Learning Japanese

[theAlphaDuck]

Must really start the whole learning Japanese thing some time soon.

I think I'm going to learn the writing by writing stuff in English but with Japanese letters.

That and I will probably download Rosetta stone again - that was quite good actually. (recommend)

But I need to learn some Japanese before I go back there, It got kinda boring at times seeing as practically NO ONE speaks any English.

[Alchemist007]

You're going to want to take a more serious approach if you want to actually learn the language. Unless all you intend to do is use a few words for travel purposes, people do that all the time. But if you're talking about investing time and effort, you have to commit. Rosetta Stone is nice for learning a few words and sentences (to travel by) but it's no substitute for proper learning. You've got 175 previous pages in this thread, try looking at a few suggestions for beginners (not all 175 mind you, there lots of repeating things since there's people asking these types of things all the time).

[Shinji01]

Having plans to study in Japan for the Japanese language program.

Right now I plan to look at Kansai Gaidai, Waseda, Keio, Ritsumeikan and perhaps ICU and Sophia since my Japanese political science teacher said that they have "excellent" Japanese language programs. I'll go and look at them carefully when I can...

I went to one of the universities you mentioned :)

I would have to say though, why go to Kansai Gaidai and pick up Kansai-ben when you can immerse yourself in standard Japanese in Tokyo...
Tokyo Gaidai can be an alternative if you prefer public schools.

ICU and Sophia have very good Japanese courses because they not only accept Exchange students, but a large part of their regular students grew up overseas etc and do not have very strong japanese skills.

Waseda, Keio and Ritsumeikan are all great schools, and no doubt have good language programs but their main target seems to be the Japanese students. Of course they are international too, but not as international as ICU and Sophia, maybe.

Location wise, if you want to enjoy Tokyo without commuting for hours on a train, stick to Sophia, Keio, Waseda and Ritsumeikan.
Waseda and Sophia central tokyo, Keio can be different depending on the campus, ritsumeikan, I forgot where they are...
ICU and Tokyo Gaidai is on the fringe on Tokyo, and not very convinient...

[TheB0a]

Is this thread dead ? I'm interested in learning some japanese but after a page or two the "lessons" just stopped. Will there still be people posting on this thread ? Whether it be small lessons, links for learning, and such.

[LeoXiao]

I've kind of given up learning anything from this thread. I feel that I've I've reached the peak of whatever self-study can offer me and I'll just have to take the language in school if I want to go any further.

[TheB0a]

Will there still be people posting on this thread though ?

[LeoXiao]

Ask a question, and see if it gets a response, is all I can say.

[warita]

Sure why not. I am kind of an expert on self study, hahaha

But it is like LeoXiao said, you dont really get very far this way, you have to understand that.

[TheB0a]

I don't intend to. Just little lessons and the such I would appreciate. I stopped reading at paaage 5 maybe ? Just a bit past the part where a couple of users just started bashing. What I would like to learn are just simple things for now. Such as time, dates, short sentences, questions, etc.

[LeoXiao]

Sure why not. I am kind of an expert on self study, hahaha

But it is like LeoXiao said, you dont really get very far this way, you have to understand that.

Now it's not so much that self-study really can't get you anywhere*, but that at least for me, after a certain point it just becomes hard to keep yourself sufficiently motivated. I don't know why but having a teacher with regular classes seems to intrinsically allow me to learn languages much more effectively.

*= There is, of course, the time-honoured method of taking a Japanese textbook, trekking into the mountains, and dedicating yourself to every lesson in the volume before returning to civilization like a boss.

[LeoXiao]

I don't intend to. Just little lessons and the such I would appreciate. I stopped reading at paaage 5 maybe ? Just a bit past the part where a couple of users just started bashing. What I would like to learn are just simple things for now. Such as time, dates, short sentences, questions, etc.
There are decent sites and audio lessons that can help you with this.
Case in point: http://www.freejapaneselessons.com/lesson01.cfm
I used this a few years back and in conjunction with watching too much anime it seemed to make some sense. Read the first few lessons, learn the hiragana and katakana, and then when you watch anime, watch it subbed and try to figure out and and get an ear for the way they build sentences. A great thing about Japanese is that the sounds are very simple and thus easy to hear correctly.

Once you've gotten the basic pronouns and sentence structure memorized, make a point of thinking "how would that sentence be structured in Japanese?" whenever you think of something in English. This helps embed the workings of the language in your brain.
As for learning the alphabets, there being 50 symbols in each alphabet to learn looks difficult, but remember them in order (a i u e o, ka ki ku ke ko, etc) and rewrite them over and over again like crazy and you'll get it eventually. I used to take a sheet of lined paper, divide it into fifteen rectangles, and write the alphabet fifteen times, and then repeat the same process on the other side. I found that I didn't have to even fill the whole page before I could do it without mistakes.

Kanji, which is quite important, is a measure more difficult since you have to just memorize each character. But it's the kind of thing that you should honestly avoid learning until you've mastered the basics of the spoken language and the hiragana/katakana. Kanji is most important for nouns and verbs, especially more intellectual ones. You would write "sakana" (fish) as either さかな (hiragana) or 魚 (Kanji), but things like "Shogun" (general) or "hiragana" would probably always be written in Kanji ("將軍" and "平假名", respectively).

In addition to the above link I gave you, it would probably help a lot to get a set of audio lessons. Try "Pimsleur Japanese (90 half-hour courses)" or "Human Japanese" (a language software), I've looked at both and and they seem decent.

That's all for now. If you have complicated questions, ask someone who's actually Japanese. ;)

[warita]

In addition to the above link I gave you, it would probably help a lot to get a set of audio lessons. Try "Pimsleur Japanese (90 half-hour courses)" or "Human Japanese" (a language software), I've looked at both and and they seem decent.

I tried Pimsleurs, thats pretty decent I must say. My only critisism on that is, it teaches an overly formal form of japanese..... thats a problem you encounter in all books too. I personally find this a bit useless, because normal street japanese doesnt use this form.

[LeoXiao]

I tried Pimsleurs, thats pretty decent I must say. My only critisism on that is, it teaches an overly formal form of japanese..... thats a problem you encounter in all books too. I personally find this a bit useless, because normal street japanese doesnt use this form.
I noticed that it teaches the "polite" form and doesn't go at all into casual, but it's good for teaching the basics in terms of structure and anyhow if you want to learn the casual stuff the watching a crapload of anime will certainly do the trick.

[chikorita157]

I noticed that it teaches the "polite" form and doesn't go at all into casual, but it's good for teaching the basics in terms of structure and anyhow if you want to learn the casual stuff the watching a crapload of anime will certainly do the trick.

Actually, Kim's Guide to Learning Japanese (http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/) teaches the short forms (also puts more emphasis on it too while teaching the polite forms). Also, a few textbooks like Genki series also covers this as well along with other usages.

[Yu Ominae]

I went to one of the universities you mentioned :)

I would have to say though, why go to Kansai Gaidai and pick up Kansai-ben when you can immerse yourself in standard Japanese in Tokyo...
Tokyo Gaidai can be an alternative if you prefer public schools.

ICU and Sophia have very good Japanese courses because they not only accept Exchange students, but a large part of their regular students grew up overseas etc and do not have very strong japanese skills.

Waseda, Keio and Ritsumeikan are all great schools, and no doubt have good language programs but their main target seems to be the Japanese students. Of course they are international too, but not as international as ICU and Sophia, maybe.

Location wise, if you want to enjoy Tokyo without commuting for hours on a train, stick to Sophia, Keio, Waseda and Ritsumeikan.
Waseda and Sophia central tokyo, Keio can be different depending on the campus, ritsumeikan, I forgot where they are...
ICU and Tokyo Gaidai is on the fringe on Tokyo, and not very convinient...

I probably will stick to Tokyo, so it is nice to get some suggestions on probably where to check out first.

[word sux]

I am using Tae Kim's guide right now just to get started. Its pretty good, I am copying the Hiragana over and over for a line while pronouncing it aloud. Just finished the vowels.


I am going to make up some flash cards so I can quiz myself

[Alchemist007]

Flash cards are your best friends. After trying some techniques out myself (after my lovely Japanese The Written Language ran out of kanji to teach me), I'm just reading this other book filled with tons of Kanji and making flash cards out of every new one I encounter. I then look them up here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_kanji_by_stroke_count) (which is simple because the book gives the kana on top of the new kanji it introduces). And I add it to my flash card collection (the new book is this (http://www.amazon.com/Living-Japanese-Diversity-Lifestyles-Conversations/dp/030010958X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331403768&sr=8-1), btw, also includes listening practice with that cd).

[word sux]

would it be wise to get down hiragana first as well as concentrating on the spoken language then once I have a better grasp on the hiragana and spoken language then move on to the katakana and kanji??

It seems to try and learn all three syllabus's before having a better grasp on the language itself would just be confusing and take longer. I am hesitant to use the "romaji" because I want my brain to associate the sounds and words with the kana.

would it be better to just get the spoken language down first to at least a basic level then start to incorporate the written language like you do when your a little kid? You learn to speak before you learn to write as a child so would it be logical to learn how to speak the language first??


man its hard learning a language from scratch..

[Seitsuki]

Hey there everyone

Over the past few years I've been dipping in and out as a translator. It's alright, I can get stuff done at a reasonable pace, but recently after trying to scanlate a manga one major glaring inconsistency has been thrown into focus: my kanji.

Basically all my work earlier was based off txt files, whether VN or LN; if I didn't recognise something I could just throw it into a translator. For that chaper I spent far too long agonisingly searching up phrases and turning what should have been a few minutes work into hours. It was not enjoyable.

So my question is, what ways do you guys have to learn kanji? Not looking for a quick fix solution, I know that's not how languages work. I'm also willing to spend funds for textbooks or whatever. Just need something that *works*. Ok well, everything works eventually, so maybe what I mean is.. something that works fast? But not expecting it to be that fast. Oh you know what I mean.

Thanks for reading~

[Aoie_Emesai]

I used www.amazon.com/dp/4789009637 and it has worked well for me so far. (and the work book) I've known so many people trying to learn the language and if you cannot at least partially dedicate yourself to learning grammar and the kanji it's almost pointless. But of course my goal is to be able to write, read and speak it.

[word sux]

I just downloaded the pimsleur cd's to my mp3 player. going to start working on basic conversation and pronunciation on my way to work and back

[Alchemist007]

So my question is, what ways do you guys have to learn kanji? Not looking for a quick fix solution, I know that's not how languages work. I'm also willing to spend funds for textbooks or whatever. Just need something that *works*. Ok well, everything works eventually, so maybe what I mean is.. something that works fast? But not expecting it to be that fast. Oh you know what I mean.

Thanks for reading~
A classroom and/or teacher imo is the best starting path for the language in general. By the end of it, you should at least come away with habits for continued learning. Other than that, I recommend reading my last post here.

[Miko Miko]

HEY GAIIZ.

How effective is a conversation class? It's a 4 year thing, like uni, but it only covers the speaking side of things I believe. I don't think you learn things like reading and writing. :(

I can't afford uni though, that's the huge difference. I also don't have the right qualifications, so I'm counting on this to learn Japanese.

