Japanese Revelations {Particle に}

So most people, if they've been studying Japanese faithfully and learning the major particles like a good boy/girl, know that に can be used to indicate at what time an event takes place (not 'from __, to __', that's different), or to indicate where an action took place. However, just a little bit ago I found out that it can also be used to indicate the WHY of an action. For example,

田中さんはこれを買いました。
たなかさんはこれをかいました。
Tanaka-san bought this.

But what if you want to say WHY he bought it? Or you want to say WHY he went to the store in the first place and use the phrase 'to buy this' as the explanation? This is where に comes in.

田中さんは私の誕生日にこれを買いました。
たなかさんはわたしのたんじょうびにこれをかいました。
Tanaka-san bought this for my birthday. (Lit: Tanaka-san bought this for the purpose of my birthday.)

So you can use に with nouns in this way, but it's even more useful to use it with VERBS.
Don't tell me. You're groaning, saying 'PLEASE no, not verb stems and the －て form and all that complicatedness!'
Well then, I have to things to say to you:
1) It's not that hard, I promise!
2) 'Complicatedness' isn't a word. //shot

But (2) aside, let's look at (1).

Yes, it's still verbs from a foreign language, so it won't be EASY, per se, but I can assure you -- all you need to know is the －ます form of the verb. I've been taking Japanese for about 2 years now, with about half a year of official lessons, and I'm actually starting to develop an ear for the right way to add －ます to a verb, so I can promise you it's not impossible to do. (But listening to anime does help, as there is a lot of that talk from the lower-rank people to their superiors!)
ANYWAYS, this is what you do.
1) Take basic form of verb: 読む　（よむ）.
A nice, generic, well-used verb. ^^
2) Make the verb into its －ます form: 読みます　（よみます）.
(For the haters and those of you who are wondering, yes, I did choose a u-verb for the example, as ru-verbs are easy to convert to their －ます form: you just chop off the る at the end, and what's the fun in making it easy???)
3) Chop off the －ます.
Yes you read right. It may be easier for some of you just to take the root of the verb, but for me it's a lot easier to make it a －ます and THEN change it. So now we have: 読み.
4) Add に: 読みに.
See? Making it hard in Step 2 is balanced by the utter easiness in Step 4!
5) Add the verb of the thing the person/thing actually did that the に-verb is explaining: 読みに行きます.
So this mega-combo-verb would mean 'goes in order to read (books/magazines/etc.)' with an optional 'to (place)' thrown in their for the clarification of the listener.

Now you can make a sentence like this:

鈴木さんは図書館に本を読みに行きます。
すずきさんはとしょかんにほんをよみにいきます。
Suzuki-san goes to the library to read books. (Lit: Suzuki-san goes to the library for the purpose of reading books.)

I hope to God that made sense, but if it doesn't, you can always go here and scroll down to the last section. ^^

Enjoy!

Great place for practicing Kanji/Hiragana/Katakana

I already know Hiragana and Katakana like the back of my hand, but if you need to quiz yourself on them, you can go here [http://japanese-lesson.com/characters/hiragana/hiragana_drill/index.html] for Hiragana, and here [http://japanese-lesson.com/characters/katakana/katakana_drill/index.html] for Katakana... I use the Kanji, though, which can be found here [http://japanese-lesson.com/characters/kanji/kanji_drill4/index.html]... ^.^ Enjoy and 頑張って下さい～！

Japanese Revelations { ______ + 'そう／そうです'}

This is something that I think I'll start doing every once in a while -- Just sharing things that I find out about the Japanese language and/or culture. Mostly the language part of it, though. Anyways! Today's 'lesson' is about...

