Lesson 4: Particles (An Introduction)

In Japanese, the particles are は (ha/wa), が (ga), お (o), で (de), に (ni), の (no), と (to), and から (kara).
If you look closely, the first particle I wrote was written like "ha", but pronounced "wa". That wasn't a mistake. For some strange reason Japanese people do that when it's used as a particle. These kinds of things are extremely rare, so you don't have to worry too much. In all other words は is still pronounced "wa".

In this lesson I will just be introducing these particles. They are really difficult to get used to, so we will have to go over them slowly in future lessons.
And yeah, there will be many future lessons, because this is good practice for me too. So if you stick around, you'll be able to learn Japanese to a conversational level at least.

は (ha, but pronounced "wa") - Indicates the topic
が (ga) - Indicates the subject
お (o) - Indicates objects

と (to) - And

Some work as prepositions too:
から (kara) - Away from
に (ni) - Toward
の (no) - Of
で (de) - In

These are usually placed after a noun or sentence, and link words or sentences to each other and indicate a relationship between them.
 
New Vocabulary:

The particles above
わたし (Watashi) - Me
これ (Kore) - This
カナダ (Kanada) - Canada


Previous Vocabulary:

です (Desu) - Added to the sentence to make it politer. Usually pronounced "dess" due to the "u" sound being almost silent in this word.
アイス (Aisu) - Ice-cream
ピザ (Piza) - Pizza


Practice:

(わたし　は)　CJ　です
(Watashi ha (wa) ) CJ desu
I am CJ

Yes, I used English characters for my name. Despite what some textbooks say, in my experience most people will write my name using the English alphabet.
Maybe it's because if my name is written in Japanese, the pronunciation is a bit weird.
Also, I would usually just say "CJ です". People don't say "わたし" very often, because it's implied. I've just included it for practice purposes.

これ　は　アイス　です
Kore ha (wa) aisu desu
This is ice-cream

これ　は　わたし　の　アイス　です
Kore ha (wa) watashi no aisu desu
This is my ice-cream

これ　は　わたし　の　アイス　と　ピザ　です
Kore ha (wa) watashi no aisu to piza desu
This is my ice-cream and pizza

*** More to come


PS: "Kore ha" is the correct way of writing it. "Kore wa" is how it sounds. Sometimes non-Japanese people will write "kore wa" because that's how it sounds.

Here's my personal view: If you write it in Japanese, use "は" (ha). If you write it with Romaji (the Roman alphabet), then you can choose if you want to write "ha" or "wa".

I'm going to use "ha". As my Japanese friends told me, "you should just get used to it".

I got a bad feeling about a few Particles, the first thing, I never actually saw the Object particle written as お, in fact it is an exception like は and is usually written を but pronounced お.

as for the prepositions part, に and で should actually mean the same things, however are diffrently used. From what I have heard に indicates the direct target of a verb (学校に行く = go to school, school is the target of the action) and で is used to describe the context of an action (レストランで食べる = eat at restaurant, Restaurant is the place, where the action takes place, but not the target (wouldn´t like to eat a restaurant oO)

Well, particles are still my greates building area, I often tend to use them falsely... part of it being that it is a completely new form of grammar for us "westerners", do you know some sites/practices, which could train the use of them?

So again, if I made any mistakes, please correct me!