So the word would be romanized shusshin
を して います　－　を is the direct object marker, and しています basically means 'am doing (continuously)' . It's a conjugation of する. Often used with する verbs, which are nouns that have verb-like meanings.
まで います　－　まで is a word that means 'until'. います is a polite conjugation of いる and means 'to exist' for animate things. We don't know what we're existing until because this is only part of the sentence
を みる こと 　－　みる(見る) means 'to see/look at', and こと describes a thing or experience. In Japanese, verbs can modify nouns directly, and here みる is modifying こと. Since こと doesn't actually have much of a meaning on it's own, here the translation basically comes out to 'seeing' in English. を is marking a direct object that you left out.
すぽーつ 　－　should be written in katakana (スポーツ). It means sports, and the ー indicates a long vowel, and is usually only used in katakana. In Hiragana, the same thing is represented by following an え or い with い (えい、いい), and お or う with う (おう、うう), or an あ with あ (ああ).

You should try reading through the Guide to Japanese to learn all of this sort of thing, especially since likely a lot of this didn't actually made sense to you. There's all kind of background knowledge you need to build up first, you know?

[andamanislander]

if you just need individual words translated, you should probably use this:

http://www.df.lth.se/cgi-bin/j-e/jis/nocolor/dict

If you need a whole passage translated, you should probably post the whole thing! Translating little word fragments out of context is not really a recipe for answers that make any sense...