Salam and hello to all. After 7 weeks, our Japanese Language course finally over. Huhu, and for the last day we had to perform a song and we had performed it the best as we can. All students look so happy and enjoyed the performance from other groups and sensei also look satisfied with what we had performed. And, we’re satisfied too!

So, here is the video of my group, called Ryo Kuyou (りょくよう) which means Green Leaves. Why Green Leaves? According to our group leader, Chua, it is because we’re still young and we had learnt the basic of Nihon-go and we still have a long journey and more to learn. So, we’re still “green” and “young”. Anyway, the idea of the group name is not from me, but from one of our senior in the group, Amalina. Huhu.. IMHO, the name is suit well to our group.

Sorry for bad quality of video. So that’s the video of our performance. Simple, right? As I said before in previous post, we had the simplest performance. Hehe. Anyway, just ignore the part while out of the sudden we stopped singing. I don’t know what happened, maybe the microphone was turned off.

After we had the performances from all the groups, then we had photo session! *smile everyone!*

Actually there are many more photos, but I lazy to upload it. Lols.. Anyway, this photo is the photo of all students and our beloved sensei. Ok, that’s all for MJC, next week we’ll have our final exam but anyway the exam date still not confirm since there are clash with other exams. Hmm.. still didn’t get any email from the administrator about any changes. But, according to current exam timetable, にほんご　の しんけん will be on 10 June 2008. Anyway, get ready!

So, this is the last post for MJC. With GOD will, maybe I’ll take another Japanese Language course, Japanese 2. Anyway for now, my focus is on the final exam this Tuesday. Before I end my post, thanks a lot to both my sensei, サイド　せんせい　と　サフリル　せんせい, and all supportive にほんご　の　かくせい. Ok, that’s all.

ありがとう　ございます。　にほんご　の　がくせい、しんけん　を　がんばって　ください。じゃ、　また。：）

p/s: Those JAPB113 Special Sem 08/09 students who are looking for photos of our last day performances, please proceed here.

UPDATE : The exam for Japanese Language was postponed to Thursday (12 June 2008) at 2.30pm. Lols.. Looks like I need to reschedule my plan.

Salam and hello to all. Yosh.. After about 7 weeks, so this week is the last week for our にほんご　のコルス. Haha, did I write correctly? What I tried to write is Nihon-go no Course. Haha.. Sorry if there are any mistakes. Please correct me then.

Finally, after I explored a bit in Microsoft Help for how to change my keyboard layout so that I’ll able to write in Nihon-go without to use any kind of font, now, I able to write my name in にほんご using the ordinary keyboard. For example, my name in にほんご is written like this.

ムハマド　イッザト　ビン　ルスラン。

In roman, it will be Muhamado Izzato Bin Rusuran. I need to write this way so the Microsoft IME will translates what I write correctly. So, if you want to know how to change your keyboard layout so that you can write in Japan language. Here, I provide the steps on how to do this. Its actually simple and only takes a few minutes to do it.

Ok, here are the steps.

• Go to your “Control Panel” (Start menu > Control Panel).
• Click “Clock, Language and Region” then double click “Regional and Language Options”. Or if the Control Panel is in classic view, simply double click “Regional and Language Options”.
• In Regional and Language Options, click at Keyboards and Languages tab. Then click “Change Keyboards…”. The “Text Services and Input Languages” dialog box pop-up. There will be a list, which language and keyboard layout you’re currently used. The default will be English (United States) and keyboard layout is US.

• Next step is, click Add. Then the “Add Input Language” dialog box pop-up. There will a long list of languages that you can select. Ok, in this case, find Japanese (Japan). Expand the list of Japanese (Japan). Then, you can see 2 options, which is keyboard and other. Ok, tick on Japanese and Microsoft IME and also Ink Correction. Then, press ok.
• Now, you done. Check back the “Text Services and Input Languages”. There should be 2 languages now. One is English (United States) and another one is Japanese (Japan). If you can see both languages so it means that you’re already able to write in Japanese.
• In “Text Services and Input Languages”, click Language Bar tab. Make sure the language bar is set to be floating on desktop. Then Ok.

