Japanese Lesson 5: Informal Introductions

Happy Friday everyone! 

Today's word of the day is another one that teaches us about kanji: 

Word of the Day:

Romaji	Hiragana	Kanji
tenpura	てんぷら	天ぷら or 天麩羅

You should all know what tenpura means... In English it's often spelled "tempura," since that's what it sounds like when someone says it (though it's phonetically spelled "ten pu ra"). The reason why it can be written with an 'n' or an 'm' in romaji (literally "Roman characters") is because if you make an 'n' sound followed by a 'p' or 'b' sound, the 'n' ends up sounding like an 'm' -- due to the fact that your lips come together. For example, try saying "tenple" instead of "temple." If you say it slowly, you can do it -- but if you speed it up, "tenple" becomes indistinguishable from "temple." 

There are two ways to write tenpura in kanji: 天ぷら and 天麩羅. The first spelling consists of one kanji character (ten -- the character for "heaven" or "sky") and two hiragana (phonetic) characters (pu and ra). The second spelling starts with the same ten ("heaven"), followed by a kanji character for pu ("wheat-gluten bread") and ending with a kanji character for ra ("gauze"; "thin silk"; or "Rome"). What does this tell us about the food which it describes? Not much... although you could say that the fried delicacy is a method of cooking something by giving it a "heavenly gauze-like layer of fried wheat-gluten"... or something like that. 

It turns out that kanji serve a variety of different purposes in Japanese (and in Chinese too, from my understanding). Often, the character will have a specific meaning -- it being a pictographic representation of something (e.g., oya, which was the previous word of the day). Characters with specific meaning can be combined to create more complex words with meaning derived from the characters from which it is comprised (e.g., Tokyo, which literally means "Eastern capital"). Sometimes, however, kanji are simply used for their pronunciations; not their meanings. While the word tenpura can be written in kanji, the kanji do not provide us with any deeper meaning about the word -- which, by the way, is the way that English works. The spelling/pronunciation of a word is all we have to go on when deciphering the meaning of a word in English. In Japanese and Chinese, however, there is often additional information packaged into the way the letters are written. It's quite an amazing system, in my opinion! But I may be a bigger fan of kanji than most...

So back to the kanji spelling of tenpura. While ten by itself means "heaven," here, it is just the sound "ten." The same is true for the latter two characters. 

If you've gotten this far into my explanation, then here's some trivia for you! 

1. Then ten in tenpura (天) is the same character that is used to write Nintendo in Japanese!

2. The pu in tenpura refers to a type of Japanese food (or foods, really, as there are different types) made of wheat gluten. To learn more about fu (it's pronunciation changes from fu to pu because it appears after an 'n' sound... but I'll explain more about that in a later lesson), click here. And here's a beautiful picture of some nama fu.

3. Lastly, for those of you who are familiar with the movies of Kurosawa Akira (I put his last name first, since he's Japanese), the movie Rashomon is written in Japanese using the same ra as is used in the word tenpura. 

Using kanji to represent pronunciation instead of meaning is called ateji. Ateji is common in names of foods (e.g., sushi), people and places (e.g., France -- 仏蘭西).

Japanese Lesson 5: Informal Introductions

The first four lessons introduced some basic sentences and vocabulary in Japanese. These next few lessons will introduce some important, basic conversations that you can start using immediately. First on the list is how to introduce yourself. Here it is (assuming Wan-chan is introducing himself): 

Wan desu. Yoroshiku.

That's it! Wan is Wan-chan's name (chan is a Japanese honorific, which you would drop when you refer to yourself). If you're Japanese, you'll use your last name only. So if Akira Kurosawa introduced himself, he's say: Kurosawa desu. Yoroshiku. 

The word yoroshiku is more or less the equivalent of "nice to meet you." The word is derived from the word yoroshii, which means "good," "OK," or "fine." Yoroshiku basically means "regards" (as used as a closing for a letter or email). In Japanese, after you meet someone, you would say "best regards" to be polite; in English, we say, "Nice to meet you." or "A pleasure." or something like that. 

