We have finally come to the end of this first season. In this review, we will simply summarize all of what we have seen on the Japanese language writing. So, if you have followed all the courses, if you have done all the exercises seriously, you are now unbeatable on all the writing systems of the Japanese language. They have no more secrets from you, and that’s a great thing.
I recapitulate. We have seen in detail the five writing systems used daily by Japanese people : hiragana, katakana, kanji, rōmaji and arabiasūji. We have seen two or three examples of very simple sentences to give you a quick overview of what a sentence looks like in Japanese.
At this point in your learning of the Japanese language :
– You have studied the four rules of katakanization.
– You have learned to transcribe foreign proper names in Japanese.
– You have learned the new combinations of katakana which facilitate the transcription of foreign words in Japanese.
– You have studied all the rules for using kanji, you now know that each kanji has a purely Japanese reading and a Sino-Japanese reading.
– You know that we use the first pronunciation when we use kanji alone and the second pronunciation when we combine kanji to create more complex words.
– You know all the rules around accents, pauses and lengthenings.
– You know by heart (I hope !) all your hiragana and your katakana, both oral and written.
Do not forget that in rare cases, foreign words have been adapted in katakana more or less anyway with always this concern of wanting to stay as close as possible to the original pronunciation; you will probably also find at least two ways to write in katakana for the same foreign word. It’s normal, it happens.
You also learned your first words in kanji as well as the particular cases of kanji, you learned to understand the Japanese language, how it was created, how it evolved and especially why it evolved in such a direction rather than another. As I often say, it is very important to understand how a language was created and how it works.
Still on kanji, remember in the kanji presentation course, I gave you examples with some anecdotes on how these kanji were created while explaining to you the subtle difference between pictograms and sinograms. As I told you, I think the « head stuffing » method alone is not enough and understanding the meaning behind the way the kanji was written is just as important.
Next, we did additional studies of written Japanese with the various writing in rōmaji, Japanese punctuation, the Japanese writing direction .
We also saw together the Japanese numeral system. You can now count from 0 to infinity, of course you know Sino-Japanese numbers and purely Japanese numbers. You know how to write the date in Japanese and also read the time in Japanese.
From the second season, we will finally set foot in the dish. We are going to study Japanese grammar from top to bottom. You will discover how a sentence is constructed in Japanese, you will discover the grammatical particles which are essential to create sentences, you will discover a whole lot of other things which I reserve to you the surprise because to introduce the list here would be much too long. I will show you all the contents of season two in more detail in the very first course of this second season entitled « Japanese grammar ».
Right now, the most important thing is that you fully master everything about writing. If there are still things that you have not understood, or kana that you still cannot remember, writing rules that are not yet clear enough for you, do not go immediately on the season two. Take your time to go back in order to revise the lessons, continue to practice writing and speaking and do not hesitate to redo the exercises. This will allow you to self-assess your level. Of course, the correction of the exercises will always be available.
I know that the audio files are not yet available on the site. I really wanted them to be available when the site was launched, but unfortunately due to a lack of resources and because I live in a very noisy neighborhood which prevents me from considering making audio recordings myself, these audio files are not present for the moment.
I ask you to forgive me for this defect. I remind you that I am absolutely alone to manage everything : writing and correcting courses, writing and correcting exercises, translating into other languages, creating the site and its design, creating the logo and images… It takes me an incredibly long time. And, unfortunately, I have not yet been able to set up audio files to complete all of this.
As I suggest in my FAQ, you can find YouTube channels to get your ears used to hearing Japanese. You can also find some free resources on the web.
This review is now complete, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you. Thank you for being on my website, for paying attention to my work and I hope that everything you have learn will have made you want to continue the adventure. So, thank you very much.
With that, it is time to close this first season and I give you an appointment for the start of season two. Very soon, I hope.
I wish you good revisions to all. And thank you.
Introduction