Pronunciation question (or translation, even)

[Death]

I watched Beginner 1 (or 2, not sure) and they teach you how to introduce yourself.

I know I'm no doubt spelling this wrong, even by our language, but meh... Here's the basics... Or actually, here's the pronunciation of it.

Line 1: Wata shi wah
Line 2: Your name here
Line 3: Dess

I'm wondering a few things with that. 1. How do you type those in English, 2. how is my name, Michael, spelled, and 3. how is Michael pronounced?

(I thought MIchael would be spoken as "Mikah", or "Mickal")

Any help is much appreciated!

(P.S. Does anyone have any suggestions for learning to read/write Japanese?)
(For my reference: Haji-meh-mash-te)

[McCrank]

its written like

watashi wa Michael desu

foreign names are written with katakana and your name if writing that with letters would be probably something like Maikeru. i cant really explain to you how its pronounced. you have to hear and learn all the syllables yourself.

[Death]

Well, thanks for what little help you're able to give. Probably going a bit too fast for myself, but I'm impatient so... Heh.

[Belton]

P.S. Does anyone have any suggestions for learning to read/write Japanese?

My advice is learn kana (Japanese symbols) from the beginning rather than using romaji (latin letters to represent Japanese). There are fifty (ish) basic sounds in Japanese. The kana has a symbol or letter for each sound. It is best to learn these.

If you can find it, this is an excellent book.
http://www.shiawase.co.uk/2007/05/30/se ... -workbook/

However if you Google for hiragana I'm sure you can find online resources, and jPod101 has kana lessons too as part of the premium service.

If you must learn romaji (at least it's useful for typing kana) there is usually a chart inside any dictionary or language text.

These are all the sounds (I think, I'm more used to kana) Also the order is sort of important, Japanese is one language that has an answer to "why is the alphabet in that order"
They are all vowels except n. each one is one syllable and is one beat.
the base 5 sounds are a as in cat, i as in sheep, u as in boot, e as in bed, o as in dog
(it's better to hear a recording)

Code: Select All

a  i  u  e  o
ka ki ku ke ko       ga gi gu ge go
sa shi su se so         za ji zu ze zo
ta chi tsu te to       da ji zu de do
na ni nu ne no
ha hi fu he ho         ba bi bu be bo      pa pi pu pe po
ma mi mu me mo
ya - yu -  yo           
ra ri ru re ro
wa  - - -  o/wo
n

kya - kyu - kyo   
gya - gyu - gyo     
sya - syu - sho
ja - jyu - jo
cha - chu - cho
nya - nyu - nyo
hya - hyu - hyo
bya - byu - byo
pya - pyu - pyo
rya - ryu - ryo



--edit--
edit for all the ya yu yo combinations I forgot. and better sound examples.