Stupid question about a Japanese word

[evil_ash_xero]

I see so many games with "no" in between words, and it's always lower cased. What does this mean? I'm just curious.

[Elixir]

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%81%AE#Particle

[shmuppyLove]

Isn't it similar to 's in English? That's how I always think of it ... like:

Yamada-san no kuruma

Means "Mr. Yamada's car"?

[rancor]

Simplest way to put it:

It shows a relationship between two objects.

[ptoing]

Also something perhaps worth noting is that the Japanese very consequently go from most to least important. Pretty much like Prussian order.

So it is Zelda no Densetsu (Legend of Zelda), not the other way round which would translate to Zelda of Legend (or I guess Legendary Zelda)

[xbl0x180]

Zeruda no Densetsu = Zelda's Legend

[Leader Bee]

It's not really a stupid question, i've always wondered the same thign about that very symbol so while we're at it i see this one very often too, usually at the end (i'm assuming it's the end and not the beggining) of a word and i'm curious how it's pronounced and what it means: ラ

??

[rancor]

Thats the katakana character for "ra" and on its own, it means as much in Japanese as "ra" does in English. Nothing. Katakana is used for foreign words. ie. names of foreign places, foreign people, or words that are not Japanese. In order to make any sense it would need to be paired with some other characters like:

ラーメン = ramen
-or-
ラジオ = radio

[Leader Bee]

Thats the katakana character for "ra" and on its own, it means as much in Japanese as "ra" does in English. Nothing. Katakana is used for foreign words. ie. names of foreign places, foreign people, or words that are not Japanese. In order to make any sense it would need to be paired with some other characters like:

ラーメン = ramen
-or-
ラジオ = radio

Oh thanks, that really helpful. If one were to take up learning to read japanese ( i think i'd find it more useful to know how to read than speak) what would you reccommend starting with? Romaji, Katakana or Hirigana?

[StarCreator]

You're not going to find anything written in romaji beyond learning tools.

As for learning katakana or hiragana first, I'd base that on what your goal in learning the language is. A bunch of friends who started learning Japanese to play imported games learned katakana first so while they couldn't make out character dialogue, they could identify town names and the like. Otherwise, starting hiragana first would probably be more useful on a general basis.