Rosetta Stone Japanese

Level 1- Unit 1 - lesson1 (1-1-1)

Notes to help me remember what I THINK I've learned.
Reminder: as this is Rosetta Stone, some of this may turn out to be wrong. It's more to help go over what's on the lesson than to preserve completely for future reference. Making words larger to help read the kanji characters

New words:
airplane - 飛行機
ball - ボール
boat - ボート
boy - 男の子
car - 車
elephant - 象
girl - 女の子
inside - 中
man -　男の人
on top of/above -　上

ride - 乗って

table -　テーブル
under/underneath - 下
woman -　女の人

Grammar notes:
--Above, inside, and underneath have  に    afterward. Denotes what they are, I think.

-- の  is after noun before the placement is given. Ex. 男の子の上にあるボール
I believe the translation would be something like 'the ball that's on top of a boy.' Only it's The boy (subject of this section) on top of (with regards to what is going on with the boy) that's (used for objects, I think) ball.

--I noticed that when it's a person and not an object, it's いる, not ある.

Grammar notes for Unit 5, lesson 5 Spanish

1-5-5
Rosetta Stone

New Vocab:
pasear - to walk, as in to walk a dog
empujar - to push?
jalar - to pull?
arreglar? - to fix or work on, like work on a bicycle? arregla la bicicleta.
la medicina - medicine
glass of water - vaso de agua
alguien - someone
algo - something

Grammar:
andar en la bicicleta - ride a bik

is giving something to someone else
 X le está dando (sometimes el or la) Y a el/la Z
ex. El hombre le está dando la guitarra a la niña.
OR
X le está dando a Z Y
ex. Alguien le está dando al hombre un plato de comida

is getting something from someone else
X está recibiendo (sometimes el or la) Y de el/la Z
ex. El niño está recibiendo la guitarra de la mujer.


Unknown:
1. El hombre está cargando al niño.
carry, maybe - walking with boy on his shoulders in the picture.

2. La niña está agarrando un plato
she;s picking up an empty plate from a stack of plates on a table. Getting herself a plate? Fixing a plate - is it related to arreglando?  Arranging the plates?  Checking on this. Google translate says grab, gripping, getting a hold of

3. past tense of dar?
El hombre le dio un vaso de leche a la mujer
for when he's already given it to her.


How did it go?
Pretty well. I remembered much of this the first time around, I liked it well enough.

Was anything tricky or difficult?
Arreglar vs. agarrar kept tripping me up
Arreglar - to fix  agarrar - to grab

remembering the reflexive 'le' before the verb 'dar.'

What can help?
Agarrar - My mnemonic: a caveman, Garr,  coming into a house and pointing to every object he finds. Every time he sees one he goes 'Ah! Garr's!'  and grabs it.

Arreglar - The group of men are sitting around trying to fix this weird, crazy bicycle in rainbow colors and pinwheels and such. And every time they try something and it fails, they are glaring at the thing like that will fix it instead.

Spanish Goals this year

Spanish goals this year:
1. Finish 2 levels of Rosetta Stone by June, 2014
2. Memorize 300 verbs by June 2014 - choose from review cards, then add.
3. Choose a telenovela to watch by June 2014
4. Do Spanish daily with children through December, 2014

Japanese help

My goal:
Memorize at least 1000 kanji by the end of 2014
Finish Rosetta Stone Japanese, 2 levels, by end of 2014
Memorize another 1000 kanji by end of 2015


Help with starting out learning to read and speak japanese.

Reading help.
wanikani.com - a system for learning japanese radicals and then 2000 japanese kanji - $8 a month currently, with a system for repetition and mastery.  Very useful, so far, although the first couple of levels are slow. The website doesn't unlock new kanji or radicals until previous ones are mastered, and won't allow reviews for up to a certain time period, so it will take a couple of days to get to the kanji itself.  You sign up for the beta reader, then get a confirmation email, and then, sometimes a few hours later, you get the email with information on making the account.

If worked on daily, it supposedly takes 1 1/2 - 2 years to memorize the kanji in the program.

Textfugu.com - same group that does wanikani.com, but this one is on hiragana and more reading oriented, rather than just the kanji.

