Look! I'm being productive!

I added pages to the Japanese Language Wiki!
Go here or here to see how productive and helpful I am, bwahaha!

Finished~

For those who care, a complete chart of the JLPT N5 Kanji and their readings (as well as their meanings) can now be found here, although I'm warning you - you'll need to be able to read Hiragana and Katakana to be able to read the On-yomi and Kun-yomi (aka the readings of the Kanji). Don't be scared, though! It helps a lot with your Japanese, as Japanese culture doesn't use romaji very much, if at all, so think of it as being immersed in Japanese for just a short while, even if the word 'immersed' is used in the loosest way possible here.
Have fun~

ほら、見て！日本語のウィキですよ！ Hey, look! A Japanese Language Wiki!

This isn't gonna be about any Japanese grammar rules or whatever, I'm just giving a link to a Wiki that I'm probably going to contribute to. It can be found here: Japanese Language Wiki!!
I didn't start this Wiki, but, as I'm sure you all know, anyone can help further a Wiki, so that'll be me... Right now I'm working on making a page with a chart for each of the JLPT levels... I'm only on Level 5, where I began... It's so tedious, but I'm about halfway done OTL

Japanese Revelations {How to conjugate う-verbs to other basic forms}

At first, the various verbs of the Japanese language seem daunting. However, stick with learning it, and you'll find out that, though there are two kinds, and both conjugate differently, the る-verbs are super simple to change to different forms, and the う-verbs are a bit trickier, but aren't as difficult as they might seem at first, possibly because a fair amount of verbs that end in る are actually う-verbs. There is a trick to being able to tell most of the time what kind of verb a verb is, though.
If the verb ends in an ～ある, ～うる, or ～おる sound (meaning the second-to-last syllable is from the あ, う, or お column), the verb is most likely a う-verb.
If the verb ends in ～える or ～いる, and the second-to-last ～え or ～い sound isn't part of the kanji, it's most likely a る-verb. On that note, let's look at う-verbs! ^^

First of all, there's a helpful little chart for the different (basic) forms of う-verbs. Study this, guys - it's absolute genius. XD

～あ*	| negative form: add ～ない
～い	| ます form: add ～ます
～う	| Dictionary form: this is what you start out with.
～え	| Command form: leave it as-is, with an え-sound at the end | 'If'-form: just add ～ば)
～お	| Volitional form (meaning "let's ____): add a ～う to the end

* If the verb ends with a う (like in 買う － to buy) change the う to a わ and then add ～ない (買う → 買わない).

The ～'s in front of the あ, い, う, え, and お mean change the syllable that ends in a u-sound (in the う column, such as う, く, ぐ, す, つ, ぬ, ぶ, む, and る, as う-verbs can end in those sounds only) to a syllable from the same consonant family. For example...

う→わ・い・え・お
く→か・き・け・こ
ぐ→が・ぎ・げ・ご
す→さ・し・せ・そ
つ→た・ち・て・と
ぬ→な・に・ね・の
ぶ→ば・び・べ・ぼ
む→ま・み・め・も
る→ ら・り・れ・ろ
（The ・ symbol is the Japanese equivalent of a slash)