I mentioned that a Japanese person will generally use their last name when introducing themselves. That being said, younger people may use their first names in informal settings. When you introduce yourself, you should obviously use the name that you want people to call you. 

That's it in terms of the language. An additional important point about introducing yourself, however, is your physical actions. In Japan, people don't usually shake hands (though it happens, especially if a Japanese person is meeting an oubeijin (Westerners)) -- they bow. In an informal setting, the person introducing himself or herself will probably bow slightly when saying "yoroshiku." Or, if you want to combine a bow with a handshake, that's an option too -- especially if you're President Obama.

Your homework? Walk up to someone in a bar (who is Japanese) and introduce yourself! Or, if you prefer, talk to yourself in the mirror.

Japanese Review Lesson 1

To make sure everyone's learning these basic Japanese grammatical patterns and vocabulary, I've decided to make every fifth lesson a review of the previous four lessons. Before we head into the review, however, here's the word of the day...

Word of the Day:

Romaji	Hiragana	Kanji
oya	おや	親

Oya means "parent." Unlike previous words of the day, this particular word has no special meaning, and there is no difficulty in translating it into English. Instead, I chose it to illustrate how interesting kanji can be! The character for oya is a little complicated... with 16 strokes. By breaking it down into its composite parts, however, we can learn a little more about the meaning of the word itself. This character is comprised of three parts: 立 (tatsu -- to stand), 木　(ki -- tree), and 見 (miru -- to look at; to see). If you can't see these three characters within the kanji for oya, try clicking on the character, and it should become more obvious.
The character tells a story about what a parent is -- someone who stands in a high place (e.g., on a tree) and watches over children. Probably a cute picture of my daughter is appropriate here...

And now for the day's Review Lesson!

Review Lesson 1
Lesson 1: I am [noun]. 
In Lesson 1, we learned how to say: "I am [noun]." You should be able to say, for example, "I am teriyaki chicken." Why you would want to say that is beyond me, but the sentence would be: Watashi wa teriyaki chikin desu. And to build on what I mentioned in Lesson 4, you can also say, "Wan-chan is a dog." and "Wan-chan, you are a dog." Both sentences are the same, just with a different context -- Wan-chan wa inu desu. If you are talking to someone about Wan-chan, then the former is the correct translation; if you are speaking to Wan-chan directly, then the latter is the correct translation.

Lesson 2: Asking a Question
Once we learned how to say, "I am an American." the next logical step is to ask someone else what they are. In Japanese, it's really, really easy. Just add "ka" to the end of the sentence. So to change "Wan-chan is a dog." to "Is Wan-chan a dog?" all we have to do is add "ka" to the end of the sentence: Wan-chan wa inu desu ka? (Note that in Japanese there are no question marks... But I add them since this blog is in English and adding them probably makes it easier to understand).

Lesson 3: Eating!
In Lesson 3, I introduced a verb -- to eat. In Japanese, the verb is taberu. Of course, just like in English, verbs need to be conjugated. I introduced the present continuous and its negative form (is/am/are eating; is/am/are not eating) -- tabeteimasu and tabeteimasen. Now you should be able to say:
1. "Tama-chan is eating teriyaki chicken."
2. "Wan-chan is not eating sushi."
3. "Is Tama-chan eating tempura?" and
4. "Isn't Wan-chan eating sashimi?"

Just to check your work, the answers are as follows:
1. Tama-chan wa teriyaki chikin wo tabeteimasu.
2. Wan-chan wa sushi wo tabeteimasen.
3. Tama-chan wa tempura wo tabeteimasu ka?
4. Wan-chan wa sashimi wo tebeteimasen ka? 

