does anyone here speak Japanese?

Can someone tell me how to say little brother in Japanese? I've been trying to learn Japanese, but the disk I have only teaches random words and stuff it dosen't tell me how to put them together in sentences and stuff. Does anyone have any recomendations for a good way to learn foreign languages?

Well my Japanese dictionary says it's Ototo and the plural is Kyodai.

Though my knowledge of Japanese is fairly limited as I've just been to darn lazy to learn much more. :p

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Originally Posted by Chibi Angel

Can someone tell me how to say little brother in Japanese? I've been trying to learn Japanese, but the disk I have only teaches random words and stuff it dosen't tell me how to put them together in sentences and stuff. Does anyone have any recomendations for a good way to learn foreign languages?

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Get someone to teach you, or even go to a course. It's nearly impossible to learn a language on your own - especially one as difficult as Japanese.

Japanese, with the exception of kanji- and that is a big part of it- can be largely self taught PROVIDED proper materials, IE: a textbook, a dictionary, and a few other materials. You're still better off with taking a course. And yes, ototo is little bro (imouto is sis), but Kyodai is siblings in general, not just brothers.

Yup, it's been covered.
They sell Japanese text books in most bookstores too.

thanks all

Follow in the footsteps of Chaos and take a course, it'd be alot easier then self-teaching, and if you do use a textbook, I recomend Japanese for Busy People, Kana Edition, it's what my class uses, you can buy a workbook with it too, it's pretty good.

The word you use for family members depends on the situation. If you're speaking to someone else about your own younger brother, you use otouto (弟). If you're speaking about someone else's younger brother, you use otoutosan (弟さん), or informally, otouto (弟). If you're speaking to your own younger brother, you just use his name. (When speaking to your own older brother, you may or may not use his name.)

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Originally Posted by Safis

The word you use for family members depends on the situation. If you're speaking to someone else about your own younger brother, you use otouto (弟). If you're speaking about someone else's younger brother, you use otoutosan (弟さん), or informally, otouto (弟). If you're speaking to your own younger brother, you just use his name. (When speaking to your own older brother, you may or may not use his name.)

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Yeah, that sums it up. I learn Japanese at school with the help of a lot of worksheets.

I'm in my second year of Japanese but it looks like everybody already answered the question soooooo yeah.

THe problem with trying to take a coarse is that they don't offer Japanese around here. In my part of Wisconsin the only language coarses I can find are spanish and sometimes German and French. Tahnks Chaos I'll look into that Kana text book.

Depending on your age, you should be able to find a course indendent of your school somewhere in your area--unless you live more than 30 minutes from a major/semimajor city.

To confirm: One's own younger brother should be addressed as "otouto-san" directly or "otouto" when speaking to someone else of one's own brother. When speaking of someone else's younger brother, you should use "otouto-san" as though you were directly addressing your own younger brother. (you use formal language to refer directly to your own relatives, but humble language to refer to your relatives when speaking with someone else)