日本語アドベンチャー！

[deoxys]

I'm going to try and go through and learn what you've shown us here from the very beginning. I'm looking into studying abroad in Japan, and even though they teach in English and teach beginners Japanese, I want to start learning. I'm afraid of not being able to understand how to read or write though. I know Japanese is one of the hardest languages to learn, but we all started somewhere, right? I just gotta get into the mindset of a 4 year old learning language... I think...

[Talon87]

Whether you plan to self teach or whether you plan to take classes, I think the best, most foundational place to start is learning your ABCs. Learn how to write the Japanese alphabet in hiragana. Then learn how to write it in katakana. Then (and only then) tackle the most rudimentary of grammar and vocabulary. If you're considering starting tonight, I can give you some fun little things to decode below.

きりがや かずと (きりと)
ゆうき あすな
すぐは
ソード・アート・オンライン
フェイトゼロ
ナルト

If you can read those without assistance, then there you go. If you want more stuff to decode below ...

Spoiler: show

サスケ
ひなた
らせんがん
カカシ
なみ
ロビン
しいな
ましろ
あおやま
ななみ
キョン
ハルヒ

Just to be clear, most/all of these are tailor made for Deo. They may not mean anything meaningful to most beginners, but I've selected them for him as fun ways to assess his ability to read the Japanese syllabary unassisted.

[deoxys]

I figured out the first one all by myself! It's Kirigaya Kazuto (Kirito)! Wow, now that I have some semblance of how the language works, this might not be as hard as I think (although I'm sure it will be once it comes to actually identifying word meanings and objects...)

I'll get to the rest tomorrow and start practicing writing it all down and memorizing the language.

One question I have, and maybe you've already addressed it in this thread but I haven't seen it, but why does something like "water" (水) get it's own letter as opposed to being spelled like みず?

Spoiler: show

Yeah I'm probably boned but hey I feel pretty good right now (babby's first japanese reading etc)

[Talon87]

Spoiler: just about every word gets what you refer to as "its own letter", a Chinese character we call kanji. What then is the Japanese syllabary used for? Amongst other things ...

• used to complete grammatical conjugations
• used to spell words that the writer doesn't know the kanji for or chooses not to use the kanji for

So like ... for the infinitive "to go", you can spell that as いく or you can spell it as 行く. The latter is how most people would spell it, as 行く is such a basic word that its kanji is quite well known to speakers of most ages.

I continue to explain below. It gets a bit long. Read at your own discretion. I worry it's overwhelmingly much, which is why I'm deciding to put it all in the spoiler tag. But I've decided to keep it because your inquisitive mind might find it enlightening.

Spoiler: show

But notice how the く is still left there. That's because Japanese verbs have roots/stems, sort of like Latin, and then they have conjugated bits that follow. As a general rule of thumb (not 100% true but probably something like 98% true), the first character to fall outside of a kanji's domain is the first distinguishing character. What on Earth does that mean? ^^; Well, let me show you by example.

First, let's look at conjugating a verb. We'll pick 行く again.

• the infinitive, as well as the plain present, is 行く / いく
• the ordinary polite present is 行きます / いきます
• the plain past is 行った / いった
• the ordinary polite past is 行きました / いきました
• the potential form is 行ける / いける
• the plain present negative is 行かない / いかない
• the plain past negative is 行かなかった / いかなかった

You needn't try to wrap your head around all of these conjugations just yet. That isn't the point of me listing all these here. The point of this list is to see if you can spot the pattern: the kanji covers the い but nothing that follows. And the reason being that from the very second syllable forward, the pronunciation changes depending on the conjugation. Contrast: いく vs. いきます vs. いかない vs. いける. Notice how they're all K-family syllables in that second slot -- く, き, か, け -- but the vowel that follows is different in each instance. It is precisely because of this that these characters show up outside the domain of the kanji. But since the word always begins with い, the い can show up inside the kanji and no one has to do any guesswork as to how to read it.