Lesson 4: Yes and No
We know how to ask questions (mainly about eating), but we couldn't answer our own questions until Lesson 4. In that lesson, we learned not only how to say "yes" -- hai -- and "no" -- iie; we also learned how to answer questions using a complete sentence! So while the answers to sentences 3 and 4 above could simply be hai or iie, doing so would come across as rude. A more polite way to answer questions 3 and 4 are as follows:
3. (affirmative) Hai, tempura wo tabeteimasu. 
3. (negative) Iie, tempura wo tabeteimasen. Sushi wo tabeteimasu. 
4. (affirmative) Hai, sashimi wo tabeteimasen. Sushi wo tabeteimasu.
4. (negative) Iie, sashimi wo tabeteimasu.

Wait a second! Don't the affirmative and negative sentences for 4 seem switched?! Yes, they do because they are switched, at least from the perspective of a native English speaker. In Japanese, a negative with a negative actually make a positive. In English, when we say, "Isn't Wan-chan eating teriyaki chicken?" We can answer in the affirmative: "Yeah, he is eating teriyaki chicken." or in the negative: "No, he isn't eating teriyaki chicken." In Japanese, "yes" means "yes to what you just said." So if the question is: "Is Wan-chan not eating teriyaki chicken?" then "yes" means "yes, he is not eating teriyaki chicken." Makes sense, huh? But it can also be very, very confusing because it's the exact opposite of what we say in English. So while you could answer simply hai and iie to question 4 above, doing so would mean the opposite of what it means in English. So be careful!!

By the way, here are the answers to the homework in Lesson 4:
1. "Wan-chan, are you a cat?"
Q: Wan-chan wa neko desu ka?
A (aff.): Hai, neko desu. 
A (neg.): Iie, neko dewa arimasen. Inu desu.

2. "Sensei, are you eating sushi?"
Q: Sensei, sushi wo tabeteimasu ka?
A (aff.): Hai, sushi wo tabeteimasu.
A (neg.): Iie, sushi wo tabeteimasen. Teriyaki chikin wo tabeteimasu.

Questions? Post them in the comments. Thanks!

Japanese Lesson 4: Yes and No

Hello Japanese language enthusiasts! Sorry for not posting about Japanese recently... Here is your next lesson -- how to answer the questions you learned to ask in the Lesson 3. But before we get into the grammar, here is  your Japanese 

Word of the Day:

Romaji	Hiragana	Kanji
ronin	ろうにん	浪人

The first character, "rou" (I put a 'u' after "ro" to show that it's a long 'o' sound; the long 'o' is often written: ō), literally means "wave" or "wandering." The second character, "nin," means "person." It's actually the same character as the "jin" in "amerikajin" (American) and "nihonjin" (Japanese). Same character, same meaning, but different pronunciation. The word "ronin" originally meant "masterless samurai." There's a movie that some of you may know called "Ronin."
Today the word is commonly used to mean something else (not surprising since the class system in Japanese society was abolished in the late 1800s). It now refers to students who graduated from high school but failed to gain entrance into the college of their choice. Instead of matriculating in their second or third choice for university, they opt to attend a "juku" (i.e., cram school) and study for another year in order to hopefully pass the entrance exam the second (or even third!) time around. 

Review of Lesson 3: Grammar and Eating

Last time, we learned how to say the word "to eat" -- "taberu" and to conjugate it: 
In present continuous form -- tabeteimasu is "am/is/are eating." 
And the negative form -- tabeteimasen -- "am/is/are not eating." 
The answers to last week's homework is as follows: 
1. "I am not eating a cat." --> "Watashi wa neko wo tabeteimasen." 
2. "Are you eating teriyaki chicken?" --> "Teriyaki chikin wo tabeteimase ka?"


Note again that the answer in the second sentence doesn't include the word "anata" for "you" -- since it's understood from the sentence/context that you are asking the person to whom you are speaking. If it isn't clear, you would generally use their name or title. For example, if they're your teacher, you'd address them as "sensei." 
The sentence in number 2 above would then be: "Sensei, teriyaki chikin wo tabeteimasu ka?" That sentence could be translated in two different ways in English, depending on the circumstances. It could mean: (a) "Sensei, are you eating teriyaki chicken?" but it could also mean (b) "Is sensei eating teriyaki chicken?"