How effective is it?
Will they teach at least Hiragana and/or Katakana?
What will be my level by the time I finish it? - Like will I be able to hold a PROPER conversation whether it be over the phone, or in person about literally anything. Or will their be huge chunks missing like language lessons when I was at school. :(

[Alchemist007]

I can't say I know what that really is, but I would think they would at least point you in the right direction in getting to learn the written language, resources and stuff. I'd say go for it, at least you'd have something.

I'd at least recommend doing the reading/writing on your own if they don't offer anything. That way you have physical associations with the things you hear.

[warita]

A classroom and/or teacher imo is the best starting path for the language in general. By the end of it, you should at least come away with habits for continued learning. Other than that, I recommend reading my last post here.

For most people this is true, because they lack the necessary self discipline to study as they should. So they need a teacher, who will go through the exercises with them, give them homework and check whether they did it or not. It is simply a lot harder to be lazy, if you have somebody behind you making sure you study. Also, if you already paid for the courses, they it would be a waste to drop it, so that is an additional motivation.

If you however can force yourself to be motivated and study every day for lets say one hour, then self study is actually far more efficient way of learning a language.

I know this, because I learned english and spanish on my own. Especially spanish is my hobby and I managed to master the language in half a year. Admittedly, I invested a lot of time into it, I studied 2h every day and dedicated it a good part of the weekend. And thats pretty good for a person, who is not language talented.

[Alchemist007]

Did you consider that you are language talented? :heh:

[warita]

Did you consider that you are language talented? :heh:
Considering how extremely hard it is for me to learn another language, I would say I am not.

it isnt just a subjective feeling. I had plenty of comparisson in my school during language classes. Other people seem to pick it up relatively easy, I was sweating blood and failing in english year after year, until I decided to change that (mainly because my english teacher called my english a train wreck and said, that if I wont do something about it, he will have to give me a failing mark the following year).

Also, my brother and sister learn languages surprisingly easy too... how much I envy them, sigh.... they come after father in this respect.... and I after mother, who has never managed to learn a second language. Some people are just really bad with languages and they have to invest inhuman effort into learning it.

[ranran]

If you however can force yourself to be motivated and study every day for lets say one hour, then self study is actually far more efficient way of learning a language.

This I agree with. Its easier to learn a language, in this case Japanese, while doing it together with something that you love at the same time.
In my personal experience, I have taken 4 years of Japanese classes. But even with how long I've taken the class, I still can't confidently say that I became good at it.
I still suck at reading (God help me the kanji ;___; ) though I can have conversation in japanese just fine.

But after the classes ends, I ended up continuing to study Japanese all by myself to save money, by watching raw anime/dorama/concert, listening to seiyuu radio and reading raw manga/doujins, and to my surprise I feel that my skills grew quicker compared to back when I took classes. Its sad to know that, but at the same time it motivates me to keep on learning. Just little by little, day by day.

It's a struggle, but everything will be worth it in the end. Especially when you watch something and youre able to laugh and understand the jokes without the help of the subs.
You will be proud of yourself at that moment :D

[Qikz]

This I agree with. Its easier to learn a language, in this case Japanese, while doing it together with something that you love at the same time.
In my personal experience, I have taken 4 years of Japanese classes. But even with how long I've taken the class, I still can't confidently say that I became good at it.
I still suck at reading (God help me the kanji ;___; ) though I can have conversation in japanese just fine.

But after the classes ends, I ended up continuing to study Japanese all by myself to save money, by watching raw anime/dorama/concert, listening to seiyuu radio and reading raw manga/doujins, and to my surprise I feel that my skills grew quicker compared to back when I took classes. Its sad to know that, but at the same time it motivates me to keep on learning. Just little by little, day by day.

It's a struggle, but everything will be worth it in the end. Especially when you watch something and youre able to laugh and understand the jokes without the help of the subs.
You will be proud of yourself at that moment :D

To extend on what you said, I never took any classes and started learning by myself, add playing games onto that and it's pretty much how I've learnt until now (I'm a third year student just I think). I found it much easier to learn while doing things I love and my skills grew much quicker than I thought they would.

[The Wild Turkey]

Hi

Hope its okay to ask this here instead of starting a new thread, but could someone please do a quick check on an email I'm about to send to my (Japanese) girlfriends father? I'm going to propose to her next weekend, but wanted to get his blessing first. I'm not particularly worried about him saying no as I know he is quite happy with me (in large part due to us both being in the same line of work) but thought it best to at least inform him first.

Anyway, if I've made any mistakes, could someone please let me know? I'm keeping it in hiiragana as that's all I really know at this point.

おはようございます。

わたしのわるいにほんごごめん。

[her name]わとつぐおきょかしてください

And in Romanji:

Ohayougozaimasu.

Watashino warui nihongo gomen.

[her name] wa totsugu o kyoka shite kudasai

Hope that's clear enough. :heh:

[Mystique]

Hi

Hope its okay to ask this here instead of starting a new thread, but could someone please do a quick check on an email I'm about to send to my (Japanese) girlfriends father? I'm going to propose to her next weekend, but wanted to get his blessing first. I'm not particularly worried about him saying no as I know he is quite happy with me (in large part due to us both being in the same line of work) but thought it best to at least inform him first.

Anyway, if I've made any mistakes, could someone please let me know? I'm keeping it in hiiragana as that's all I really know at this point.

おはようございます。

わたしのわるいにほんごごめん。

[her name]わとつぐおきょかしてください

And in Romanji:

Ohayougozaimasu.

Watashino warui nihongo gomen.

[her name] wa totsugu o kyoka shite kudasai

Hope that's clear enough. :heh:

This should be in the 'translate this' thread, for starters and um..
I don't know how close you are with the father but the entire thing needs re writing :heh:

Watashino warui nihongo gomen.
The nuance of this would be like 'I've still got a long way to go with my Japanese but please bear with me'
日本語はまだまだのことすみません。

Not sure what you wanna say in the 2nd part :upset:
突然すみませんが[name]とプロポーサルしたいと思っていますのでプロポーサルする前許可を願いたいと思います。

Even then, this would be done in super keigo and asking for someone's permission wouldn't go in the English way of saying
'Id like to ask your permission for your daughters hand's in marriage'

But something like
'Could you do me the great favour of allowing me to marry your daughter'
It'd be written in the passive form in Japanese.

Anyways, I'm sure one of the natives or fluent lot will pop on here and write you something lovely, so wait a while but requests like this go in the 'translate this' thread.

All the best with the proposal ;)

[The Wild Turkey]

Oops, I didn't realize there was a 'translate this' thread. If it belongs there better, could it please be moved?

[Urzu 7]

I read that there is the female name "Ruri" and the male form "Ru-ri". Would you pronounce the two differently? How would you pronounce the two? Also, would a male person with the name "Ru-ri" just write it as "Ruri" in most instances (when writing their name in English)?

[Kizoku Keenan]

can anyone recommend a great app for iphone or macs that can teach you japanese or specifically kanji? I mostly use my language coach for Nintendo DS but it only teaches you hiragana & katakana.

[Zakoo]

Hey guys, how do you do when you meet for the first time a new kanji? Totally no-existant so far, do you have a website with easy search or something?

[larethian]

Hey guys, how do you do when you meet for the first time a new kanji? Totally no-existant so far, do you have a website with easy search or something?

I say 'Hi' to it, but maybe you want to post the kanji.

[Solafighter]

I got pretty much all Hiragana in my head in recognising and writing. Can someone recommend me some sides, where i can do some practise reading? To get better into the fluent reading by doing it, doing it, doing it and doing it. Thanks! :)

[Zakoo]

I say 'Hi' to it, but maybe you want to post the kanji.

It's in general you see, i'm reading VN and I meet a lot of news kanji, I don't know their meaning, and of course I could search with the sound but when it's something alonside the sound "ha", I don't feel like going on a dictionnary and searching all kanjis that do this sound.

And if I could copy it, I would gladly and simply go on a translator seeing its sense, but I don't find the way to copy a kanji from a VN and thus can't even post them here to ask.

SO I wondered if there was a website that allows you to search them, based on general and recurent "graphical design", see what I mean?

[larethian]

It's in general you see, i'm reading VN and I meet a lot of news kanji, I don't know their meaning, and of course I could search with the sound but when it's something alonside the sound "ha", I don't feel like going on a dictionnary and searching all kanjis that do this sound.

And if I could copy it, I would gladly and simply go on a translator seeing its sense, but I don't find the way to copy a kanji from a VN and thus can't even post them here to ask.

SO I wondered if there was a website that allows you to search them, based on general and recurent "graphical design", see what I mean?

Generally, you can use any site that supports multiple radical search. To do this, you have to learn the radical strokes of kanji, and you identify the radicals, which are categorized by the number of strokes, and select them.

Try this: http://jisho.org/kanji/radicals/

But you can screen-cap it and post it if you want.

[O.D.]

@Zakoo: If you have Japanese locale installed you can just use the handwriting (or better said mousewriting) recognition utility that comes with IME.

Open up the language bar, go to IMEパッド -> 手書き, write the character that you don't know (using the correct stroke order), check up on the list to the right to see if your character was found and then insert the said character into your favourite dictionary.

Simple, right?

[Zakoo]

Oho nice one for the IME; I didn't know, thanks for the website too, it helps a lot.

[Zakoo]

Hello guys, again in need of you. Just a grammar basic I don't manage to get.

顔見られてる

The sentence was translated as "She's looking at me", but I don't understand why, the form -rareru is used for passive or ability, but in this example there's the -teru after, what does that mean?

My hypothesis was that since there's kao in front, the words to words translation would be "my face is being looked at" ( obviously it's ugly to put it this way but am I getting this right?) since there's the passive form + the form in "teru" which means the duration (a way of writing -te+iru faster?)

Thanks in advance.

[Seitsuki]

Yep, that would be the literal TL. A more natural way of expression would probably be something along the lines of 'I'm being looked at'. 'Teiru' generally means 'currently (doing)' to clarify tense as the plain form alone is rather ambiguous. As an irregular verb the potential of 見る is 見える/見えられる so you can be sure it's the passive form here.

It's still pretty much the same meaning as what they've TLed it as. So long as there are no real inaccuracies, I don't believe being literal is terribly good English in many cases (the grammar and syntax are just fundamentally different).

[Avatar of Dreams]

My hypothesis was that since there's kao in front, the words to words translation would be "my face is being looked at" ( obviously it's ugly to put it this way but am I getting this right?) since there's the passive form + the form in "teru" which means the duration (a way of writing -te+iru faster?)

Yes, writing/saying "teru" is shorthand for "te iru" as they sound very similar so you can slur it in casual conversation. The meaning is the same. This actually occurs with many "te+verb" forms such as "te+iku" = "teku" or "te+oku" = "toku"

As an irregular verb the potential of 見る is 見える/見えられる so you can be sure it's the passive form here.
This is misleading. The potential form of 見る is the same as its passive form, 見られる. 見える is a verb that is extremely similar to 見られる and can be used interchangeably in many cases. They are however not always equivalent in meaning. 聞ける and 聞こえる are in a similar vein.

見えられる is not used as a potential verb as you are trying to attach the potential ending to what is already essentially a potential verb. It can be used with a completely different meaning in polite Japanese but I will not go into that.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Isn't 見える more for stuff which can be viewed with minimal effort with a similar nuance to *something coming into view* while 見られる implies a certain effort needed before that something can be seen? Same with 聞ける and 聞こえる. I wasn't aware they were interchangeable...