Second, let's look at a case where it's not even conjugation that determines what shows up inside or outside the kanji but word family. We'll pick 集める あつめる "to gather, to collect" for our verb this time. I want you to notice something:

• plain present: 集める
• plain past: 集めた
• plain potential: 集められる

Notice anything unusual, given what I just taught you above? That's right: all the forms always have め there, and yet it's showing up outside of the kanji instead of within it. Why is that? Wellllllllllllllllll ... that's because あつめる isn't the only verb which uses the 集 kanji. There's also its brother, 集まる あつまる "to collect, to gather". What is the difference between these two verbs? The one is transitive while the other is intransitive. You might remember from high school English that a transitive verb takes a direct object (e.g. "John gathered some papers") whereas an intransitive verb does not (e.g. "snow gathered on the ground"). In English, we rarely have different words for our transitive and intransitive cases. In Japanese, the opposite is true: there are hundreds upon hundreds of transitive + intransitive verb pairings. Some examples, with the transitive listed first in all cases:

• とめる vs. とまる ("to stop")
• あける vs. あく ("to open")
• なおす vs. なおる ("to heal; to fix, to repair")

Let's return now to 集める. I want you to imagine if the word were really written like this: 集る. How would you know how to read it? You'd know the first two syllables were あ and つ, but what about the third syllable? Would it be め? Or would it be ま? You would have no way of knowing without further context. Well, while Japanese is a language with an unhealthy love affair for context , this is one case where the Japanese scholars said "No " to context and required the information be presented quite clearly and upfront. The あ and つ can stay inside the kanji, they said, but the remainder has to come outside so that people can tell which verb it is.

Anyway, back to what you discovered. You said that water can be written as either 水 or as みず. This is correct. But it's not just water. It's also dog, and cat, and building, and walk, and run, and Japan, and just about everything. That doesn't mean that you're wasting your time on the alphabet though: far from it. Look at the images in this post. (Inside the spoiler box.) The Japanese alphabet is used so, so much even in the presence of Chinese characters. In fact, this is the single greatest difference between Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Korean uses a pure alphabet. Chinese uses a pure "picturebet". And Japanese does the half-and-half, adopting the Chinese characters for all of its roots (nouns, verb stems, adjective/adverb stems) but using a Japanese-native alphabet for all the other grammar roles (verbal conjugations, adjectival/adverbial conjugations, prepositions, syntactical markers). Once again: Korean, alphabet; Chinese, pictures; Japanese, mix of pictures and alphabet.

This is why it's crucial for you to know your ABCs. Because you will be using them, from here on out, on your grand Japanese adventure.

[deoxys]

Wow. Thanks for all of that. I read it all and I had to read everything in the spoiler slowly and a few times, but I understand it now, at least in your examples. I'm afraid of it being too much though, perhaps overbearing in the number of characters and combinations with kanji and the alphabet, not being able to correctly memorize it all. I guess this is why they say Japanese takes several years for anyone to understand perfectly? Also, it looks like it's going to be easier to read and write than to actually listen and identify what's being said that way.

Anyway, I'll get more into this tomorrow and try deciphering your other words, and then I'll go through the thread. I'm dead set on figuring this out and am glad you will be here to help me every step of the way.

[Talon87]

It's really a lot easier than it looks. I've heard it said that there is a five-star difficulty rating for languages, that English and Mandarin are 5-star languages, and that Japanese is a 4-star language. Honestly? I feel like Japanese is a 2-star language but for volume. Volume of kanji. Volume of vocabulary. Volume of different ways to say what in English we only have one way to say. The volume is what makes it such a difficult language to gain true fluency in. But as far as the grammar goes, as far as the language making sense goes, I feel like Japanese is eerily simple. I remarked many, many times to myself and to my peers back in college that Japanese struck me as having more in common with English than French did. Lack of gender. With the exception of a very few irregular verbs, all verbs follow the same conjugation pattern (unlike French's -er verbs vs. -ir verbs vs. -re verbs) (and also unlike French's crazy conjugational changes depending on who the subject is, e.g. je suis, tu es, il est). Adjectives coming in front of the words they modify. So on and so forth.

You won't be able to learn the language in just one month unless you are a savant*; but, you can learn the language at a reasonable pace.

