Help with Japanese birthdates.

[Renka09]

Okay to start with, I already know the days of the month and the days of the week, months included, however, how will I say when is my birthdate? Watashi no otanjoubi wa _______ desu? am I right?

how do you tell others your birthdate? mine is May 3rd, 1989... will it be, like, Mikka no gogatsu? sorry I'm confused, someone should clarify this to me.

thanks.

P.S.

I have just noticed that I've posted at the wrong section of the forum, any moderators might want to move this thread, feel free to do so, thanks.

[Sashimister]

Originally Posted by Renka09

Okay to start with, I already know the days of the month and the days of the week, months included, however, how will I say when is my birthdate? Watashi no otanjoubi wa _______ desu? am I right?

how do you tell others your birthdate? mine is May 3rd, 1989... will it be, like, Mikka no gogatsu? sorry I'm confused, someone should clarify this to me.

thanks.

Who taught you to use the honorific お to refer to your own birthday? I'd answer all your questions if you didn't use romaji.

[Renka09]

Is that an "o"? I use romaji because I dont have a program that uses japanese font, I'm just renting a PC in an internet cafe you see, and nobody taught me Japanese, it's a self-study. I use my intuition to construct a basic sentence, that's why I am also asking you guys if my format on the sentence was correct.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Renka09

Is that an "o"? I use romaji because I dont have a program that uses japanese font

There should be an exam before allowing someone to join JF, and one of the questions should make sure everyone knows about InputKing online IME - type Japanese, Chinese, Korean anywhere, which enables you to input Japanese even from a computer that doesn't have a Japanese IME.

And yes, it's an お. You typed "o," didn't you?

[Renka09]

すげえ～

わたしの　お誕生日　は　______　です。

am I typing the correct words now? tell me if the words that I've input is incorrect, I'm using the InputKing now, and I say that this program is amazing.

[Sashimister]

Originally Posted by Renka09

すげえ～

わたしの　お誕生日　は　______　です。

am I typing the correct words now? tell me if the words that I've input is incorrect, I'm using the InputKing now, and I say that this program is amazing.

Talk about improvement! I'm starting to like you.

Just a few pointers.
1. There are no spacings between words in Japanese.
2. No お as I mentioned before. Use it to refer to someone else's BD.
3. Your choice of first person pronoun is questionable. If you're a teenage dude, you may want to use ぼく. Only one out of about 200-300 HS boys in Japan address themselves 私.

[Renka09]

Ah, that it's getting clear, no spaces.

ぼくの誕生日は____です。 is it correct now?

Question: why is my 私 questionable?

[Sashimister]

Originally Posted by Renka09

Ah, that it's getting clear, no spaces.

ぼくの誕生日は____です。 is it correct now?

Question: why is my 私 questionable?

That's correct. Just insert an actual date in there.

About pronouns, unlike in English, we have so many. For the first person, we have わたし、わたくし、ぼく、おれ、うち、あたし、あたい 、おら、おいら, etc. when you only have "I".

I'm sure your textbooks, websites or actual paper, will give you 私（わたし）. In real life, that is used mostly by women. In the busines world, both men and women use わたくし with the same kanji for わたし. Young guys, toddlers to college boys, rarely use わたし, let alone わたくし. They use ぼく or おれ, with the latter being more casual.

As I stated in my last post, most teenage boys use ぼく. Many use both ぼく and おれ, and they use them depending on who they are talking to. They use おれ with friends and family, but they are "required" to use ぼく when talking to their teachers and other adults. Virtually no teachers allow the use of おれ in class. Likewise, some parents don't allow their young sons to use おれ at home. So ぼく is the safe and natural choice for a teenage boy.

In both the junior high school and high school that I went to, only 2 or 3 boys used わたし. That is out of the 600 boys in each school. So it is a rare phenomenon. If you want to join that small group, by all means, use 私.

[Renka09]

Yes, thank you, Well, yes my textbook gives me 私, it says that it has a formal and business-like attitude, while ぼく is boyish and おれ is like... Kansai-ben(関西弁)?

Well, how should I say May 3, 1989? 五月の三日? or just plain 五月三日 1989?

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Renka09

Yes, thank you, Well, yes my textbook gives me 私, it says that it has a formal and business-like attitude, while ぼく is boyish and おれ is like... Kansai-ben(関西弁)?

No. A native speaker is not going to teach you a mixture of hyojungo and kansai-ben without distinguishing the two. おれ is just a more gruff form of the first-person pronoun.

Well, how should I say May 3, 1989? 五月の三日? or just plain 五月三日 1989?

You would pronounce it せんきゅうひゃくはちじゅうきゅうねんごがつみっか (千九百八十九年五月三日). You do year, then month, then date. 5月3日 - Wikipedia

Also note 千 is the last one you can say "one X" without using 一 before it. If you say 1,000, you can say 千. But if you say 10,000, you must say 一万 rather than just 万.

You can actually see a native say something similar here: http://www.japanforum.com/forum/japa...tml#post800647