[Zakoo]

Thanks to everybody, I will come again if I need help, I'm finally at the end of JPLT 3. So it's time I put the kanji on the side and enter the gramatical woorld.

[Seitsuki]

I.. don't know. They TL close enough for me so I think of them the same. Now that I think about it though my teacher may have said something along those lines.. but.. orz

[Cosmic Eagle]

Yeah for rendering into english puposes it's usually interchangeable...but because of that nuance, well, sometimes a different word choice in translating may be appropriate. And usage-wise...Like I said, I've never seen them used in situations where the other would fit...

[Avatar of Dreams]

Isn't 見える more for stuff which can be viewed with minimal effort with a similar nuance to *something coming into view* while 見られる implies a certain effort needed before that something can be seen? Same with 聞ける and 聞こえる. I wasn't aware they were interchangeable...

Perhaps 'interchangeable' is too strong a word. Yes, 見られる only implies that there is the possibility of "seeing", perhaps requiring some form of effort, while 見える denotes the spontaneous notion of something being visible. I was merely implying that there are situations where the use of one word over the other will not have a drastic change to the meaning of a sentence. For example, when the "effort" relating to 見られる is merely the action of turning your head in the right direction which in case the word choice will depend on the speaker's perspective.

[Cosmic Eagle]

I see...that's actually more subjective than I imagined...

[erneiz_hyde]

When Working! aired, I didn't really pay attention to why the cross-dressing Souta was nicknamed "Kotori". So I recently saw the kanji of Takanashi Rikka from this season's chuu2koi. I was perplexed that in her family name (小鳥飛) none of the kanji used can be read remotely as "Takanashi", but I can certainly see the "Kotori"
(小鳥) in there.

Turns out, 小鳥飛 => 小鳥が飛ぶ (the small bird flies). Which means its enemy, the hawk/falcon isn't around (鷹無し) => たかなし (Takanashi).

Are there any more names that is read uniquely like this?

[JINNSK]

Are there any more names that is read uniquely like this?九(Ichijiku)
四月朔日(Watanuki)
八月朔日(Hozumi)
月美里(Yamanashi)

[Avatar of Dreams]

When it comes to names, readings tend to be a little...flexible.

I believe that particular character's name is written 「小鳥遊」(well, according to wikipedia and the official website), though Takanashi can be written both ways. You are correct on its nuance though.

And I'll explain the meanings of the names JINNSK posted:
九（いちじく）＝一字で九 = Literally "nine" with one character
四月朔日, also 四月一日（わたぬき）＝綿を抜く＝The written name literally means April 1st while the reading means 'to take the cotton out' (of your clothes). This is a reference to the old days where people would take out the cotton that was padding their clothes because the weather gets warmer in Spring.
八月朔日, also 八月一日（ほづみ）＝穂を摘む = August 1st/ 'Pluck the ear of plants' (of wheat and such) because August is harvest season.
月美里, also 月見里（やまなし）＝山がない＝Name means 'the town where the moon is beautiful/visible' while the reading means 'no mountain' (so nothing blocks the moon).

Personally I would never name a child these names, but to each his own.

[erneiz_hyde]

Interesting...How common are these names in Japan really, and how long have they been in use? Is there a "name" for this kind of readings? (like "the 4-character idioms" or something like that). This reminds me how R07 wrote 「ばとら」(Battler) as 「戦人」 in Umineko, the lone difference where everyone else uses ateji.

[Zakoo]

Hue hue hue me again.

So well as always grammar, my weak point, french is totally different than japenese, nah actually I'm bad at french grammar too so whatever.

The word　から can be used to show either the causis (after verb or adjective) or the point of beginning (after a noun), fine I understand this.

but let's take this sentence :

聞くだけわ聞いてあげるからいってみなさいよ

I understand it as "Fine if it's only listening, I'm going to listen to you so ask me."

Context is a brother asking a request... I guess?

I can not see the word kara here being used as a causis, yet its after a verb. am I getting this wrong?

[Cosmic Eagle]

Errm....I don't really understand proper terms for grammar but to me, the kara here is acting as denoting a reason for something

I would translate as

If it's only listening, I'll listen, so ask away.

He's saying to ask because he'll listen

And the wa particle is mistyped btw


I may be wrong though, just saying first....

[Avatar of Dreams]

^This is correct.

A から B
B because A
Basically 'ask/tell me because I'll listen'.

Interesting...How common are these names in Japan really, and how long have they been in use? Is there a "name" for this kind of readings? (like "the 4-character idioms" or something like that). This reminds me how R07 wrote 「ばとら」(Battler) as 「戦人」 in Umineko, the lone difference where everyone else uses ateji.
Common? No. In use? Yes. For how long? My knowledge of Japanese history does not extend long enough for me to really know.

I am not aware of any special designation given to these names. I suppose they are a form of 'wordplay' (言葉遊び）but I can't think of anything more specific than that.

[Zakoo]

I see .. thank to both of you.

Honestly what a weird way of putting it but that's what make different language so interesting.

I will be back.

[Cosmic Eagle]

It's not weird.....The thing before the kara is the reason. This one here may look complicated to newcomers to the language because 聞くだけは聞いてあげる may seem long but it helps if you mentally break that up into parts

聞くだけは聞いてあげる

The red elaborates on the blue (as in "I'll listen" further elaborates on "as it's just listening") but the whole thing serves as the reason.

[Alchemist007]

Really, you just need to do some more reading, it helps to digest a lot of concepts. A good book will give you many examples and translations to get it (useful for basics).

[larethian]

When Working! aired, I didn't really pay attention to why the cross-dressing Souta was nicknamed "Kotori". So I recently saw the kanji of Takanashi Rikka from this season's chuu2koi. I was perplexed that in her family name (小鳥飛) none of the kanji used can be read remotely as "Takanashi", but I can certainly see the "Kotori"
(小鳥) in there.

Turns out, 小鳥飛 => 小鳥が飛ぶ (the small bird flies). Which means its enemy, the hawk/falcon isn't around (鷹無し) => たかなし (Takanashi).

Are there any more names that is read uniquely like this?

To find out whether a family name exists in reality and how it's read, you can use this:
http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~suzakihp/index40.html

[Lawfer]

I dont have an Ipad or a mac, so what is the best paying software for windows?

[NK141]

You might also want to consider getting a tutor that way you can make sure that your pronunciation etc. is correct or acceptable. I find it is alot easier learning from someone face to face so they can give their perspective and pointers as well than just listening to audio and books from software. But whatever works for you better in ways of learning is always the best method. :)

[Lawfer]

You might also want to consider getting a tutor that way you can make sure that your pronunciation etc. is correct or acceptable. I found it is alot easier learning from someone face to face so they can give their perspective and pointers as well than just listening to audio and books from software. But whatever works for you better in ways of learning is always the best method. :)

I live in a tiny village inside of a small city, the people in this country are pretty much unilaterally monolingual and they suck at teaching easy fellow indo-european languages like english, just to give you an example would you recommend a guy from Malta or Bosnia-Herzegovina to get a tutor in japanese?

[Lawfer]

Also I want to mention, I now have lots of free time and I can finally concentrate 100 percent on learning japanese, so I dont care if it takes 2 or 3 years to learn it, I wanted to learn it for 15 years now but never had the time available to be able to dedicate myself unto learning that complicated language. I just need to find a good software that teaches japanese... I looked on amazon and there is Rosetta Stone, Transparent Japanese, Human Japanese etc. I have no idea which one I should get though.

[jcdietz03]

japaneselevelup.com (http://japaneselevelup.com)

Delete if this is considered an ad. There are some articles on there like: "Are you really sure you want to learn Japanese?" that you should read before doing anything else.

Your first step is to learn hiragana. There are many sites available. I liked (and learned from) thejapanesepage.com (http://thejapanesepage.com).

English is hard to pronounce compared to Japanese (at least "standard Japanese," i.e., Tokyo dialect). If you natively speak English then you don't need pronunciation help. Not sure about other languages.
What makes Japanese hard is kanji. Literally everything else about Japanese is dead simple. I think Japanese grammar is much simpler than English grammar and I'm a native English speaker. I can't be the only one who thinks this.

You will of course run into some of the same problems when you learn any language like proverbs.

The software you need to learn Japanese is Anki (google it) and it's free.

[Kudryavka]

japaneselevelup.com (http://japaneselevelup.com)

Delete if this is considered an ad. There are some articles on there like: "Are you really sure you want to learn Japanese?" that you should read before doing anything else.

Your first step is to learn hiragana. There are many sites available. I liked (and learned from) thejapanesepage.com (http://thejapanesepage.com).

English is hard to pronounce compared to Japanese (at least "standard Japanese," i.e., Tokyo dialect). If you natively speak English then you don't need pronunciation help. Not sure about other languages.
What makes Japanese hard is kanji. Literally everything else about Japanese is dead simple. I think Japanese grammar is much simpler than English grammar and I'm a native English speaker. I can't be the only one who thinks this.

You will of course run into some of the same problems when you learn any language like proverbs.

The software you need to learn Japanese is Anki (google it) and it's free.
I also feel this way. For a native English speaker, the only really hard part of Japanese for me is writing. Grammar is somewhat simple compared to English (not way simple like Mandarin, but still more simple).

[GenjiChan]

I also feel this way. For a native English speaker, the only really hard part of Japanese for me is writing. Grammar is somewhat simple compared to English (not way simple like Mandarin, but still more simple).

True.... Writing in hiragana then katakana then kanji....:uhoh:

[LeoXiao]

When I read Japanese, I
- Look at the kanjis for meaning. In this phase the kana just looks like scribbles in comparison.
- look for grammatical particles in the hiragana, as well as nouns that weren't written in kanji
- look at the katakana and try to figure out what it says.
- scratch my head over kanji that I am unfamiliar with (i.e. the usage is different from Chinese or it got simplified out of recognition)
- put the whole thing through google translate if it still isn't clear :)

basically I am not reading it so much as deciphering it. In a weird way the kanji are my best friend and worst enemy, while the katakana are just annoying.

I like hiragana because they are easy to tell apart, but I wish Japanese was more like Korean where the words were more compact so that it would be easier to tell nouns/verbs/adjectives apart from supporting words. When reading hiragana I can't help but think that a bunch of space is being wasted. I think it would be best if the Japanese would only use kanji for on-yomi and hiragana for kun-yomi (because having more than one syllable per character is really confusing), but they will probably do it only when my proposal that the Chinese start using the zhuyin phonetic for loanwords is adopted, i.e. never.

[erneiz_hyde]

basically I am not reading it so much as deciphering it. In a weird way the kanji are my best friend and worst enemy, while the katakana are just annoying.


Agreed. Often, I can guess what a sentence says without actually knowing how to read it, if it has kanjis that I know of. Katakana and hiragana are just as annoying for me if a sentence consist wholly of them.

[Kudryavka]

When I read Japanese, I
- Look at the kanjis for meaning. In this phase the kana just looks like scribbles in comparison.
- look for grammatical particles in the hiragana, as well as nouns that weren't written in kanji
- look at the katakana and try to figure out what it says.
- scratch my head over kanji that I am unfamiliar with (i.e. the usage is different from Chinese or it got simplified out of recognition)
- put the whole thing through google translate if it still isn't clear :)

basically I am not reading it so much as deciphering it. In a weird way the kanji are my best friend and worst enemy, while the katakana are just annoying.