* or unless you completely cut yourself off from English, and by this I mean you take a one-way ticket to Japan and now it's literally do or die. Survival does crazy things for learning rate.

[Kindrindra]

Eto...

So, I was pondering on the way home from school, and I hit a bit of a problem. How does の (as in the correspondent to the english 'of') function in regard to particles? Since the noun comes second, can you just stick wa or ga or whathaveyou after it, or are there special rules? To randomly stick words together to illustrate my question, would the phrase 「火の泡は寒ですない！」 ("As for the fiery bubbles, they're not cold!") be grammatically sound?

[Talon87]

You asked a lot, so breaking it down and giving you super-brief answers ...

Q1. Are there rules with の? Yes.
Q2. Can I combine の with other particles like は? Yes, but not all particles. (See A1.)
Q3. 火の泡わです！ FYI, that doesn't say what you then wrote afterwards in English. If it were spelled correctly, it would translate to the declarative sentence "Fire bubbles!" or "They're fire bubbles!" or similar.
Q4. 泡わ There shouldn't be a わ outside of the kanji for bubble. The word is 泡. It contains both the あ and the わ of あわ.

Backing up to the core part of your question (Q1), ...

Spoiler: show

This is probably why I should look into sharing with you guys my study notes from college. Or, alternatively, this is why you should get a good Japanese grammar text like those recommended in the opening posts of this thread. ^^; But briefly, I'll give you the lesson:

In Japanese, most particles have multiple uses. For instance, は is the topic marker, but it's also a marker of contrast. And because Japanese is a language that thrives on context, which role the particle is fulfilling in any given sentence is up to the reader/listener to decipher. In some cases a particle might even fulfill more than one role simultaneously. For example, in the sentence "There is nothing [no life] there,"　そこには何も居ない, the は in には is both a topic marker for そこ as well as a contrast marker indicating that while life may exist elsewhere, there it doesn't exist.

Certain particles stack together, as in the above example with には. You have both the place/location marker に and the topic marker (and/or contrast marker) は forming a pair, には. While many particles are eligible to stack together, there are indeed rules that prevent you from just stacking any ol' particles together or in any ol' order you like.

Focusing on の for now, here are some legal examples of pairings you might come across:

• のは , where は is the contrast marker and/or the topic marker, e.g. 行くのは大変 "Going is tough" / "Going [there] would be a pain" / etc.
• のも , where も is the "also; too" marker, e.g. レンのもいい "Ren's is fine too."
• への (read えの), where へ (read え) is the direction/location marker, e.g. 母への手紙 "letter to Mother" (lit. "Mother to's letter" or "to-Mother letter" if you want to make sense of it that way)

There are also some cases where の shows up as a part of a multi-character particle:

• のに is a special two-character particle that assumes a new meaning of "even though", e.g. 言ったのにやっちまった "Even though I told you not to, you went ahead and did it anyway".
• ので is another two-character particle that assumes the meaning of "because", usually used in logical constructions, e.g. 暗いので私は本が読めなかった "Because it was dark, I couldn't read the book."
• なの is the casual form of なんです. If you don't know なんです, that's a lesson for another day.

I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting right now because I'm doing this off the top of my head.

EDIT: Regarding your new sentence, 火の泡は寒ですない！, you wouldn't say 寒ですない. Both the adjective and the copula require corrections. Let me ask you, do you have or plan to get a grammar book? Otherwise, how are you self-teaching the grammar? Wikipedia? Other public options? Show me what you're using so I can direct you to the chapters that explain these two concepts.

EDIT 2: For now though, let me just offer you the specific correction: it should say 「火の泡は寒くない！」 or, if you want the です, 「火の泡は寒くないです！」

[Talon87]

Pretty sure in a past update I gave 噛む already, but just in case not ...

Non-Beginner: 噛む v.t. "to bite"
reading: かむ
radical components: 口 "mouth" + 歯 "tooth"

Well, the reason I bring it up again is because of this similar word (well, similar to me anyway. Similar sounding, both having to do with senses explored by parts of the head) that I thought to share with you guys today:

Non-Beginner: 嗅ぐ v.t. "to sniff; to smell"
reading: かぐ
radical components: 口 "mouth" + 臭 "odor; smell"

Circling back around for the beginner word tonight then, we have ...

