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Tania's Guide to:

My Japanese Coach

Lesson 8 - Kana 2

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Progress Card
Current: Unit: 1 - Tokyo | Chapter: 2 - Akihabara
This Lesson: Contains: 0 Words / 10 Characters(+10)
Score: Rank: Toddler | Mastered Words: 67 / 10 Characters(+5)
Unlock(s): Game(s): N/A | Lesson: 8
...._{Numbers in parentheses are alternate characters from the lesson that weren't required but ARE necessary.}

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Tania's Character Key
...._{"What does that mean? Oh, there it is!"</i (๑◕ܫ￩๑)}

| Reminders
「 」 | Romaji
Underlined Words | Titles & Links
| [Beginner Hint] Hints understandable to people who have: LITTLE knowledge of Japanese Hiragana.
| [Intermediate Hint] Hints understandable to people who have: SOME/A GOOD DEAL of knowledge on Japanese Hiragana.
| [Higher Level Hint] Hints understandable to people who have: more advanced knowledge of Japanese Hiragana or in Japanese Kana overall.
- | A marker that tells you to pause/go on to another character (or separate from the previous one)
| In-Game info, warnings, & tips
@タニア (tania) | My thoughts on the topic or my experience on the topic
Recommendation(s): | Lessons I highly recommend you see or review before this one.

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Before We Begin…
...._{Some quick tips, hints, & advice before we start. (＊☉౪ ⊙｡)}
This lesson isn't much, really... It's just the next set of Hiragana: the S's (then Z's) and T's (then D's).

All I can say is practice A LOT! These are very important and pretty tricky since there ARE irregulars in these two (or four) sets!

Recommendation(s): Lesson 6 - Kana 1

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MJC's Lesson / Vocabulary
...._{How the vocabulary is introduced to you in the game. (＊☉౪ ⊙｡)}

Ready for your next set of Hiragana? This lesson we'll be going over the S's and T's!

Be sure to note that the S's and T's have irregulars, as well as the fact they they have Dakuten/Tenten forms that are ALSO irregular!

Sa .:.:. さ
Shi .:.:. し
Su .:.:. す
Se .:.:. せ
So .:.:. そ


Ta .:.:. た
Chi .:.:. ち
Tsu .:.:. つ
Te .:.:. て
To .:.:. と

There you go, ten more Hiragana! - Now then, since Haruka didn't leave any examples of words you can now spell in this lesson ... I WILL! These are words from previous lessons:

L1(Basic Words) L3(Numbers) L4(Colors) L5(Days of the Week)

Tomorrow 「ashi.ta」 あした
Red 「a.ka.i」 あかい
Seven 「shi.chi」 しち
Five 「go」 ご
One 「i.chi」 いち
Good 「ii」 いい

Look at all those words you can spell now! Yay~! Wait a 分/'fun' (minute)! I forgot to add in stroke order! D; Sorry, here it is ( like I would really forget):

Stroke Order:
...[S's]Wikipedia & Japanese Kids' Site
....[T's]Wikipedia & Japanese Kids' Site
_{(These are cropped versions of their charts on my Photobucket, links to originals and websites are in description!)}

Have you noticed that the stroke order for き (ki) and さ (sa) have an extra stroke with the second link(Japanese page)? It isn't wrong, it's just that the standard is that the curve at the bottom connects to the line going downward, as you can see in it's text form: き and さ. I honestly prefer to write it the second way because I find it easier, fancier (xD), and (I think) it looks better. But the standard is that it connects. So don't do the strokes like that in-game, you will get it marked wrong.

Well then, now that you have a good bunch of Hiragana I think you should start to put them to good use! Using the Japanese keyboard! Before you explode from confusion, there is a way to type in Japanese on your NOT-JAPANESE-MODEL-LAPTOP/COMPUTER! That's what I've been using to type up these lessons!
.....Here's a TUTORIAL by BlackHeartPrincess (NOW KNOWN AS: Mochi-Chan-X) on how to get it set up.
_{**YOUR SYSTEM MAY NOT HAVE THE JAPANESE KEYBOARD DEPENDING ON MODEL (ESPECIALLY OLDER ONES)!!!**}

Now we're going to move onto the Dakuten/Tenten forms: Z's and D's!:

Za .:.:. ざ
Ji .:.:. じ
Zu .:.:. ず
Ze .:.:. ぜ
Zo .:.:. ぞ


Da .:.:. だ
Ji .:.:. ぢ
Zu .:.:. づ
De .:.:. で
Do .:.:. ど

Whew, that was a lot! But did you notice that two of Z's characters are also D's?

Since the D's use the Z's characters for some mysterious reason, you may assume that they can be used interchangeably (or in place of one another) but actually, you rarely ever use the D versions. It's always BEST to use the Z versions.
But that doesn't mean that you NEVER use them, I've seen them before: I've seen づ (Zu) used many times in the anime Hetalia (MY FAVORITE - A major reason I got into Japanese and pushed me into doing these lessons). It's used as the ending 'To be continued' つづく (tsu.zu.ku).
As for ぢ (Ji), I came across uses for it (as well as づ) on the site: Joy O Kanji. A great example they used was 'nosebleed' or はなぢ (ha.na.ji). Hana means nose, while chi is blood, but together it's 'hanaji' (鼻血)! [You can find the page I used HERE]

But in short, it isn't seen around much at all, so keep that in mind! Oh yes, and don't worry, none of the other characters have this situation.

Now that we've gone over how Z's and D's 'ji' and 'zu' CAN'T be use interchangeably, as well as how to set up your Japanese keyboard: it's IMPERATIVE (very important) to know that when you type up the D forms, you're going to have type up the incorrect 'di' and 'du.' Odd, I know. But I found that out the hard way when I typed up this lesson. For your keyboard's sake, it's 'di' and 'du.'

There you go, 10 more characters! Now what else?... MORE EXAMPLES~!

Sushi 「su.shi」 すし
Sake 「sa.ke」 さけ
*(Japanese Rice Wine)
Desu (To be) 「de.su」 です
Where 「do.ko」 どこ
Why 「dou.shi.te」 どうして
English 「ei.go」 えいご

Well that's all for this lesson~! Hope you enjoyed it! Please leave a comment~

*Mnemonics for these are at the bottom*

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Tania's Gameplay Info
...._{"HOW DO I PASS THIS GAME!? / Why don't I have all my Mastery Points!?" (￣(エ)￣)}

It's all the same stuff from the last lesson, no difference.

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Tania's Study Help
...._{"I just can't seem to remember this one! / Uggh, I keep getting these confused!" (♥ó㉨ò)ﾉ♡}

@タニア Again, I hope I don't disappoint you with my mnemonics, but I'll have a link to my albums on Photobucket at the bottom with BETTER-VISUAL examples~

さ reminds me of an S
し looks like a ponytail
す the ooh sound reminds me of loops
せ resembles an e
そ looks like a z and an o

た to me it looks like 'ta;' it has a t and an outline of an a
ち uhh... the loop looks like a backwards c
つ it has a long sideways U
て looks like a sloppy T
と it almost looks like an o

(I cropped these on Photobucket to only include the ones we learned this lesson. LINKS IN DESCRIPTION! - These are gallery folders of mine that have a password lock, the password is "japannerd101")
S Characters & T Characters