I like hiragana because they are easy to tell apart, but I wish Japanese was more like Korean where the words were more compact so that it would be easier to tell nouns/verbs/adjectives apart from supporting words. When reading hiragana I can't help but think that a bunch of space is being wasted. I think it would be best if the Japanese would only use kanji for on-yomi and hiragana for kun-yomi (because having more than one syllable per character is really confusing), but they will probably do it only when my proposal that the Chinese start using the zhuyin phonetic for loanwords is adopted, i.e. never.

That is what happens when you force a cube into a circle hole, forcing the hanzi to fit the syllables and nuances of the totally unrelated Japanese language, which is not similar to any Chinese language at all. A lot of ways they use kanji are counterproductive and make no sense, like multiple syllables per kanji or more than one reading per kanji...

[erneiz_hyde]

That is what happens when you force a cube into a circle hole, forcing the hanzi to fit the syllables and nuances of the totally unrelated Japanese language, which is not similar to any Chinese language at all. A lot of ways they use kanji are counterproductive and stupid and make no sense, like multiple syllables per kanji or more than one reading per kanji...
Hmm, peculiar...Japanese is the third language I learned and I have no knowledge of any kind of Chinese before so the Japanese use of kanji never really strike me as "strange". Though if I remember right, doesn't Chinese use multiple syllables per character as well?

[Kudryavka]

Hmm, peculiar...Japanese is the third language I learned and I have no knowledge of any kind of Chinese before so the Japanese use of kanji never really strike me as "strange". Though if I remember right, doesn't Chinese use multiple syllables per character as well?

No, the vast majority have only one syllable per Chinese language. So reading Chinese is very very straightforward and simple if you know the characters.

[hyl]

Hmm, peculiar...Japanese is the third language I learned and I have no knowledge of any kind of Chinese before so the Japanese use of kanji never really strike me as "strange". Though if I remember right, doesn't Chinese use multiple syllables per character as well?

Some characters have multiple meanings in Chinese as well. But I never think it was strange seeing that even in the English language the same words can have multiple meanings as well.

[Cosmic Eagle]

When I read Japanese, I
- Look at the kanjis for meaning. In this phase the kana just looks like scribbles in comparison.
- look for grammatical particles in the hiragana, as well as nouns that weren't written in kanji
- look at the katakana and try to figure out what it says.
- scratch my head over kanji that I am unfamiliar with (i.e. the usage is different from Chinese or it got simplified out of recognition)
- put the whole thing through google translate if it still isn't clear :)

basically I am not reading it so much as deciphering it. In a weird way the kanji are my best friend and worst enemy, while the katakana are just annoying.

I like hiragana because they are easy to tell apart, but I wish Japanese was more like Korean where the words were more compact so that it would be easier to tell nouns/verbs/adjectives apart from supporting words. When reading hiragana I can't help but think that a bunch of space is being wasted. I think it would be best if the Japanese would only use kanji for on-yomi and hiragana for kun-yomi (because having more than one syllable per character is really confusing), but they will probably do it only when my proposal that the Chinese start using the zhuyin phonetic for loanwords is adopted, i.e. never.

Ugh...no way. Japanese grammar with pure kanji is a nightmare I don't ever want to face. And I'm speaking as someone who is racially Chinese...

A different sound has so many different meaning differences, Japanese grammar is closer related to a phonetic language than a symbol based one like Chinese

At this stage you just need to do it more often and with greater immersion including other aspects like listening and writing (ideally speaking too but yeah..chances for that are hard unless you are in Japan). "Deciphering" would then become so natural once you are familiar enough with the grammar and vocab that it would become proper reading soon enough

[LeoXiao]

That is what happens when you force a cube into a circle hole, forcing the hanzi to fit the syllables and nuances of the totally unrelated Japanese language, which is not similar to any Chinese language at all. A lot of ways they use kanji are counterproductive and make no sense, like multiple syllables per kanji or more than one reading per kanji...
"Totally unrelated"? The kanji at the worst have different cultural references behind them like "面白" is literally "white face" but in Japanese it means "interesting" (from theater makeup), but once you learn the reasoning it makes sense. There are also some characters that don't appear so often in Chinese (mostly in classical texts), like 逢 (to run into) but are common in Japanese. This isn't "counterproductive", it's just a matter of localization. If anything it is the Japanese themselves trying to fit the cube into the circle hole with things like かみかぜ (kamikaze) for 神風 instead of "shin-fuu" (which I imagine it would be in on-yomi), which is why I suggest that they might use hiragana for anything that isn't in on-yomi form.

Ugh...no way. Japanese grammar with pure kanji is a nightmare I don't ever want to face. And I'm speaking as someone who is racially Chinese...
Oh no, the grammar should certainly remain in hiragana, otherwise it would just be classical Chinese with Japanese readings. :heh: What I don't like is when non-grammar words are written in hiragana, or worse, katakana.

Katakana is the worst part about Japanese. Even when it is "English", it is often a bitch to figure it out. Take the word 加速度 (acceleration), for instance. If I see that I go "ah, kasoku-dou" and carry on. Now let's say some scientist spent too much time in the States and decided to write アックセラレシオン (akkuserareshion), I do not see the word, instead my brain explodes. Disregarding the fact that 加速度 takes only three spaces to write while that thing needs ten, it is also harder to read. If I encountered that word out of the blue I would probably spend more than a minute at least figuring it out. What's worse, you can't just pronounce "acceleration" the correct English way or else they won't understand you, you have to add the mistakes to make it "Japanese". I know the Japanese themselves find this sort of thing rather trendy but it's a real pain to try to learn it.

[Kudryavka]

"Totally unrelated"? The kanji at the worst have different cultural references behind them like "面白" is literally "white face" but in Japanese it means "interesting" (from theater makeup), but once you learn the reasoning it makes sense. There are also some characters that don't appear so often in Chinese (mostly in classical texts), like 逢 (to run into) but are common in Japanese. This isn't "counterproductive", it's just a matter of localization. If anything it is the Japanese themselves trying to fit the cube into the circle hole with things like かみかぜ (kamikaze) for 神風 instead of "shin-fuu" (which I imagine it would be in on-yomi), which is why I suggest that they might use hiragana for anything that isn't in on-yomi form.

I'm talking about the languages themselves, not the characters. Japanese is not related to Chinese, so kanji are used in ways strange to how they were originally meant to be used (and that make kanji harder to read than hanzi because of that).

For starters, Chinese (I'm talking Mandarin here, but the others are similar I'd assume) sentence order is SVO mostly, but Japanese is SOV. Japanese conjugates verbs all the time, but Chinese doesn't do so nearly as much except for past tense. And most notably, Japanese is in the Japonic language family, but the Chinese languages are in the Sinitic family, which is in the Sino-Tibetan family. Heck, you know more Chinese (and Japanese?) than me so you know the first two already I'm sure.

How are those two languages fundamentally similar at all??

[LeoXiao]

Oh, I thought you were talking about the function of the hanzi. The languages themselves are quite different.

[Kudryavka]

Yea, that's all I say. :meh:

[DonQuigleone]

Personally I find Characters to be clunky at best. It's not even a perfect system either, in Chinese the meaning of the characters often has no direct correlation to the meaning of the word, they're just put together in a quasi phonetic fashion. So you don't even get the benefit of people being able to read Chinese without being able to speak it.

Japanese should certainly have ditched characters in favour of Hiragana (much like Korea ditched Hanzi in favour of Han'gul).

Whether China should have done away with characters I don't know, but they certainly could have done a better job of reforming them when they went to the trouble of switching to "simplified" characters.

[LeoXiao]

You can't ditch characters unless you want to ditch most of the language's literary vocabulary. I'm not sure how the Koreans manage (my guess is a full-on vernacularization, but I've heard that Hanja are still used in some circumstances), but I know for a fact that Japanese is full of phrases that sound exactly the same but mean totally different things on account of the characters used. You see this kind of joke in anime and Jdramas quite a bit actually - someone will make a pun, usually based in a pair of some higher-level terms, that in normal usage would be written and read instead of spoken and heard.

Sure, characters take quite a bit of time to master, but the Chinese whose entire language is made of them seem to have no real trouble with it. There is the question of expedience - it is true that an English speaker is theoretically fully literate after second grade (in comparison to a Chinese who reaches the same level probably a couple years later) - I say, why bother? There is culture in the characters. You can still read the texts of the ancients even though the spoken language is now completely different. Using a phonetic system it would be impossible to understand their words as every tenth one would have the same reading. There is no hindrance other than to people used to alphabets complaining about the learning curve.

[Sumeragi]

You can't ditch characters unless you want to ditch most of the language's literary vocabulary. I'm not sure how the Koreans manage (my guess is a full-on vernacularization, but I've heard that Hanja are still used in some circumstances), but I know for a fact that Japanese is full of phrases that sound exactly the same but mean totally different things on account of the characters used. You see this kind of joke in anime and Jdramas quite a bit actually - someone will make a pun, usually based in a pair of some higher-level terms, that in normal usage would be written and read instead of spoken and heard.

The main difference between Japanese and Korean is that Korean uses only the sound of the character in regular speech, while Japanese has the difference with On'yomi and Kun'yomi. Taking 東 as an example:

Korean: 東 is read only as "Dong".
Japanese: 東 can be read as "Tou", "Higashi", and "Azuma".

[LeoXiao]

Wouldn't that make Korean work even less well than Japanese without characters, or do they have their own native word for "east"? There must be tons of different Hanja with the reading "Dong", which I imagine would complicate things if they all were written the same.

[Cosmic Eagle]

"Totally unrelated"? The kanji at the worst have different cultural references behind them like "面白" is literally "white face" but in Japanese it means "interesting" (from theater makeup), but once you learn the reasoning it makes sense. There are also some characters that don't appear so often in Chinese (mostly in classical texts), like 逢 (to run into) but are common in Japanese. This isn't "counterproductive", it's just a matter of localization. If anything it is the Japanese themselves trying to fit the cube into the circle hole with things like かみかぜ (kamikaze) for 神風 instead of "shin-fuu" (which I imagine it would be in on-yomi), which is why I suggest that they might use hiragana for anything that isn't in on-yomi form.

Oh no, the grammar should certainly remain in hiragana, otherwise it would just be classical Chinese with Japanese readings. :heh: What I don't like is when non-grammar words are written in hiragana, or worse, katakana.

Katakana is the worst part about Japanese. Even when it is "English", it is often a bitch to figure it out. Take the word 加速度 (acceleration), for instance. If I see that I go "ah, kasoku-dou" and carry on. Now let's say some scientist spent too much time in the States and decided to write アックセラレシオン (akkuserareshion), I do not see the word, instead my brain explodes. Disregarding the fact that 加速度 takes only three spaces to write while that thing needs ten, it is also harder to read. If I encountered that word out of the blue I would probably spend more than a minute at least figuring it out. What's worse, you can't just pronounce "acceleration" the correct English way or else they won't understand you, you have to add the mistakes to make it "Japanese". I know the Japanese themselves find this sort of thing rather trendy but it's a real pain to try to learn it.