Now, if you notice, there is a language bar floating on your desktop and there will be 2 options of languages for you to choose whenever you want to use it. For example if you want to use or want to write in Japanese characters, simply choose Japanese (Japan) and start writing in Japanese.

When Japanese language is selected, there is some setting on the language bar. The important one is make sure Microsoft IME is selected. Otherwise, you can’t write in Japanese. Since there are two types of characters in Japanese which are Hiragana and Katakana, so make sure you set first you want to write in Katakana or Hiragana. There are options in Input Mode which you may select to write in Hiragana, full-width Katakana and others. Another one is if you don’t want the characters to be converted to Kanji characters, you can select No Conversion in Conversion Mode. Ok, that’s it. Hope now you’ll be able to write in Japanese using your ordinary keyboard. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask me, just simply drop your questions in the comment box. I’ll try to answer it.

The steps above are based on Windows Vista Home Premium, I think it should be the same in Windows XP.

————————–End of tutorial————————–

So for this week, since its our last week, so what we did is only the revision of what we have learnt before. For two days, we had ふくしゅ or revision about にほんご grammar, vocabs and Kanji. Huh, Kanji is a bit difficult to remember. I think I need to focus more on this. Anyway, its help a lot to refresh back of what we had learnt before.

Ok, a bit about our last day performance. As I mentioned in the previous MJC post, we need to form into a group and sing a Japanese song titled Kokoro Bana. So we had done with the song itself, looks like everyone now able to sing the song. Hehehe. And for the dance part, we also had done. For dance, we had simple body gestures during singing the song. Haha, sometimes simple is better, right? Because we want to enjoy singing the song and for me, no need to do such complicated body gestures. I think our group got the simplest body gestures compare to other groups. I think la, not so sure about it. Huhu. Anyway, yesterday, both of our 2 lecturers came to class. One of them was wondering how the student can find the lyric of Kokoro Bana song on the internet. Somehow he said that the lyric shouldn’t be on the internet and he said he already blocked that. I’m not sure if he just joking but it seems he looks serious. He even said “I tak puas hati la. Macam mana you all boleh dapat lirik ni kat internet. I dah blocked dah.”. I’m not sure what he means by “blocked” but I think it is not impossible to get the lyric on the internet since anyone can write it and publish it on the internet. Is it written the lyric of song and publish it on the internet is prohibited? Lols.. Sure I don’t know if there is such regulation. I just wondering if it is prohibited since my blog listed as the third result in Google for the keyword “Kokoro Bana” and I wrote the lyric of the song in my previous MJC post. If it is prohibited, then I won’t mind to remove it immediately. Hmmm.. Anyway, I already explained to my sensei that the lyric is from a Japanese lyrics website. No idea of what to say.

So, that’s all. Today we will perform our performance. Huh, hopefully we can do all the best we can do. And for other groups がんばって　ください！　じゃ、また。

Salam and hello all. Haha, another post about MJC and this post is same as previous MJC post, combined 2 weeks of MJC. So what’s going on in these 2 weeks?

Week 5 (20 & 21 May 2008)
Same as the previous week, I learnt more about Nihon-go grammar. I learnt how to tell time in Nihon-go, how to tell days in Nihon-go and others new things. But since this week got Wesak day, so there was no class on Monday hence I only had 2 classes for this week, Tuesday and Wednesday. This week I also learnt some new Kanji characters which are for me, a bit confusing and difficult to remember. Wa..Its more and more difficult compare to remember Hiragana and Katakana characters. Whatever it is, I need to remember it.

