Learning Japanese

[thevil1]

This helps a lot, but in everyday life, how are they used, and how are they meant to be read?
From the way you described it, I understand that each symbol represents a word/object, and not sounds like Hiragana/Katakana あいうえお/アイウエオ. Is that correct? what about when writing? If I were to write a letter or receive a hand written letter, do those contain Kanji?

[Kudryavka]

Originally Posted by thevil1

This helps a lot, but in everyday life, how are they used, and how are they meant to be read?
From the way you described it, I understand that each symbol represents a word/object, and not sounds like Hiragana/Katakana あいうえお/アイウエオ. Is that correct? what about when writing? If I were to write a letter or receive a hand written letter, do those contain Kanji?

Kanji is integrated into everyday life; kanji actually was conceived first, and kana has evolved from various kanji. The way I learned it, Japanese has been a spoken language for millennia, and Chinese characters were "borrowed" and used by Japanese merchants. At first, the merchants had to be fluent in Chinese (Chinese was the language of business in East Asia at the time) to do well; the Japanese later put their own pronunciations on the Chinese symbols, and thus was born the Japanese readings of Chinese symbols.

In short, kanji are useful shortcuts to writing (can be crudely compared to English contractions). Kanji are sinographs, so yes they represent ideas.

[Hooves]

私 食 熟糧 昨
(I ate Melon Bread last night )

Originally Posted by Komari

Kanji is integrated into everyday life; kanji actually was conceived first, and kana has evolved from various kanji. The way I learned it, Japanese has been a spoken language for millennia, and Chinese characters were "borrowed" and used by Japanese merchants. At first, the merchants had to be fluent in Chinese (Chinese was the language of business in East Asia at the time) to do well; the Japanese later put their own pronunciations on the Chinese symbols, and thus was born the Japanese readings of Chinese symbols.

In short, kanji are useful shortcuts to writing (can be crudely compared to English contractions). Kanji are sinographs, so yes they represent ideas.

Hmm.. Thanks for the information Komari

[thevil1]

It might help me understand fully if I can see an example and an explanation of all the ins and outs of that example....

[Raiga]

English contractions... well that might be one way to think of them but I'd stay away from that comparison. Really there's no English equivalent or even near approximation of the role of Kanji.

Kanji are used for nouns and the main bodies (meaning-containing parts) of verbs and adjectives. They carry the ideas and lexical meanings, while the hiragana fill in the gaps and relate the words grammatically. For example:

難しい is an い-adjective meaning "difficult" (read むずかしい). The kanji 難 is the part that really represents the idea of "difficult," whereas the okurigana しい indicate that the word is an adjective and allow you to add adjective endings onto the word. For example, if I wanted to say "not difficult" I would change 難しい to 難しくない (むずかしくない) or if I wanted to say "was difficult" I would change 難しい to 難しかった (むずかしかった). Verbs are pretty much the same as い-adjectives when it comes to kanji/okurigana.

Now, if I wanted to use the same kanji as a noun, I could have for example 難度 (read なんど) meaning "difficulty level." As a noun, this would most likely be followed by a particle such as は、の、を、に、へ or so on. For example, if I wanted to say "the difficulty level was difficult" (a silly sentence but bear with me) it would be something like 難度は難しかった。

Now, how do I know that 難 is read なん in the noun but むずか in the adjective? Well the rule is usually, in nouns and kanji compounds (more than one kanji next to each other) the Chinese reading (on'yomi 音読み) is used, whereas in verbs and adjectives and oftentimes single-kanji nouns, the native Japanese reading (kun'yomi 訓読み) is used. For the character 難, なん is the Chinese on'yomi, while むずか is the native kun'yomi reading.

Finally an example sentence:

昨日私は大きくて綺麗な花火を見ました。

昨日 (kinou, adv. "yesterday")
私は (watashi wa, noun+particle "I [topic]")
大きくて (ookikute, い-adj.+okurigana "big (and)")
綺麗な (kirei na, な-adj.+particle, "beautiful [describes]")
花火を (hanabi wo, kanji compound noun + particle "fireworks [direct object]")
見ました (mimashita, verb+okurigana "saw")。

The particle は indicates that the noun before it is the topic/context of the sentence (we are discussing things relevant to "I"). な connects the な-adjective that comes before it to the noun that comes after it. "Beautiful" is describing "fireworks." を indicates that the noun that comes before it is the direct object of the verb (what did I see? I saw fireworks hence "fireworks" is the direct object of the verb "saw").

Now, Japanese is pretty flexible, and especially when you're still learning, many words that technically have Kanji will be written with hiragana or sometimes katakana (for emphasis). Many introductory textbooks also write Japanese spaced; for example, the above sentence might look like きのう　わたしは　おおきくて　きれいな　はなびを　みました。 All I can say is... if you work hard and stay interested, you'll get used to it pretty soon.

