The Introduction to the Japanese Language series has now been fully integrated into the Beginning Lessons. Several new pages have been written, the top page reorganized, and “recommended background” and “what next?” sections added to all pages.
A Guide to Japanese Pronunciation is a brand new lesson briefly covering the pronunciation parts of Hiragana and the Japanese Sound System.
The following lessons are the result of the other revisions:
- Introduction to the Japanese Writing System – added info on punctuation and horizontal/vertical writing
- The Copula “Desu” – derived from the old lessons “Desu and Masu” and “Using Wa and Desu”
- Nouns, Pronouns, and Plurals – derived from the old lesson “Pronouns and Plurals”, with much expanded info on nouns added in
I still have some work left to do: finishing the link corrections (I set up redirects for the time being), revising the page on word classes, and going through everything I’ve written to refine it a bit. I may need to rewrite the lesson on politeness and formality, and add a lesson on polite speech since masu has been written out.
The new organization of the top page is somewhat different from before. I’m trying to show how the general progression of the lessons goes, while also suggesting that lessons at the same vertical position can be covered in a flexible order. I do have a flow chart offline for planning purposes; maybe if I can add links on top of that…
Ah, well, I hope the new organization makes more sense. The onslaught of new content should begin again within a couple days.