Cool thing is that I haven't been on a complete abandonment of my 日本語 studies!
Since my last post, I've completed the Reading, Writing and Memorizing ひらがな piece of TextFugu (Hiragana 31-46: まみむめも、やゆよ、らりるれろ、わを、ん, Dakuten: がぎぐげご、ざじずぜぞ、だぢづでど、ばびぶべぼ、ぱぴぷぺぽ, Combination Hiragana: きゃ、しゃ、ちゃ、にゃ、ひゃ、みゃ、りゃ、ぎゃ、じゃ、ぢゃ、びゃ、& ぴゃ Columns and finally Long vowels and the small つ! I've also been utilizing drag and drop ひらがな quite regularly (even using the カタカナ version a bit too) as well as Anki when I'm here on my netbook in the study cubby and finally a few apps on the iPhone I got for Christmas to study vocab and kanji!
Wanted to make a few notes about the Long vowel and small っ section of TextFugu before I move on.
- Long vowels: Pretty subtle difference between regular/short vowels - just double the length of normal vowels.
- Here is a helpful pattern to follow as provided by Koichi - pronounced Kouichi - an example of a long vowel!):
- あ-Column + あ – examples: ああ、かあ、さあ、まあ、きゃあ
- い-Column + い – examples: いい、きい、しい、じい
- う-Column + う – examples: くう、じゅう、にゅう、りゅう、ふう
- え-Column + え – examples: ええ
- お-Column + う – examples: おう、こう、そう、とう、じょう、りょう、ぞう、どう、もう
- *お-Column + お – examples: おお、とお
- *Sometimes お-column kana can be extended with お as well (though you’ll see う extending お-column kana more often).
- Small っ: allows for double consonants
- For example, the word Japan (Nippon) written in ひらがな utilizes a small っ because the 'P' is doubled. So, it's written にっぽん.
- The small っ is obviously written smaller than the normal size つ as you can see here. The small っ doubles consonant sounds while the full-size つ is just pronounced 'tsu.' The small っ always comes right before the consonant sound you want to duplicate.
So, that pretty much sums up where I'm at now. Onward!!
またね!
