Before this lesson begins, it's quiz time! Below, you will see a Japanese word written in Hiragana. See if you can translate/pronounce it. Ready? Don't scroll down until you have the answer.
こんにちは
You should have gotten "konnichiha," which is pronounced "kohn nee chee wah," with the emphasis on the first syllable. But wait, isn't the last symbol "ha" and not "wa?" Well, technically you're right. But in Japanese, when "は" is used as a particle, it is always pronounced "wa." What is a particle, you ask? Well, that's for a later lesson. Right now, we focus on learning to read and pronounce.
Katakana
After finally deisolating their country from the world, Japan soon found out that there was a significant language barrier. Words from latin-based languages could not be written in Japanese! So, a system was devised to transcribe foreign words into Japanese. For example, the word "bed" is transliterated in Japanese as "beddo"(ベッド).
Below is the chart for the Katakana syllabary. Use the same method I recommended for learning Hiragana: notecards and reading text. Personally, because of similarities between certain symbols, I find that Katakana is more challenging to learn that Hiragana, but it is definitely manageable.
Study up! There'll be another quiz next lesson. ;)
Next time, we'll be learning the basic grammar structure of Japanese. Stay tuned!
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