Learining Japanese Options

[jcdietz03]

How to learn Japanese?

I know a few words from watching anime - All of them are nouns. Verbs are a total engima. Could someone explain Japanese verbs - and maybe give examples of common ones? I am looking for "To be" and "To go" since those are very common.

Also - How would you go about translating Japanese text? How do you enter it into a computer even? Is there a dictionary somewhere that will let you "Look up" Kanji?

Random stuff I feel like posting:
-chan: Not sure what these are called but this one you use with a friend (Informal)
-san: Like Mr. or Mrs. in english (Formal)
-senpai: Senior. Doesn't have an english equivalent.
-sama: Master.
-niichan/kasan - Brother/sister - Not used in english.

I DON'T KNOW JAPANESE BUT I LIKE TO PRETEND I DO!: Cute.
neko: Cat.
nya: The sound cats make. Meow in english.
sugoi: Amazing
inu: Dog
henge: Transform
jutsu: Technique

When viewing subtitle anime the words above are usually used w/ few other words making them easy to pick out. Even when watching multiple times, I can't pick out all the words in complicated sentences (Like the Inuyasha Intro).

That's funny - the board system will replace ka_waii with "I DON'T KNOW JAPANESE BUT I LIKE TO PRETEND I DO!" - Thats pretty funny. Good one, whoever came up with it.

This post has been edited by jcdietz03: Sep 19 2007, 04:43 PM

[Marionette]

I wouldn't necessarily call it a dialect... but it's not really an alphabet either. Hiragana and Katakana should be learned simultaneously, it's honestly the easiest way to understand both of them.