As you get more familiar with Japanese grammar, the writing system and use of kanji and kana will naturally start to make sense. For now there's not much more I can explain without regurgitating everything I've learned about Japanese grammar so far.

[risingstar3110]

It would be great if someone here can give me some good (and fairly basic) lines for the start and end of a semi-formal and short Japanese presentation.

Maybe a bit about introduction myself in Japanese and so. As long as the ending is not about asking "shitsumon ga arimasu ka..." because i will prefer not to have any questions...

Many thanks in advance

[thevil1]

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

It would be great if someone here can give me some good (and fairly basic) lines for the start and end of a semi-formal and short Japanese presentation.

Maybe a bit about introduction myself in Japanese and so. As long as the ending is not about asking "shitsumon ga arimasu ka..." because i will prefer not to have any questions...

Many thanks in advance

To formally introduce yourself you would say:

はじめまして(your name)です (Hajimemashite, (your name)-desu) Nice to meet you/hello, I'm (name goes here).

To ask someones name:

おなまですか (Onamedesuka) What is your name?

Hope this helps a bit
You might want basic vocabulary if your giving a presentation...
What words do you think you'll need?

[Hooves]

Originally Posted by thevil1

To formally introduce yourself you would say:

はじめまして(your name)です (Hajimemashite, (your name)-desu) Nice to meet you/hello, I'm (name goes here).

To ask someones name:

おなまですか (Onamedesuka) What is your name?

So dizzy from trying to understand it

[thevil1]

Originally Posted by Hooves

So dizzy from trying to understand it

What's wrong with it?

[Raiga]

Originally Posted by thevil1

To formally introduce yourself you would say:

はじめまして(your name)です (Hajimemashite, (your name)-desu) Nice to meet you/hello, I'm (name goes here).

To ask someones name:

おなまですか (Onamedesuka) What is your name?

Hope this helps a bit
You might want basic vocabulary if your giving a presentation...
What words do you think you'll need?

"Name" is actually 名前（なまえ） so using your wording that would be お名前は何ですか（おなまえはなんですか）。

For an intro I'd use something like はじめまして、[name]と申します。どうぞよろしくお願いします。 But I'm not too sure what you'd use in this situation. Especially if you're giving it to your class, you're probably not meeting them for the first time, so perhaps a こんにちは、[name]です would do the trick. For the end, I'm not sure? 以上です（いじょうです） maybe? Or if your presentation has a natural ending point I'm sure that would be fine.

[risingstar3110]

Thank you everyone

Originally Posted by Raiga

"Name" is actually 名前（なまえ） so using your wording that would be お名前は何ですか（おなまえはなんですか）。

For an intro I'd use something like はじめまして、[name]と申します。どうぞよろしくお願いします。 But I'm not too sure what you'd use in this situation. Especially if you're giving it to your class, you're probably not meeting them for the first time, so perhaps a こんにちは、[name]です would do the trick. For the end, I'm not sure? 以上です（いじょうです） maybe? Or if your presentation has a natural ending point I'm sure that would be fine.

以上です would be handy. I don't want people to look at me, wondering if i have just forgotten the rest of the presentation.

But should i have an "dakara, yoroshiku onegai shi masu" after the introduction (of name and "watashi wa ganbarareru") if it's an presentation in front of a class?

You are my saviour

[Raiga]

I'm really unsure of the details of your assignment so I don't really know what would be appropriate... I'm still learning myself, for that matter, so it might be best to wait for someone else with more experience.

[Kudryavka]

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

Thank you everyone


以上です would be handy. I don't want people to look at me, wondering if i have just forgotten the rest of the presentation.

But should i have an "dakara, yoroshiku onegai shi masu" after the introduction (of name and "watashi wa ganbarareru") if it's an presentation in front of a class?

You are my saviour

I'm not sure about saying "I'm doing my best!" in a presentation, but okay. Maybe "Watashi wa ganbaremashita!" at the end?

I would drop the "dakara". It's probably acceptable, but just "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu" works fine. It's an assignment, so you want to use what you know and get a good grade, try not to reach into a dark abyss of more advanced language skills. I'm an overachiever like yourself, learned it the hard way.

[ryohei]

はじめまして。[name]と申します。
Hajimemashite [name] to moushimasu.
Nice to meet you, I'm [name].

[place]から来ました。
[place] kara kimashita.
I'm from [place]

(more detail information or comments.)

拙い日本語ですみませんがよろしくお願いします。
tsutanai nihongo de sumimasen ga yoroshiku onegai shimasu
I'm sorry for my poor Japanese.(yoroshiku... is difficult to translate. it's magic spell.)

