New Series: Beginning Japanese-1: Genki?

[rdrkx80]

Can you elaborate on the "Genke Kai"? You just sort of mentioned it in passing.

[Gimmeabreakman]

@rdrkx80

It's just a more manly casual version of "Genki desu ka?"

[EternalQuestion]

I would have said the word you were looking for was 'loanwords', but when I looked it up on wikipedia, I came across the japanese term 'gairaigo' which specifically refers to japanese words that have been borrowed from other languages. Is that what you meant?

[MegaDarknero]

When he said 'katakana' I thought he said katana, lol.

[hinko13]

Say a name ends with an L and is translated to U would you pronounce that U? for instance a book I'm using has an example Mary Pascall and is translated to Mari Pasukaru. Would you pronounce that "u"?

[Generalvaldez]

so you have probably been corrected millions of times on this but I guess I'm just ... I don't know the adjective. So, Chinese is not one langauge, or two ( which I'm pretty sure you were thinking about Cantonese and Mandarin) there are soooo many Chinese languages, and Chinese characters don't only have to have one pronunciation for example 乐( compare to japanese 楽) has can have le or yue, in mandarin, depending on the combination, just like japanese. Just thought you should know, great vid!

[loxcovInC]

So if I call correctly: Genkidesu ka? Is what you hear often when you start a converstation as (how are you?)... but do you use the other forms like ''Genki'' and ''Genkidesu ka yo'' in differend situations?

ty gimmeabreakman ^^

[kira1a]

thank you even though i learned that through anime it cleared up a few things. 

[Lovable0ak]

i finally got my hiragana and katakana down

[BoyGeniusT]

I have heard japanese use "Genki genki." as the answer to "Genki desu ka." Is it a stronger meaning or is it just another way to say "Genki Desu."

[ravendon]

You were thinking of "loan words".

[jenbblp]

what about " genki deshou" ?

[soydesastre3]

muy bonito el video tio

[POLOq8i]

why thumbs down i dont understand ???

[AlrestorofIllidan]

@POLOq8i a real super nerd with a lot of accounts. People noticed all the low "star" ratings and played monkey see monkey do.

[Gimmeabreakman]

@POLOq8i

Yeah, it was somebody who threatened to thumb me down if I didn't leave YouTube. He used a software program called a bot that he set on my channel. Course he had to manually plug in the address of every video. He even attacked my dog's channel. It's pretty lame and accomplished nothing but he sure wasted a lot of time.

[wowgirlkukie]

A Japanese friend described genki to me as 'full of life'. So, genki desu ka she said is like asking 'are you full of life?' and answering hai genki desu would be "yes! I am full of life!' So basically same thing, just different way of explaining it.

[GoWithTheFlow710]

COGNATES! similar words between languages are called cognates (:

[Gimmeabreakman]

@GoWithTheFlow710

Not talking about that. Talking about borrowed words. Or did I mention that? What second?

[siemprenadia]

Hi Victor

Thanks for your help...Do u have a web site ?

[Gimmeabreakman]

@siemprenadia

Working on a new one now.

[tristin183]

howdo you say "what are you doing?" something like that

[vuotopiuscuro]

274 thumbs down!

Y (why) i gave thumbsup

[juanniG]

rate, comment, and what? WHAT!? NANDATTA!?

lol

nice vid. perhaps you cover "da" in other vids (like genki da yo!)?

subscribed :)

[tristin183]

but what if you aren't genki?

what are other responses, say you were in a bad mood or something? or tired. sick. bored. sad. depressed?

[Gimmeabreakman]

Genki ja nai. (not genki)

or more politely

Genki de wa arimasen. (not genki)

or more to the point.

Sabishii desu. (sad)

or even

Shinitai. (I want to die.)

[tristin183]

seriously thanks dude.these help alot

[Gimmeabreakman]

@tristin183

Good t know!

[tristin183]

@Gimmeabreakman im so sorry for questioning you sir.

[Gimmeabreakman]

@tristin183

No problems!

