Japanese

Hi! My name is Yoko Shioiri-Clark. I am the instructor of the Japanese courses. My e-mail address is yokosclark@yahoo.com. I am delighted to share with you a taste of Cal State East Bay Japanese classes. At Cal State, we offer Elementary Japanese (MLL 1801 to 1803). Please see the Catalog for days and times.

The classes employ a new approach to learning Japanese that is fun, relaxed, playful and effective.

So, do you want to learn how you say "I don't drink sake at school, " in Japanese? It's easy!! It's

"(WATASHI WA) GAKKOO DE SAKE O NOMI-MASEN."
( I ) school at sake don't drink.

Not that easy? A few hints!

hint1: The subject of the sentence (who is doing an action) ->

accompanied by the subject marker "WA."
The word "I (will do such and such)" -> "WATASHI WA."
"You" -> "ANATA WA"

You can't quite read the romanization of the Japanese words? The letters a, i, u, e, and o represent the five basic vowels in Japanese:

a is like a as in father, i as in piano, u as in book, e as in bet, and o as in note. Vowels can be doubled, and are written aa, ii, ee, and oo.

hint 2: The verb -> the end of the sentence.

Positive verb = ___MASU "drink" = NOMI-MASU.
Negative verb = ___MASEN "don't drink" =NOMI-MASEN.
Past verb = ___MASHITA "drank" =NOMI-MASHITA.

Easy, eh?

hint 3: The object of a sentence (You do what) ->

is accompanied by the object marker "o."
goes before the verb.
"I drink sake." = "(WATASHI WA) SAKE o NOMI-MASU."
"I drank coffee" = "(WATASHI WA) KOOHII O NOMI-MASHITA."

SAKE (sake) O, KOOHII (coffee) O, BIIRU (beer) O , MIRUKU (milk) O

hint 4: Question sentence = regular sentence + KA (question marker)
"Do you drink sake?" = "ANATA WA SAKE O NOMI-MASU KA ?"

hint 5: Location ->

toward beginning of sentence.
accompanied by location marker de.

"at school" = "GAKKOO DE"

GAKKOO DE (at school), KANADA DE (In Canada), UCHI DE (at home)

Well, I hope you have enjoyed the lesson. See you all in class!