Learning Japanese

[ganbaru]

Originally Posted by Alchemist007

I wish the post WW2 'get ride of kanji' thing was successful. I hate all this memorization. Kana ftmfw.

It would end up as a bigger mess than it's now, even someone with poor japanese skill like myself can see this.

[Doraneko]

Regarding the post-WW2 kanji hatred, actually the Chinese government has also tried to push forward a gradual scheme of kicking away kanji in the 50s, by first introducing the simplified kanji and then the completely romanized ones (pinyin). I am glad that they failed though and got stuck at the simplified Chinese stage .

As many has mentioned before homonyms is a very severe problem and can render most full romanization attempts of kanji languages useless.

Try this and feel the pain of a world without kanji . Note that even though the intonations are marked, the whole thing is still far from legible. Try also to appreciate the elegance and simplicity of kanji by comparing the original text with the English translation.

Spoiler for Pinyin version:

« Shī Shì shí shī shǐ »

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
Shì shì shì shì.

Spoiler for Kanji original text:

《施氏食獅史》

石室詩士施氏，嗜獅，誓食十獅。
氏時時適市視獅。
十時，適十獅適市。
是時，適施氏適市。
氏視是十獅，恃矢勢，使是十獅逝世。
氏拾是十獅屍，適石室。
石室濕，氏使侍拭石室。
石室拭，氏始試食是十獅。
食時，始識是十獅，實十石獅屍。
試釋是事。

Spoiler for English translation:

« Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den »

In a stone den was a poet Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten.
He often went to the market to look for lions.
At ten o'clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.
He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
When he ate, he realized that those ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
Try to explain this matter.

[Alchemist007]

Guess the Korean hatred of Japan helped them.
Before the kankou example I figured stuff could've just been interpreted on context but I guess that's what happens when stuff's been too heavily infused and the same sounding stuff is actually different (though in speaking wouldn't that need its own clarification?)

[Raiga]

Ahah, I remember stumbling across the lion-eating poet thing through various Wiki links! Love it, quite interesting and funny. Very classical Chinese of course, I showed it to my mom and she couldn't understand it... but in any case, yeah, it would be bad to get rid of Hanzi/Kanji, however difficult they are.

[Yukinokesshou]

Oh, and add the lack of spacing in Japanese text to a hypothetical absence of kanji... quel horreur.

[wao]

There's still many fierce opponents of simplification of kanji and I can see why; the traditional characters have that original spirit around them and sometimes make more sense...

...but I'm ever thankful that I have never had to write 學校 or 國分寺 or 身體 or 錯亂. Then again if they had kept it I guess I'd have to have gotten used to it just like with all the other unchanged kanji like 机→機 (arrrrrrgh I still hate writing it) I do enjoy writing 責 instead of 责 and other examples though

I was reading up yesterday on the Toyo kanji list brought out immediately after the war, and kakimaze which results in you being able to cheat on harder words, even for things not so many would think about now like 斡旋 (which still comes up as あっ旋 in the IME) I still would far prefer writing 改ざん to 改竄 though, even though I thought it was some strange archaic verb at first.

[Ryuou]

Originally Posted by Yukinokesshou

Oh, and add the lack of spacing in Japanese text to a hypothetical absence of kanji... quel horreur.

Good point to bring up.

[Kinny Riddle]

Originally Posted by Alchemist007

I wish the post WW2 'get ride of kanji' thing was successful. I hate all this memorization. Kana ftmfw.

You're joking right?

It was because of these kanji that I was able to learn Japanese faster, since my language (Chinese) was more or less similar, admittedly, that gave me some advantage over other non-Oriental learners.

Just like how the Western European languages share a common "language DNA" in Roman alphabets, and Eastern Europeans in Cyrillic alphabets, so too does the Oriental languages of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese share a common DNA of hanzi/kanji/hanja. They just cannot be mixed together.

The supremacy of the European powers in the 19th century led to an illusion that Roman alphabets are superior and is synonymous with modernity and all that sort of stuff, which is actually all bollocks, but led to naive nationalists all over attempting to forcefully transform their language to suit that of Roman alphabets, which may lead to awkward results. It's like telling a willow tree to become an oak because oaks are stronger.