Japanese Lesson 4: Yes and No

Now on to today's lesson! We recently learned how to ask a few different questions: 
1. "Wan-chan, are you a dog?" --> "Wan-chan wa inu desu ka?" 
2. "Are you American?" --> "Amerikajin desu ka?" 
3. "Are you eating teriyaki chicken?" --> "Teriyaki chikin wo tabeteimasu ka?"

How would Wan-chan, or whomever you are posing the questions to, answer? The Japanese word for "yes" is "hai"; "no" is "iie." So you could simply answer "hai" or "iie" to any of those questions, and you would be perfectly understandable. You might also come across as terse and somewhat rude... 
Better would be to answer in a complete sentence. "Wan-chan wa inu desu ka?" is answered in the affirmative with "Hai, inu desu." Literally, "Yes, am a dog." Note that the subject "watashi" is totally unnecessary. As I mentioned in the previous section reviewing Lesson 3, the same question could be posed to a third person about Wan-chan -- i.e., If you ask Neko-chan: "Wan-chan wa inu desu ka?" it would mean "Is Wan-chan a dog?" Neko-chan would then reply "Yes, he is a dog." The answer would be exactly the same in Japanese, because the subject is dropped! Neko would simply respond: "Hai, inu desu." Voila! To recap: 
You: "Wan-chan wa inu desu ka?"
Neko/chan or Wan-chan: "Hai, inu desu." 

What about saying no? Well, imagine you are asking a French person if they are American. The conversation would go something like this: 
You: "Sumimasen ga, amerikanjin desu ka?" 
Jacques: "Iie, furansujin desu." 
Translated, that goes: 
You: "Pardon me, are you American?"
Jacques: "No, I am French!"

But what if he wanted to be absolutely clear that not only was he French, but he was not a dual citizen with America? Then the conversation would proceed something like this: 
You: "Sumimasen ga, amerikanjin desu ka?" 
Jacques: "Iie, amerikajin dewa arimasen. Furansujin desu." 
Translated, that goes: 
You: "Pardon me, are you American?"
Jacques: "No, I am not American. I am French!"

Your homework:
1. Ask Wan-chan if he is a cat. Figure out some possible answers. 
2. Ask your sensei if he or she is eating sushi. Of course, he or she is not eating sushi, but teriyaki chicken. Figure out some possible answers. (Note: You should be able to figure out how to say "No, I am not eating sushi." from what you know... but it may be a little tricky!)

If you have any questions, feel free to post them in the comments!

Vegan Brownies

Sorry for not posting any new Japanese lessons recently; things have been a bit busy at work. But maybe these vegan desserts will whet your appetite a bit...
Hiromi did a lot of baking this rainy weekend, and the picture to the left was the result. From the left and moving clockwise: vegan banana chocolate chip bread, raisin scones and vegan brownies. I say vegan, but we didn't have enough maple syrup, so both the banana chocolate chip bread and the brownies have honey--making them technically not vegan. At any rate, they all taste amaaaazing! Hiromi adjusted the recipes to make them less sweet, as American desserts tend to be. A friend asked me for the recipe for the brownies, so here it is!