[Rich7714]

Great, thanks for the lessons! Very helpful

[zebra099many]

arigato!

but um.....wat is kanji???

[deviousmousey]

one of the 3 types of characters used in japanese writing.

[TimTehPilot]

Kanji was GIVEN to the Japanese and the Japanese modified it somehow =P

I am starting to learn Japanese. I thought it was difficult at first too, but hiragana and katakana writing systems aren't that hard.

[Vc3n7]

@TimTehPilot Actually the japanese people relaized that their writing system was very limited, so they "borrowed" the chineese signs, and mosly just used the phonetic sounds from them.. :)

[bloodyrage]

arigatou!!!!

[JJuliet]

great 1st intro !

[Tritano]

Arigato gozaimasu man! I'm new to Japan, these lessons are helpful, and funny!

[BellaWoolf]

"There are no Japanese who teach Japanese. "...I hope you mean in japan because my ex's mom who is japanese teaches japanese in a school here in england =]

[Gimmeabreakman]

I mean on the internet!

[BellaWoolf]

Ahhhh my bad!

[x3n0s]

I'd like to correct the statement that chinese characters in chinese (mandarin) only has 1 pronunciation. It's wrong. They usualy have 1 or 2 pronunciation for each chinese characters. Some have up to 4 or 5 pronunciation. And only the context of the sentence can give the clue about the pronunciation.

[Gimmeabreakman]

Thanks! Did not know that.

[LotusDragon09]

@x3n0s I think he's correct, actually. There is only one pronounciation for each Chinese character. However, there are 4-5 tones for each spoken sound. For example, "ma" could be spoken with 4 or 5 different tones to mean completely different things, but they will each have their own character. Sometimes when speaking quickly, people dont change the tone so you will defenatly need to rely on context for that, but I think each word has it's own written character.

[LotusDragon09]

I could be wrong, but thats what ive learned. Sorry if that sounded confusing, but thats the easiest I can explain it :).

[x3n0s]

@LotusDragon09 sry for late reply lol, but the character 行 from Luxing (travel) is pronounced hang in yinhang (the bank). And some have up to 4 pronunciation. While this one 和 can be pronunced with 5 pronounciations, he2, han4, huo4, he4,huo5.

[ChungFat4eva]

loan words?

[boyiehoney]

honestly,you will learn japanese at the slowest pace by listening to this guy.leave the teaching to actual fluent japanese speaking people.

[Gimmeabreakman]

Hmmm... you seem to be the only one who thinks that.

Check out gimmeaflakeman. Kicking ass.

Oh, there is one more problem with your theory. There are no Japanese who teach Japanese.

[markshmily]

Thanks for the lesson. I has looked up genki desu ka /genki desu before but I didn't know about adding yo. So thanks for that.

[ZombieAmerican]

what is the most common used "text "in japan? kanji, or hiragana?

[Gimmeabreakman]

They are mixed. You need both eventually. Can't say one is more common than the other.

[ilya150]

If i were to take japanese in College, maybe minor?, do you think i would be able to speak fluently by the time i graduate?

[Sindwen]

it depends how long you are gonna stay in college. I am going into grade 10 and all through grade 9 I learned Japanese and I cant really speak it fluently yet but I should by time I am done high school. so it really depends how long you are gonna stay in college for

[LostKitsuneRonin]

Hmm...well I'm going to do the same thing when I go off for a robotics degree so I can get hired by a Japanese company (I will be so ecstatic if I go into the robotics industry and get hired by a Japanese company!) but anyway, yeah you'll be good at speaking formal japanese and basic Japanese but there's always slang and expressions and stuff you'll need to learn once you're out of college too, but yeah you should be fluent enough once you graduate

[Gimmeabreakman]

I've started a new series called "Japanese for Morons" on my other channel gimmeaflakeman that is is doing so well that the whole channel has become Japanese lessons and Japanese related. Lots of casual mixed up with formal mixed up with just about everything. Should help recreate the effect of living in Japan.