Lol...actually, when you see it often enough, the freeze doesn't last more than a split second or so.

About Japanese readings for Chinese words...I rather they remain with kanji for everything. Imagine, would you rather see stuff like ikazuchi, tsurugi, yaoyorozu etc in kanji or the full thing spelt out in kana everytime

While most of the kanji they use are not common in Chinese, well...it IS a different language after all. And the similarities are still present between the characters

[Sumeragi]

It's called context. You know what word is being said by the context.

[LeoXiao]

Looking at a sample of Korean text, I see that some of the "characters" (yes yes I know they are actually phonetic clusters) are more complicated-looking than others. I guess these "big words" are the actual nouns, verbs, and adjectives as opposed to connectors and grammatical particles, so reading it shouldn't be too hard.

The problem with kana, it seems, is that they are all the same size, so it makes more sense to write 美しい ｔｈan spell the whole thing ( うつくしい) out. Not to mention the language has no spaces so god forbid it all be in kana.

[Alchemist007]

It's called context. You know what word is being said by the context.
This is what I used to think. Then you learn that there's a billion different ways to interpret "shin." Context can only go so far but with kanji you have a much higher rate of knowing what it means then and there. If you had nothing but kana for the writing system then believe me you'll have no idea what the hell is being talked about when it comes to sentences beyond the basics. Though the Japanese are aware of the craziness that is kanji, but they grow up with it so it's just a thousand times more difficult for foreigners. The Koreans eventually saw fit to break out of it, it's possible the Japanese may one day.

[Sumeragi]

It's not that simple. The complexity of Japanese in terms of On'yomi and Kun'yomi forces it to use Kanji regularly in order to completely relay ideas.

To consider Japanese as the equivalent of Korean is the thought of those who do not know both languages and focus only on superficial aspects. Korean always had the advantage that only the reading is read when Hanja is used. Japanese does not have that luxury short of a radical change in the language itself.

[LeoXiao]

I'm still not sure I understand why Japanese needs Kanji if Korean doesn't need Hanja based on the on'/kun'yomi logic. Whether you say "utsukushi/mi/bi/"etc. for what was once that one single character, what is the problem as long as there is context? It is like the two English suffixes "after-" and "post-", we don't need one word with those two different readings for different circumstances, so why does Japanese?

[Sumeragi]

Whether you say "utsukushi/mi/bi/"etc. for what was once that one single character

It was never "once that one single character". Japanese always split the same Kanji character into multiple readings, to the point its basically impossible to understand what a certain sentence is supposed to mean without having the Kanji. Heck, it's damn difficult for me to know what a sentence is supposed to mean when it's in pure Hiragana or Romanji. The massive differences from the start means that short of a complete renovation of the Japanese language, tradition and convention makes it impossible for Kanji to just go away.

As for spoken language: There's a reason why spoken language is far less complex and Kanji-oriented than written language.

[LeoXiao]

uh... would the reading of both 川 and 河 being かわ serve as a good example of what you mean?

EDIT:
Japanese always split the same Kanji character into multiple readings, to the point its basically impossible to understand what a certain sentence is supposed to mean without having the Kanji.
Waitwaitwait

What happened to the whole thing about "context"? If we're talking about water and a rod, it doesn't matter if I say "gyo" or "sakana", you still should get what I mean.

[Alchemist007]

To consider Japanese as the equivalent of Korean is the thought of those who do not know both languages and focus only on superficial aspects.
Languages evolve daily, Japanese is no exception. It'd certainly be a lot harder for the Japanese to do it (stop using kanji) but the fact that it's not static already (in both spoken and written forms) means that it's possible that they could drop Kanji one day. The likelyhood of which depends on how hard they want to try.

Obviously context is present when having a spoken conversation, not to mention nuances and speaking patterns. But the written language in only kana gets very confusing because of the many ways you could interpret any given set of hiragana characters. Context in that regard really only goes so far considering the sheer amount of dependency Japanese has in Kun and On'yomi not to mention how many words are in a language. Perhaps you might have to know and get used to how the language works before this really sinks in.

[DonQuigleone]

It was never "once that one single character". Japanese always split the same Kanji character into multiple readings, to the point its basically impossible to understand what a certain sentence is supposed to mean without having the Kanji. Heck, it's damn difficult for me to know what a sentence is supposed to mean when it's in pure Hiragana or Romanji. The massive differences from the start means that short of a complete renovation of the Japanese language, tradition and convention makes it impossible for Kanji to just go away.

As for spoken language: There's a reason why spoken language is far less complex and Kanji-oriented than written language.
Sounds to me like spoken Japanese and written Japanese are diverging. Written Japanese is so different from spoken Japanese that it has to be written in Kanji to be understandable. That written Japanese is different from the vernacular, surely must damage literacy?

A similar problem existed in Europe until quite recently as well, the primary written language was Latin (not a vernacular like English), which proved to be a great impediment to literacy.

Today written and spoken English are largely the same. You could speak in written English and be perfectly understood, and write in spoken English (minus filling words like ums or uhs) and be considered a proficient writer. (Of course English has different issues surrounding spelling, but even if spelling was reformed, English would not have a problem with homophones)

But in Japan if you spoke in written Japanese it sounds to me like you wouldn't be understood (heaven help those who try to sell book readings...), and I can gather that if you tried to write in a manner similar to spoken Japanese your writing would be judged inferior.

Sounds almost as absurd as that Shi poem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_Den).

[Cosmic Eagle]

uh... would the reading of both 川 and 河 being かわ serve as a good example of what you mean?

EDIT:

Waitwaitwait

What happened to the whole thing about "context"? If we're talking about water and a rod, it doesn't matter if I say "gyo" or "sakana", you still should get what I mean.

Uh huh...but in written language, imagine a book completely in kana. Then compare to with kanji

But in Japan if you spoke in written Japanese it sounds to me like you wouldn't be understood

You would but it's just that well, you don't write like the way people speak in 2ch (the way youth talk to each other normally) for a formal setting do you?

[LeoXiao]

Uh huh...but in written language, imagine a book completely in kana. Then compare to with kanji

But if Korean does it without issue, it should be fine right? I guess I'm just not understanding the argument for why having kun-yomi makes Japanese so much different from Korean...

(I am against abolishing kanji, I know what you mean by the "kana-only" nightmare)

[Cosmic Eagle]

Don't know a single drop of Korean but it's the way Japanese words are constructed. Kanji+kana= a word. That format. Then you consider due to the yomi there's so many ways of sounding. If you understand the pure kana issue then yeah...you got the main gist of the problem

[Magin]

Since it's been mentioned/stated a hundred or so times over about just how hard but necessary it is to learn the kanji, anyone have any suggestions to make it a little easier to learn them beyond just brute memorization (like any helpful sites for practice or whatnot)?

[LeoXiao]

Since it's been mentioned/stated a hundred or so times over about just how hard but necessary it is to learn the kanji, anyone have any suggestions to make it a little easier to learn them beyond just brute memorization (like any helpful sites for practice or whatnot)?
My suggestion would be simply to read as much as possible. Now that might sound really difficult but there are books where the kana is added to the top or sides of the kanji so you can tell how it should be read. I have a textbook for instance with a collection of essays that have this feature.

Brute memorization, while it sounds terrible, is actually quite effective in conjunction with normal reading. The trick is quantity and volume. Say you want to learn 20 characters a day: in the morning, take twice that number and go over their meaning and readings, making sure to repeat the readings aloud and write each one 5-10 times. Then take a break and read an essay. If you see any kanji you just reviewed, make mental notes for reinforcement's sake. Then at the end of the day go back and try to write and read out all the kanjis you can remember. As long as you retained a few you are fine. Then create a new set for the next day/session/class/whatever. You may forget some of the kanji you thought you learned well, but don't worry, just keep sending them into the memorygrinder, keep reading different texts, and they will stick eventually.

[Zakoo]

Imho I more or less passed the JPLT 3, I will say it straight, hooray for kanji.

a full sentence in hiragana is aweful, really aweful, at least when there's a kanji you can "not read", since japenese grammar becomes somehow basic once you become used to it, just the fact of looking the kanji can gives you the vibes for the sentence.

Just thinking about making the difference between 以外 and 意外 in hiragana drives me insane.

At least that works for manga, I will let the pros talk about real litterature and newspaper.

[cyberdemon]

*~~::Greetings::~~*
Hello = kon nichi wa
goodbye = Sayonara (line above the "o")
yes = hai
no = ie (ie also means house ^_^)
thank you = arigato
Pleased to meet you = Yoroshiku (used on this board alot ^_^)
excuse me (attention) = Shitsurei
Sorry = sumimasen or gomenasai or gomen

Ittekimasu (not to be confused with itadekimasu) is actually used more primarily for goodbye over sayonara.

[LeoXiao]

Ittekimasu (not to be confused with itadekimasu) is actually used more primarily for goodbye over sayonara.

It means "I'm going" (and coming back presumably), whereas "sayonara" is more like "farewell", and has a finalizing tone.

[Kimidori]

so I just applied for a japanese course at my university and classes will start next week, there are something I want to ask.

some people here said reading book can help you at reading, writing japanese and remembering kanji, but can I use Visual Novel instead of book? since playing games is pretty much how I progressed really fast with my english learning and become fluent in less than a year (I can say that 80% of my english is from gaming and 20% from school).

how long it often take to learn it? is it harder to learn to speak than english?

[Kudryavka]

so I just applied for a japanese course at my university and classes will start next week, there are something I want to ask.

some people here said reading book can help you at reading, writing japanese and remembering kanji, but can I use Visual Novel instead of book? since playing games is pretty much how I progressed really fast with my english learning and become fluent in less than a year (I can say that 80% of my english is from gaming and 20% from school).

how long it often take to learn it? is it harder to learn to speak than english?
All the VNs I played have a lot of kanji, and there are some that start getting so poetic you might as well have the skill to read a book of literary merit. I can see how you did that with English, but kanji don't really work the same way since they are all new signs and symbols (until you get a feel for the radicals and stuff).

I think you could learn Japanese from games if you really wanted to, but not VNs, at least not for starting out. Maybe some games aimed at children like Nintendo? I know Kingdom Hearts in particular includes furigana for kanji that aren't extremely common/easy.

[erneiz_hyde]

For the record, I did use VNs to practice reading. Of course, that's not all I used, but point is I used VN a lot to increase my exposure to Japanese writings. I used AGTH to extract the texts as I play and copy-paste them to a dictionary/translator program, which is a major source of my knowledge of kanjis.

[DonQuigleone]

I'd say if you can find a game with Furigana it would be a good start. Otherwise that mass of symbols will be difficult for you to get a start on deciphering, and you'd quickly get discouraged.

[Kudryavka]

For the record, I did use VNs to practice reading. Of course, that's not all I used, but point is I used VN a lot to increase my exposure to Japanese writings. I used AGTH to extract the texts as I play and copy-paste them to a dictionary/translator program, which is a major source of my knowledge of kanjis.
Yes, I think reading anything would be practice...

It's just that if you're starting out with kanji (as I assume OP is since s/he implies s/he will have his/her first JPN class soon?), reading VNs is just not feasible. Unless you have a tooon of patience to use AGTH. Though the more you know, the less you'll be leaning on AGTH for support. I tried reading a VN with AGTH back when I only knew 40 kanji, and uggghh... It took way too long. :heh: But that is me, I'm sure if you have a game you really want to play no matter what you would perservere.