"Wet" ingredients:
1/2 cup mashed sweet potato (or a can of sweet potatoes)
1/4 cup honey (or maple syrup, if you prefer)
1/4 cup vegetable oil (canola, safflower, sunflower, etc.)
1 Tsp. vanilla

"Dry" ingredients:
1/3 cup rolled oats
3/8 cup Sucanat (or date sugar or maple sugar)
1/4 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup pecans, divided
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. baking powder
a heaping 1/4 tsp. salt

Other stuff you'll need:
An oven, preheated to 350 degrees F
An oiled 8 x 8 inch baking pan
A blender or food processor
A pot, some water and a knife to peel and slice the sweet potato
A spatula, to mix everything
A sifter, if you want to sift the dry ingredients

Step 1: Make the mashed sweet potato. (Or, you could just use canned sweet potatoes). Peel and slice a sweet potato; the thinner you slice it, the sooner it gets cooked. Place the slices into a pot with some water and boil/blanch. Once the sweet potato slices are tender, drain the pot leaving some of the liquid. Mash, or puree in a food processor or blender. Use the excess liquid to thin the mash/puree as necessary. When done, the mash/puree should be a little thinner than mashed potatoes.
Step 2: Take the rolled oats and chop 'em up in a blender or food processor until they are like coarse flour.
Step 3: Take all the "wet" ingredients and mix them up in a bowl.
Step 4: Take all the "dry" ingredients (except for some pecans) and mix them up in a bigger bowl. To avoid clumps, you may want to sift the ingredients into the bowl.
Step 5: Pour the combined "wet" ingredients into the mixture of "dry" ingredients.
Step 6: Mix the concoction, but not too much!
Step 7: Pour the concoction into the baking pan, sprinkle the pecans you saved on top, and bake for 20 minutes. Rotate the pan and bake until you can stick a knife in the middle and it comes out clean--probably about 10 more minutes.
Step 8: Let it cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting.
Step 9: Eat and enjoy!

Citation: This recipe was adapted from a great book full of delicious vegan recipes: Simple Treats: A Wheat-Free Dairy-Free Guide to Scrumptious Baked Goods, by Ellen Abraham.

Japanese Lesson 3: Eating!

Your Japanese word of the day: "teriyaki".

てりやき

照り焼き

 

If you've ever been to a Japanese restaurant in the US, then you've at least seen (if not tasted) teriyaki chicken. The word "teriyaki" refers to the sauce and the method of preparation. The kanji literally mean "shiny" and "grilled/broiled." It's "shiny" because the sauce causes the meat or fish to glisten appetizingly.

How do you make teriyaki sauce from scratch? I asked my resident expert (my wife, Hiromi). She said that a common and simple teriyaki sauce consists of equal parts sugar, soy sauce, mirin (a sweet rice wine used for cooking) and water. However, she prefers to switch honey for sugar, avoiding refined sugar.

 

I personally like teriyaki chicken (and other things teriyaki). But I have to say that Americans who don't know anything about Japanese food other than sushi and teriyaki chicken are really missing out on some great dishes... 

Speaking of delicious food, here's a picture of dinner from a couple nights ago. From the top-right and moving clockwise: brown rice (in Japanese, "genmai"), miso soup ("miso shiru"), teriyaki chicken burgers with lots of veggies mixed in, collard greens, and a refreshing steamed turnip and tuna salad. Yum!!

Japanese Grammar Lesson 3: Eating!

To compliment today's word of the day (and the photo), let's work on a few sentences using the verb "to eat"! Before we do that, though, here's a quick review of the previous lesson.

 

Changing a statement to a question in Japanese is easy! Just take the statement and add the word "ka" to the end. Thus, the answers to last time's homework questions are:

1. "Am I American?" --> "Watashi wa amerikajin desu ka?"

2. "Wan-chan, are you Japanese?" --> "Wan-chan wa nihonjin desu ka?"

 

Pretty easy, right? But wait... where is the word "anata" (you) in the second sentence? It turns out that in Japanese, although there are several words for the word "you," all with different levels of politeness, the word "you" is not often used. This is true for a couple reasons. First, subjects are often not used at all in sentences. You know the "understood you" in the English language (e.g., "Don't do that!")? It's like that but for all subjects. Therefore, an alternate answer to Question 2 above would be: "Nihonjin desu ka?" Generally, if you are looking at/talking to the person to whom you are posing the question, they'll have no trouble understanding you. In fact, oftentimes objects are also dropped from sentences, leaving the sentence with a lone verb (or adjective). For that reason, Japanese is known as a "high-context" language. More on this later. 

