Study Study!

(you may need to install Japanese fonts on your computer in order to read this. sorry!)
I have been practicing my Japanese rather diligently lately - this is the result:

おはようございます。
- Good morning!
[ohayogozaimasu]

これは　わたしの　ブログです。
- This is my blog.
[kore wa watashi no 'burogu' desu]

おげんきですか。　私は　げんきです。
- How are you? I am fine.
[ogenki desu ka? watashi wa genki desu]

これは　ヲルポフさんの　お弁当です。　これは　わたしの　お弁当ではありません。　
- This is Mr. Wolpoff's bento(lunch). This is not my lunch.
[kore wa 'worupofu'-san no obento desu. kore wa watashi no obento dewa arimasen]

これは　ヲルポフさんのです。
- It is Mr Wolpoff's.
[kore wa 'worupofu'-san no desu]

私の　でんわばんごは　さん　ゼロ　さん　の　に　よん　いち　の　さん　はち　さん　はち。
- My phone number is...
[watashi no denwabango wa san zero san no ni yon ichi no san hachi san hachi]

The Japanese language has 3 alphabets: hiragana, katakana and kanji. Hiragana and Katakana both have 46 characters while the kanji alphabet has over 5000. I know the hiragana and katakana alphabets, and about 10 kanji characters. The above 'note' uses all three alphabets (only a little kanji).

Hiragana and Katakana are the first things you learn in school as a Japanese child - each character corresponds to a sound (like our alphabet). So the level I write at is that of a 2nd grader... cool.

Hiragana is used to write Japanese words (like rice = ごはん) while Katakana is used for foreign words (like pizza = ピザ or my name = ジェン). The Kanji alphabet is a pictographic alphabet - each character corresponds to a meaning (for example 車 means car).　This is how you write car in hiragana = くるま so essentially you can communicate with only hiragana and katakana but it shows a severe lack of education. Anyway, if you want to know more about the language you can hit up this site.