I'm a five-year student of Japanese. Would anyone be interested in a basic Japanese workshop?

What I would cover:
Alphabets and pronunciation
Basic greetings/expressions
Common mispronunciations
Names and kanji (chinese characters)

Heh, thanks for the offer, and I really do appreciate it, but we have several of the Sensei's from OSU's Japanese department (one of the top rated programs in the country!) doing some panels like that. Since they're both professors and native, I think they win ^_^.

Sorry!

Have any other talents?

Haha, good point!

Nope, no more anime-related talents.

I think you're one of the first people to mention such a panel idea at a con. Go for it. I'm only a one-year student, but it would be interesting.

I can say, "hi" "I love you" and "damn/shit" in Japanese... that's all... teach me!

I need to know more than that...

But can you like combain all of these into something like "Hi, I love shit" ;) ?

I never really thought about that... lol.

Good Idea, Dildodo

It's all in a day's work for Dildodo :lol: !

lol...

I can say Hi, what, why, I love, bye, cat, meow....I think thats it....(really not much)
I knowhow to write my actual name in Kanji, and Mishikotoko in Katakana

こんにちは。糞が好きだ。(Konnichiwa. Kuso ga suki da.) :P

lol, nice one...(Now just go up to random people saying that.)

Konniti wa should be written this way. :P

今日は

It can be written either way. Hiragana's more common, probably because the kanzi 今日 is easily confused for "kyou".

It's also not uncommon for it to be written using わ instead of the particle は, even though it's wrong.

Do you know where I can find a "free" program to type Japanese on the computer? I've been wanting a program to use for taking notes in Japanese, so I don't have to hurt my hand so much by writing it. I've been searching a while and I haven't found any good ones.

Kalajessta, if you do find one, please let me know. ^_^

There's something built-in to Mac OS X if you install the Japanese language kit off the CD that makes typing in Japanese really easy. I know there's something similar for both Windows and Linux, just not sure what or where.

Well I need to look for the things for windows. ^_^

Thanks for the information

Come on people, it comes with Windows! And if you didn't know that, Google is your friend. Searching for 'windows japanese type' gives this as the first result:

http://www.msu.edu/~bellbri2/ime.html

It looks like it has everything you need to know.

cool...

(lol, I don't really use a computer much..I never really looked for it before, (well other than on a Mac.)

Actually, I don't have an instillation cd with my desktop. It never came with one and the one I burn, it doesn't work. Maybe I'll attempt it with the instillation cd that came with my labtop.

you can also download the Japanese language packs from Microsoft.com I think...

Whatever Windows tells you, the japanese language pack is not on your XP disc. It comes default with Windows XP. It will be in the I386 folder on your computer. It should already be set to this directory when the window comes up to point to the files Windows needs.

And where do I find this folder? Also, will it allow me to write in Japanese?

where at? *looks at Kalajessta*

Yes it will allow you to type in Japanese. The i386 folder should be under C:\ drive.

When the window pops up asking for the languge pack files, put in C:\i386. As I said it should be set to this folder by default but if not then put that in. Click ok etc. After installing the language pack, go to Regional and Lang. options in Control Panel. go to Languages tab, then Details. Click Language bar at the bottem and select "show language bar."

Ooo, this would be quite fun. I just typed up an introduction for myself just a couple of days ago too for some practice. I shall put it up here as well...

こんにちわ, みんなさん. 私は ウエンデイ エリサー メクブライド です、そして、二十四歳 です。 私は読むことがすきです! 私の日本語のクラースはおもしろみです、そして、日本とスペインえいきたいです！ 私のポストいいですか？

Enjoy figuring that out. ^_^

Actually, I was going to do this panel at Colossal, but they apparently already have it in works. But what about a basic "otaku" Japanese panel? For example, it will be a crash course on culture, language and things you find in anime, since it's just a panel and not a 16 week class.