Week 6 (26-28 May 2008)
I have been told by my sensei last week that, we had to perform a group performance during the last day of the lecture. So among the students, we’ll be divided into 4 groups which are about 7 peoples in a group. What we had to perform is a song. Wah, its a Japanese song. The title of the song is Kokoro Bana by Warai King. Warai King according to my sensei is a group of king of comedy in Japan. The meaning of the song’s title if I’m not mistaken is Flower Heart (Bunga Hati). Please correct me if I’m wrong, but Kokoro means heart and Bana is flower. Hoho.. Can it be translated like that? But the song is really interesting and I like the song. The song usually sung during farewell day, according to my sensei again. So, we had divided into 4 groups. And guess what my group leader task me to do? The dance part! Wa… No idea. But its not really a dance, but just some basic body gestures that we’ll do during singing the song. Anyway the task was given to two group members, me and another one member. Hopefully, the other one can come out with some ideas. I’m still thinking what to do. LOLS..
Want to listen to the song? Here it is.

And here is the lyric of Kokoro Bana by Warai King. I don’t know if it is correct or not. This is just from what I heard from my sensei and the song itself. If there are anything wrong, please let me know.

Song : Kokoro Bana (ココロばな) By: Warai King
———Chorus start———
こころ　ばな　さか　せて
Kokoro bana saka sete
きょも　わらえる　ことに　かんしゃ
Kyomo Waraeru Kotoni Kansha
フォー・ユー
For you…
こころ　ばな　さか　せて
Kokoro bana saka sete
あつも　ときめく　おもい　は　ひとｓつ
Atsumo Tokinoku Amoi wa Hitotsu
まっすぐ　あるいて　ゆく
Massugu aruite yuku
———Chorus end———

あいして　くれて　ありがとう
Aishite kurete Arigatou
せつない　よるも　ありがとう
Setsunai yorumo. Arigatou
ながれる　あせ　を　ありがとう
Nagareru Ase wo Arigatou
こいの　おわいも　ありがとう。ありがとう。ありがとう。
Koino owaimo Arigatou. Arigatou. Arigatou.

::Repeat Chorus::

えがを　を　くれて　ありがとう。
Ega wo kurete Arigatou
ねむれの　よるも　ありがとう。
Nemureno yoru mo Arigatou.
てを　にぎる　きみに　ありがとう。
Te wo nigiru kimini Arigatou.
なみだ　こらえて　ありがとう。ありがとう。ありがとう。
Namida koraete Arigatou. Arigatou. Arigatou.

::Repeat Chorus::

ぜんぜん　だめな　ときも　ある
Zenzen damena tokimo aru
わすれられない　きずも　ある
Wasurerarenai kizumo aru
こころ　に　あいた　あなも　ある
kokoro ni aita anamo aru
ため　きの　かず　だけ　にげたい　けど
tame kino kazu dake nigetai kedo
こころ　ばな　さか　せて
Kokoro bana saka sete
あめも　くもいも　かんけい　ないさ
Amemo kumoimo kankei naisa
ファイト!
Faito!
こころ　ばな　さか　せて
Kokoro bana saka sete
はれた　この　そらに　おまい　は　ひとＳつ
hareta kono sorani omoi wa hitotsu
まっすぐ　とどけ!
Massugu todoke

::Repeat Chorus::

So, how? Interesting right? Hehe, sorry I don’t know the exact meaning of each word in this song, so I can’t translate the meaning of the whole song. Anyone can help me? Anyhow, I need to remember this song before the performance day which in on next Wednesday, 4 June which is our last lecture for Nihon-go. Wa.. Time moving so fast and its already at the end. I want to learn more! Maybe I need to take Japanese 2 course after this. Huhu. When I heard my sensei story about his experiences in Japan make me more interested to go there to learn their cultures, the lifestyles and everything. Hopefully I can pursue my study there or if I can’t, maybe a trip to Japan. My brother went there already for his homestay program. Huhu, listen to his story also make me interested to go there. When the chance will come? Huhu.. I’ll keep waiting. Abah, next year holiday can we go there?