Beginner: 匂い , 臭い n. "odor; smell"
reading: におい
radical components: 匂 is a Japan-invented character that combines 勹 and ヒ ; 臭 is 自 "self; auto-" on top and 大 "large" on the bottom
other notes: both spellings are used very often. With 臭い, you have to be sure to distinguish it from its adjectival form, spelled the same way (臭い) but read くさい. For this reason, perhaps, 匂い tends to edge out 臭い when the reading is におい and all other things are equal. Also, 臭い tends to have a negative connotation (i.e. the odor is unpleasant or stinky) whereas 匂い is more neutral and thus covers the pleasant aromas that 臭い tends not to. But I see both kanji spellings very, very often for the noun form, so you should learn both, not just one or the other.

[Talon87]

In a very special episode of Japanese Adventure!, I've got this excerpt of a message I'm cross-posting from Bulbagarden. You can read the original blog post here and scroll down to the fourth reply to find my unedited comment. (It's the long one. Surprise surprise. )

I don't think it's your quality of translation that makes you come off as a weeaboo / wapanese / whatever you want to call it. Instead, I think it's the fact that you're infusing your posts with Japanese where it isn't really necessary. That sort of behavior is pretty common amongst enthusiastic beginners and I don't think any JSL (Japanese as a second language) student would hold it against you for being so eager to say things in Japanese that you know how to say in Japanese. The problem is that the behavior ends up rubbing most people the wrong way. ^^; If they don't speak any Japanese, they see you as a showoff and they get frustrated by the fact that they can't read half the stuff you're writing. If they speak Japanese at around your level of proficiency, they might feel a bit threatened by you. And if they speak Japanese at a level beyond your proficiency, then it might make them groan a lil' bit and roll their eyes. That stated, I'm not saying that you should quit writing in Japanese on Bulbagarden. But I think you'd do yourself a favor if, every time before you set about writing something in Japanese, you asked yourself this question: "Is what I'm about to provide in Japanese really necessary?" If you're offering the original dialogue from an anime episode, for example, and then right below it you're offering an English-language translation in a thread where BMG forumgoers are feverishly debating something that has the potential to be lost in translation, that's an example of a perfect application of your Japanese knowledge. On the other hand, if people are engaging in an English-language discussion about Pokémon characters and you start writing out names like 武, 霞, or 棗, then it does kind of feel like you're just trying to show off, and it doesn't help the conversation any. (Not to mention that nobody, not even GameFreak, uses kanji for those characters' names. Their official names are タケシ, カスミ, and ナツメ, respectively, and if you're going to provide them in Japanese then you should provide them as such.)

Few people I've ever come across are immune from Haruhi's mistake. Self included. In fact, every time I provide something in Japanese here I always wonder to myself, "Is someone going to take this the wrong way? Is someone going to think I'm trying to show off when in fact I'm just trying to be helpful?" If you don't post in the Anime forum, then you probably don't see me providing Japanese very much outside of this thread. But in the anime forum, sometimes I'll provide Japanese translations of things and I'll include the Japanese text with it. I'm always aware that some people might see that act as me just trying to show off, but the actual reason I include it is because I know I'm not the only Japanese speaker on UPN and I know that I personally always prefer to have access to the Japanese raw dialogue rather than some stranger's personal opinion of what the English translation is. So that's why I always offer both. But yeah, I can see how even my own behavior might be considered a breach of the very conduct I encouraged Haruhi to try and stick to.

I told Haruhi this, and I wanted to impart this on you guys as well:

You're still a beginner with the language, that much became clear to me very quickly upon seeing just a few of your posts on the forum, but that doesn't mean you need to feel depressed or dejected because people are accusing you of using Google Translate (even if you're really not!) to translate stuff. Japanese is a beautiful language and it has more than enough room for everyone who wishes to learn it to pull up a chair and learn. Your adventure with the language is a special one you'll take, perhaps for months, perhaps for years, perhaps for the rest of your natural life. One thing is certain: no matter how long you stick with the language, you'll always have room for improvement and always be learning new things. And that's part of the fun, the wonder, the excitement. Enjoy your adventure, and take things in stride. You're not perfect, but you can strive each day to get one step closer towards it.

