Japanese alphabet?
There really isn't an easy way. Taking shortcuts isn't the wisest thing to do when learning languages. Well, what I did for speaking was - for hiragana and katakana, I looked at them as pictures and came up with my own way of memorising them. For example, for 'hi' ’ひ：I matched it with 'HE has a big smile' - to remember how to write and say it. It's uncool and a childish method - but trust me, the more lame it is, the harder it is to forget it. It's also a good idea to print out a table with the alphabet on it to refer to when you forget how to write it. Good luck!
Help with Japanese?
I think what they're talking about is the sokuon, or "small tsu", っ. This is about half the size of the regular tsu (つ), and represents a very brief pause in the word. In romaji, it is written as a double consonant, and yes, being the first of that double. First: Say the word "book" out loud. No, I'm not kidding. Say it. Do you hear that really small pause at the end, right before the 'k'? That's what the sokuon stands for. This small pause is really important in words, because without it, you could be saying a completely different word! For example... きって (kitte) = postage stamp きて (kite) = come As for the entire "4 syllables" thing, they mean 4 kana. hakken = はっけん kesseki = けっせき shippa = しっぱい okatte = おかって If you can't read any kana, that should be the first order of business, because if you can't read kana, then Japanese will be incredibly difficult - there are a lot of things that you can't do with romaji. Hiragana and Katakana first. If your computer can't read Japanese, it would be a good idea to install that language component. Hope this helps!
Japanese breakfast vocabulary?
I spent four years living in Tokyo and don't recall ever hearing choushoku/chuushoku/yuushoku spoken to me. Maybe "yuushoku". I only know those from textbooks. They may have more literary or formal usage than the others. Much of the time "hirugohan" was just shortened to "ohiru" or "hirumeshi" The "u" is pronounced but it is nearly silent, If you can imagine "tabemasu" with a strikeout across the "u"... that's the only way I can explain it. I guess for most westerners ears it's not pronounced at all. If you ask a Japanese person to say it slowly, it will be pronounced. You must remember that all Japanese syllables end with a vowel sound (except for "n"). Therefore, the "u" sound is there, just very quietly. There are a lot of words like that ending in "i" sound as well. I'm not sure if this is a very good explanation of this phenomena. If you listen to someone pronounce "tofu" it sounds like "tof" but their lips/mouth are formed as if to also pronounce the ending "u" it just doesn't come out completely. Same with "masu". This is what sets fluent speakers apart from not-so-fluent speakers is the nuances of pronunciations like this.
Stress-timed/syllable-timed language?
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timing_(linguistics): ----- In a syllable-timed language, every syllable is thought to take up roughly the same amount of time when pronounced, though the actual length of time of a syllable depends on situation. Spanish and French are commonly quoted as examples of syllable-timed languages. This type of rhythm was originally metaphorically referred to as 'machine-gun rhythm' because each underlying rhythmical unit is of the same duration, similar to the transient bullet noise of a machine-gun. In a stress-timed language, syllables may last different amounts of time, but there is a constant amount of time (on average) between two consecutive stressed syllables. English, German and Dutch are typical stress timed languages. Stress-timing is sometimes called Morse-code rhythm. When spoken faster, a stress-timed language usually shortens, obscures, or drops vowels to carry more syllables between two stresses without changing its rhythm so much. ----- Japanese and maybe Korean are actually mora-timed languages, which is the basic concept as syllable-timed languages, except some consonants may take up the same amount of time in a rhythym as syllables, such as the Japanese syllable-final "n."
Is Japanese Alphabet Hard?
Joshua: No, learning the Japanese writing systems is not difficult or hard per se. The thing is that there are a LOT of symbols you have to learn, but all it takes to learn them and get used to them is enough practice and time. Put in the time, be willing to be persistent, patient, and most importantly, be willing to do FUN activities in Japanese (read MORE manga in Japanese!!). Do that and you are good to go. Here, I recommend you check out these resources, and save yourself the pain most Japanese learners have to get through in order to master the Japanese kana and the "favorite of all", kanji: Kana: http://www.squidoo.com/learn-hiragana-katakana-kana Kanji: http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-learn-kanji Also, if you wish to become a manga artist, realize that it will take a LOT of practice, hard work and multiple failures in order to make a small dent in the industry. Cheers!