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Japanese Decoding

Japanese songs and short stories, line by line: original, pronunciation and a word-by-word translation.

The idea (after Vera F. Birkenbihl): instead of learning vocabulary lists and grammar rules, you decode the text first. Every word gets its literal meaning written underneath, in the original word order, even if it sounds strange in English. That way you understand how the language is built, and later, when you listen to the song, your brain already knows what each sound means.

Nihon-jinJapan-person(s) waWA nihon-goJapan-language oO hanaspeak- shimasdo kais-that-so?

Small grammar words (particles) have no English equivalent. They are shown in capitals:

WA
topic: “as for …”
GA
subject: marks who or what does something
O
object: marks what is acted on
NI
target / direction / purpose: “to, at, for”
NA
links a describing word to a noun
DE
means / place / state: “by, at, as”
語
dotted underline (stories): a word outside the Pimsleur 1–2 vocabulary

Songs

Stories