Hiragana chart -
http://www.textfugu.com/resources/hiragana-chart/

Drop and drag hiragana practice -
http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/sheaa/projects/genki/hiragana-timer.html

practice with different hiragana and katakana fonts - I love this one for just straight on practicing -
http://www.realkana.com/hiragana/

Same thing, but practicing with kanji- just kanji, no sentences
http://www.realkanji.com

Pronunciation help using hiragana (helps to know it first):
http://www.textfugu.com/season-1/japanese-pronunciation/
(without the extra information and straight to the practice vidoes:
http://www.textfugu.com/season-1/japanese-pronunciation/3-5/#top )

Rosetta stone - useful, in my opinion, to use with these to help with pronunciation and getting a more instinctive feel for the grammar.

Verbs II

From Level 1, Unit 2, lesson 2 through Level 1, Unit 4 Lesson 5




Sostener - to hold??
esta señalando - to point
tocar - to play (an instrument)
tocar - to touch. tocarse was used in touching body parts on oneself. Se está sounded like 'cesta'
gire - to turn??  (a la izquierda or derecha, or 'en U' )
estacione??  to park?
usar? - to use (telephone, no proposition needed)
Llevarse - can be used with touching to translate as puts. ex. el niño se lleva el vaso a la boca - means the boy puts the glass to his mouth.  Note, when it's something that is very explicitly yours, sometimes can use el or la rather than su, mi, etc....
llevar - to carry (on web, not rosetta stone. So lleva can be wear a hat or carries/has  hat
peinar - to comb (for someone else's hair can say 'a la whoever' after, or just 'el pelo de whoever' with no a.
cepillar? - to brush - also used with se está cepillando on oneself.
haber - to have, used in present perfect tense
cortar - to cut
jalar - to tow/pull?  used for towing a boat and a car (object x jala object Y)
manejar - to drive? used with driving a car
estacionar - to park (like a car)
aparcar - to park (like a bicycle)
ponerse - to put on (like clothes)
poner - to put. Like, to put a bicycle on top of a van

doblar - to turn (a car, dobla a la derecha)

circular - to circulate, but can also mean to 'drive along'

pasar + a + object - to pass  (a car)

tener - to have (an accident, like a car accident)

tener - to have (hair that is long, short, color X)

tener +...
...hambre - hungry
...sed - thirsty
...frío/a - cold
...calor - hot
...dolor - hurt/in pain
...miedo - frightened

jugar - to play

escribir - to write

señalar - to point

girar - to turn (a jumprope)

saltar (a) - to jump with a jumprope (salta a la soga)

trepar  - to climb ( a tiger climbing)

coger - to grasp? (to put money into a bank, está cogiendo dinero en un banco)

cocinar - to cook

Hay - there are/ are there (depends on if ?)

cubrir - to cover ( like cover your eyes with your hands)

puede ser (idiom) - perhaps so

hablar - talking/speaking

hablar (con) - to talk (with someone)

hablar (por) - to talk on something (a phone, a walkie talkie)

poder + verb - to be able to verb. ex. puede hablar is he/she/it can talk.

jugar (a) - to play a game (like chess)

venir - to come

Tener - past tense

tuvo for él, ella, Ud.

tuvieron for ellos, ellas, Uds.

adjectives, tener and estar

1-3-7 (and some 1-3-8) (and some 1-4-2)

Three ways shown to indicate what would be adjectives only in english

tener +...
...hambre - hungry
...sed - thirsty
...frío/a - cold
...calor - hot
...dolor - hurt/in pain
...miedo - frightened


estar +...
...lleno/a - full
...cansado/a - tired
...enfermo/a - sick
...sano - well
...contento/a - happy
...triste - sad
...avergonzado - embarrassed
...orgulloso (de) - proud (of something)
...abierto/a - open
...cerrado/a - closed
...juntos/as - close/ together
...separados/as - separated, apart
...estirado/a - straight (like straight knees or arms)
...doblado/a - bent (like bent knees or arms)

Uses ser:
fuerte - strong
débil - weak
hermoso/a - pretty or attractive
feo/a - ugly
rico - rich
gordo - fat
delgado - thin

Verbs I

Verbs up through Level 1 Unit 2 lesson 1
Order of conjugation: yo, tú, [él, ella, Ud.], nosotros, [ellos, ellas, Uds.]

Notes on verbs:
1. -ar verbs, drop the -ar and add -o, -as, -a, -amos, or -an to the stem (part with the -ar).
2. -er verbs, drop the -er and add -o, -es, -e, -emos, or -en to the stem.
3. -ir verbs, drop the -ir, and add -o, -es, -e, -imos, or -en to the stem.
4.  Some verbs are irregular and don't conjugate like the rest. You will learn these as you go and just have to memorize them.