Liven Up Your QSOs with a Foreign Tongue Japanese for Hams Part 1 More than one million hams call Japan their QTH. As cycle 22 solar activity continues to increase, we'll have more and more opportunities to work JAs. Japanese hams study books such as English for Ham QSO by JA1ANG and Conversational American English for Ham Radio by Roy Waite W9PQN in order to improve their English. US hams, however, have no book to teach us the Japanese we need to get through a simple QSO with a Japanese amateur in Japanese. Japanese hams rarely enjoy the luxury of working DX (like US!) in their own language. Not quite fair, is it? We can't expect people around the world to speak to us in English forever. Here I'll present a few Japanese phrases you can try on your next JA contacts. They should get a big kick out of it. The JA stations I contact get a bit of a shock when I come back to them in Japanese! First, a few comments on Japanese pronunciation. Although the Japanese writing system, which uses chinese characters and two 51 symbol syllabaries, and the grammar are difficult, Japanese pronunciation is very easy. Place equal stress on each syllable. Not Toyota but To-yo-ta. Not Yaesu but Ya-e-su. I mark long vowel sounds by doubling the vowel. My transcription is essentially the Hepburn system, a system used internationally for writing Japanese using the Roman alphabet. My main departure from the Hepburn system is adding dashes between syllables. Where the Hepburn spelling might be misleading, I have placed a close English equivalent in brackets. Remember, equal stress on each syllable is the key. O-hi-o go-zai-ma-su. Good morning [pronounce o-hi-o like the state of Ohio. It's morning in Japan when we work them in the evening.] wa-ta-ku-shi no QTH wa [ba-ji-ni-a shu] de-su. My QTH is the [state of Virgina]. re[ley]-por-to wa five-nine. Your report is 59 [I often hear Japanese hams giving reports to each other using English!! in this way so you do the same] wa-ta-ku-shi no QTH wa [a-me-ri-ka no shu-to Washington DC] ka-ra ju-ni ki-ro-mee[may]-to-ru ku-rai no to-ko-ro de-su. My QTH is about 12 kilometers from [the US capital, Washington DC]. [so they won't confuse DC with Washington state] wa-ta-ku-shi wa Mt. Vernon a-ma-chya mu-sen ku-ra-bu no mem-ba de- su. I am a member of the Mt. Vernon ARC. na-mae wa David de-su. My name is David. [if the Japanese operator gives his name as Tomo, refer to him as Tomo-san. Do not put -san after you own name.] [To-mo]-san no ei-go wa tai-hen joo-zu de-su ne. Your [Tomo's] English is very good. Ni-hon-go de nan te i-ma-su-ka. How do you say that in Japanese? If you have a solid contact, you might ask the Japanese operator how to say some phrases in Japanese. You can thank him by saying [To-mo]-san wa tai-hen ii ni-hon-go no sen-sei de-su. You [Tomo] are a very good Japanese teacher. To-te-mo ta-no-shi QSO o doo-mo a-ri-ga-to-go-zai-ma-shi-ta. Thank you for a very enjoyable QSO. Ma-ta doo-zo yo-ro-shi-ku o ne-gai shi-ma-su. Please give me a call another time. Try some of these phrases on your next contact with JA. It should get you out of the carbon copy QSO rut. Give a JA operator a good laugh and improve your Japanese at the same time! If you would like to learn to speak simple conversational Japanese fairly quickly, consider Japanese for Beginners published by Gakken. You can purchase it with two cassette tapes. This book takes you through the essentials of Japanese grammar and builds up to a 1200 word vocabulary in 180 (small) pages. Not a large vocabulary, but considerably larger than the English vocabulary of many of the DX stations you are working now. Have fun! 73 de David Cowhig WA1LBP@N4QQ First in a series from Ye Old Rf Output, newsletter of the Mt. Vernon ARC. Send comments, corrections, and suggestions to David Cowhig at the AMRAD BBS (703) 734-1387 or by packet radio to WA1LBP@N4QQ.