 

A second reason why the word "anata" would not normally be used in sentence #2 is because the word "anata" is generally used either (1) when a woman is speaking to her husband or (2) when speaking very formally; in other words, it can imply a close relationship or a distant one. Therefore, referring to someone you just met as "anata" may come across as rude (if one Japanese person is speaking to another)... But don't worry too much about sounding rude. If all the Japanese you know is what you learned from my blog (and maybe some names of fishes from sushi shops--e.g., maguro, suzuki, or hamachi (my favorite)), then any Japanese person who encounters you making the effort to learn more about the Japanese language and culture would be genuinely happy, and maybe a little amused at your mistakes.

 

So back to today's lesson of the day: eating. "Eat" is "taberu" -- but we'll have to conjugate it to get it to work in a sentence (right now, it's in "dictionary form" -- kind of like the infinitive form in English). "I am eating teriyaki chicken." translates to "Watashi wa teriyaki chikin wo tabeteimasu." The word "wo" (pronounced 'o') is another particle; this one tells us that "teriyaki chikin" is an object. "Tabeteimasu" is the present continuous (also known as the present progressive) form of "taberu." The opposite of "is eating" in English is "is not eating." In Japanese, we would change "tabeteimasu" to "tabeteimasen". In other words, if you want to say "Wan-chan is not eating dog." You would say: "Wan-chan wa inu wo tabeteimasen."

 

Your homework:

1. Tell a stranger that you are (or are not) eating cat.

2. Ask someone if they are eating teriyaki chicken. 

Good luck!

Japanese Lesson 2: Asking a Question

Good morning! Today's Japanese word of the day is: "ocha".
おちゃ
お茶
Ocha is the Japanese word for "tea" -- although it doesn't usually include teas other than variations on green tea. The first part of the word "o" is a polite prefix. It can be used with nouns, verbs and even adjectives to "express the speaker's respect, modesty or politeness" (S. Makino & M. Tsutsui, A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar 343 (1989)). The latter part of the word, "cha" is "tea", but it is also the kanji used for the color "brown." Why is green tea described using the word for the color brown? Sorry, that's beyond my ken.
Oftentimes in Japanese, kanji have multiple pronunciations. In this case, the kanji for "cha" has two pronunciations: "cha" and "sa." The latter is used in the word for "tea ceremony" -- "sado." The "do" means "way," "path" or "road" -- as in "bushido," "aikido" or "judo." "Sado" literally means "the Way of Tea."

Japanese Grammar Lesson 2: Asking a Question
Last time, we learned how to make some simple Japanese sentences. For those who want to check your homework, here are the answers to the questions at the end of the previous lesson.
1. "You are a cat." --> "Anata wa neko desu."
2. "Wan-chan is a dog." --> "Wan-chan wa inu desu."
Let's take these sentences and make them into questions! It's easy... just add the word "ka" to the end of the sentence.
So, "Anata wa neko desu." becomes "Anata wa neko desu ka?" Congratulations! You just asked someone if they are a cat!! Your homework:
1. Ask yourself if you're American.
2. Ask someone else if they're Japanese (hint: the word for Japanese is "nihonjin" -- "nihon" is the Japanese word for Japan, and "jin" means person).
Enjoy!

Picnic in the Park

It was nice and sunny yesterday, so we went to the park. Here's a picture of yesterday's lunch, packed in bento box (Japanese lunch box) style.

A healthy and delicious lunch

Going clockwise from the top left corner, we have: scrambled eggs (tamagoyaki), sticky mochi brown rice with red beans (mochi genmai sekihan), millet croquets with corn, stir-fried vegetables, kale with humus and oranges, thinly grated long white radish (daikon) and carrot in vinegar (sunomono), and chicken teriyaki burgers (they're actually only about 50% chicken; the rest is vegetables -- mushrooms, lotus root (renkon), onion, etc.). Delicious! Thank you, Hiromi!
It was a beautiful day! Sarah got some sun...