Examples!!
買う「かう」 (To buy) →
     買わない → Didn't buy
     買います → To buy (polite)
     買えば→ If (I/you/he/she/etc) buy
     買おう → Let's buy
書く「かく」 (To write) →
     書かない → Didn't write
     書きます → To write (polite)
     書けば → If (I/you/he/she/etc) write
     書こう → Let's write
泳ぐ「およぐ」 (To swim) →
     泳がない → Didn't swim
     泳ぎます → To swim (polite)
     泳げば → If (I/you/he/she/etc) swim
     泳ごう → Let's swim
話す「はなす」 (To speak) →
     話さない → Didn't speak
     話します → To speak (polite)
     話せば → If (I/you/he/she/etc) speak
     話そう → Let's speak
待つ「まつ」 (To wait) →
     待たない → Didn't wait
     待ちます → To wait (polite)
     待てば → If (I/you/he/she) wait
     待とう → Let's wait
死ぬ「しぬ」 (To die - this is the only verb that ends in a ぬ) →
     死なない → Didn't die
     死にます → To die (polite)
     死ねば → If (I/you/he/she/etc) die
     死のう → Let's die
飛ぶ「とぶ」 (To fly) →
     飛ばない → Didn't fly
     飛びます → To fly (polite)
     飛べば → If (I/you/he/she/etc) fly
     飛ぼう → Let's fly
読む「よむ」 (To read) →
     読まない → Didn't read
     読みます → To read (polite)
     読めば → If (I/you/he/she/etc) read
     読もう → Let's read
帰る「かえる」 (To return) →
     帰らない → Didn't return
     帰ります → To return (polite)
     帰れば → If (I/you/he/she/etc) return
     帰ろう → Let's return

Whew! I'm NEVER typing up a chart like that again!
On a brighter note, hopefully this all makes sense now. ^^ I used a verb with each possible syllable at the end for a reason~

Have fun learning Japanese! ^u^

PS:
WARNING! 行く （いく） is NOT a う-verb! It's an irregular verb, so pay attention to its conjugations and its different forms!!

Japanese Revelations {Tell everything 洗いざらい言う}

This is gonna be a really short post, but a post nonetheless.
So.
Japanese has MANY words for 'everything'. Some are adverbs (not even sure how that even works, but Rikaichan says they are, so it must be true), some are nouns, and I've never been able to tell if 全て（すべて） is a noun or a verb ending in ～て.

Either way, one way to say everything is with 洗いざらい（あらいざらい）.
It can only be used (or at least as far as I know) with 言う. When put in front of 言う, it means that [someone] told everything [that had never been told to someone else]. Maybe like something you just realized, and it was long, so it had to include the word 'everything', and you hadn't told it to anyone else yet. Or maybe a secret of your's. I don't know any other examples/situations that I can think of to use with this.

Sorry this is so short, but enjoy anyways! ^^

Japanese Revelations {(Verb 1) Without Doing (Verb 2)}

おはよう・こんにちは・こんばんは、みんなさん！
No matter what time it is where you are right now, I still say hello again!

So. This time, we're talking about how to say that someone did V1 without doing V2. Be careful, though - in Japanese, the order of the verbs is reversed. It would be more literally translated as, "Without doing V2, so-and-so did V1." A little more awkward, but it's simple enough! ^^
Making these types of sentences is easy enough, as well. For the verb you didn't do (we'll call this verb V2), just make it the plain, negative form. As in, the form that ends with ～ない. Then, add で after V2, and finally, stick the verb you did in spite of not doing V2 (which we'll call, V1) onto the end of the sentence. Also, V1 can be any tense and form, but V2 always ends with ～ない. Always.
Here's a helpful (in my humble opinion) formula (V1 and V2 are the same as they were for the last paragraph):
V2ないでV1.
That's all there is to it. Of course, if you want the sentence to be past tense, you're gonna have to change that yourself. Also, you can still add on things like a direct object, the indirect object, the location, etc. for either or both verbs.
Right. So, example sentences:
朝ごはんを食べないで、学校に行きました。
I went to school without eating breakfast. (Lit. Without eating breakfast, went to school.)

宿題をしないで、寝ます。
I went to bed without doing homework. (Lit. Without doing homework, go to bed.)

家族に話さないで、部屋へ行きました。
I went to my room without talking to my parents. (Lit. Without talking to parents, went to room.)

Of course, all these sentences (or any sentence you can come up with!) can be informal, negative, informal negative, heck, even volitional, causative, or passive! Here are some examples with those last three options in the order they're mentioned:

ボールペンで描かないで、バレンタインのカードを作りましょう。
Let's make Valentine's cards without using pens. (Lit. Without using pens, let's make Valentine's cards.)

