Thank you for your questions!

"What does that/this message say?" in Japanese will be:
このメッセージは何と言っていますか。
Kono messeeji wa nan to itte imasu ka.


The expression なんだよ nanda yo means "What?", "What is it?", or "What do you want?" and it is extremely informal. In fact, it's a bit rough and aggressive. It should be used only among very close friends. Since this is an informal expression, the question marker か ka is omitted.

The written string あっ indicates that the utterance is short and sharp. Compare that with an utterance of the regular あ. When you pronounce あ, your mouth stays open. However, as soon as you pronounce あっ, the tip of your tongue goes up and touches the back of your upper teeth.

It's wonderful that you've been using Japanese TV guides and song lyrics to learn how to read! If you want to learn grammar to build a solid foundation, and also if you'd like to have online speaking practice with a native Japanese teacher, try our online course or even the Platinum Package!

http://www.livinglanguage.com/products/japanese/

Konnichi wa, If I wanted to say 'happy thanksgiving' which one of these would I use? 感謝祭 (かんしゃさい kanshasai) - Thanksgiving or サンクスギビング (sankusugibingu)and I'm not really understanding the difference. you(Liv. Lang Japanese twitter) said that this was for, specifically, the American tradition of Thanksgiving. does that effect how you would say 'happy thanksgiving' or can the term be used with both? and with the word 泥 (どろ doro) - mud, how would I say 'the grass is muddy', would using 'desu' work? "(grass) doro desu"?

Thank you

Happy Thanksgiving! If you want to say that in Japanese, it can be either サンクスギビングおめでとう Sankusugibingu omedetou or 感謝祭おめでとう Kanshasai omedetou.

A great tip to remember - whenever you want to say "Happy X" in Japanese, just say Ｘ おめでとう X omedetou. For example, 誕生日おめでとう Tanjoubi omedetou is Happy birthday, クリスマスおめでとう Kurisumasu omedetou is Happy Christmas.

You know that サンクスギビング Sankusugibingu is really the English word Thanksgiving, while 感謝祭 kanshasai is the Japanese translation of it. サンクスギビング Sankusugibingu only refers to the American tradition of Thanksgiving, but 感謝祭 kanshasai can also refer to other things. 感謝祭 kanshasai literally means "appreciation festival"; any event that is held to show appreciation is 感謝祭 kanshasai. For example, a grocery store would hold a special sale and call it 感謝祭セール kanshasai seeru, which basically means something like "customer appreciation sale".

Now about your next question. If you want to say muddy, you can use the word 泥だらけ dorodarake. So "Grass is muddy" would be 芝は泥だらけです。Shiba wa dorodarake desu.

ありがとうございました

I'm trying to get better at spelling/reading and was wandering how do I ask "how do I spell that?" or 'how is that word spelled' which ever sounds more natural. would there be a formal way and an informal way to ask this question, like me asking a teacher/random citizen v.s my parents/friends?

We'd say, "How do you write X?", which is:
Ｘはどう（やって）書きますか。
X wa dou (yatte) kakimasu ka.

You can say either "douyatte" or just "dou".

If want to specify the type of characters, you can say the following:
"How do you write X in kanji?"
Ｘは漢字でどう（やって）書きますか。
X wa kanji de dou (yatte) kakimasu ka.

"How do you write X in hiragana?"
Ｘは平仮名でどう（やって）書きますか。
X wa hiragana de dou (yatte) kakimasu ka.

The above questions are nice and polite. If you want to make the questions casual/informal, just change the ending from 書きますか kakimasu ka to things like 書く? kaku?, 書くの? kaku no?, or 書けばいい? kakeba ii? just like any other casual question endings you would use when you speak to your friends. 

thank you :)  I don't understand what this means, Adverb of the day: まだ (mada) - yet [in negative sentence], still [in declarative sentence], can you please give an example of how they're used?

Sure! Here are negative sentence examples:

Hi :) with : Noun of the day: 意味 (いみ imi) - meaning, sometimes I will respond to something my parents/friends say with a questioning tone and say 'meaning????' when I don't understand what they're saying. can this word be used the same or with か ?

Actually, you have to say a little more than that in Japanese!

thank you :) I'm reading some tv show titles in Japanese and had some questions(titles from Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger

Oh No! Spirit Base (あぶなァーい！スピリットベース Abunaāi! Supiritto Bēsu^?)
Abunaai! oh no!: can this be used in informal situations and is it commonly used?