[LostKitsuneRonin]

I've been watching those videos and finding them very helpful too, I think that your cultural and educational videos are really entertaining and informative so, keep up the good work man, and I have a question, are the koinobori for boy's day (children's day) really as enormous as they look?

[iSlicer]

I don't think so. If you read the term "fluent" in the dictionary, I don't think you can actually be "fluent" unless you were born using the target language. Fluent means you can move across all the uses of the language smoothly (polite, friendly, formal, technical, etc...) and same goes with the writing (letter, business, fun, blog, journal, diary, etc...) However, who cares! Enjoy learning it, and say what you can. Nothing more fun than that! Good luck!

[Gimmeabreakman]

Yeah, I would be the first to admit I still have a while to go. What part of Japan you in? Check out the subscription list on gimmeaflakeman. Full of J-based vloggers.

[iSlicer]

Sorry, I was responding to ilya150. I was not being negative. Their question was "If I study at college, by the end will I be fluent?". Language is a wonderful, important skill, however it requires years and years of use and immersion. I have only begun my journey in Japanese, and I know it may be 10 or 20 years until I "very good", but I don't think I will be fluent. Good discussion however. Be interesting to hear from other "language learners".

[LostKitsuneRonin]

lol at 4:09 I tought you said cunt

[antiuser]

Japanese loan words are called garaigo, by the way.

[Gimmeabreakman]

Yes, thanks. I remembered.

[arminas]

LOL..."Im genki man!!"..sounds rly cool.

Nice videos man keep it up.

Where u from btw, US, Spain or South America?

Cya.

[Gimmeabreakman]

American, mixed breed. Born in Peru.

[joshgumbi]

I've been in Nipon for 5 days now and I'm just now watching your lessons. It should help for the next few days. Thx.

[Gimmeabreakman]

How did it go?

[joshgumbi]

Went great. Always good to have even the simple terms to open the language barrier.

[saskiabrug]

ADHD????

[rsilvia1999]

hola i am traing to learn how to read jap but i am really confuseon the hiragani, katakana and kanji what i am confuse about is wen you read well like here 彼女は痩せています。 彼は太っています to read this i need what because i see some of all of the one i said on the top so yeah I NEED HEPL!!!

[tonieboo0013]

Rate comment and bla- haha

Quick question: I've been half-assed learning japanese by myself for about a year now, only really picking up vocab the past few months. Is 'sugoi' like 'genki' in the way that is doesn't really translate? I'm pretty sure it means 'amazing', or, to great lengths about something. But it can also mean terrible, my dictionary says. So, does 'sugoi' mean an extremity at either end of the spectrum or am I interpreting something wrong?

Arigatou gozaimasu for the upload

[Gimmeabreakman]

Watch the new series on Gimmeaflakeman.

And THATJAPANESEGIRL has a great SUGOI lesson.

BTW, to answer your question quickly.

It just means GREAT!

[phineus1985]

I wasn't really interested because I've always heard Japanese is too difficult. But, you've made it very clear and understandable. Definetly looking forward to future lessons!

[thetwelthfret]

this was really useful.

thanks :)

[Gimmeabreakman]

Check gimmeaflakeman for more vids. New vids. Daily vids.

[Gimmeabreakman]

Check gimmeaflakeman. New series on that channel. Daily lessons. Short and low level.

[SadnessWithin1]

Alright i subscribe to that and about 12 other ones that you linked to that account. ^-^

[SadnessWithin1]

Hey great video, ive been learning japanese using pimsleur program. But the more help the better! Ill be sure to come and see all your videos. I subscribed. Domo arigato :)

[Saeeteru]

Ah, yay. Thank you for this. 8D

I've been trying to find different ways to learn Japanese, and a few other languages, and this seems to be the less complicated way I've found. [:

Hopefully I can expand my knowledge of this language that I've already got. *subscribes*

[Gimmeabreakman]

Check my other channel gimeaflakeman. I have another series there. Already over 40 videos in the playlist. check it ou.