So, here are some Nihon-go vocabularies for this time.

Nichi Youbi – Sunday
Getsu Youbi – Monday
Ka Youbi – Tuesday
Sui Youbi –Wednesday
Moku Youbi – Thursday
Kin Youbi – Friday
Do Youbi – Saturday

So, that is all for now. Thanks for reading and listen to the song. Hope you enjoyed the song. Ja, mata.

Salam and hello all. Yosh, I totally forgot to post about MJC since the last post about it. Lols. Anyway, this post combined two weeks of MJC, week 3 and 4. Hmm.. What can I simplified here is, in these 2 weeks I learnt a lot of kanji characters and Nihon-go grammar too. And I had a lot of quizzes too. *headache

Yesterday, I had 3 quizzez..huhu *Headache again* 1 Kanji, 1 vocab and 1 grammar quiz. Looks like my sensei wanna kill me already. Luckily, I can answered 2 of the quiz but kanji… . Chinese students look really happy while answering kanji quiz. I know they had the same as in Chinese kanji, only pronounciation is different. huhu.. Anyway, the quiz for kanji characters is actually for number 1 till 10 only. Maybe some people said, “Alah.. only 1 to 10, not so difficult..LOLS” .. Yup, its not difficult, but my problem is I DON’T REMEMBER HOW TO WRITE AND WHICH KANJI FOR THOSE NUMBERS. So? huhu.. *Just tembak again. I don’t know how many kanji characters that I newly created yesterday.

My sensei said, to able you to pursue your study to Japan university, you need to at least knows 10,000 kanji. What?!!?!! 10,000 kanji?? 10 kanji I already don’t remember.haha *But, I wish to continue my study there*

Ok enough for those kanji things. Kanji needs more practice after all.

Wanna learn some Nihon-go grammar? Ok, class begins..

Hai, Hajimemashou.

1. Kore wa _____ desu. means This is _____.

examples:

Kore wa enpitsu desu. means This is a pencil.
Kore wa kagi desu. means This is a key.
Kore wa borupen desu. means This is a ballpen.

Note: When using “Kore”, the things should be with the speaker.

2. Sore wa _____ desu. means That is _____.

examples:

Sore wa kasa desu. means That is an umbrella.
Sore wa jisho desu. means That is a dictionary.
Sore wa zasshi desu. means That is a magazine.

Note: When using “Sore”, the things should be with the listener.

3. Are wa _____ desu. means That (over there) is _____.

examples:

Are wa konpyu-ta desu. means That (over there) is a computer.
Are wa jidosha desu. means That (over there) is a car.
Are wa tsukue desu. means That (over there) is a table.

Ok, lets say if you want to ask people, Is it a car? Or is it a computer? Its really simple actually, what you’ve to do is just by adding “ka” at the end of the sentence. By adding “ka” means you change the sentence into a question.

examples:

Sore wa jidosha desuka. means Is it a car?

or maybe you want to ask about two things.

examples:

Kore wa borupen desuka. shapu-penshiru desuka. means This is ballpen or mechanical pencil?

easy right?

Then, how to ask, for example; where this computer made in from? It would be like this,

Kore wa konpyuta no doko desuka. means This computer made in from where?
Malaysia no konpyuta desu. means Made in Malaysia.

Another example,

Kore wa jidosha no Proton desu. Proton no Malaysia desu.
means This is a Proton’s car. Proton made in Malaysia.

Wakarimasuka?

Lets have some more.

If you want to ask people where they are from, you can say this to ask them.

Anata no nan jin desuka. means What is your nationality?
Watashi wa Malaysia-jin desu. means I’m Malaysian.

Anata no doko desuka. means Where are you from?
Watashi wa Terengganu-desu. means I’m from Terengganu.
or you can say like this,
Watashi wa Malaysia no Terengganu desu. means, I’m from Terengganu, Malaysia.

Note: “Jin” means nationality. For examples, Singapore-jin means Singaporean.