But if OP already has decent kanji knowledge, then I'm sure they'll get great, efficient use out of AGTH. But still, learning kanji is not really like learning words in languages which only use alphabets. With alphabets, no matter what you will be able to at least pronounce the word with even basic skills. With kanji you must study and commit them to memory, at least in the beginning.

OP How many kanji do you know? Are there specific visual novels you are dying to play or are you just looking to use them for reading practice? I cannot say if kanji are harder to learn than English because English is my first language, but I can say that learning kanji is much harder than learning other languages I have studied that use alphabets like English, for reasons I stated above. I hope that still answers the question?

[Alchemist007]

By OP I assume you mean erneiz? Because the actual OP made this thread 10 years ago :heh:

[Kudryavka]

By OP I assume you mean erneiz? Because the actual OP made this thread 10 years ago :heh:
Yep, I am talking about the OP of this current topic/the question asker, Kimidori.

[Cosmic Eagle]

OP How many kanji do you know? Are there specific visual novels you are dying to play or are you just looking to use them for reading practice? I cannot say if kanji are harder to learn than English because English is my first language, but I can say that learning kanji is much harder than learning other languages I have studied that use alphabets like English, for reasons I stated above. I hope that still answers the question?

I wonder how you even guage how many kanji you know....you can't recall every single word in your vocabulary off the top of your head like that yet it's such a commonly used marker

[Kudryavka]

I wonder how you even guage how many kanji you know....you can't recall every single word in your vocabulary off the top of your head like that yet it's such a commonly used marker
When that is said, it doesn't want the person to know exactly how many kanji they know, that'd be impossible unless she knew that few or just passed a JLPT (which would not be an exact gauge, but could give a ballpark unless you passed the test with flying colors or something).

When I say "how many do you know", I'm more like "Do you know 0? 10? 100? or 500? or 10000?". Huge ballparks, except for the lower numbers.

[erneiz_hyde]

Oh you were asking me? I thought you were asking Kimidori :heh:

But yeah, I don't really know how much kanji I have memorized. I never took an official class or course and the only benchmark I bothered to take was passing a JLPT N3 a little over one year ago (Grammar/Reading/Listening, on a 60 scale: 50/60/43).

I still have problems with kanji and reading exactly what is written and relied more on the nuance of the passage, but if that test was credible, it showed that it's enough, at least for N3. :heh:

And regarding that VN I was dying to play: Little Busters. I actually finished that game wholly with AGTH in one hand and a translator in another. But my love prevailed!

And then there was Itsuka Todoku Ano Sora ni. I took about two-three years finishing that game because of the absurd level of writing involved, but again love prevails!

[Kudryavka]

Oh you were asking me? I thought you were asking Kimidori :heh:

But yeah, I don't really know how much kanji I have memorized. I never took an official class or course and the only benchmark I bothered to take was passing a JLPT N3 a little over one year ago (Grammar/Reading/Listening, on a 60 scale: 50/60/43).

I still have problems with kanji and reading exactly what is written and relied more on the nuance of the passage, but if that test was credible, it showed that it's enough, at least for N3. :heh:

And regarding that VN I was dying to play: Little Busters. I actually finished that game wholly with AGTH in one hand and a translator in another. But my love prevailed!

And then there was Itsuka Todoku Ano Sora ni. I took about two-three years finishing that game because of the absurd level of writing involved, but again love prevails!
Yes, I was asking Kimidori. My bad, I just copied your name because the person I quoted used your name. I fixed it now.

Wow good job finishing LB with AGTH and a translator.

[LeoXiao]

My thoughts: If you can count how many kanji you know, it's probably not very many. When you get used to learning them you can find patterns and kind of guess how a character is read.

[Alchemist007]

Well personally, I write down every new kanji I come across on flashcards. I just review them time to time for memorization.

[DarkSkiper]

Hello!

I recently started learning Japanese via self-learning and I have a question.

What is better, to learn words or kanji?
I decided to learn grammar + pick up some words along the way, but decided to leave kanji for later once I'm done with the grammar. Is it a good course of action or not? I'm under the impression that if I learn words to increase my vocabulary, kanji will be come naturally or something along those lines. Am I wrong in thinking so?

[-Necromancer-]

DarkSkiper: Im in the exact same situation at the moment xD

So I'd like an answer too. Also does any one know anywhere, where they say the japanese then the english right after? preferably a song. Since I learn a lot faster using songs and listening to them than reading or speaking etc.

I have a few where they say the words then the english but it's not in a beat or song so it's still a little hard and I have some where they have the english but in a sub so it doesn't work on my mp3 :o

Thanks in advance

[LeoXiao]

You want to start with the core of the language, which includes basic vocab and grammar, and in the case of Japanese, the alphabet. Hiragana should be your starting point since it is what the most basic words are composed with. Kanji only really becomes necessary when you start dealing with more abstract or intellectual concepts; think of it like all the Latin and Greek stuff we have in English.

As for learning from songs... I'd say it works (I've learned quite a few Russian words that way), but as for the English following it thing, if I were you I'd just find the lyrics (in English, romaji, and hiragana/kanji) online somewhere, print or write them out, and look at them as you listen. And do not actually sing them out loud unless you have a good voice and pronunciation or else it will sound terrible and create a public disturbance. :heh:

[DarkSkiper]

^Thanks! I didn't mention hiragana since I already learned them along with katakana.

[Kudryavka]

What are the rules for adding な　to a noun to make it a modifying word/adjective? Can I add な　to any noun for which an adjective doesn't already exist?

[LeoXiao]

What are the rules for adding な　to a noun to make it a modifying word/adjective? Can I add な　to any noun for which an adjective doesn't already exist?

IIRC if it ends in -ii, such as "yasashii", "oishii", etc, then it undergoes a more complex process, but if it's something else (like "keizaiteki" or "zankoku"), then it simply takes -na, i.e. "keizaiteki na ryori" (economical cuisine)

[larethian]

IIRC if it ends in -ii, such as "yasashii", "oishii", etc, then it undergoes a more complex process, but if it's something else (like "keizaiteki" or "zankoku"), then it simply takes -na, i.e. "keizaiteki na ryori" (economical cuisine)
There are plenty of na-adjectives that terminate with 'い'.

What are the rules for adding な　to a noun to make it a modifying word/adjective? Can I add な　to any noun for which an adjective doesn't already exist?
No, it doesn't work that way. And as a matter of fact, sorry to say, but I don't exactly understand what you are asking. Are you talking about na-adjectives which are sometimes known as adjectival nouns? Perhaps if you clarify you a little bit, someone will be able to better help you.

[LeoXiao]

There are plenty of na-adjectives that terminate with 'い'.

Excuse me, but did you read? I said "ii", not "i".

[larethian]

Excuse me, but did you read? I said "ii", not "i".

yasashii (優しい) does not end with 'ii'; it ends with 'shii'. same for oishii (おいしい).

osoi (遅い) is an i-adjective and ends with い. All i-adjectives end with い. But the converse is not true, thus we have to memorize by heart which are na-adjectives and which are i-adjectives.

[LeoXiao]

But they still end in the -ii sound. The consonant sound before it is not important.

[Cosmic Eagle]

But they still end in the -ii sound. The consonant sound before it is not important.

kirei is a na-adj....just saying...

[LeoXiao]

kirei is a na-adj....just saying...

Argh, "kirei" has only one "i" sound at the end, not two!

[Cosmic Eagle]

Argh, "kirei" has only one "i" sound at the end, not two!

You are saying the consonant sound before the i is not important

[LeoXiao]

You are saying the consonant sound before the i is not important

okay, I said in the initial response to Kudryavka's question that adjectives with the base form "-ii" do not take "-na".

Now in Japanese there are a variety of kana that represent some consonant or consonant cluster with the final "-i" sound, i.e "ki", "shi", "chi", "ni" etc.

When I say that the consonant does not matter, I mean that what is essential is the doubled "ii" sound, not the "k-", "sh-" or whatever.
So in "yasashii", even though it is written in kana "ya-sa-shi-i" (can't type kana on this computer, sorry), there still exists the "-ii" final sounds.

In "kirei", written "ki-re-i", there is no doubled "i" sound because there is only ONE "i". If it was "ki-ri-i" then you would be correct.

[JINNSK]

:confused:i of kirei(綺麗 in kanji) is from 麗(rei).It isn't an adj though the end is i.

[Kudryavka]

IIRC if it ends in -ii, such as "yasashii", "oishii", etc, then it undergoes a more complex process, but if it's something else (like "keizaiteki" or "zankoku"), then it simply takes -na, i.e. "keizaiteki na ryori" (economical cuisine)
I mean for words that are just nouns, not already common -na adjectives. Like could I do 犬な?


No, it doesn't work that way. And as a matter of fact, sorry to say, but I don't exactly understand what you are asking. Are you talking about na-adjectives which are sometimes known as adjectival nouns? Perhaps if you clarify you a little bit, someone will be able to better help you.
Thank you. I think my new clarification is better to understand.

[LeoXiao]

I mean for words that are just nouns, not already common -na adjectives. Like could I do 犬な?

As seen in the example "keizaiteki" (economical), rendered 经济的 (sorry, computer can only type PRC characters), what we have is "keizai", or the noun "economics", followed by the kanji " 的" (teki), which indicates an adjective. But to make this work in Japanese you need the "-na", as "keizaiteki" is indeclinable according to the "-ii" adjective rules.

JINNSK gave the kanji 綺麗 for "kirei" and said that it is not an adjective. Actually it is in noun form ("beauty", I guess), but it can be made into an adjective simply by adding "-na" to it. As another example there is the word "zankoku" (cruel), written 残酷, which is also in "noun form" (cruelty), so it takes "-na" as well.

Note that none of these examples end in a double "-ii" sound. Also, all of these examples are in the On'yomi form of pronunciation, i.e. adapted directly from Chinese, while the "-ii" examples like "yasashii", "mezurashii" or "muzukashii" are Kun'yomi and therefore native Japanese words.

[Seitsuki]

Quick TL question for a change.

How far would you say localising should go? Run into a part where a character refers to their aunt as お母様. A straight up TL (I believe anyway) would kill off a ton of the implications in that term. Then again I can't romanise it either because it's a pretty fringe term already (compared to Onee san or the like) and those who do understand JP may take it to mean mother instead. Thoughts?

[erneiz_hyde]

Quick TL question for a change.

How far would you say localising should go? Run into a part where a character refers to their aunt as お母様. A straight up TL (I believe anyway) would kill off a ton of the implications in that term. Then again I can't romanise it either because it's a pretty fringe term already (compared to Onee san or the like) and those who do understand JP may take it to mean mother instead. Thoughts?If this character was adopted by the aunt then I think 'mom' would suffice. I can't think of any other reason why someone would call their aunt as mother.

[Cosmic Eagle]

okay, I said in the initial response to Kudryavka's question that adjectives with the base form "-ii" do not take "-na".

Now in Japanese there are a variety of kana that represent some consonant or consonant cluster with the final "-i" sound, i.e "ki", "shi", "chi", "ni" etc.