I meant every word of this, and I want each and every one of you to please take it to heart. Learning a second language is not something which you will ever be "done with" until one of two things happens: either you abandon it or else you pass away. Those are the only two ways to be "done with" any language, including your mother tongue. How many of you learn new English words each year? I know I do! New etymologies? Small corrections to your syntax or grammar? My own English evolves over time. I'm sure your guys' does too. And it's our mother tongue! So why would you ever expect your adventure with Japanese to be any different? That's the thing: I don't want you guys to be beating yourselves up because "Man, I don't know as many words as I would like to" or "Man, I don't know as many words as so-and-so" or "Man, there's just too much to learn. It's impossible. " Even native speakers don't know every single word in the language. And even the vast majority of native speakers make grammatical errors, just like ours do. Now, don't allow that to be an excuse for you to settle down into bad habits and to not keep trying to perfect your grammar, expand your vocabulary, etc. Turn your frustrations about your own limitations into a positive energy that works for you instead of against you. Upset you don't know a certain word? Then learn it! Upset you don't know how to say something? Then find out how! Upset you can't speak as well as you listen or that you can't write as well as you read? Then practice, practice, practice! You can do it. Be receptive of others' constructive criticisms; don't turn turn a deaf ear to them. At the same time, don't allow negative, destructive criticisms to get you down. Whether from jealous, ugly people who gave up on learning the language and want to drag you down to wallow with them in misery, whether from haughty snoots who know more than you do and aren't afraid to snobbishly show it off, pay them no heed and just continue to work on bettering your appreciation of the language.

[Jerichi]

As someone who has learned about 5 languages with varying degrees of rigor and formality, I can definitely say that this kind of thing applies to all languages, not just Japanese!

I've been studying Spanish for around 8 years now, and I still find myself struggling to sound native or even sometimes like I know what I'm doing. I've had some of my native speaker friends rag on me for my accent or speech patterns and even if that criticism wasn't entirely intended to be constructive, I find it's a good way to motivate yourself. (After my friend said my accent sounded white, I went out and bought a Spanish Errors book and read through the whole thing)

Learning a language, as the title of this thread would suggest, is an adventure, with its ups and downs, but it will all pay off in the end. At some point, you'll find yourself in-country conversing with a native speaker, and even if it's a short exchange or a deep conversation, you'll walk away from it and feel like all the struggle was worth it. Just keep at it!

[Talon87]

The Five S's, or Sa Shi Su Se So

Every culture has mnemonics, and Japanese culture is no exception. One of the most famous mnemonics is the Five S's, or Sa Shi Su Se So. But which Five S's am I talking about? Over the years, multiple Five S's mnemonics have been born out of the original. Below I'll share the two Five S's I'm familiar with, which also happen to be the two most famous from what I can tell. One has to do with properties of an ideal wife, and the other has to do with cooking. I learned the housewife one first (in college) and picked the cooking one up later (through exposure). Pretty sure the housewife one is the original, but regardless, these two are the ones in whose shadow all of the other imitators stand!

The Five S's of Marriageability:
さ - 裁縫 / さいほう / sewing
し - 躾 / しつけ / "home discipline", but we'll say either etiquette or manners
す - 炊事 / すいじ / cooking or "the culinary arts"
せ - 洗濯 / せんたく / laundry
そ - 掃除 / そうじ / cleaning, tidying

This list of the Top 5 Most Important Traits of an Ideal Housewife definitely hearkens back to a bygone era. ^^; Some things never change, like cooking and cleaning, but I think it's safe to say that "sewing" has all but fallen off that list and that "laundry" isn't really something most people struggle with nowadays. 躾 is a bit of a loaded word which, in this context, implies hues of "upbringing" and "training (in formal etiquette)". I'm not sure if I've taught it here in the past. If not, I'll have to be sure to use it for a Word of the Day some time.

