Once you’ve learnt lots of vocab, you start to get a feel for which reading to use where.

In the case of 人, it’s usually じん when it’s noun+人, にん when it’s number+人, and ひと when it’s standing around on its own.

So, say, ドイツ人は十一人の人です (“There are eleven Germans”) is どいつじんはじゅういちにんのひとです.

Of course, there’s always exceptions – most notable of which is that 一人 and 二人 are pronounced ひとり and ふたり just to make things entertaining.

Ooo, good luck with that. What part of Australia? I’m in Sydney. =)

I never had the option to learn Japanese at school, though I’m not entirely sure if I’d have taken it even if I did have it. I did study Chinese, though, so it’s a possibility. =)

Welcome! What religion? =)

But… isn’t July a bit short-notice to be told you’re going to Japan for two years in October?

Welcome!

Bahanur wrote:

Turkish is quite similar to Japanese as they share the same Altaic roots.

Really? I always thought Japanese was fairly strange in that it didn’t appear to be related to any other languages. According to the wikipedia article linked from that page, the inclusion of Japanese in the Altaic group has always been a little bit controversial. Could be interesting to see how things go for you. =)

Welcome! You want to go visit Japan sometime, or just talking to a Japanese person is good enough? =P

You did pretty well, just a few pointers: Firstly, hiragana か and katakana カ are fairly similar, but don’t get them confused. Second, if by 言葉が好き you meant you like languages, 言語 might possibly be a better choice of word. When the dictionary says “言葉 means language” it’s less “the English language” type language and more “the language of the common people” type language. Thirdly, it’s 日本人に話したい if you want to talk to a Japanese person. If you use が it’s “Japanese people want to talk”.

Lastly, your topic is just an open bracket? You trying to start something? =P

thisiskyle wrote:

For one, when speaking of someone else, you should always use 思っている. I never really got a good reason why.

Because you can’t put thoughts in other peoples’ heads. It’s the same reason that ほしい becomes ほしがっている when you’re talking about someone else. A good bit of Japanese grammar is all about who you can emphasise with and who you can’t.

Yeah, する forms an enormous number of compound verbs by gluing itself onto the back of nouns. You’re not going to find the whole assemblage in the dictionary, though, but if you look up, say, しごと, you’ll notice in the list of parts-of-speech, there’ll be a note like “Noun, Suru verb”.

The main use you’re going to see for やる is that it’s a very casual way of saying する. I have a feeling most of the other meanings of the word are extensions of that (in the same way as, for example, “to do someone in” in English means to kill them).

P.S. Also, ぢ is “di”.

thisiskyle wrote:

my old XP machine is on its way out.

On its way out? It should have been out three months ago…

Get Windows 8.1 if you don’t want to stop using a desktop. It’s perfectly decent.