Hello, internet people! Out of my wholehearted interest in the Japanese culture (and watching too much Japanese-dubbed anime), I’ve decided to take personal notes and research on learning the Nihon language via the Romaji route – the romanization of Japanese wherein the language is written by utilizing the Latin script. In short, roman letters.

Introduction | I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | VIII | IX | X

Yes, we get to learn the words by hearing and pronouncing it with the aid of the English alphabet. I know what you’re thinking: “You can’t learn Japanese just by ear and mouth, you idiot!” Well, I guess you’re right. We can’t technically read Japanese by Romaji. This can be a start though, and I feel like I can’t take on Kanji and Kana just like that with the half-motivated me right now. Of course, I’ll make that happen and share it with you guys here in the future. For now, my friend Nico is doing a similar project wherein he blogs about learning Kanji. Check him out at NicoKanji!

To begin, there are three modern systems under Romaji – that is the Hepburn, Nihon-shiki and Kunrei-shiki romanization. Now, I won’t turn this blog post to a boring history lecture so I’ll just get straight to the point: From here on out,  I’ll be sharing the translation of Japanese words to Romaji using the Hepburn system, and how to construct sentences with them. To those interested in the history behind, fully-detailed articles are ready for you to read at Wikipedia.

Yosh, hajimemashou! (Alright, let’s begin!)

Here is the prospected ‘course outline’ for this project:

I. Pronouns
II. Common Nouns
III. Adjectives
IV. Verbs
V. Adverbs
VI. Interjections
VII. Numbers
VIII. Basic Sentence Construction
IX. Basic Conversation
X. Resources and Helpful Links

Anyway, don’t expect too much – this is all just done by an inspired effort of diving thoroughly through the internet on my free time. I hope you learn something from this series of posts in my blog! d^_^b