[VeritasDraco]

Wow. I've never really thought of learning Japanese before (it's hard juggling English, Mandarin, and French all together), but I might give it a try.

I find it quite astounding that the word 上 can be so different in Japanese. In Chinese, 上 is pronounced shàng, which means up.

Just out of curiosity: do you give lessons on history and culture? I find this tremendously helps in learning foreign languages, especially when learning things like where a certain word comes from.

-VD

[Gimmeabreakman]

Check my other channel gimeaflakeman. I have another series there. Already over 40 videos in the playlist. check it out.

And some of the videos deal with culture. RoninDave is the king of history.

[SAMURAIHEARTX3]

日本語って世界で一番難しい言語の部類に入るって言われているけ­ど、実際欧米人が日本語を勉強してみてどう思うのかな？

日本語が分かる欧米人の方で日本語って世界の言語の中でもかなり­難しいと思いますか？それともそんなに難しくないと思いますか？

教えて下さい！！！

[meheale]

thanks for the videos there great, love the language. Just started learning, hope to go there and visit one day.

[atkinsonja]

i am preparing to learn hiragana and katakana, but, which should i learn first? Anyone?

[Gimmeabreakman]

Hiragana.

[Kazangsta]

yea fefinately learn hiragana first.

[pixelsgold]

教師はクジラの陰茎を吸い込む

[astalosjones]

I love this guy. ありか゛とうこ゛さ゛いきす。

[msjulicious]

kanji ga totemo muzukashii

[Theguy702]

god bless you, sir. :-)

[beatboxpeej]

Good lesson. Prob is your organization. Prepare your thing before your lessons. You will be more confident. Anyway, very good!

[ArgentoDude24]

I thought you answer : genki desu okagesamade. Is that wrong?

[sk8warrior]

There isn't always a concrete way to answer someones question. Okagesama de means "Thank you for asking" basically, so it could be added for politeness. "How are you?" "I'm fine, thank you for asking." Would be the best translation.

[Gimmeabreakman]

Close. It does not mean THANKS FOR ASKING exactly. But I can see why you would think so. I've asked a few natives here in Nagoya and all insist that it's just THANKS TO YOU. When I press them for a reason, they are at a loss.

[ArgentoDude24]

Thank you guys, that had me kind of confused.

[sk8warrior]

Oh, really? Thats interesting. Thanks for the correction.

[Icarusfalling28]

yes, okagesamade means "thanks to you". It is the opposite of "sei de" which means "your fault" or "no thanks to you". The reason natives are at a loss is because it is "kimarimonku", something you just say. There is certainly kanji for the expression though it is archaic and rarely used nowadays.

A good example of "okagesamade" is on posters advertising a store's anniversary of opening. "okyakusama no okagede, 5 nenko wo akemashita". "Thanks for our delightful customers..." etc. etc.

[Axiss]

damn youtube and their 10 min rule

[EXIL3D1]

dude you're so energetic, you would be able to teach a class and not bore them unlike many other teachers.

[ArgentoDude24]

word.

[megoo14]

r u latino?

u dont look white

[Gimmeabreakman]

Congrats.

[megoo14]

congrats? =)

srry but idk what that means, im well Native American, and im trying to learn japanese, such a great country, right?

[Gimmeabreakman]

Why are you asking the question. I'm part Indian too, but it is not my identity.

[megoo14]

oh, well, becuse Native mericans rock

=)

it int my identity either, but...well i just wanted to know, and like u better...

[MorganzaX]

I'm following all these and taking notes, thanks for sharing!

[BeyondThePale21]

It's great you eventually began.

The length weeded out those who were interested

[tabithascobra]

is 'yo' gender specific?

[Gimmeabreakman]

No. Male or female.

[dominickkk5]

Yeah, man, I'm genki.

You are the coolest.

[JonusDking]

Cercl! :)

[Crzeimasha]

It's created by women because it's easy? LOLOLOL

[rawkfist208]

So in Genki Desu, the u is silent?