-----(Verb) + 「そう」／「そうです」／「みたい」-----
So. As much as it would help for it to be here, its not. There is a short lesson here about the dictionary form + そうです, though. I guess Tim Werx's explanation is pretty much the same as what I see it as, but I'm going through with this anyway. ^.^;
Basically, he says that adding 「そうです」 to a dictionary-form verb makes it into something like a rumor. As in, "I heard that Susie likes broccoli." (No offense to anyone named Susie, or to people who like broccoli. XD;;; )
Therefore, we get a sentence like this:

日向くんはケーキを食べますそうです。

(For the people out there without Rikai-chan and/or knowledge of Hiragana/Katakana...)
Hinata-kun ha (wa) keeki wo (o) tabemasu-sou desu.

In English:
I heard Hinata eats/is eating cake.

(The syllables in parenthesis are the correct pronunciation, the syllables before them are the way they're written.)

Okay, while that seems good, the way that I've heard actual Japanese people use it is more like a 'seems like', or just 'seems'. As in...

日向くんはケーキを食べますそうです。

Hinata-kun ha (wa) keeki wo (o) tabemasu-sou desu.

It seems that Hinata eats/is eating cake.

Oh, and 「みたい」 works pretty much the same way, but it's used after the 'te-form' of a verb, and it's a little less polite, as far as I know. So now we get a sentence like this:

日向くんはケーキを食べてみたいです。

Hinata-kun ha (wa) keeki wo (o) tabete-mitai desu.

It appears that Hinata eats/is eating cake.

I hope this made sense! DX
I'm such a bad teacher...

Mmmm... Cake...

Japanese Revelations {Particle か}

Lesson #2!
行くよ！^^

-----Particle 「か」-----

{At the end of a sentence...}
One of the first things one learns as a 日本語の学生 (read: student of Japanese) is that adding 「か」 to the end of a sentence makes it a question. Of course you need the question words and such, but they go in the same place as a normal subject, direct object, indirect object, etc. This is elementary, people!
 
{Surprise~}
However, I recently learned that 「か」 has another use: the opposite of 「と」. Is that hint good enough? What about... The opposite of 「と」 when it's used as 'and'?
Answer: 「か」 can be used as 'or'! O.O
Kinda crazy, isn't it? I mean, I had to buy an actual BOOK to figure that out. It's not ANYWHERE on the Internet, as far as I know...
But wait -- there's another comparison to 「と」!
... It's only used for nouns. So don't go using it with verbs, you hear me?

I guess I'll add a bit to this lesson -- it's too short. >.<

{それとも}
You know how in English you can say either "Do you want me to buy apples or bananas?" or "Do you want me to buy apples? Or do you want me to buy bananas?"? You know, how one is only one sentence, but the other has a second sentence as a kind of added thought? Well, there's a conjunction for that, too! But it's ONLY for when both sentences are questions. For example...

私は行きた方がいいか？それとも、行かないた方がいいか？
(No romaji, sorry. If you're seriously learning Japanese, you shouldn't need it~)
Should I go? Or should I not go?

This should be right. As far as I know. ^.^;

... I guess I have room for one more mini-lesson.

{それか}
This is basically the same as 「それとも」, but it's only used for going in between two sentences that aren't questions... Like this:

私は東京に行きます。それか、京都にいきます。。。
I'll go to Tokyo. Or maybe I'll go to Kyoto...

I really hope this makes sense... >.<"""

Japanese Revelations {Difference between ありがとうございます and ありがとうございました}

This is gonna be a really short post, so don't expect anything extra-spectacular...

ありがとうございます is basically what you say for when someone is GOING to do something for you, or is at the moment you say it. (read: it's present or future tense, just like all Japanese verbs when they're in their plain form.)
ありがとうございました, on the other hand, is specifically for saying 'thank you' for things the person being thanked has already done.
Here are a couple examples:

Person A: I just finished fixing you're car.
Person B: ありがとうございました！

Person A: Can you fix my car for me?
Person B: Sure.
Person A: ありがとうございます！

Of course, in real life, you wouldn't necessarily say 'thank you' in Japanese in response to an English sentence, unless this is so hard to handle that you need to practice it that way. It shouldn't be, though, as far as I know. ^.^

Have fun!