Is this correct?
 

I'm trying to figure out the correct Japanese particle format for the following type of English sentence:

<Person> <Doing verb, with specific action> <Location>.

For example "I speak Japanese at school."

My attempted translation would be 私は日本語へがくしゃをはなします。

I'm just a bit confused by the particles in there. I think に　could be used in place of へ , but I'm not even sure that either should go there, and if neither do, no idea what does! I'm only a beginner, have just learnt how to use those two particles in this sense, but there is no example like this.

Help please ^_^ ?

Thanks,

~~Simba

sorry im just learning Japanese too and i think that you should Google it that is what i do.>^_^<

The simplest way to put it would be 私は学校で日本語を話しています。 (in hiragana only=わたしはがっこうでにほんごをはなしています。)

The particle you're looking for is で, which indicates a place or location where the action is occurring. I'd like to recommend a set of textbooks called Genki - they're great for beginners, and not expensive as far as textbooks go. It'll teach you all the basics you need, including what I just told you - I used these books a few years ago, and they're pretty good.

Thanks very much, that's great :) .

If by google it, you mean the Google Online Translator, please don't.]

Edit: Yeah, the Genki series is pretty good. The next most popular series is Minna No Nihongo, although its entirely in Japanese (Genki has some English explanations to help you along)

that is incorrect. minna no nihongo comes as a pair. it is a brilliant series because you can be in a mixed langauge class, eg people who speak different languages as their first language and all use the same book.

1st book is the exercises - all japanese
2nd book is the grammar explanations and vocabulary for each topic/chapter in the exercise book - comes in several different languages, i've seen it explained in are english, chinese & korean

the brilliance of this is that you get to work from the exercise book and not have any english or romaji anywhere near by. just the japanese.

I ran up and grabbed my みんなの日本語 set (1 and 2) just to check what you were referring to. By second book, I assume you mean an additional teacher-guide style book, because both of these are exercise books, pure and simple.

They didn't have anything other than the exercise books at the shop in Osaka where I picked them up.

I can agree on the no-romaji or English to fall back on being a bonus, but not for a complete beginner with no assistance. You need to have at least some basic knowledge (hiragana, katakana) and a dictionary. Without, it would be like throwing you a child's book in arabic script and saying "Okay, start reading!"

i'm sorry nathan, you either went to a dodgy shop or you have bad eyesite. in my searching around for japanese books in Okasa i found the grammar book in the series in multiple languages at all stores. i have them in my house. they are not teacher books, they are part of the set.

and no im not talking about the different levels of minna no nihongo which is 1 and 2. im talking about a set of books for each set.

here are the titles of the front cover of grammar book:

みんなの日本語
初級I翻訳・文法解説　英語版
Translation & Grammatical Notes

the whole idea of this system is that they can print one book that all students use in mixed native language classes (which is what you will often study in if you study Japanese in Japan, my class had chinese and koreans)
they can all then use the same book and have the explanation of grammar and translations/vocab in their own language.

I'd hardly call it a dodgy shop, and I poured up and down the isle looking for the grammar sets when I bought them originally. It was a very big shop in Namba, I forget the name of it now.

Even the nice little shop Random Walk didn't have it. I'm guessing the supplier just decided to limit that side of it (or force you to buy it online).

I spend hours in bookshops. I picked up several other good books on grammar, so I don't need the Minna-no version.

Other than being a bit color-blind, my eye-sight is just fine by the way ;p

it is strange because it is pretty much the opposite of what i found in book shops located in tennoji and umeda and even this little crappy department store in a tiny town in nara, there were heaps of the translation books and stood out like crazy because each language translation had a different colour so there were these books lined up next to each other, same design etc, but different colours. very surprised the store didn't have them.

in any case i think the japan times grammar dictionaries are much better than genki or minna for grammar explanations. hope those are the ones you use, they are great, i found beginner and intermediate but not an advanced one yet. there might not be one though ><