#JapanesePronunciation
the つ “tsu” character can be used to mark a small pause that makes the next sound stronger, when used for this purpose it’s smaller than the rest of the characters, this is romanized with a double of the next letter, for example: にっき nikki (journal or diary) and なっとう nattou (fermented soybeans)

#JapaneseWritingSystems
Kanji are Chinese characters imported into Japan. There are tens of thousands of them, but the japanese government published a list of them that every citizen needs to know: the Jouyou kanji which consists of the 1945 most commonly used kanji

Hiragana is one of the two syllabic alphabets of Japanese. It is used mainly to write Japanese words and to show how a to read a word or phrase in kanji

Katakana is the second of the two syllabaries of Japanese. Nowadays, it is used mainly for foreign names and terms, items in Japanese pop culture and for some onomatopoeia.

The following shows the three systems being used at the same time is 私の名前はマリアです (My name is Maria):

私 [watashi] -> kanji
の [no] -> hiragana
名前 [namae] -> kanji
は [wa] -> hiragana
マリア [Maria] -> katakana
です [desu] -> hiragana

An example with a writing form on all three systems is [dame] literally, “no good”, commonly used to say something should not be done, for instance, たたかうはダメ [tatakau wa dame] which means “you shouldn’t fight”, in kanji is 駄目, in hiragana is だめ, and in katakana is ダメ

#JapanesePhrase
To greet someone throughout the day you can say こんにちは [konnichi wa], literally “this day”, but used to say “Good day!” or “Hello!”

#JapaneseWritingSystems
check Hepburn Romanization to understand how to write Japanese in roman letters, ふ becomes "fu", but the sound of 'f' is between the foo in fool and the hoo in cahoots, NOT as the 'f' in fire

#PolitenessInJapanese
You can think of ございます [gozaimasu] as a sort of politeness marker, but be careful not to use it with everything

#TalkingCasualInJapanese
To greet someone in the evening you can say こんばんは [konban wa], literally meaning “this evening” but used to say “Good evening!”

#JapanesePhrase
To greet someone in the evening you can say こんばんは [konban wa], literally meaning “this evening” but used to say “Good evening!”

#JapanesePhrase
if it’s late in the day, or if you know you won’t see a person soon, you use さようなら [sayounara] as a farewell

#JapanesePhrase

You can say ではまた [dewa mata], literally meaning “well then, another time” to say “See you later”

this is keigo, so it's not rude, but if you're speaking with friends, you would say じゃあまた [jaa mata]

#JapanesePhrase
You can say またあした [mata ashita], literally meaning “another time tomorrow” to say “see you tomorrow”

#JapanesePhrase
You can add a location to “see you later” with the particle で [de], for example, じゃあ,またクラスで [jā, mata kurasu de!] means “I’ll see you later in class!”

Hi, I've recently finished the semester, so I'll be putting up some new content, I'll also switch the schedule of the posts a little, I'll start with the difference between は and が used in a sentence, the difference is nuanced and subtle, so I'll be using a lot of examples on this one, I'll also start going over kanji again

は marks the topic and が marks the subject

this is might not seem like much of an explanation

so let's get deeper into what は is used for, and what が is used for

if someone saw a picture of a group of girls (and they are NOT in the picture), and then were to point to a girl in the picture and say 私は彼女だね [わたしはかのじょだね] this could mean 'I like her' or 'I prefer her' or 'she is the one I like', or that that's the girl that comes to mind when thinking about the topic of the conversation, such as "which one do you like?", or "which one do you think is the best singer?"

but they couldn't say 私が彼女だ [わたしがなのじょだ] because that would be saying "I AM her", but we previously established that the person is NOT in the picture, because が directly links to the verb (in this case だ is used as the verb "to be" in English)

another example of diffent use of は and が is when saying 私は〇〇です vs saying 私が〇〇です

the first could be the answer to the question "who are you?" (誰ですか[だれですか]？ or どちら様ですか[どちらさまですか]？)

whereas the second could not, but could be the answer to "who is 〇〇?" (だれが〇〇ですか？)

you could also use adjectives, like

Q: What do you think of Italian Food/cuisine? (イタリア料理についてどう思いますか？[イタリアりょうりについてどうおもいますか？])
A: Italian Food/cuisine is delicious イタリア料理わ美味しい[イタリアりょうりわおいしい]

but if the question was

Q: What Food do you think is delicious? どんな料理が美味しいと思いますか[どんなりょうりがおいしいとおもいますか？]
A: Italian Food/cuisine is delicious イタリア料理が美味しいです[イタリアりょうりがおいしいです]

from these examples you might not have noticed that は is used for contrast

consider

私は遅刻した[わたしはちこくした] "I was late"

this could be used to simply say "I was late", or to say "I was late [whereas 〇〇 was NOT late]" though in the second example, it might not be known whether 〇〇 was late or not

this might be confusing, but if you say

今日は君はきれいだね you will be saying "you are pretty today", BUT you will imply that this is not usually the case, it will be as if you were saying "you are pretty today, unlike every other day"

whereas if you say

今日は君がきれいだね you will be saying "you are pretty today", and you will NOT imply this is not usually the case

this is why in episode 4, minute 3 of the anime Maouyuu Maou Yuusha, when the Head Maid says 今日はきれいですよ [きょうはきれいですよ] "today you are pretty", the Demon King repeats questioningly, because she's considering the implication of that not usually being the case

you could also do a test with questions, and how you can lose information, or meaning from their answers, if you use the wrong particle

for example, if you say

りんごを食べた [りんごをたべた] "ate the apple" ("I ate the apple" can be inferred)

does it answer the question "what did you do?", even if it sounds a bit weird? (at least in translation) (the question in japanese would be 何をしました？ [なにをしました？])

does it look like it doesn't follow if what you had asked was "who ate the apple"? (the question in japanese would be 誰がりんごを食べた？ [だれがりんごをたべた？])

in the first case ("what did you do?") you would use 私は [わたしは] before the grammatical object (the apple), and really, you can omit this

but in the second case ("who ate the apple?"), you would use 私が [わたしが] before the grammatical object, and you CANNOT omit this, because if you did, you wouldn't answer the question, it would seem like you're talking about something else

#JapanesePhrase
Japanese people don't say さようなら [sayounara] to their family. When go out in the morning, they say 行って来ます [いってきます] [itte kimasu!], which literally means 'I’ll go and come back"

#JapanesPhrase
よろしくおねがいします [yoroshiku onegaishimasu] means “please take care of me” or 'please be kind to me" but it used to say “I hope we can get along" or "let’s be friends” or many other things depending on the situation