The other day Rei and I wrote an article for my site EigoBoost.com on the different ways to say 秋（あき // fall; autumn）in English.

A lot of Japanese people get caught up on the difference between "fall" and "autumn," though I don't think they should be worrying about it too much.

(Side note: 英語（えいご）means "English." So the name of my site is actually "English Boost.")

In writing the article together, I noticed a bunch of different sentences that I wanted to share with my fellow students of Japanese (i.e. you).

I encourage you to try to read through the original Japanese article first and see how much you understand:

“秋”の英語―fall? autumn?―

You might think, "Nothing! I understand nothing!!"

But I doubt that's true. Surely you can sound out some of the hiragana, yeah? Maybe you can even recognize some familiar words or particles.

And, for you more experienced study masters, maybe you can grasp full sentences, paragraphs, etc.

I'm just pulling out random sentences that I think are common or useful.

In this lesson, I'm just going to look at sentences from the article, but in the next lesson we'll take pieces from those sentences and make new ones.

OK. Let's go...

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Vocab Prep

First, let's play a vocab game. I'll write a (somewhat fake) story, inserting vocabulary that the sentences below will be using.

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It's pretty easy for me to 読む a 記事 in Japanese. However, it's still quite difficult for me to 書く a 記事 in Japanese.

だから, for this article, when I writing-ことにした, I asked Rei if she would help me. Luckily, she said ぜひ.

So then we started talking about ways to translate the word 秋... which, by the way, is my favorite 季節.

Well... I don't know if fall is my 一番好きな season, but I do like it a lot.

When we were talking about the 使い分け between "fall" and "autumn," I told her that she didn't need to worry about it そんなに.

At least, in my case, I 気にしない. And many other native speakers don't worry about it either, と思う.

So, いかがでしたか？ Was this a helpful way to learn new words?
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Here is a list of the words and definitions used:

読む　（よむ // to read）
書く　（かく // to write）
記事　（きじ // article）
だから　（[so] that's why; therefore）
ぜひ　（certainly; without fail; absolutely）
秋　（あき // fall; autumn）
季節　（きせつ // season）
一番　（いちばん // most; number one）
好きな　（すきな // liked; favored）
一番好きな　（いちばんすきな // favorite; most liked）
使い分け　（つかいわけ // difference; proper use）
そんなに　（so much; like that）
気にしない　（きにしない // to not worry about; to not mind）
いかがでしたか？　（How was it?）

VERB＋と思う（とおもう）＝ I think that VERB.
VERB＋ことにした ＝ I decided to VERB.

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Sentence Mastery

Now here are the sentences that appeared in the actual article...

記事を書くことにした。
きじ　を　かく　こと　に　した。
I decided to write an article.
Literally: "article + を + write + thing + に + did."

ぜひ読んでください！
ぜひ　よんで　ください！
Please be sure to read through it!
Literally: "certainly; without fail + read + please!"

だからそんなに使い分けを気にしなくてもいいと思う。
だから　そんなに　つかいわけ　を　きにしなくても　いい　と　おもう。
That's why I think you shouldn't worry too much about differentiating between these two.
Literally: "so that's why + (not) so much + difference + を + is OK not to worry about + と + think."

秋は私の一番好きな季節です。
あき　は　わたし　の　いちばん　すきな　きせつ　です。
Fall is my favorite season.
Literally: "fall; autumn + は + I + の + number one + liked + season + です."

いかがでしたか？
いかが　でした　か？
What did you think? // How was it?
Literally: "how + was（＝でした） + か?"

In the next lesson, we'll break down some of what's happening in these sentences a bit more.

Something to look forward to. ^_^