Tuttle Japanese for Kids Flash Cards (CD). Timothy G. Stout

playing until all the cards are gone. The one with the most cards at the end wins. (Hint: if you are playing with your child, let him or her win often!)

      Children learn language best by hearing and using the words and sentences repeatedly in meaningful contexts, such as viewing the pictures and Japanese characters, listening to an audio , singing songs, and playing games. All of these are included with Tuttle Japanese for Kids Flash Cards. Turn to page 12 for some traditional games and activities that Japanese kids enjoy. You can use these to help promote vocabulary mastery and fluency.

      Also, see page 7 for a special bonus section of the most basic greetings, courtesies such as “please” and “thank you,” and essential pronouns like “you” and “me.” These extra words will help you and your child to use your newly-learned Japanese in everyday situations.

      Guide to Basic Japanese

      The following basic guide is intended for parents and educators, who may want to learn along with the children. Japanese actually has fewer language sounds than English, making the pronunciation easier to learn. Also, there are virtually no exceptions in spelling: each Romanized letter has only one pronunciation to remember.

      Standard American English pronunciation is used in this booklet.

      Pronouncing Vowels

      Here are the five Japanese vowel sounds.

      A as in father and bother

      I as in Hawaii and beat

      U as in glue and youth

      E as in red and bed

      O as in oak and bone

      When there is a line above the vowel (as in Ā, Ū, Ē, Ō), or there are two I’s, it means the vowel is long. It has the sound of two vowels. Simply stretch out the sound twice as long as you normally would. For example, obāsan (sun) is pronounced “o…ba…a…san.”

      Pronouncing Consonants

      The Japanese consonants have only one pronunciation—no exceptions. For example,

      G as in goat

      J as in joke

      The rest of the Japanese consonants are the same as in English with just a few exceptions.

      R as in ladder (sounding like a combination of “L” and “D”)

      TSU as in cats and tsunami

      FU as in who (except the lips are more pursed and more air escapes)

      There is also a group of Japanese consonant combinations that are not commonly used in English. These include KY, GY, NY, BY, PY, MY, and RY, and they are only paired with the vowels A, U, and O. An example is MYU, which is pronounced like the “mu” in music.

      These consonant combinations may be a bit difficult at first. Tōkyō, for example, is often mispronounced in three sounds: tō…ki…ō. However, it should be two sounds: Tō…kyō. You will get better at it with practice.

      Other Useful Tips

      • The word order of Japanese is a little different than English. In Japanese the verb comes at the end of a sentence. For example, instead of saying “I caught a fish,” in Japanese you would say “I a fish caught.” I sometimes refer to Japanese as the Yoda language, because it sounds the way the little green creature talks in Star Wars, with the verb at the end of the sentence.

      • You may notice that most of the example sentences end in desu or masu, which are both polite-form verb endings. Although Japanese children usually speak in plain form, most beginning Japanese textbooks, even for children, introduce the polite form first, because it is better to be too polite than risk offending others with inappropriately using plain-form speech.