Important info / Footnotes
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1. The American Otaku is a fan of Anime/Manga. In Japan, otaku roughly means "geek".
2. wakarimasu is "I understand". ka at the end of wakarimasen makes it a question ("Do you understand?"). deshita negates it or you can just use wakaranai ("I don't understand"). Also, wakannai is feminine and wakaran/wakanne are masculine. -shita is past tense (wakarimashita ka? is "Did you understand?")
3. Japanese has fewer sounds than English, so VERY many kanji are read all the same way ("death" and "four" are both read as shi - "love" and "pitiful" are read as ai). Because of this, puns are extremely abundant. IMHO, puns are the highest form of humor, as you *must* know the different words that make the joke.
-Gammler
4. Good example of previous footnote: koi can mean both "carp" and "love". There's a Japanese proverb that tells about a man who could catch every fish out of any river or lake, but there was one fish he wanted and he couldn't catch it. That fish was koi.
5. The sound "u" after a consonent is commonly dropped (desu as des, shimasu as shimas, chikuso as chikso and suki as ski).
6. The "L" and "R" are interchangable in all words (Lei could be Rei or vice versa, and a launch pad could even be mistaken for a raunch pad *thanx to evanjellyon*)
7. There are three ways to write Japanese: Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana. Kanji is the typical writing you think of. They're the more complex characters. Hiragana is a phonetic language (each character has a sound, but no meaning by itself). It's used to help people pronounce difficult kanji. Katakana is also a phonetic language, but is used for anything that isn't Japanese (mostly English, like Sailor Moon). Both Hiragana and Katakana (together called Kana) number about 46 characters each (with accents to change the sound slightly). Kanji number well over 3,000.
8. Vowels in Japanese are a, i, u, e, o. The sounds can be remembered with the sentence "Ah, we soon may know." The vowels are pronounced the same as in Spanish and German. Every sound in Japanese ends in a vowel, except for "n".

1.	The American Otaku is a fan of Anime/Manga. In Japan, otaku roughly means "geek".
2.	wakarimasu is "I understand". ka at the end of wakarimasen makes it a question ("Do you understand?"). deshita negates it or you can just use wakaranai ("I don't understand"). Also, wakannai is feminine and wakaran/wakanne are masculine. -shita is past tense (wakarimashita ka? is "Did you understand?")
3.	Japanese has fewer sounds than English, so VERY many kanji are read all the same way ("death" and "four" are both read as shi - "love" and "pitiful" are read as ai). Because of this, puns are extremely abundant. IMHO, puns are the highest form of humor, as you must know the different words that make the joke. -Gammler
4.	Good example of previous footnote: koi can mean both "carp" and "love". There's a Japanese proverb that tells about a man who could catch every fish out of any river or lake, but there was one fish he wanted and he couldn't catch it. That fish was koi.
5.	The sound "u" after a consonent is commonly dropped (desu as des, shimasu as shimas, chikuso as chikso and suki as ski).
6.	The "L" and "R" are interchangable in all words (Lei could be Rei or vice versa, and a launch pad could even be mistaken for a raunch pad thanx to evanjellyon)
7.	There are three ways to write Japanese: Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana. Kanji is the typical writing you think of. They're the more complex characters. Hiragana is a phonetic language (each character has a sound, but no meaning by itself). It's used to help people pronounce difficult kanji. Katakana is also a phonetic language, but is used for anything that isn't Japanese (mostly English, like Sailor Moon). Both Hiragana and Katakana (together called Kana) number about 46 characters each (with accents to change the sound slightly). Kanji number well over 3,000.
8.	Vowels in Japanese are a, i, u, e, o. The sounds can be remembered with the sentence "Ah, we soon may know." The vowels are pronounced the same as in Spanish and German. Every sound in Japanese ends in a vowel, except for "n".

These are a few things I've picked up about Japanese TV, OVAs and Movies:

Length Very often these are a multiple of 26 (13 included), one episode each week (13, 26, 52, et cetera)
Pretty much all series are 30 minutes long each episode (TV episodes are 25 or 26 minutes long without commercials)
Commericals These are usually exactly 15 or 30 seconds long and have a lot of eye-catching information (often too much to see the first time).

Length	Very often these are a multiple of 26 (13 included), one episode each week (13, 26, 52, et cetera)
Pretty much all series are 30 minutes long each episode (TV episodes are 25 or 26 minutes long without commercials)
Commericals	These are usually exactly 15 or 30 seconds long and have a lot of eye-catching information (often too much to see the first time).

Here's a short list of common Anime acronyms:

AMG Aa! Megami-sama
Ah! My Goddess OST Original Sound Track
AMV Anime Music Videos
(Watch them, worship them) OVA / OAV Original Video Animation
Original Animated Video
BSSM / SM Bishoujo Senshi
Sailor Moon SD Super Deformed (chibi versions)
CCS Card Captor Sakura SEL / SELain Serial Experiments Lain
(We're the only people who use this, really)
DB / DBZ / DBGT Dragonball, Z and GT SMJ Saber Marionettes J
FY Fushigi Yuugi TM Tenchi Muyo
GW Gundam Wing UY Urusei Yatsura
MKR Magic Knights Rayearth VGA / VGAi Video Girl Ai
NGE Neon Genesis Evangelion YYH Yuu Yuu Hakusho

AMG	Aa! Megami-sama Ah! My Goddess	OST	Original Sound Track
AMV	Anime Music Videos (Watch them, worship them)	OVA / OAV	Original Video Animation Original Animated Video
BSSM / SM	Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon	SD	Super Deformed (chibi versions)
CCS	Card Captor Sakura	SEL / SELain	Serial Experiments Lain (We're the only people who use this, really)
DB / DBZ / DBGT	Dragonball, Z and GT	SMJ	Saber Marionettes J
FY	Fushigi Yuugi	TM	Tenchi Muyo
GW	Gundam Wing	UY	Urusei Yatsura
MKR	Magic Knights Rayearth	VGA / VGAi	Video Girl Ai
NGE	Neon Genesis Evangelion	YYH	Yuu Yuu Hakusho