Before I get into the Japanese words and phrases, I'll tell you how I've written them. I decided to start writing Japanese as closely as I can to the traditional form. Since I haven't had any formal lessons yet there are probably some mistakes in what I think I know to be true. If you see where I've made a mistake please let me know.

Where western people write text in horizontal lines from left to right, Japanese is traditionally written in vertical columns from top to bottom. Where western people imagine the paper as being lined with equal spaced horizontal lines, the Japanese imagine the page as a grid of equal size squares. Each Kana occupies a square so they are, for the most part, of uniform size and position. The Japanese writer starts in the upper right of the page and proceeds down the page until they reach the bottom. Then they return to the top of the page, but one column to the left of the finished column. This is how I will write all of my work I show here. Since I am just starting and need practice in writing in this format I have purchased paper with a 2CM square grid on it. The grid is very light blue and does not show up in the scans I make to post here.

The links below will take you to pages where I will show the words and/or phrases written in Hiragana along with Romaji so you can see how they are pronounced. Finally I will give the approximate English translation. Bear in mind that translations between English and Japanese are more open to interpretation than say translations done between English and German. The western languages share a lot of common history. There is virtually no common language history between Japanese and English.

The links at the bottom of your screen will take you to the main topic areas