Particle help?

After taking Japanese class, I discovered one thing: I have the absolute WORST trouble with particles. The one I absolutely understand is "de", which is used in a sentence involving going somewhere. The rest, I'm lost on. And I know my professor isn't too happy with my work on particle questions. Is there anyone who can help me remember or even learn these better?

I totally had a big thing written for you the other day, but I guess it was too long because it didn't post and I lost all the text *sigh But, I've been studying for 2 years, so I can help you with basic grammar. I think my e-mail is in my profile :p As for で, it isn't really used for *going* places, but it is used to describe the location an action is being done at OR the method or tool used to perform an action. Here are some examples: ともだち　の　うち　で　アニメ　を　みました。 I watched anime AT my friend's house. バス　で　がっこう　へ　いきました。　I went to school BY METHOD OF the bus. えんぴつ　で　しゅくだい　を　やりました。　 I did my homework BY METHOD OF a pencil.

Ah. That's how I remembered "De". Going somewhere means location actions. =P When I get back into class, you can most definitely expect emails from me for help with these things.

I just got through a semester of Beginning Japanese 1 at my college with an A, and yes it is a bit hectic going for that grade. Going to someplace is either ni or he (read as e), (specific) time uses ni, ha (read as wa) is subject, wo is object marker, ga is more exclusive than ha, no is possesive, to is kind of like the word "and" in english, kara is from time/place, and made is to time/place. Yes, I have my notes in front of me. Some examples (in romanji; I don't have the software to switch it to hiragana): Watashi ha(wa) Siwy desu. Uchi ni Houston ni arimasu. Watashi ga amerikajin desu. Kinou wa anime wo(o) mimashita. Watashi no ichiban no geemu ga DnD desu. Hope that helps. I had a really good teacher who took her time to explain it to the class.

The Japanese language pack is a part of Windows and is also preinstalled in Mac OSX, and it is pretty easy to set up for Japanese input on both platforms. You can learn how at http://www.coscom.co.jp/learnjapanese801/index.html. As for に and へ, に is often used to describe a position. While you can use に in place of へ, へ　implies movement towards a direction. You'll often see へ used with verbs like 行きます (to go) and　来ます (to come). Be careful with　に, though, it has a few other different uses, but you'll only ever use it once to describe a position in a sentence. うち　は　ヒューストン　に　あります。 (My) house is in Houston. House is a topic in this case, with Houston describes the position of the house. You can use に to mark a time as well, although it is often used when describing a specific time (such as 8:00) and omitted when using a general time word (such as yesterday). きのう　（わたし　は）　アニメ　を　みました。　 Yesterday (I) watched anime. It's important to remember that Yesterday didn't watch anime, YOU watched anime yesterday. は　marks the topic of the sentence or places emphasis on a word. Usually new topics are introduced with は and new subjects pertaining to the topic are introduced with が. You see this a lot in giving and receiving: あたらしい　くつ　は　すてき　ですね。　(Your new shoes are nice!) ありがとう。おばあさん　が　（わたし　に）　くれました。 (Thank you! My grandmother gave them (to me). Your new shoes are the topic of discussion, so it is marked with は. Since it was your grandmother that gave you the shoes, the next sentence's subject is marked with が. Whew. There are a lot of other uses for many of these particles, but it just takes practice to learn how to use them.