き

KI – One of the basic Hiragana characters. Hiragana is phonetic in nature. The characters represent sounds, and can be combined to form the sounds of words. Hiragana characters are used for Japanese words only.

Hiragana is composed of 50 sounds, of which 46 are currently in use. One interesting thing is the base characters can be modified to other sounds with the addition of small marks.

し　じ

Above left is the sound si and with the addition of the dot, it becomes zi or ji sound.

I can see there will be much to learn for me, but what I’m hoping to gain first is a familiarity with the various symbols. Once I can recognize a majority, it will easier to begin the work book.

Thanks to @thepete and @pacificIt for the recommendations about entering Japanese characters. I played with that on the computer at work today, and now used it here on the Mac. Rocks!

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I’m beginning a list of online resources for learning Japanese. Most sites will be free, so perhaps this will leave off some of the better sites.

• http://www.guidetojapanese.org/index.html#contents
• http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/jwb/wwwjdic?9T
• http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Shrine/7047/hboth.htm

That’s just a few links. The plan is to get them all organized and posted on a Page vs a post.Please contribute any links that might be helpful. 

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Japanese for Busy People I: Kana Version includes CD (Japanese for Busy People Series)

So I’m interested in learning Japanese. The above book comes recommended from one of my contacts as a best of type book for learning. This particular version is the Kana version, meaning it will not be Romanized or Western text.

Also recommended is of course finding a local school. I’m interested in doing both actually.

If you have other recommendations, do leave them in the comments or contact me directly.

Interested in tutoring an adult? Live in Missouri? Drop me a line.

Finally, if you have some books in Japanese, and you care to part with them, be sure to think of me.

Your future reader of Japanese,
Todd

Update: Another resource, The Japanese Grammar Database. Many thanks to @eladyland on Twitter. 

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