Wanna learn more? Hmm… Ok, lets continue about numbers from last time.

100 – Hyaku
600 – Robbyaku
800 – Happyaku

Then where is 200, 300 and else? For others number like 200, 300 and others, its simply be like this.

200 – Ni Hyaku ( remember in the last post, 2 is “Ni”)
300 – San Hyaku
400 – Yon Hyaku
700 – Nana Hyaku

Only 100, 600 and 800 got some “special” pronounciation here.

Then, how to say this number in Japanese?

768 ? It’ll pronounce as Nana Hyaku Roku Ju Hacchi.
666 ? Robbyaku Roku Ju Roku.

Wakarimasuka?

Before I end this post. hehe..

Do you know what the meaning of this sentence and how to answer it? Please reply it at the comment section.

Anata no Malaysia-jin desuka? Singapore-jin desuka?

Huhu.. I think its enough for this time. I’ll continue share some more Nihon-go grammar with you all next time in my next MJC post. Ok, till next time. Sayounara, mata ashita.

p/s: Anybody knows how to able me to write Japanese characters in WordPress? I mean the Hiragana and Katakana characters, anyone knows? Please tell me then. Thanks

Hello all, I think its still not too late to share about what I had on my second week of my MJC. Hmm.. Those who don’t know what MJC is all about, you can read my previous post about it here. Okay, so what I had for the second week? Of course something new and interesting, right? Hehe.. Yes, its really interesting. So, I want to share here a little bit, what I had for this week.

As for the first week, I learnt on how to write all those hiragana and katakana. We learnt on how to write, the steps and so on. But for the second week, I already need to memorize all those hiragana and katakana characters as I have quiz for this week. Not one but two and everyday from Monday and Wednesday. OMG! To be honest, my first quiz on Monday was really… err I don’t know what to say. I’m not ready yet for the quiz. I still not remember all those hiragana characters because at first I thought the quiz would be on next day or maybe the next after the next day, but unluckily it was on that Monday! So, what to do? Just main tembak and fortunately I remembered some of the characters, so at least my quiz paper will not just return back in blank. Huhu

Then, I thought that was the only quiz for that day or maybe for that week. But, I’m totally wrong. Again, before the class ends, my sensei reminded all the students to go back and study and remember all those hiragana characters because tomorrow we’ll have another quiz which is spelling quiz and of course not in romaji (the ordinary characters to write, lor.. ABC..Z ) but in hiragana! *ok. I need to study then.

For the second quiz, I think I did quite well since I took the whole day to practice hardly and remembered the hiragana characters. So, I’m quite satisfied for the second quiz although there are still some mistakes and lacks somewhere. But consider as I’m the new learner, hehe.. without a mistake then how can I learn? We learn more from mistake, right?

So, I had already two quizzes now, and then for the third day, got another quiz! This time is katakana characters. Not only one quiz but two on the same day! Wa.. Fortunately, I’m ready for this quiz so I think I did well for this quiz. Huuhh.. So many quiz, huh? My sensei said, Japanese always moved faster so we also need to move faster.. yeah. But sumimasen sensei, setsumeishitekudasai? (means Excuse me, sir. Can you explain slowly?) LOLS..

In this week also I learnt on how to count the number. One..two.. three.. haha.. Like what we had last time in pre-school.. Ok, want to learn too?

Hai, Hajimemashou. (means Yes, lets begin!)

One – Ichi
Two – Ni
Three – San
Four – Yon
Five – Go
Six – Roku
Seven – Nana
Eight – Hacchi
Nine – Kyu
Ten – Ju

For the next number like eleven, twelve or thirteen it would be pronounced like this; for eleven ( Ju Ichi), for twelve (Ju Ni) and for thirteen (Ju San). Same also for others number until nineteen. For 20, 30, 40 and so on it would be pronounced like this; for 20 (Ni Ju), for 30 (San Ju) and for 40 (Yon Ju). Easy right?

