Digital Dollhouse

なん meaning ‘what’ and used in different contexts.

Following on from what we already know; です and か putting those together with なん in front of them simply allows us to say “what is that/it/this?”

It is also often used as a substitute attached to other words to ask what they ask; for example,　なんがつですか - what/ month/ is it/ ?

いちがつです - January/ it is

So by putting the ‘nan’ in place of the number of the month (ichi) - before the word for month, it is a simple way of asking the question.

prefix sen- = “last” e.g. “last week, last month” 

prefix rai- = “next” e.g. “next week, next month”

prefix kon- = “this” e.g. “this week, this month” 

so for example using the above, sensenshuu　せんせんしゅう literally means, last last week, aka the week before the last one. 

It’s great reading through Human Japanese from the start and revising my NihongoUp lessons as I am doing the quizzes for each section and understanding them now, the second or third time - but I remember doing them the first time and getting several wrong, now they’re all right. Gold star! The verb sections are making so much more sense and full of cohesion now. 

Practicing through the Human Japanese app; just giving myself a little top up reminder of stuff. 

Every Japanese sentence has a verb, and it is always at the end.

• 右（みぎ）right
• 左（ひだり）left
• はちみつ honey
• ぺこぺこ very hungry
• さがし search/look for
• でかけ depart/go out

• kae 替（か）え - change
• ki 来（き）- arrive/come
• chito ちと - little bit
• asobi 遊（あそ）び - play
• hanashi 話（はな）し - speak
• jikan 時間（じん）- time
• wakarimasen わかりません - don’t understand (formal negative tense)
• wakarimasu - understand
• jouzu (seen before) 上手 - skillful/good at

Well I’ve been revising my notes a lot over the last week - as my Mac was away for repair, but he’s back and shiny as ever. So I got back on to NihongoUp and completed level 2! The final quiz was very difficult and challenging, but in a rewarding and useful way - the test questions focus a lot on using what you’ve learnt in practice and asking you often to respond to a certain piece of test - this is a really great method of using the language fully.

I also completed my 4th Japanese Graded Reader book yesterday morning and was very satisfied at the end as I had managed to understand the last 3 pages fully without any need for checking, dictionary, etc. It all just sprang to mind and flowed naturally as I read through, a few words I got stuck on as they were not vocabulary I had seen before, but in terms of what I had already known - I was able to recognize all the elements of the sentences around it such as それはお父さんのお茶碗 - the only part I struggled with there was the final word (rice bowl) since it is something I had not yet come across. I also have been able to recognize sore, kore, etc after seeing them so often in the text and the honorific titles for words. 

I’ve been practicing verbs a lot and conjugations - they are now a lot clearer to me as well as the use of particles - and their placement naturally. Forming, reading and understanding sentences has really improved with all my work recently. 

I got the White Rabbit Press Kanji poster & Kanji flashcards, so I shall begin working on them soon.

持つ - meaning to hold, carry, possess.
this can turn into 持ちます (mochimasu) - as you drop the tsu, to chi, since the i is needed for polite -masu form.

持っています - this is the te form. I’m still understanding te forms so it doesn’t make sense fully yet, however I’ve been reading and learning that they can be used to show an ongoing action or activity based on that verb - this is similar to the English equivalent of ‘ing’ 

It can also be a form of showing a result from an action completed - e.g. I am wearing a shirt, I went to Japan, I walked to the shops. 

Note: を particle often comes before the above, as it will signify an object in use before the verb.

These two verbs are similar in that they both dictate the existence of something. Similar to desu です

iru - used for animate objects, such as humans and animals
aru - used for inanimate objects, such as furniture, books, etc

e.g. (examples from the nihongoUp lesson - broken up to help me understand method.

犬がいます
there is a dog - iru is made into imasu, for polite form, drop the ru - as it is a ru verb. 

ほんがあります
there is a book - aru again in formal form, this time the ru = ri, since it drops the u and adds the i.