[XxHawthornexEmoxX]

yes.

[ChibiMochiko]

XD I love your videos!

I'm going to Japan next summer. I'm doing the whole host family thing. But later on, I plan on living in japan.

[evathediva0616]

Your soooo awesome. and cute.

[LBDyablo]

cercl

[rkortez]

Thanks man...great video...please keep making more videos like this!!!

[spartythespart]

great video, that is something i may use in the future in online chats with japanese folks. normally when you take 'professional' videos, they teach you how to say "toilet" "fish" and "garbage pail" and ur like wtfff?

[spartythespart]

LMAO "it was originally created by women, i think, because it's easy."

[homie3626]

so there are actually like "weird symbols", well they look like that to english speakers, for the japanease to write, but people have actually translated those symbols into the english alphabet, even though they still are japanease language?

wow hope that isn't confusing.

[acewolk]

has anyone ever told you your like jeff goldblum.

[Gimmeabreakman]

You're the first.

[acewolk]

Ha ha, for the record it's a compliment. He's a cool cat.

[spartythespart]

you got similiarites

[MitsukoKitano]

great videos!!!

[draggt03]

Ok i have a question WHEN ARE U DOING MORE LESSONS

[BlueAngel4000]

dont u mean o-genki desu

[speedycatz]

That borrowed words: wasei-eigo

[JpNightFall]

check out alljapaneseallthetimedotcom its a great site for learning i just started so...

great video

[azeon2x]

Anata wa totemo yoi Nihon no desu...

Subarashii !!! ^^,

[qwerkee]

Thanks for the words! I hope to learn from this and enjoy it.

[jatchie]

is Nanika atta also whats up?

[PoliomanGamer]

like, he is "energetic", doesn' t he? depends on the conjugation (or whatever it's called) you are using.

[PoliomanGamer]

foreign words

[birchofacookie]

thanks

you shall be my ningen-human

funny word

[truetothis]

cognates?

[112rhavin3581321]

Hey man,Genki desu ka?;)

So looks like next year in college I'm going to be doing International Business with Japanese, and the third year takes place in Japan!

Basically, I wanna know how fluent I could be/would need to be by third year? so 3 years time! and what difficulties there are?

Funny, i subscribed to you for ripping the piss out of the YouPerv, 7seveng7, and you end up being very useful altogether!

Dōmo arigatō!

Steve from Ireland, Go raibh mile maith agat ;)..bit o' Irish for ya LOL

[Whatdafukdude]

漢字カタ日本語

[0that1chick]

arigatou!

[nwdrrn]

Hey gimmeabreakman love the lessons and little things. Q.What does samadeshita mean? Because I know you put it at the end of Gochisousamadeshita/Otsukarasa­madeshita/ Goshusama desu.....

[Gimmeabreakman]

It is a polite ending. Thanks for watching! Check out answer vids on gimmeaflakeman!

[ABCarter123]

Easy explanation, hiragana script is basically phonetics. Japanese is a phonetic language.

I have no idea why i was directed to this video :-s haha

[0that1chick]

What is the difference between ka and kai?

I know there's endings like ne, naa, and na and I know ka makes the sentence a question, but what is kai?

[Gimmeabreakman]

kai is more colloquial.

[thesloppywizard]

cercl

[Gimmeabreakman]

Thanks!

[PoliomanGamer]

I believe it's "genki deshō" also

[satanic0sephiroth]

i am currently taking a japanese class in my college and when someone is asking genki desu ka, my sensei would say ogenki desu ka? only thing im wondering is if there is a difference by putting o in front of a sentence like ogenki desu ka?

[Gimmeabreakman]

Adding "O" is honorable.

[cheesesmiles]

lol your so nervous haha daijobu^-^

[MissPwner]

You are awesome and I wish you were my friend. ;-; *subscribe*

[kriegor191]

6:07. LMAAAAOOOOOOO. That face...

