Test Yourself - Learn Japanese Together!
 

Each test will take the form of a short dialogue followed by a set of questions. In some cases you may asked to translate the whole dialogue. The answers will be posted underneath the set of questions but in a font colour that you will have to highlight to see.

This is just for fun so there wont be any score to keep track of (unless you want to, ofcourse) and please if any Mods can speak Japanese and notice a mistake on my side, please feel free to edit my posts and correct me so I don't end up teaching bad Japanese!

Obviously the questions will increase in difficulty every time but I'm going to start off in ro-maji so even the kawaiipockysugoi amongst us can join in. I'm aiming for a new question every few days so check back often and discuss!

Any ideas or tips on how I can make this better, PM me or add them below.

Dialogue 1: Introductions. Translate into English as best you can!

Sasaki: Takahashi-san, kochira wa kawamura-san desu. Kawamura-san wa Honda no enjinia desu.
Kawamura: Hajimemashite. Kawamura desu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.
Takahashi: Hajimemashite. Takahashi desu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

Sasaki: Mr Takahashi, This is Mr Kawamura, He is an engineer from Honda.
Kawamura: Nice to meet you, I'm Kawamura. Be kind to me, as I will be to you.
Takahashi: Nice to meet you, I'm Takahashi. Be kind to me, as I will be to you.

I'll leave at that, short and sweet to start. Just to test the water to let me know if this idea is going to sink or swim..

Ok, this loser will give a shot.

Sasaki: Mr. Takahashi, this is Mr. Kawamura, Mr. Kawamura is an enginner from Honda.
Kawamura: Pleasure to meet you, I'm Kawamura. ----don't know----
Takahashi: Pleasure to meet you, I'm Takahashi. ----don't know----

(PS: Believe it or not, I didn't look at the answers)

Also here's a tip: Don't post the hidden answers underneath the questions. It would be best if you post the questions and when somebody answers them then you tell what they did wrong and correct them.

Not a bad idea, even though it would probably be better to have one of our resident experts writing the questions. I'll wait for them to get harder before I start participating :)

Seriously, this should have its own sticky thread.

I like this.

Engineer at Honda, as in, the cars

Yoroshiku etc. loosely translates to "let's be good to each other", and is used for "nice to meet you". All part of the Hajimemashite line.

This has the potential to be VERY entertaining when the questions get tough :D

Yeah that would be nice but its alot of work thinking of questions. I'd love to play this game myself but you cant when your the one writing the questions. We will see how this catches on.

I think it works better this way when we all discuss the answers, so i wont post them anymore. its like a bit of revision for the more advanced amongst us.

If people really do get sick of it, ill change it.. Im also sick of seeing ro-maji so I'm gonna convert about lesson 3 or 4. Newbies, get studying!

Hiragana and Katakana Practice - Real Kana

”とりはそらにいる。”

"Uh... は is that thing you use like when you're saying 'watashi ha' right? That's all I know..."

Use Japanese writing system if you want to make a useful thread. Romaji should be an additional help for very beginners, not the basic learning tool.
Sasaki: Takahashi-san, kochira wa kawamura-san desu. Kawamura-san wa Honda no enjinia desu.
Kawamura: Hajimemashite. Kawamura desu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.
Takahashi: Hajimemashite. Takahashi desu. Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.
It is ok, but this would teach more...
ささきさん：たかはしさん、こちらはかわむらさんです 。かわむらさんはほんだのエンジニアです。
かわむらさん：はじめまして。かわむらです。よろしく おねがいします。
たかはしさん：はじめまして。たかはしです。よろしく おねがいします。

Sorry, but I think for a beginner romaji=signs of very bad laziness. I don't mean use kanji, but the kana should be used.

Hiragana and katakana canned be learned in weeks, so dedicated Japanese students shouldn't need romaji.

If you can't learn hiragana, you're never going to learn Japanese.

"lol i dunno lol i just saw it in a manga once lol"


This one's for you, Shadow




Someone give me a call when we get into the more advanced stuff

おおい！　かなはできますよ！

Trying to be the nice guy for once here and give the newbies a head start. If you wanna be so picky you can take the time out of your life and you can make the dammned questions.

Trying to make JF a better place without the kawaiipockysugoinekodesune people.


Dude, b*tch best be trollin!

Is that 90% french, 10% kawaiipockynekodesu? (could be the other way around too). Cant translate anything full stop?

Could have so much fun with that one, but unfortunatly, theres the rest of JF to tackle yet my friend, muwahaha!

im confused. whats going on here. how does this thing you got goin on here work.

First post explains it all... Have a go.

I am unable to fully translate these, so I'm not posting anything.

anyway, just because I can't, doesn't mean I'm not learning.

fully translate my arse.

This is like THE most basic thing GRR! If you can't do this, your not learning because this is the first thing ANY textbook or DVD or whatever learning medium you learn will teach you along with わたしのなまえは。。 etc.