When I say that the consonant does not matter, I mean that what is essential is the doubled "ii" sound, not the "k-", "sh-" or whatever.
So in "yasashii", even though it is written in kana "ya-sa-shi-i" (can't type kana on this computer, sorry), there still exists the "-ii" final sounds.

In "kirei", written "ki-re-i", there is no doubled "i" sound because there is only ONE "i". If it was "ki-ri-i" then you would be correct.

れ is not a consonant sound?

[LeoXiao]

れ is not a consonant sound?

It is a consonant sound, but it does not end in "i".

[Cosmic Eagle]

And anyway what about stuff like　大きな ? Can take both na and i form i being simply 大きい

[LeoXiao]

I actually don't know, maybe there are irregular cases. My Japanese isn't all that good. I was always under the impression that 大きい was the correct form.

[Avatar of Dreams]

And anyway what about stuff like　大きな ? Can take both na and i form i being simply 大きい
I think you're missing his point. He means to say that when the adjective is written out in romanized form, if the last two letters are both 'i', the verb is an i-adjective (形容詞). 大きな would be romanized as 'ookina' so there is only one 'i' before the 'na', thus his rule technically holds in this case.

Unfortunately that rule is not correct. Counterexamples: 奇異な（きいな）、軽易な（けいいな）.

[LeoXiao]

Okay, I guess that theory no longer works. Is the rule actually based on the differences between native vs. Sino-Japanese words?

[AmeNoJaku]

About J-adjectives: The original question makes little sense, both types of adjectives are always used as adjectives, just follow different conjugation rules. If you have to use a noun as an adjective, use the no particle. Now what LeoXiao wrote is correct and this is how textbooks introduce adjectives. But it does not cover everything, if one succumbs to japanese grammar nazism :p

Quick TL question for a change.

How far would you say localising should go? Run into a part where a character refers to their aunt as お母様. A straight up TL (I believe anyway) would kill off a ton of the implications in that term. Then again I can't romanise it either because it's a pretty fringe term already (compared to Onee san or the like) and those who do understand JP may take it to mean mother instead. Thoughts?

Explanation in brackets or a translation note are the best solutions, if the target language doesn't have a similar way to express something. Localization is as bad as dubbing in these cases, not being able to convey all the information from the original language.

[larethian]

okay, I said in the initial response to Kudryavka's question that adjectives with the base form "-ii" do not take "-na".

Now in Japanese there are a variety of kana that represent some consonant or consonant cluster with the final "-i" sound, i.e "ki", "shi", "chi", "ni" etc.

When I say that the consonant does not matter, I mean that what is essential is the doubled "ii" sound, not the "k-", "sh-" or whatever.
So in "yasashii", even though it is written in kana "ya-sa-shi-i" (can't type kana on this computer, sorry), there still exists the "-ii" final sounds.

In "kirei", written "ki-re-i", there is no doubled "i" sound because there is only ONE "i". If it was "ki-ri-i" then you would be correct.

I agree with what you said in bold, that '-ii' sounds don't take 'na' during conjugation with nouns, but it doesn't mean that it has to be '-ii' to not take 'na' during conjugation with nouns, which was what I understood from your earlier post and other points.

To phrase it another way, it sounds to me that you were saying that if it doesn't contain '-ii' sound, it will take 'na' during conjugation with nouns, which I know to be false. That's why I quoted 'osoi' as an example. I might have misunderstood your post and your meaning though, and apologize if that's the case.

Nevertheless, my 2 cents is that, determining conjugation rules from how words sound is not the proper way. And I'm curious as to what textbook uses this manner of teaching, as none of my textbooks, reference books, nor the language school I had attended taught me in this manner. The proper way is to learn what class of words does a word fall into, whether it's a noun, i-adjective, na-adjective, godan verb, ichidan verb etc. etc., and learn the conjugation rules for that class and their exceptions.


:confused:i of kirei(綺麗 in kanji) is from 麗(rei).It isn't an adj though the end is i.
JINNSK gave the kanji 綺麗 for "kirei" and said that it is not an adjective. Actually it is in noun form ("beauty", I guess), but it can be made into an adjective simply by adding "-na" to it. As another example there is the word "zankoku" (cruel), written 残酷, which is also in "noun form" (cruelty), so it takes "-na" as well.
This is just another school of thought which classifies na-adjectives as adjectival nouns because they have similarities to 'behavior' of nouns. Another school of thought classifies them as nominal adjectives...... plain confusing if you ask me......
It's fine to see them as nouns if you want to (though I'm personally against that line of thought), but one must be careful to remember that they are not nouns in the truest sense, i.e. they cannot stand alone by themselves as a subject by taking the 'が' and 'は' particles.

[LeoXiao]

Thanks for the informative response. My "-ii" theory has been further invalidated.

The explanation about "noun-adjectives" makes sense, as they are indeed not really used as nouns. So far I have noticed that all the "-na" adjectives mentioned are Sino-Japanese words, so maybe that is the rule.

[Avatar of Dreams]

The explanation about "noun-adjectives" makes sense, as they are indeed not really used as nouns. So far I have noticed that all the "-na" adjectives mentioned are Sino-Japanese words, so maybe that is the rule.

Sorry, that rule doesn't work either(静かな、エッチな、いやな of the top of my head).

I'm not aware of any rule that separates the two types of adjectives. Usually you can tell just by looking though.

[Alchemist007]

There are exceptions to damn near any rule, and not just in languages!

[taurosground]

Newbie to Japanese here: Are there any sites/other places that you would recommend to an English speaker? Preferably free, thanks :D

[Alchemist007]

These are resources I could recommend to any level learner (chances are you'd start as an intermediate since it's kanji stuff). I recommend this to get some pronunciations of words you don't know (basically a kanji -> romanji converter): http://nihongo.j-talk.com/

Also you can enter kanji at the end of this url to get the wiki page on it if one exists: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/代

Just replace the 代.

Here's a list of common kanji: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_kanji_by_stroke_count

And of course google translate: http://translate.google.com/#ja|en

I'd be wary of that because it's easy for that thing to misunderstand too, so it's more of a helper than an actual translator.

[Kimidori]

classes stared later than expected but after 3 session, I'm now learned all the hiragana.

one thing I have to ask though: in the book I have, they translate "yashashii" (やさしい) as "easy", when I ask my teacher and she said it just mean "easy". but in anime, I often hear character use that word as "kind (ex: you're so kind)". are they just sound the same with different writing or something?

also, I surprised that she never heard of anime so I shown her ep 1 of "ef - a tale of memories". she really liked it and ask me if I can get japanese sub for it. anyone here know where to download a japanese sub track for the anime?

[erneiz_hyde]

It's similar with English's "Hard" I guess.

English isn't my first language, but I learned it quite early through games. So when in a class, I answered "Hard" instead of "Difficult" for what's the opposite of "Easy".

edit: btw, it's apparently a case of different word indeed: 易しい and 優しい. The latter is what you usually hear of "kind". The former indeed means "easy".

[Irenicus]

edit: btw, it's apparently a case of different word indeed: 易しい and 優しい. The latter is what you usually hear of "kind". The former indeed means "easy".
The kanji of "yasashii" are actually used rather rarely. Often you see the word in hiragana.

So it's probably most useful to treat it as one word with double meanings depending on context. English, too, have quite a few words like that.

/unless of course it shows kanji. Then you know the intended meaning.

[Kimidori]

anyone here have any tip or trick to read hiragana faster beside read more? my reading speed is pathetically slow right now. @_@

[AmeNoJaku]

anyone here have any tip or trick to read hiragana faster beside read more? my reading speed is pathetically slow right now. @_@

Read kanji faster ;) Now seriously don't worry about it, the "read more" tip will inevitably happen as long as you continue learning the language.

[Tougarashi]

anyone here have any tip or trick to read hiragana faster beside read more? my reading speed is pathetically slow right now. @_@

For me, I let my friend who can read well to read aloud for me first. Then I followed and read with the pace she read.

[oompa loompa]

classes stared later than expected but after 3 session, I'm now learned all the hiragana.

one thing I have to ask though: in the book I have, they translate "yashashii" (やさしい) as "easy", when I ask my teacher and she said it just mean "easy". but in anime, I often hear character use that word as "kind (ex: you're so kind)". are they just sound the same with different writing or something?

also, I surprised that she never heard of anime so I shown her ep 1 of "ef - a tale of memories". she really liked it and ask me if I can get japanese sub for it. anyone here know where to download a japanese sub track for the anime?

The yasashii for easy and the yasashii for gentle are not pronounced exactly the same (probably.. i haven't found out on this one specifically). Another good example of this is hashi (bridge) / hashi (chopsticks). If you think about it, Japanese is extremely limited in the sounds the language provides, so this happens quite a bit.

EDIT:

I just went on denshi jisho to see if they had pronunciations, and apparently, yasashii hito is an expression for a promiscuous person (using the 'easy' yasashii). Makes sense, but hadn't heard of that one before.

anyone here have any tip or trick to read hiragana faster beside read more? my reading speed is pathetically slow right now. @_@

Theres still Katakana to go (which is way more irritating, at least for me) before Kanji. In any case, reading speed also has a lot to do with your familiarity with the language and seeing words (or in this case Kanji.. though I guess there is more spacing between words in Japanese than before). While it is important, I don't think you should be too worried about reading speed, focusing on increasing your reading speed is something that you would do if you were lagging behind your peers in reading, or after you have a good enough grasp to be reading a lot.

[AmeNoJaku]

The yasashii for easy and the yasashii for gentle are not pronounced exactly the same (probably.. i haven't found out on this one specifically). Another good example of this is hashi (bridge) / hashi (chopsticks). If you think about it, Japanese is extremely limited in the sounds the language provides, so this happens quite a bit.

Where did you hear that, I highly doubt that it is true. Was the source reliable?

I just went on denshi jisho to see if they had pronunciations, and apparently, yasashii hito is an expression for a promiscuous person (using the 'easy' yasashii). Makes sense, but hadn't heard of that one before.

Don't they use the same expression in English too? But yeah, sounding the same can lead to some "interesting" misunderstandings :heh:

[Seitsuki]

易しい　and 優しい are completely different things. Context.

[Avatar of Dreams]

I just went on denshi jisho to see if they had pronunciations, and apparently, yasashii hito is an expression for a promiscuous person (using the 'easy' yasashii). Makes sense, but hadn't heard of that one before.
I've never heard of yasashii being used that way ever. Maybe if you were to say it sarcastically you could imply that meaning...but 99% of the time everyone will just think you're saying that person is nice.

Ran a google search and could not find a single instance of it being used that way. It's either a obscure expression or that definition is unreliable.

[oompa loompa]

I've never heard of yasashii being used that way ever. Maybe if you were to say it sarcastically you could imply that meaning...but 99% of the time everyone will just think you're saying that person is nice.

Ran a google search and could not find a single instance of it being used that way. It's either a obscure expression or that definition is unreliable.

The source is denshi jisho. I said I got it from there in the original post. and I said I hadn't heard of it before either.. which is exactly why I qualified it as apparently having that meaning.

Where did you hear that, I highly doubt that it is true. Was the source reliable?