[leetleet]

like duude, we say yo at the end of the sentence in english too yo lololol

cut me nao please

[Fescoffery]

Genki Desu ka. Arigato Gozaimasu Ya Mata

[FUSHI4]

haha 7:53

[Rioxka]

6:07

LMAO

Great video!!!

CERCL.

[spekion]

This is pretty good for a first timer like me.

By the way what is the meaning of the suffix "san" that they use after names...like Takahashi-San, Fujimoto-San etc...

Thanks

[only1ofme382]

it's like saying "Mr.", "Mrs." or "Ms."

[spekion]

Oh I see thanks

[cheesesmiles]

oh in Japanese that would be "oh,souka..arigato!^^ you just said something so easy i couldnt help but traslate it^^hehe gomen(sorry)

[apocaRUFF]

Genki sounds a lot like kinky lol, At first when you said "ARe you genki?" I thought you said "are you kinky?" for a sec before my brain remembered that you were talking about genki >.>

[Newbish4Life]

Wow, wish you woulda tought at my school. My teachers and Friends would have loved you!

[imnot1000sure]

the word is gairaigo

[lilspiritgurl]

I know more japanese than you!!!!V.V;; Next time please do not only teach one word, that most people already know, just a tip!!! I mean with your energeticness I thought you would tech alot, but you didnt!!!! I guess im disapointed, but thats okay you will get better!!! ^^ And I hope you will teach more next time, I know your only teaching this because someone asked you, but put some more passion into it, and...Ganbatte!!! Dont be discourged by my comment, im just one person!!! ^-^ <3 X 10000

[Gimmeabreakman]

I've been living in Japan for longer than you've been alive. Watch my other 15 vids on Japanese and watch victorintheworld and THEN tell me what you think.

[acromel]

Oh Victor, Victor, Victor: tut, tut, tut.

If only you had realised the futility of years of studying Japanese, and 16-odd years of living in Japan.

You must be kicking yourself for wasting all that time. You should have followed

lilspiritgurl's example and learned from watching anime and listening to j-pop. Or possibly not ;o)

Bless her cotton socks for providing some (inadvertent) entertainment :o)

[Gimmeabreakman]

BUT I do appreciate your feedback! LOL!

[lilspiritgurl]

Oh, you live in Japan, and Ive seen three other videos over this, and I know most of what you teach, and can correct you somehow, hehe, but it was probably just a few typeos?!!! Hai????! ^^ You are good though, and I want to live in Japan, Do you know what the mansion prices are, and where the haunted mansions are?! @-@ ^^

[Zensound]

You should have explained a little about the meaning of "desu." And my question: is "yo" a particle? You may have wanted to mention particles, but not go in depth of course.

[CherryLunar]

Yo is a particle. Usually used when new information is being given.

Ne is given whenever there is shared information I believe.

and ka is used at the end of a question.

[FranticDragon]

im kinda used to the hiragana from friends lol but i dont know how to type it on the computer yet..

[adonis1077]

ok first off, you've explained more to me in that 10mins than any other of the vids on the tube have in a total of possible 60billion minutes (yes, i did exaggerate...) you jus make a lot of sense and i dunno if anyone else agrees with me here, but i get a jeff goldblum kinda feel off you. not that im feeling you, jus that you have the same mannerisms, and you look like him aswell anyways. favourtied, subscribed, 5stars.

[superbeastreaper]

Nice vid, I'm not going to Japan, but honestly out of all the foreign languages it's the one I'm most interested in knowing.

[hi0b88]

Entertaining, good explanations -> perfect, great video man! *****

[Gimmeabreakman]

Thanks for watching! I'll make more soon!

[nekokitty182]

What alphabet do Japanese people usually use? I want to learn one but I want to learn the one which is usually used...

[imnot1000sure]

gairaigo is the word for words from other Languages

[bizarrejp]

It is necessary to choose one's words according to the age of the other party who talks.

Therefore I ask age.

Thanks.. I love all the japanese lessons. I've always wanted to learn basic words and stuff.