Zandar! Gold Revives (ザンダーッ！ゴールドふっかつ Zandā! Gōrudo Fukkatsu^?) and
It Can't be! Deboss Revived (ま・さ・か！デーボスふっかつ Ma・Sa・Ka! Dēbosu Fukkatsu^?)  revives v.s revived v.s resurrection: Fukkatsu vs fukkatsu, bit confused on how this word means all three, also is Ma・Sa・Ka! always written like that or is this a fancy thing the writers did?
Resurrection! Bragigas' Arrival (ふっかつ！ブラギガスしゅつげん Fukkatsu! Buragigasu

and is this: It's Here! The Bright Red King (でたァーッ！　まっかなキング Detā! Makka na Kingu^?) It's Here! でたァーッ！ the same as what I asked before up above:
"The written string あっ indicates that the utterance is short and sharp."

Book translation is a tricky business, and I sometimes think it is a form of art, especially when the two languages are as far apart as between Japanese and English. Translators are interested in conveying the intention, feeling, and atmosphere of the each scene rather than delivering you the literal meaning of each word spoken. 

Konnichiwa (ojigi) :) I am a Japanese sword collector and have become fascinated with Japanese culture. I want to learn Japanese so I can translate mei on the tang of a katana as well as speak the language cause its cool. I feel my personality may be suited to Japanese culture in some ways and I would Love to travel there one day in the future. So as a new comer to this language, someone who knows very little. Can you please suggest some key important words and sentences I should know or any tips?

Domo arigatou gozaimasu

sorry for any mistakes :)

Andi.W

verb-----nominalized verb modified by some adjective.


行くーー行き
帰るーー帰り
読むーー読み

this nominalization makes Japanese speaking so much easier

examples:

The running was fast- 走りは早かった。
The swimming is difficult- 泳ぎは難しい。
The studying was fun- 勉強しは楽しかった。

verb ending becomes i rather than u when normalizing a verb

るーーり
うーーい
すーーし
むーーみ
ぬーーに
つーーち

and so on...

Konnichiwa Andi21san,

Hajimemashite. Nice to meet you! My name is Sakura, and I am a Japanese eTutor here at Living Language.

I am so excited that you are interested in Japanese culture and that you are eager to learn Japanese.

Living Language offers a variety of Japanese language courses, from mobile apps to online courses to book & CD sets. They all are very reasonably priced and you can choose the one that best suits your needs!

Check out the following page for more info:
http://www.livinglanguage.com/products/japanese/

We also have a Twitter feed, where you can learn a few Japanese words every day! 

Konnichiwa RyanSlavruss san

Thank you for your contribution to the forum!

There are actually three different ways to nominalize Japanese verbs.

1) 読む --> 読むの

2) 読む --> 読むこと

3) 読む --> 読み (which is what you pointed out)


Which nominalized verb to use depends on grammatical contexts. Let's look at your examples:

a. The running was fast. 走りは速かった。
Your Japanese is the correct translation, although note that you should use the kanji 速 instead of 早.

b. The swimming is difficult. 泳ぐのは難しい or 泳ぐことは難しい
You have to use the nominalization method (1) or (2) in this case.

c. The studying was fun. 勉強は楽しかった。
This one is tricky because the verb "to study" in Japanese, which is 勉強する, originally comes from the noun 勉強. In other words, the verb "to study" in Japanese is something like, "do studying". So, if you want to have a noun form, all you need to do is to turn the verb 勉強する back to the original noun, 勉強!

Hajimemashite Sakura and Ryan san, Thank You for the advice, I will look into the courses and follow the twitter feed. I don't really understand normalizing Japanese verb yet and im not able to read kanji but I will learn bit by bit each day and decide the best way to advance in Japanese language and culture.

Domo Arigatou Gozaimasu

kind regards, Andy

Hi :) can these be used in the same sentence?
Noun of the day: 結婚記念日 (けっこんきねんび kekkonkinenbi) - wedding anniversary
Noun of the day: X周年 (Xしゅうねん X-shuunen) - Xth year anniversary (e.g. 五周年 = 5th year anniversary)
like Xth year wedding anniversary

Good question! 

ありがとうございました

Hi :) can I say this word by itself like you can in english or would I need to add 'desu'? i-adjective of the day: 面白い (おもしろい omoshiroi) - interesting

Sure you can!