Hate to break it to you buddy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pitch_accent

" So the sequence "hashi" spoken in isolation can be accented in two ways, either háshi (accent on the first syllable, meaning 'chopsticks') or hashí (flat or accent on the second syllable, meaning either 'edge' or 'bridge'), while "hashi" plus the subject-marker "ga" can be accented on the first, second, or be flat/accentless: háshiga 'chopsticks', hashíga 'bridge', or hashigá 'edge'. "

If you were asking about Japanese being limited in its syllables.. I couldn't find a source on the first google page.. but, I'm pretty sure its true (from experience speaking, listening, and studying). I think there are about 80 unique sounds not counting some katakana-specific ones. Thats one of the reasons why punning is so great in Japanese

[Alchemist007]

I don't want to put any false information out there but I do recall hearing the 'easy person' (sexually) before, I think it depends on how the sentence is structured.

[Malkuth]

Hate to break it to you buddy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pitch_accent

Check also the Talk page of that article, as well as how sketchy its sources are... IMPE from living in their country and using their language; yes, there is different pitch in Japanese, but its less consistent with dialects and kanji meanings, than individuals and their mood... we had a similar discussion over おう versus おお last year, and I stand corrected... pronunciation differences are at best random... the fertile ground for phd tax-wasters :rolleyes:

[HoennSora]

I'm working on learning hiragana and I have a japanese version of Pokemon Sapphire which I'll work with to help learn better. I have begun weekly classes so that is something to look forward too :)

[oompa loompa]

Check also the Talk page of that article, as well as how sketchy its sources are... IMPE from living in their country and using their language; yes, there is different pitch in Japanese, but its less consistent with dialects and kanji meanings, than individuals and their mood... we had a similar discussion over おう versus おお last year, and I stand corrected... pronunciation differences are at best random... the fertile ground for phd tax-wasters :rolleyes:

To be honest, I never bothered learning the pitch accents (because its pretty difficult to do), and have never needed to know them either. I was however, taught (told, and now read, on different occasions) that a structure to distinguish words with pitch accents exists within the language. Even if its not used that much, it is there as a legitimate, documented part of the language. I don't think its archaic either, the few people (IMPE living there as well) I talked to about this did tell me that this was the way you would differentiate between words.

[Avatar of Dreams]

I don't want to put any false information out there but I do recall hearing the 'easy person' (sexually) before, I think it depends on how the sentence is structured.

When in doubt ask the natives:
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q12107106602

So far I'm getting an overwhelming 'no' on the whole 易しい人 = 'promiscuous' thing.

The reference source for Denshi Jisho seems to be based on a website with similar characteristics as wikipedia, namely, anyone can edit the definitions.
My guess is that someone misunderstood the meaning and wrote an incorrect definition.

[Malkuth]

To be honest, I never bothered learning the pitch accents (because its pretty difficult to do), and have never needed to know them either. I was however, taught (told, and now read, on different occasions) that a structure to distinguish words with pitch accents exists within the language. Even if its not used that much, it is there as a legitimate, documented part of the language. I don't think its archaic either, the few people (IMPE living there as well) I talked to about this did tell me that this was the way you would differentiate between words.

I am far from convinced... it sounds more like personal opinions in obsolete matters. Then again my interest in linguistics is amateurish, empirical, and statistical... those old men that make money out of it (pretending to have some deeper insight in the matter) probably should disagree :heh:

In any case, on my practical side, I was discussing the writings, pronunciations and uses of yasui(s) with a couple of friends from Kyuushuu and another from Kansai recently that enforced my current understanding, and crushed my hopes for the existence of some logic rule behind homophones in Japanese, or at least how Japanese are normally used in order to be understood by the native speakers and not how complicated they can be made in order to promoted social stratification :rolleyes:

[Alchemist007]

When in doubt ask the natives:
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q12107106602

So far I'm getting an overwhelming 'no' on the whole 易しい人 = 'promiscuous' thing.

The reference source for Denshi Jisho seems to be based on a website with similar characteristics as wikipedia, namely, anyone can edit the definitions.
My guess is that someone misunderstood the meaning and wrote an incorrect definition.
Might've just been a different word I'm recalling altogether then.

[larethian]

When in doubt ask the natives:
http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q12107106602

So far I'm getting an overwhelming 'no' on the whole 易しい人 = 'promiscuous' thing.

The reference source for Denshi Jisho seems to be based on a website with similar characteristics as wikipedia, namely, anyone can edit the definitions.
My guess is that someone misunderstood the meaning and wrote an incorrect definition.

I agree with using "chiebukuro", especially when 'cultural colloquialism' is suspected. While it is not a 100% given to have accurate or definitely right answers (since anyone can answer), one can attract quite quality (and sometimes backed-up) posts, especially when 'chi' is offered :heh:

I have found it quite useful myself when I can't get hold of my pals on IM.

Incidentally, one of my native Skype pals gave 'nay' as the answer as well. Mainly because 易しい人 appears to be misuse of 易しい to her.

[Seitsuki]

I think it's simply an English problem. 易しい = easy > 易しい人 really should be something like an 'easygoing/easy person to get along with', but due to 'easy' also having the colloquial meaning of 'promiscuous' in some parts... well, one thing leads to another.

[Haiprbim]

"thank you = arigato
Pleased to meet you = Yoroshiku"

Well, I say Arigatou and Yoroshiku-ne all the time, so... :P

[Malkuth]

I am pretty certain that "yasui hito" is referring to a girl that is easy for anyone to "sleep" with... I should have completely missed everything said in a discussion with natives, in order to be wrong about this one... possible, yet unlikely, since I was really paying a lot of attention at the time for personal reasons :(

[Avatar of Dreams]

I am pretty certain that "yasui hito" is referring to a girl that is easy for anyone to "sleep" with... I should have completely missed everything said in a discussion with natives, in order to be wrong about this one... possible, yet unlikely, since I was really paying a lot of attention at the time for personal reasons :(
Ah, you're right! It doesn't necessarily mean promiscuous but it can be used that way. Now it makes a lot more sense.

Someone probably made the mistake of going:
安い → 易い → 易しい

Thank you for the help Malkuth!
お前は何でも知ってるな… ;)

[Malkuth]

Glad to help...

[rant-mode]

... but let me add that 安いー＞易（し）い（＋優しい）人 can be used potentially for very similar circumstances, one indicating that it's easy to "do" the said person, while the other that the person in question isn't particularly picky about his/her partners, plus there is the not yet mentioned case of someone receiving such lewd request kinder then usual and unfortunately both are not literal uses... so except form sounding similar, sharing the homophone kanji and some of the adjectival endings; the person used for usually can potentially share all these attributes :eyespin:

But as with all languages, a context is the key to understanding, followed by clarification inquiries is the way to communicate correctly; definitely not those definitions that old geezers and hags get paid for and ask us in language exams... oh! and let's not forget that 99% of humans don't care about such differences, since outside unproductive language tutoring fads, even if one uses the "wrong" one, everyone will understand the point, unless he is a grammar/accent/pronunciation/kanji-nazi, in which case he doesn't want to ;)

[/rant-mode]

PS: I just remembered, LINDA published a story about a decade ago using the above kanji in its title as a wordplay :naughty:

[AmeNoJaku]

Let me change the subject, since this discussion about "easy people" seems clarified, if not strangely referenced.

Japanese language has a lot of verbs (used literally and metaphorically) for having sex (particularly non-consensual), but what about making love? You know the romantic variety that is the case 99,...% IRL. Unfortunately, anime, manga and doujinshi are not very helpful in the matter, and it's the kind of question that is very hard to ask in person :p

[erneiz_hyde]

Not sure I understand the question, so are you asking about the euphemisms the Japanese use when referring to consensual sex?

I can only think of 抱く(daku) for now.

[Seitsuki]

I'm pretty sure しますalso works. Like,　'しよう'. I've seen it used quite a bit in yuri, which is some of the the sweetest stuff known to man.

Or I dunno, やらないか

[Gundamx]

Anyone here manage to solo Japanese language?

[Solafighter]

Anyone here manage to solo Japanese language?

Not sure, what exactly you mean by "solo", but I basicly learn Japanese on my own, just with a couple of books and more various infos out of the internet. Though, watching Japanese series helps you to listen to the language and helps you to pronounce it right. Also, I often talk with some of my Japanese friends. They don't teach me directly, but this talking helps me to get more fluend with the stuff, I have learnt so far.

Not sure, if one can call that "solo" by summing all that up. :heh:

[Hooves]

I'm basically reading through this entire thread just to learn it. So it's impossible for me to 'solo' it if that's what you're referring to.

[Solafighter]

I think in the theory, it might be possible to solo it, though it might not be as efficient and time sparing.

To not drift away from the main topic, I made myself some verb- and adjective conjugation sheets. I will print them out and hang them right next to me on the wall, so that I can take a look at it again, if needed. Maybe it is easier to have things simple to burn them into your mind.

If you find any mistake in there, please let me know. I just put this sheet up out of my mind, but roughly checked it after. Feel free to use them as you wish. I'm aware, that they might not be complete with a little bit of missing content, especially on the tenses paper. I made these to have a good overview, how it is done.

If you don't understand these, then please don't use them. The first and main reason I made them was for myself(yea, me unsocial bastard) but I thought "Hey, why not sharing these".

Adjective Conjugation (image on imgur.com) (http://i.imgur.com/QzPvtol.jpg)


Verb Conjugation (image on imgur.com) (http://i.imgur.com/Ahq7338.jpg)
This might need a short explaination: Besides the irregular verbs, there are three verb types. Behind the "examples:" is one example for each verb type. The rest should speak for itself.

Tenses (image on imgur.com) (http://i.imgur.com/jdR4lzP.jpg)
This is mostly focusing on the right endings. You have verbs, which are ending with certain letters(Hiragana). These can be put in groups, as shown on the sheet. You then have replace the left Hiragana from the arrow with the Hiragana, which is on the right of the arrow. Example: Biru wo nomu(ビルをのむ). Mu is the Hiragana, we want to change. So in the past, it is Biru wo nonda(ビルをのんだ). You anyway should look this up and do a lot of examples.

[RandomGuy]

If you find any mistake in there, please let me know. I just put this sheet up out of my mind, but roughly checked it after. Feel free to use them as you wish. I'm aware, that they might not be complete with a little bit of missing content, especially on the tenses paper. I made these to have a good overview, how it is done.

Adjective Conjugation (image on imgur.com) (http://i.imgur.com/QzPvtol.jpg)
It's pretty basic, but I have a few points here:
First, you seem to have misspelled しろい as "しるい"
You seem to treat く as part of the entire ending, rather than a particular (in this case, adverbial) ending for the stem. It's worth having that separately, since it's used quite a bit. Same thing for に on the な adjective side.
"〜くありません", while correct, is less common and quite formal. Many people nowadays would say "〜くないです" and "〜くなかったです", so it might not hurt to have that in there.



Tenses (image on imgur.com) (http://i.imgur.com/jdR4lzP.jpg)
This is mostly focusing on the right endings. You have verbs, which are ending with certain letters(Hiragana). These can be put in groups, as shown on the sheet. You then have replace the left Hiragana from the arrow with the Hiragana, which is on the right of the arrow. Example: Biru wo nomu(ビルをのむ). Mu is the Hiragana, we want to change. So in the past, it is Biru wo nonda(ビルをのんだ). You anyway should look this up and do a lot of examples.
You drink buildings?!:confused: