Not all portions are created equal, and sometimes you want more. If you need an extra helping of rice, just say おかわり, or okawari, which means “seconds” in Japanese. Pronunciation isn’t hard for this one, broken down by character it’s oh-ka-wa-ri, with “ri” pronounced “ree” like “reel.” You’ll hear a lot of kids yelling this in Japanese …
A common word you will hear used by the Japanese is the word どうも, or domo. It’s pronounced like “dough-mo.” どうも can also be stylized as どーも, as is the case for the famous Domo-kun. The connecting line (“ー”)creates an elongated sound between ど (do) and も (mo), so it sounds the same as どうも. …
Here’s a very useful word that you can get a lot of mileage from: わからない, or wakaranai. It seems a bit long in English, but Japanese characters can be broken down into individual sounds for easier pronunciation. For example, わ-か-ら-な-い is five characters, so it’s five sounds: wa-ka-ra-na-i. The “i” is pronounced “ee,” like how …
One of the easiest ways to learn Japanese is to speak it, but it’s also an easy language to start reading as well. While there are more hiragana characters than the English alphabet, 46 versus 26, you’ll have less problems reading as you won’t have problems pronouncing the word. If you can read it, you …
I’d like to kick off the first Japanese lesson with, what else? Greetings. Good Morning Pronunciation: ohayo Hiragana: おはよう Note: add “gozaimasu” to make it formal Good Afternoon Pronunciation: konnichiwa Hiragana: こんにちは Good Evening Pronunciation: konbanwa Hiragana: こんばんは Sound familiar? Try these on your family and friends and there’s a good chance that they’ll know …