The Five S's of Cooking:
Quoting from a Notepad file I created years ago: (Credit to About.com )

The Order of Japanese Cooking

In Japanese cooking, there is a correct order of which to add condiments to food. Adding condiments in the wrong order will influence the flavor of food and make them not as delicious as it could have been. The order is easily memorized as "Sa-Shi-Su-Se-So" (the third row of the Japanese Hiragana writing system). Each letter stands for a different condiment as follow:

Sa - Satou, which is sugar. For recipes that call for sugar, it is the first ingredient to be added because sugar dissolves slowly and takes time for the flavor to be absorbed into your food.

Shi - Shio, which means salt. Salt comes second in the pecking order because it draws out liquid from the ingredients, which allows for different flavors to be absorbed easily.

Su - Su means vinegar (Japanese rice vinegar). I did not include vinegar in the list above because I assume most households already have some at home. Vinegar comes in the middle because if added in too early on, it will lose its acidity.

Se - Se comes from the old Japanese reading of Shouyu (read Seiu-yu), which is soy sauce. Soy sauce and miso come last because they are for people to enjoy the flavor as is and so are used as finishing touches to a dish.

So - So refers to the "so" in "miso". Miso is to be added last (also true for when making miso soup) for the reason stated above. Furthermore, the heat from cooking may make miso lose its nutrients.

さ - 砂糖 / さとう / sugar
し - 塩 / しお / salt
す - 酢 / す / vinegar
せ - 醤油 / しょうゆ / soy sauce
そ - 味噌 / みそ / miso

They cheated a bit with this one (みそ), and one of them also no longer really works with modern readings (しょうゆ), but the list is great not only because it lists the honest-to-god five most important ingredients to have in stock in any Japanese kitchen but it also reminds cooks of all ages in what order you should add the ingredients for ideal taste.

[The Morg]

A bygone era indeed, as illustrated by this palindrome:

なんてシツケいい子、いいケツしてんな。

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by dosuser

A bygone era indeed, as illustrated by this palindrome:

なんてシツケいい子、いいケツしてんな。

Oh good lord. I've never heard that palindrome before but my if that isn't funny that it works.

[Talon87]

I'd like to try something new. Below, I'll provide some sample sentences grabbed from primary sources (manga I've read, games I've played, and so on) and then offer my personal translations. Try to see how much of the sentences you can read on your own, and then check your answers with mine and see how you did. The hope is that this exercise will retain the benefits afforded by Word of the Day while also introducing some added benefits in the form of grammar forms, regular and irregular expressions, common names, and more.

Sample 1. お願いします兄さんっ……お願いしましから、ウソをつかないで、答えてくださいっ……！

Spoiler: show

I'm begging you, Nii-san ... I'm begging you, so please don't lie! Please answer me!

Note: I've transformed ウソをつかないで、答えてくださいっ……！ into two separate clauses in English as neither "please don't lie and answer me!" nor "please don't lie, answer me!" read naturally to me in English while retaining the original meaning. The goal is clarity with retention of meaning.

Sample 2. 沙希は、子供の頃からカボチャが食べられないからだ。

Spoiler: show

That's because Saki hasn't been able to eat pumpkins ever since she was a little kid.

Sample 3. 子供の時、ジャックランタンを見て、あれを食べたら呪われる、と教えられたらしい。

Spoiler: show

It seems that, when she was a kid, she saw a jack-o-lantern and was taught that if she ate it she would be cursed.

[Jerichi]

I was bumming around the Internet and I found this surprisingly comprehensive kanji dictionary on an anime site. It's pretty awesome, actually! You can enter a chunk of unknown text and it will pick out all the kanji in it and roughly gloss them, or look them up by radical as normal, with a few extra criteria to help narrow your search and filter out all those pesky 20+ stroke kanji that muddy your results.

It's like Veekun but for Kanji!

[Talon87]

Picked this one up while watching Downtown (Japanese comedy duo). Apparently "burnt rice" (おこげ) is slang for a gay person. No idea why. Probably makes about as much sense as why "faggot" became slang for a gay person.

