Week 1

Konnichi wa.

This week we learnt how to greet someone for the first time and ask their name.
I introduced katakana and some loan words which would be written in katakana in Japanese - food vocab.

We also learnt how to ask what's this
Kore wa nan desu ka

Also yes/ no questions

Kore wa piza desu ka

Hai, so desu
Hai, piza desu

Or
Iie, piza ja arimasen.
Chigaimasu, donatsu desu

NOTE:
You will have noticed that Watashi wa Mary desu and Kore wa piza desu ka both have the ----wa------desu pattern. Desu is the equivalent of is/am/are (present tense verb to be) - it doesn't change according to number, gender or person.
The wa is a grammatical marker that marks the topic of the sentence -the most important part.
It is actually known as a "particle" Japanese has lots of these particles, ka is another one which makes a statement into question.

Kore wa piza desu - this is a pizza
Kore wa piza desu ka - Is this a pizza?

They don't use question marks in Japanese punctuation because the ka has the same function.(Someone once remarked that Japanese has audible punctuation, this is an example of that)

HW: Make sure that you have read and understood ch 1 thoroughly by next week, if you can't get the book in time, there are copies in the library (in the languages resource room on the 2nd floor)