待たないで、宿題をさせる。
We were made to do our homework right away. (Lit. Without waiting, we were made to do our homework.)

水滴もない惜しまないで、全部の水を飲まれる。
All the water was swallowed without sparing a drop. (Lit. Without sparing even a drop of water, all the water was swallowed.)

Causative-Passive! (See sentence and description below.)

晩ごはんを食べないで、部屋へ行かせられる。
I was sent to my room without eating dinner. (Lit. Without eating dinner, was made to go to room.)
Note: this uses what's called 'causative-passive' form, meaning someone was made to do something, and they quite frankly had no choice in the matter.
Also, please realize that using the causative form (to let someone do something) to ask to go to the bathroom or something like that sounds like a prisoner, even when translated to English - it would sound like this:
トイレいかせてくれますか？
Or, in English:
Can you let me go to the bathroom?
No. Just, no. (This little tidbit courtesy of Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar, in particular, this page.)

Well, that's it. If it's hard to remember, think of it like this: で is used when talking about 'by way of ____', right? Such as by bus, by car, etc? This is like saying 'by way of not V2, so-and-so did V1'. Maybe it's not the best explanation, but then again, I'm not a teacher, and it's the best I could come up with.

Enjoy and good luck!

Japanese Revelations {Contractions}

Sorry it's been such a long time since I've posted! I've been really busy OTL

Anyways, I'm sure everyone that's tried to read manga intended for younger kids has come across a sentence or two that look like this:

バイトで遅くなっちゃった！（©ポンチョ、ページ73）

Or what about this?

読んじゃいけない・・・

These are the worst:

食べなきゃいきなくて ！

I don't know about you, but these sentences kill me. ESPECIALLY that last one. I just can't make heads or tails of them - I knew they were contractions, but I couldn't figure out what the original should be.
Not anymore! I found a handy little tumblr post, and I'm sharing it with you!
You can either go here, or just read the rest of this post.
So. The first sentence has a random ちゃった at the end. I could tell it was past tense, but I had no idea whether it was saying 'I was late because of work' or 'I wasn't late because of work'. Well, actually, I could tell from the context, but can you really tell when it's just this lonely little sentence? No! Of course not!
Unless you know that ちゃ is truly just て in disguise, with a little girly flair. It also, in my opinion, is easier to say - なっちゃった is much easier to say quickly than なってた, since there aren't a bunch of t's flying around everywhere. It can also serve as a contraction of ては when telling someone whether or not to do something. Like from the aforementioned tumblr post:
食べなくてはいけません＝食べなくちゃいけません
(Both mean must eat, but it's a double negative, so it's literally translated as Must not not eat. Confusing, I know, but you'll get used to it!)

Next up is じゃ. It's just like ちゃ, but it's the contraction for the te-form of verbs that end with で instead of て. Such as 読んで, which is where we take a look at the second example from before...

読んじゃいけない＝読んではいけない
(Both mean must not read. This one isn't a double negative, as 読んで is the positive te-form, of course.)

Finally, きゃ.
This little mofo is a contraction of a contraction! Honestly, Japan, that just isn't fair!
Here's the deal for this one:

きゃ→くちゃ→くて（は）

Does it make sense? Yes.
Is it really necessary? Probably not, but I guess we're always looking to contract things even further, so I can't blame the Japanese, I guess...
When it's not after a verb, the くて（は） looks a little strange, so let's add it to the right ending for 食べる.

食べなくて

Better? That's right, くて（は） is the te-form of the negative form of a verb. Apparently, Japanese wasn't already confusing enough for us foreigners, huh? Anyways, let's put this contraction to use:

食べなきゃ＝食べなくちゃ＝食べなくて（は）

Again, the は is only if you're gonna add いけます or いけません to the end to tell someone to do something or not to do something.

Whew! Ok, here's the obligatory TL;DR -
ちゃ＝て（は）
じゃ＝で（は）
きゃ＝くちゃ＝くて（は）

Until next time! \(^o^)/

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!