[Kindrindra]

Could "他は　ですの　です" be used to mean "It is what it is", or am I an idiot?

[Talon87]

No, it couldn't. What you wrote doesn't make any sense. ^^; 他 means "other(s)", you can't say ですのです, and you can't establish a topic with は and end the sentence with the copula です without anything in between. Legal: 私です. Illegal: 私はです. You seem to to be trying to use ですの as that something in between, but you can't. It would be like saying in English "I am am."

If you're going for the most literal translation of "it is what it is" that they still might say, it would probably be something along the lines of それはそういうことです. A more common expression heard is これは現実です, "This is reality," which is a synonymous expression to "It is what it is" that we have in English too.

[deoxys]

Determined.




How I picture Talon

[deoxys]

To finish a few Talon gave me months ago - now that I can actually understand them.


ゆうき あすな - Yuuki Asuna

すぐは - Suguha

As for the rest...

ソード・アート・オンライン
フェイトゼロ
ナルト

... I can't read these yet because I don't know Katakana. I'll take a crack at what you have in your spoiler box, though.

サスケ - ???
ひなた - Hinata
らせんがん - Rasengan
カカシ - ???
なみ - Nami
ロビン - ???
しいな - Shiina
ましろ - Mashiro
あおやま - Aoyama
ななみ - Nanami
キョン - ???
ハルヒ - ???


I still need to work on the dakuten but I when I see it so far I can pretty much figure out what the word is by the time it comes along.

At this point in time, though, I can read all Hiragana. Almost.

[Talon87]

Here's some additional reading practice for beginners who are trying to test their ability to read hiragana. Names are taken from the video game-turned-anime Dangan Ronpa.

Spoiler: show

きりぎり　きょうこ
なえぎ　まこと
まいぞの　さやか
とがみ　びゃくや
あさひな　あおい
ふかわ　とうこ
おおわだ　もんど
おおがみ　さくら
ふじさき　ちひろ

Look back through this thread for further reading practice if you like. There's a lot of vocabulary provided here and I'm pretty sure that for most words I provided the readings in kana.

As for new updates for this thread, sorry that there haven't been any in a while. I've been working on translating a manga, although work on that project has stalled. (For one, my QCer sort of disappeared into the aether. ^^; For a second, I've been distracted by a boatload of other projects, both old and new.) I've been guiding someone through the very beginnings of learning Japanese with some one-on-one study sessions. But I guess more than anything I've just procrastinated sharing updates here. So, since I'm already here, guess I'll go ahead and offer something new for you!

[deoxys]

Spoiler: show

きりぎり　きょうこ - Kirigiri Kyouko
なえぎ　まこと - Naegi Makoto
まいぞの　さやか - Maizono Sayaka
とがみ　びゃくや - Togami Byakuya
あさひな　あおい - Asahina Aoi
ふかわ　とうこ - Fukawa Touko
おおわだ　もんど - Oowada Mondo
おおがみ　さくら - Oogami Sakura
ふじさき　ちひろ - Fujisaki Chihiro

[Talon87]

Sample 1. 俺は沖縄の方に住みたいよ。

Spoiler: show

I'd prefer to live on Okinawa myself.

Note: If you're a beginner and could read everything but Okinawa, great. I feel like with the exception of that proper noun this sentence is indeed suitable for the beginner level. If you're an intermediate or advanced student and still couldn't read Okinawa ... don't feel bad. Neither could I. Had to look that one up myself.

Sample 2. フクロウグッズでいっぱいだね。

Spoiler: show

You've sure got a lot of owl stuff.

Sample 3. この前まで妹と二人暮らしだったけど…

Spoiler: show

Up until recently I was living together with my little sister ...

[kaisap112]

I'm still getting to know hiragana better. I can almost get through the DR-names without cheating! :3

And I've found Anki very helpful with learning kana. It's basically a flashcard program that really works with helping you memorize the signs (works on PC, mobile devices and tablets, I use it on my Nexus). There's decks for different levels of kanji, too, so I'm sure people reading this thread will find it useful. And if there aren't, we can just make our own decks. :3 Helpful, right?