ありがとうございました, can I use this word by itself? na-adjective of the day: 静か (しずか shizuka) - quiet, and by using these words by themselves, would this and omoshiroi, be considered informal?

sorry i meant nominalize as from the word nominate, however i used the other grammatical term normalize.

RyanSlavruss 1:31AM Permalink EditFlag
sorry i meant nominalize as from the word nominate, however i used the another grammatical term normalize.

Konnichiwa, with the phrase happy birthday, 誕生日おめでとう Tanjoubi omedetou
I saw a cake that had 'おたんじょうび おめでとう' 
お誕生日おめでとう
is there a reason that 'o' is there or is it like someone saying 'happy b-day' instead of happy birthday

'O' is an honorific prefix. It attaches to some nouns to make them sound polite. If you add an honorific prefix to words when talking to someone, you show respect towards the person you are addressing. So, saying Otanjoubi omedetou sounds more polite than Tanjoubi omedetou.

The Japanese prefixes 'o' and 'go' are explained in our Intermediate Japanese, Unit 1 Lesson 4. So check it out!

Hi :) I had posted a similar question before, I want to say 'yesterday was wednesday , february 5th.'
is it like this:
kinoo wa suiyobi de, nigatsu itsuka desu.
昨日は水曜日で、にがついつかです。

below was the answer I had gotten under the article about using 'And'.

thank you, when is 'deshita' taught, I'm on the Essential part. and can "

If you want to give today's date, you can simply say,

ありがとうございました

Hi :) the words: atarashi(new) and youbi(day), can these combined to form 'it's a new day'? and someone asked me : 'what did i do today?'
two questions here: how do I answer this in present tense? and past tense(what did you do yesterday?
I want to say a sentence like this: I worked from 12pm to 6pm.
I know some words; work;shigoto
                             from/to:...kara...made
                             12pm/6pm:gogo juuniji/gogo rokuji
and I believe 'ikimasu' means 'to do', so would this work?
gogo juuniji kara rokuji made ni shigoto ni ikimasu.
or does my example sentences' past tense changed things?

曜日 youbi means "day" only as in "day of the week"; i.e. "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday"....and so on. 

ありがとうございました this is very cool :)

Hi :) does クラブ and Noun of the day: 会 (かい kai) - meeting, assembly, association, club, mean the same thing?

No they are not the same. 

Hi :) thanks for the help :) I'm very confused on this one katakana character: ヴ 
from what I keep looking up;ウ is 'u', I don't get why the marks are there, how does this change the letter?
example: Anime/manga
Record of a Fallen Vampire/ヴァンパイア十字界

Japanese traditionally does not have the consonant "v" sound. When we pronounce an English word with "v" in it, we replace it with "b". So, "violin" in Japanese is バイオリン baiorin, "video" is ビデオ bideo, and so on. 

wow, that is so cool :) do you think that it will ever be included in the official language? english seems to add words all the time. ありがとうございました

is this phrase formal? また明日

See you tomorrow

The character ヴ won't probably be included in the official language too easily. While adding new vocabulary into a dictionary happens all the time, adding a new character or a phoneme to the official language cuts into a deeper level, and it is not something that would be done very easily.  

thank you :) my friend always post a question of the day, and I was wondering how this sentence would work in Japanese;

(group name) question of the day for Tuesday, February 25

from what you have told me in previous posts, 'day' might be 'ichinichi', tuesday; kayobi 火曜日, feb. 25; nigatsu nijuugonichi 二月二十五日, I know asking a question is sometimes 'desu ka' but I'm more stating theres going to be a question, like this is just a title.

As a group name or a title of a post, I would translate the phrase into Japanese as follows:

thank you :) I'm a bit confused on the one point. he asks open questions, ones with no right/wrong answer(i don't know if that would be an 'exercise question' in which case I would use 'mondai') but he also doesn't know the answers so I would use 'shitsumon'. so i'm a bit confused in that respect. which one would you use with a question like this:


Do you believe there are lifeforms on other planets? Do you think we have already been visited?

or

What is the most pointless invention you have seen lately?

and would the group name be at the beginning of the sentence?

They sound like shitsumon to me. 

okay, and I'm referring to the title of the whole thing:
would it be 'no' b/c the question is from the group?
(group name) no Nigatsu nijuugonichi kayoubi   kyou no shitsumon

If you are saying that you just want to put your group name right before you say, "Question of the day for Tuesday, February 25", I don't think you need anything, like particles. Just write your group name first, and then start "Nigatsu..."