I think its enough for this time, I’ll continue from 100 to 1000 later.. hehe.. And if you notice any mistakes, please correct me, I’m still learning it.

Sayounara, matta ashita.

Hello all. As promised before, I will write something regarding my currently taking Japanese class. Before we proceed, some of you might be wondering what on earth is that MJC stand for? Ok its actually a short form from “My Japanese Class” or “My Japanese Course”. Huhu.. whatever. So, here I will try to share with you what I learn during this class week by week. Why week by week? Its because my Japanese class only 2 hours per day and I only have it from Monday till Wednesday only. Huhu.. Its 6 hours total per week. Just 6 hours only which is not enough according to my sensei. And this course only for 2 months, about 8 weeks, minus exam week and etc, it would be just 6 or 7 weeks only. So, it will only cover the basic part of Japanese language. If I want to proceed, I need to take another part in the next special semester. Talking about special semester, it’s really boring. My Japanese class will start at 8pm every Monday to Wednesday and before that time, I don’t have anything to do. *yes, go watch some movies! or maybe I should do part time job? One of my friends asked me to join him to do part time job at one company in Cyberjaya. It is an online-base company. *Well, I’ll take it into consideration.

Ok, for the first week, nothing much I learnt, just some basic class expressions and learnt how to write all those freaking-difficult-to-remember hiragana, katakana and kanji characters. Owh, maybe I need to spend my ‘free’ time to ‘watch’ those characters and remember every one of them rather than go watch some movie. Hmm.. nice idea. Whatever it is, I need to remember all of them because next week, we’ll start to write in hiragana and katakana.

For the first time also, I need to introduce myself in Japanese language. It’s the first day and I’m the first! How lucky I am! wtf. With some nervousness in me, I tried to introduce myself in Japanese language in front of others 30 students who also took Japanese class. *Luckily, we already got some demo on how to do it from my sensei.

This is what I said that day to introduce myself,

Minna-san. Hajimemashite? Konbanwa. Watashi no namae wa Muhamad Izzat (silent for a while..don’t know what to speak) des… (wtf?!) Dozo yoroshiku ( Huh..Yes, I did it!)

the meaning is this

Hi everybody. How are you? Good Evening. (Hajimemashite also means “nice to meet you”). My name is Muhamad Izzat. Nice to meet you.

Huhu.. easy right?

Ok, lets have some more,

Hajimemashou means “Let’s begin”
Owarimashou means “Let’s finish”
Yasumimashou means “Let’s take a break”

if you want to ask like “Can we begin?”, the sentence will be like this..
Hajimemashou ka? – Can we begin?
Hai, hajimemashou – to answer “Yes, let’s begin”.

Then, the most popular phrase is “Do you understand?”
so in Japanese it would be like this
Wakarimasuka? – Do you understand?
Hai, wakarimasu – Yes, I’m understand
Iie, wakarimasen – No, I don’t understand (Iie pronounced as e-ye)
or maybe you want to ask if there any question, in Japanese it would be like this,
Shitsumon ga arimasuka? – Do you have any question?
Hai, arimasuka – Yes, I have some questions.
Iie, arimasen – No, I don’t have any.

haha interesting? Ya, it is an interesting language and I enjoyed learning it.

Ok some daily greetings..
Ohayou gozaimasu – Good Morning.
Konnichiwa – Good Afternoon.
Konbanwa – Good Evening.
Oyasuminasai – Good Night.
Onegaishimasu – Please give me a favour/Please give me some help.
Sumimasen – I’m sorry.

Maybe not too much for the first week, I learnt more on how to write hiragana and katakana and some basic class expressions. Next week will become more tougher as I’ll start to write all those Japanese phrase in hiragana and katakana. Yeah, it’ll become more interesting! Isn’t?

Ok that’s all for now. Bye! Wait for next entry about my MJC.. ehehehe Hai, sayounara minna-san. Mata ashita. (Matta ashita means see you again)