Grammar problems/questions?

So I picked up the Genki I book that can be found in the resources tab on this site, and I have to say, it is a great book and would definitely recommend it. I've been having a litte issue though... The VERY first lesson in the book is "Greetings", such as "good morning," "goodbye," and so on... I have pretty much got the hiragana set down, but when I came to the phrase "good evening," I noticed that the characters are こんばんは, which is konbanHA, not konbanWA.

My question is... Why is the character は used instead of わ? I have read in different places that when わ is used as a particle, it is written as は, but honestly, why it's that way doesn't make much sense to me... I have also noticed that in most sentences that I have seen, the は is used instead of わ, but still keeps the "wa" sound. Could someone please clarify this for me, please?

Thanks in advance! =)

Hi, for what I understand,

The particle は  – WA when indicates the main topic of a sentence is always written like "HA" like the kana, hiragana in this case, but pronounced WA only if is used as a particle, for example わたしは  (私は) it's pronounced WATASHI  WA. The same of こんばんは pronounced KONBAN WA (good evening). 

But in this case, for example, if You write かわ  ( 川 in kanji)  KAWA (stream, or river),  it's used the kana わ WA As You can see...Not to be confused with "WA"  わ.

It is a rule and sometimes rules, especially in Japanese language don't have any logical sense for foreign people...  practice, is the best way to understand...

see also wy を  "wo" is pronounced  O but the kana is wrote WO... that means "the".

Just an advice, use less then possible romanji, especially at the beginning and try to use only kana ひらがな or カタカナ and this kinda tricks should not be problem...
 

....also, the を can be pronounced both "o" and "wo" ....which denotes the object of the sentence. That is its only function, the object particle.

I hope someone will response to this.........

 

One point that I came across Japanese is that the comparison of verbs within one subject.

For example, if I will say...

"I would rather die by a bullet than be eaten by a zombie."

Would "僕はゾンビに喰われるより（も）弾丸で死ぬのです。”　be correct? Charcters or words inside the parenthesis means that it can be omitted without changing the meaning.

Also,

"I would rather read manga than read a novel."

”僕は小説より（も）漫画をよむのです。”

"Riko would rather go shopping with her friends than stay home all by herself."

”莉子は友達と一緒に買い物をするより（も）ただ独りで家にいるのです。

I am not really sure of my Japanese constructions here but I wanted to retain the usage of "yori(mo)" here.

Please help me out. ^^

For the second clauses, you have to use the volitional (-tai, "want") form. This is how I would construct them:

I would rather die by a bullet than be eaten by zombies: ゾンビに喰われるよりもむしろ弾丸で死にたいです。

I would rather read manga than a novel: 小説を読むよりも漫画を読みたいです。

Riko would rather go shopping with her friends than stay at home by herself: 莉子さんは家に一人でいるより友達と買い物に行きたがっています。(You reversed the clauses in this one, and said she would rather stay at home).

The first one I added mushiro because neither option is very desirable. In the second one, I repeated the verb yomu twice. In the third one, I changed the verb to kaimono ni iku (go shopping) and made it third person volitional (instead of -tai ending, it becomes -tagatteiru/-tagatteimasu) when talking about someone else.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Thank you so much! Now all of the blanks have been filled out! ^^

But, is it really necessary to use the "third person volitional" on my third example? Also,

 

...I have another question, how would you say "have an eye contact with" in Japanese...

For example, "Riko had an eye contact with Natsuo for only 3 seconds." I want to retain the meaning of "eye contact" in this manner and if so, may I use the word 視線 shisen in this? (You may drop the "san" for addressing people here so that you conserve time and space.)

You CAN use just -tai, but usually it is -tagaru if you are speaking in the third person.

利己は夏雄を３秒だけ凝視した。

All I could find for eye contact was アイコンタクト :/

I will keep looking though.

Let me check on this before you use the sentence though.

または、たぶん：

莉子は夏雄と３秒だけ視線を交わした。

莉子は夏雄と３秒だけアイコンタクトをしました。

Thank you so much for your effort, I will use it to verify some of the grammar that I came in tangent with.

Also, so that spamming of post will be avoided, you can just edit your previous post and add or edit whatever you want... ^^