Picnic in the Park

Afterwords, we stopped by Hiromi's favorite cake shop in the area -- Satura! We later met up with some friends for dinner, and we ended up watching Netflix together back at our apartment until late. If you wanna see a Thai girl kick some butt, check out the movie "Chocolate."

First Post -- Basics of Japanese Grammar

Hi and welcome to my new blog! Through my blog, I hope to introduce the language and culture of Japan (including the food) to those who are interested. The format will probably evolve over time, but for now I'll try to introduce a simple grammatical concept or pattern every weekday, along with a vocabulary word that somehow highlights an interesting aspect of Japanese culture. Depending upon how much free time I have (and how much I want to procrastinate), some days may be more educational than others. 

Please give me feedback on what you like, don't like, and want to see more of. So without further ado...

Given the huge earthquake that rocked Japan, today's word of the day is "tsunami."

つなみ

津波

The above characters show how the word "tsunami" is written in hiragana (one of the two phonetic Japanese alphabets) and kanji (Chinese characters). This is the format in which the word of the day will be introduced (until you convince me otherwise).

The kanji that make up the word literally mean "harbor" and "wave." The word has been incorporated into the English language, since there is no word to describe the huge waves generated by an earthquake (the phrase "tidal wave" is sometimes used, but the waves have nothing to do with the tides).

Japanese Grammar Lesson 1: "I am [noun]."

For your first Japanese lesson, we'll work on the simplest type of sentence: "I am [noun]." In order to construct this type of sentence in Japanese, there are two things you need to know. First, in Japanese there is no word for the verb "to be" (at least, not in this context). Second, Japanese sentences are organized differently than English sentences (no surprise to many of you, I'm sure).

Before I continue, though, here is the basic lesson for those of you who just want to speak Japanese and don't care much about grammar. The phrase "I am an American" is "Watashi wa amerikajin desu." Now if you want to learn more about Japanese grammar, read on...

In English, we say, "I am an American." In other words, our sentences generally follow the form: subject (S), verb (V), object (O). This is true unless you are Yoda, who tends to speak like this: "Judge me by my size do you?" or "Truly wonderful the mind of a child is." In other words, his grammar tends to look like V O S, or O S V (more or less... you get the idea). In Japanese, sentences are structured: S O V. So the verb ends up coming at the end. In other words, the sentence: "I am an American" would end up looking like "I an American am."

So that's how the grammar works. Now we just need to change each word into Japanese, and you're good to go. A polite form of the word "I", which you should use for now, is "watashi" (I will always default to polite words in Japanese, unless I'm teaching swear words or something, because in Japan, it's always better to be overly polite than to be not polite enough). "American" is, not surprisingly, "amerikajin" ("jin" means person). Put them together and you end up with the following sentence: "Watashi wa amerikajin desu." 

What are these extra words, "wa" and "desu," you might ask. "Wa" is what is known as a "particle." We don't have them in the English language. They clue you into the grammatical job of various words in the sentence; "wa" here is telling us that "watashi" is the subject. I'll leave it at that for now. The word "desu" tells you the tense -- here, present tense.

So to recap, English: SVO; Japanese: SOV. "I am an American" becomes "Watashi wa amerikajin desu."

Your homework: The word for "you" is "anata." The word for "cat" is "neko." The word for "dog" is "inu." Figure out how to say: "You are a cat" and "Wan-chan is a dog" (assuming "Wan-chan" is the dog's name).

Pronunciation tip: There are only five vowel sounds in Japanese, and they happen to be the same five vowel sounds used in the Spanish language! Also, unlike the English language, where we tend to emphasize one syllable more than others within a word/sentence (remember iambic pentameter?), in Japanese, all syllables are emphasized equally.