お は よ う
ご ざ い ま す Buenos Días (gozaimasu le agrega formalidad)
o ha yo u go za i ma su
I'm learning Japanese (I started recently) and I would like to know if there is someone learning it too or thinking about starting.
Little by little I'll put some information for the ones that are starting:
There are 3 alphabets:
Hiragana: It's value is only phonetic, as our alphabet. It has 46 characters and is the one used for Japanese words, particles, verbs, etc. (all that I'm writing in Japanese here is in Hiragana)
http://www.e.kth.se/~e96_dsa/www/nihongo/hiragana.gif
Katakana: It's value is only phonetic, as our alphabet. It has the same 46 characters as Hiragana, but with different writing. It is used for foreign words like: コンピュタ- konpyuta - computer
http://www.e.kth.se/~e96_dsa/www/nihongo/katakana.gif
Kanji: Chinese characters used only for expressing concepts (in Chinese they can be use phonetically). There are more than 10.000 kanjis, but the official ones you have to know to understand almost all the language and that are taught at schools are nearly 2000.
Some words: (I will only remark when i'm using katakana, if not, I'm using hiragana. Kanji never)
こ ん に ち は Buenas Tardes
ko n ni chi wa
こ ん ば ん は Buenas Noches
ko n ba n wa
お や す み
な さ い Buenas Noches (que duermas bien)
o ya su mi na sa i - Nasai agrega formalidad.
さ よ う な ら Adios (formal)
sa yo u na ra
じゃ ね Chau
ja ne
バ イ バ イ Chau (esta en katakana, es una palabra extranjera)
ba i ba i
The phonetic is similar to Spanish, next time I will tell you.
Please correct my english errors!