Don't think I'm not gonna give you a kawaiipockysugoi stamp across your forehead because your a mod.

You don't intimidate me in the slightest.

Good going.

But still lulz.

And, he's pretty much right, Miyavifan. Even if you don't know all the words in a sentence, there's always a dictionary; it's not cheating.

Why would you post if you have nothing to contribute?

I mean, my 60 year old uncle hung out with some Japanese guys once and he could "fully translate" this. It's literally page 1 of any textbook. It's even in Romaji! Another otaku... I guess the Kanji in your profile is just a copy paste.

I love your threads. lol

Post more :P

And Hajimemashite means "how do you do" for the people at the top of this. *is too lazy to read what everyone said*

Ok, it's time to UP THE ANTE.

黒い暮夜に僕は雨に自分を隠してみた、でもできなかっ た。

Kind of, but only foggy London gentleman say "how do you do". You don't tip your hat and say "hajimemashite" to a lady on the street.

はじめる - To begin

Cap'n: 暮夜?

やば/evening, according to Rikaichan and Jisho.

I had always thought that よる was "night", but I didn't see that in the dictionary, so I just grabbed the first compound for "evening" that I saw :D

Sorry if anything else is confusing, I hope it's still comprehensible...

Cool! I only knew よる, ばや is probably a slang-ish way of saying ばん

Umm, actually, hajimemashite is used a lot in Japanese o.O and you can say it. It's not just a gentlemanly thing.

Damn...-_-

So give me a sentence using　はじめまして that's not a first-time meeting.

EDIT: Still waiting...

WTF? XD Is that person serious?

Also, how can you love Japan so much and not like "sushii"? I thought those kind of people adore it.

Sadly of course they're serious :D

Notice the subtle things - can tack on "kawaii" anywhere she wants, but writes "sweet things" instead of "お菓子". She doesn't translate Japanese for anyone because they'll find out her dirty little secret. I guess "sushii" is a personal choice, but what's not to like about fish and rice?

Yeah, I just looked them up on DeviantART and saw that they were serious. It made me laugh.

But, to be back on the original topic of the thread, I couldn't translate it mainly because I wasn't familiar with some of the words. My vocabulary isn't very good...Nor is any of my Japanese, really.

I hate DevianTarts. And I was giving Miyavifan a hard time, not you :P

Just to join in and take a guess at this one.

"In the black(dark?) night, i tried to conceal myself in the rain, But in was not possible"

I'm not sure how far of I am on that one.

you know what? I'm really not in the mood for this crap....
leave me be.

I actually didn't think you were giving me a hard time. I was just saying. XD

Woah dude hold yer horses.. Its supposed to be a casual incline not throwing people in at the deep end. Shift into plain hiragana and move on to how are you and whats this, that etc..

Yep, that's pretty much what I intended. But I did mean "from the rain", not "in the rain", although that may be my mistake. I didn't know if using から for "from" would be appropriate here, so I found one example sentence were に was being used in a "hiding from" context, and assumed it might work.

Now that you mention it all of the example sentences i can find use に aswell

Lucas, very impressive.

Ladies and Gentelmen...I am going to make fun of myself!
But I will try to explain it...
隠す (かくす) is a transitive verb and means "to hide". Thus as a transitive verb it requires the を for what it is hidden. I wouldn't see it as "hiding from something", but more as "hiding your self/your body to someone/something". If you think it this way 雨に would represent what you are hiding from.
Always in my opinion (that I repeat might be as well be wrong) if the rain is the place where you are hiding from something or someone, than it would become a place where the action takes place, thus requiring で.
So the way I see it is...
私は雨に自分を隠す　I hide myself from the rain.
私は雨で彼に自分を隠す　I hide myself from him in the rain.

But wait someone with more knowledge than me to confirm or correct me.

WOW im really impressed guys. I wish i was half as good as some of the resident experts around here. Im teaching myself Hiragana and Katakana and the process is going painfully slow I know enough rōmaji to get by decently.

Keep it up guys im actually learning quite bit watching.

If you spend a day on it you really can get it all down. If you drag it out I find it becomes harder. Even if you spend a day learning it intensely, and practising it more loosely most days after that I find that you can do it~

I can't speak with certainty to the validity of that, but it seems like a perfectly logical explanation to me. Thanks for the idea :)

Thanks for that i have noticed that too. My problem is time i work so much and have so many things going on its hard to sit down and dedicate enough time as i would like to learning.

But im trying out the website that Shadow suggested and i think i this might good. I can use it while im at work and in between projects just open it up and start testing myself. If i have to speak Japanese to another person i can get buy fairly well but writing it will take more dedication on my part.

じっつはそのサイトがつかいませんでした。。

How long exactly have you been studying kana for? I have a degree, a college course and 2 jobs to rush around after and I managed to get kana down in less than 2 weeks with only 20mins study a day.

My memory is god aweful.. so if I can do it, you can.