How would I say his in Japnese:

I need a book for studying.

In Japanese:

Benkyo suru tame no hon ga irimasu.

Benkyo = study
suru tame = to do
no = of
hon = book
ga = (pointer to the subject of the sentence, no direct tranlation)
irimasu = polite, present tense form of the verb iru, need.

Mike

Sorry I didn't repond in time. I used to speak japenese very fluently. I lived in Japan for 4 years. But seeing that I rarely speak it now, remember the old saying, "Use it or lose it". But anyway, one tip of advise, irimasu is pronounced "e d mask"

the "K" is silent on "mask" so it's e d mass

What you are exactly saying is " e d moss"

Excellent translation and explanation of that phrase MikeB. Do you speak or study Japanese???

Hi Allen,

Domo arigato!!

My wife is from Osaka, Japan, and I do speak a little Japanese (about enough so that I know what's going on around me when she and my in-laws are talking).

On the sentence above, I came up with what I thought was the translation, my wife corrected it, then I posted it and my explanation.

I studied Japanese for 2 1/2 years in college, but that's been around 10 years ago and I don't have occaision to use it in my everyday life, so it is a bit rusty. Just recently I dug out my old textbooks and have been photoreading them so that my wife and I can start teaching my 10 month old son Japanese.

Have Fun!
Mike

Nice to hear back from you MikeB. I lived for 4 years in Misawa, Japan. Northern Tohoku
The Northen tip of Japan from 1994 to 1998. Misawa is close to Hachinohe. Maybe Your wife has heard of the small city. I wasn't that far from Lake Towada. Beautiful country and the Japanese people are unbelievable. The most nicest people in the world. It's a coincidence that we are talking about the Japanese language, I had a dream about living back in Japan with my new wife and in the dream she was having herself a good time there. My japanese is a lot more rustier than your's . At least you still have some connection with it through your wife and in-laws.