*neck bowing*
end

"yoroshiku... + bowing" makes Japanese feel "His speech has finished." strongly.


Even if your Japanese is very good you had better say your Japanese is poor, because it is honorific expression.

[risingstar3110]

Originally Posted by ryohei

はじめまして。[name]と申します。
Hajimemashite [name] to moushimasu.
Nice to meet you, I'm [name].

[place]から来ました。
[place] kara kimashita.
I'm from [place]

(more detail information or comments.)

拙い日本語ですみませんがよろしくお願いします。
tsutanai nihongo de sumimasen ga yoroshiku onegai shimasu
I'm sorry for my poor Japanese.(yoroshiku... is difficult to translate. it's magic spell.)

*neck bowing*
end

"yoroshiku... + bowing" makes Japanese feel "His speech has finished." strongly.


Even if your Japanese is very good you had better say your Japanese is poor, because it is honorific expression.

Very good? How's about "My Japanese is terrible so don't throw me out of the window" (i will prefer to say so before thinking mine is good enough)....

OK thank. The "tsutanai nihongo de sumimasen ga" gonna be hard to remember. But it do make sense

[thevil1]

I know that Kanji are chinese characters, but how similar are the Japanese uses of Kanji from the original Chinese uses of it.
In other words, If I know Kanji, how much Chinese would I theoretically be able to understand?

[Raiga]

Put it this way: if you decide to start learning Chinese after becoming fluent in Japanese (and in using kanji etc.), you'll have an advantage, but don't expect to understand anything off the bat.

Chinese and Japanese have drastically different grammar and to a lesser extent very different phonetics (especially when it comes to tones in Chinese). Most kanji (hanzi in Chinese) mean about the same thing or refer to similar general ideas, so you may be able to get the gist of a passage of Chinese text, but I doubt you'll be able to get more than a vague, general idea.

There are definitely similarities in kanji and hanzi pronunciations (note: only similarities) but over a millennium has passed since Chinese characters were first introduced to Japan. There has been plenty of divergence in that time, since both Chinese and Japanese have been developing and changing in their own separate directions. Furthermore, what Japanese gained from Chinese was essentially only vocabulary and a writing system; the grammar didn't change much at all. You'll still have to learn a completely new grammatical system if you want to learn Chinese.

Think of it this way: imagine somebody decided to create a new language, and took all the nouns and adjectives from English. However, they came up with all the verbs themselves, and also came up with plenty of new nouns and adjectives. What's more, although they write the English nouns and adjectives the same way, they pronounce all of the letters a bit differently. Also, the words in a sentence are in a completely different order, and there are loads of new grammatical helper words that you've never seen before.

That's not at all what the relationship between Chinese and Japanese is but it's a good way to think about it.

[Sing4ever9]

I'm having a tad bit of trouble in my Japanese II class when it comes to speaking the language. However, whenever I read or write Hiragana or Katakana (I'm also starting to catch on to a little bit of Kanji), I'm fairly good. For my friend, it's vice versa; she's good at speaking, not so good at writing and reading. My sensei said it was because I aim for accuracy more than my friend does (I do, I'm just a perfectionist like that XD).

You see, whenever I try and speak it, I always hesitate because I'm unsure about the placement of the words. I know that it goes subject object verb, but somehow it all jumbles up in my head. Is there anyway I can help make myself unconfused?

[thevil1]

I'm taking a beginners class (101), and I have similar problems. I can speak it (sort of), but my big problem is spelling, and Katakana. I can read Hiragana almost perfectly, still slow, but I'm gaining speed. I am having a lot of trouble learning Katakana. My teacher gave me a copy of a restaurant menu in Japanese (katakana) and she said to translate it and she'll help me if I have any problems.
I find it helps both vocab, and sentence structure if you read a book. It's damn hard if your new at the language, but I find it very helpful. I have two books in Japanese.

[Raiga]

I'm not very good at speaking either but I think the best thing to do is just practice, practice, practice. Though it's gradual progress, if I look back on it I've definitely improved my speaking skills since I started taking Japanese this semester. Spending an hour every weekday in a Japanese-speaking environment will basically force you to eventually get better. It takes time for the brain to incorporate knowledge from the information sector of the brain into the natural language sector of the brain, but all you can do is just keep training it until it happens.

Immerse yourself, too. Try to think in Japanese. Go into "Japanese mode" when you're in class (and outside of class, too!). You are no longer an English speaker who uses Japanese when the sensei calls on you; you are a Japanese speaker when you're in Japanese class. It's all about your state of mind when you approach it. Being able to speak a language quickly and with fluency requires you to really integrate it into the deepest level of your mind.

Disclaimer being that this is essentially just how I look at things. May or may not work for you, but in any case, good luck with your studies!