(Disclaimer: I'm the board's resident Japanese nitpick)

こんにちは、ボードへようこそ！

日本語が上手ですね。どのぐらい勉強していますか。どこでですか。間違えが少し入っていますが、説明させていただきます：

こんにちわ - The 'wa' is actually written as the particle は. This is because it originally was a phrase, as you can see a bit better if you see it written in kanji: 今日は. A lot of native speakers of Japanese make this mistake too.

二十四歳 - Not really a mistake, but the kanji 歳 is used mostly in newspapers and formal documents. For more casual texts, like a message board, you'd probably see the simpler kanji 才.

クラース - 'kurasu' has a short a: クラス

おもしろみ - This may be right, but I've never heard it before. saying 面白いです sounds more natural to me.

日本とスペインえいきたいです - The particle 'e' is like the particle 'wa' - it's not written with the kana you'd expect. It's actually written へ. So this should be: 日本とスペインへ行きたいです

どんな物を読む事が好きですか？

I see more scribbles! :-P

Remember, adjective stem + "-mi" (or "-sa") is a nominalizer, so "omoshiromi" isn't correct: "Japanese class is fun thing!"

And there will be a "Otaku Japanese" panel at the con. Not the one people are expecting, but there will be one.

And back to my cave I go...

Koorogi: Thanks for pointing that out for me. I can't believe I forgot to type out "ha" as opposed to "wa", knowing that that's one of the first things I memorized when starting this class. Same with "e" and "he". I guess I was so excited about typing this stuff out, I didn't bother checking. Note to self, proof read before posting to make sure I have the correct character for the particles. lol

cacepi: So if not "omoshiromi", what should I have used there to say "My Japanese class is fun"?

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hhhhhaaaaa!

Thanks Dildodo that brought a tear to my eye it was so funny!

Ah. I haven't seen "-み" used as a nominalizer for adjectives before. The closest I've seen is nouns like "楽しみ" and "苦しみ", but those seem derived from the verbs "楽しむ" and "苦しむ", not from the related adjectives.

日本語のクラスがおもしろいです。

I was talking more like "高み" (height), as an isolated ren'you-kei stem is itself considered a noun in Japanese: take "好み" or "読み," for example. Adjective + "-sa" is more common, however.

Back to the cave...

Oh, I see now, and feel incredibly dumb for screwing that up. I wonder why I thought it would've been omoshiromi anyway as opposed to omoshiroi.

all sounds really cool. but how about historical japanese culture? just an idea...
the whole thing with samurai and liege lords and bushido and seppuku and so forth interests me a lot.
I'd also like to learn about the different types of japanese weaponry/techniques, like ninja vs samurai. maybe someone will have something at the con for that.

Yeah I can't wait for the japanese panels. I'm going to japan on vacation in May :) Surprised no one has mentioned they know baka (idiot/stupd). I hear that all the time. I'm working on learning kana and hiragana so I can at least read signs and such when I'm over there. I can understand a handful of words but can't write any of it. Also the first full sentance I learned was from a friend of mine who lived there for a few months:

Gommenasai, watashi wa baka no gaijin.

I'm not going to translate that, if you've watched any decent amount of anime subtitled you should be able to figure it out.

Also, for those trying to learn kana and hiragana, a great site I found is http://kanasensei.sourceforge.net/. It will start a java applet (or you can download it locally) and it's kinda like flash cards. But the nice thing is you can choose only a column at time, so you can focus on just a few at one time and then keep expanding it. And it will do both kana and hirgana to english or english to hiragana or kana.

Have fun in Japan.

While katakana and especially hiragana are a great first step, I think you'll find most signs in Japan have a fair amount of kanji on them. Maybe you'll even pick up some kanji while you're there!

If you want to use that Japanese sentence (which I don't really recommend), I've got a small correction for you:

Gomen-nasai, watashi wa baka na gaijin desu.

The "desu" isn't strictly necessary, but you're better off with it for politeness reasons. In most cases, "no" would be correct, but there is a class of words after which you use "na" instead, and "baka" is one of them.