Thank goodness the Chinese and Japanese didn't abandon hanzi/kanji, and it's only recently the Koreans are contemplating reusing hanja, because they find they can hardly interpret their own ancient texts, which were all written in hanja.

IIRC, the lion-eating poem was submitted to a newspaper by this university philology professor to illustrate his point about the absurdity of total romanization of the Chinese language.

[Alchemist007]

I've heard learning (the new non-hanja) korean is a whole lot easier now for the westerners. Quite the double edged sword (what a universally applicable phrase!)

[wao]

Originally Posted by Yukinokesshou

Oh, and add the lack of spacing in Japanese text to a hypothetical absence of kanji... quel horreur.

Originally Posted by Ryuou

Good point to bring up.

Nothing's stopping them from adding spaces in though. Have you read any literature aimed at young kids or games written entirely in hiragana? Like Pokemon (earlier versions, anyway - don't know about newer ones)

I kid you not, I learned hiragana and katakana entirely through trying to figure out what the hell was being said in Pokemon Ruby when the Japanese version first came out. It's actually an excellent way because you are being tested consistently (even for simple names) and are forced to remember.
Makes you remember basic grammar, too

[iLney]

But the kanji is beautiful... and if you are familiar with it enough you can always get the meaning and even the reading of words that you never saw before.

[Yukinokesshou]

I think attitudes towards kanji will always be a point of disagreement between Chinese and Westerners trying to learn Japanese (with me belonging to the former category ). There's no denying that kanji makes reading Japanese a whole lot easier for Chinese people, and a whole lot more challenging for Westerners.

I wonder whether the Japanese themselves are divided on this matter? Perhaps Japanese adults and primary school pupils would have diametrically opposing attitudes. Hehehe

Incidentally, part of the reason why North Korea abandoned kanji/hanja is down to nationalism. Kanji/hanja and even vertical right-to-left writing were seen as vestiges of Japanese colonialism (not true) and Chinese dominance in the past (true, but no one ever forced Korea to use kanji/hanja; it was just the natural thing to do). I believe South Korea abandoned kanji/hanja as a matter of convenience and not nationalism.

[iLney]

貴様
貴= precious
様= sama

So, 貴様 should give an extremely polite pronoun/noun?

Just....I don't feel so in "何てことをしてくれたんだ、キサマぁ (貴様) ！"

[Raiga]

Oh yeah, the not-to-use-in-polite-conversation version of "you."

Somehow through semantic drift that's now a really, really rude way of addressing someone.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by iLney

貴様
貴= precious
様= sama

So, 貴様 should give an extremely polite pronoun/noun?

Just....I don't feel so in "何てことをしてくれたんだ、キサマぁ (貴様) ！"

kisama hasn't been a polite noun in like, several hundred years.

No, in modern usage, it's used to address someone you look down on, or you hate/despise.

[Ryuou]

Originally Posted by wao

Nothing's stopping them from adding spaces in though. Have you read any literature aimed at young kids or games written entirely in hiragana? Like Pokemon (earlier versions, anyway - don't know about newer ones)

I guess they could and I've also seen it spaced in very basic Japanese textbooks. Actually, whenever most people, including myself as rare as that is, write in romaji it's usually spaced. The semantics of where and when to space can get annoying though.

In any case though, adopting only romaji or getting rid of kanji would be a horrible idea.

[christine_cute]

in japanese language, are there different words for speaking 'I'?(different ways for each gender?)

I have only heard 'boku'.....

How many types of such differences are there?

[idiffer]

ore - male
watashi - female
boku - not really sure..

[Circular Logic]

Originally Posted by Christine247

in japanese language, are there different words for speaking 'I'?(different ways for each gender?)

I have only heard 'boku'.....

How many types of such differences are there?

http://www.jref.com/language/japanes...pronouns.shtml

[christine_cute]

oh! i never really knew there were so many ways of speaking 'I'......this is surely confusing....