日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

księżycowy
Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby księżycowy » 2014-04-20, 15:06

It is also in large part because Japanese writing developed via Chinese writing. Chinese itself does not use spaces in writing because the hanzi (kanji in Japanese) are not sounds (per se), but "pictures" or concepts. Therefore there is no real need for spaces in Chinese as every character represents a new concept (generally speaking). Being modeled on this system, and the only major writing system in the area for centuries, it is only natural Japanese turned out the same, even with the kana.

Koko

Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Koko » 2014-04-24, 0:14

ありがとうございます、じょうほうは助けた。(? Is this correct for the info helped?)

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Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Yasna » 2014-04-24, 1:25

Koko wrote:ありがとうございます、じょうほうは助けた。(? Is this correct for the info helped?)

No. You can say 参考になりました.
Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. - Kafka

Koko

Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Koko » 2014-04-24, 3:20

わかる :) ありがとう。

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Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby ErikoK » 2014-04-24, 20:23

Yasna wrote:
Koko wrote:ありがとうございます、じょうほうは助けた。(? Is this correct for the info helped?)

No. You can say 参考になりました.

Alternatively, you can also say 勉強になりました.
This space for rent・Este espacio está en renta・貸間有り
Affitto questo spazio・Ĉi spaco por luo・Nitlacauhtlalcehui

Koko

Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Koko » 2014-04-24, 22:55

Yasna wrote:参考になりました.

Anata wa nan o kakimashita ka. "What did you write?"

Sorry, I don't recognise too many kanji.

Koko

Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Koko » 2014-06-12, 6:47

If I said /ʃi/ instead of /ɕi/ would I still be understood? I feel like I'd just sound weird and definitely foreign. Also, would the same case apply for [u] rather than /ɯ/ because I find the two (with voiced /ʑ/) very hard to get the hang of; palatal-alveolars more so than /ɯ/.

Ciarán12

Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Ciarán12 » 2014-06-12, 8:15

Koko wrote:If I said /ʃi/ instead of /ɕi/ would I still be understood? I feel like I'd just sound weird and definitely foreign. Also, would the same case apply for [u] rather than /ɯ/ because I find the two (with voiced /ʑ/) very hard to get the hang of; palatal-alveolars more so than /ɯ/.


Yes, you'd be understood just fine. Those are the typical realisations of those phonemes by English speakers, it would give you an accent but still completely understandable.

Koko

Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Koko » 2014-06-13, 6:13

Oh no! I don't want to sound like I don't try! xD Haha, I suppose that being able to speak Japanese is already trying enough, though.

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Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Varislintu » 2014-08-07, 6:25

Well, I picked up Japanese again a while ago, after a three year break or so.

I'm surprised at how much I'd forgotten, but also at how much I could remember. The kanji, unfortunately, was mostly forgotten, probably because it was never very well-fixed into my memory in the first place.

And... I was astounded at how many Japanese related books I owned (packed away in the attic). Half of them I had completely forgotten about. :shock: :lol:

Ciarán12

Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Ciarán12 » 2014-08-07, 10:53

Varislintu wrote:Well, I picked up Japanese again a while ago, after a three year break or so.

I'm surprised at how much I'd forgotten, but also at how much I could remember. The kanji, unfortunately, was mostly forgotten, probably because it was never very well-fixed into my memory in the first place.

And... I was astounded at how many Japanese related books I owned (packed away in the attic). Half of them I had completely forgotten about. :shock: :lol:


Yay! Me too (as in, I recently got serious about Japanese again). I've become a memrise addict, so I found a course on there that teaches the 5000 words needed for the N2 JLPT exam and I've been trying to get through 50 words a day. I'd say I've forgotten how to write about half the kanji I knew, but I can still recognise a lot of them.

What books have you got and/or what's you plan for getting back into it?

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Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Varislintu » 2014-08-26, 14:17

Ciarán12 wrote:Yay! Me too (as in, I recently got serious about Japanese again). I've become a memrise addict, so I found a course on there that teaches the 5000 words needed for the N2 JLPT exam and I've been trying to get through 50 words a day. I'd say I've forgotten how to write about half the kanji I knew, but I can still recognise a lot of them.


Cool! :) I haven't heard about memrise before, I might look into that.

Ciarán12 wrote:What books have you got and/or what's you plan for getting back into it?


My plan/goal is to learn to recognise about 500 kanji for meaning, if nothing else, so that I could start truly working on reading comprehension. That was basically where I ran out of steam last time, that leap from beginner texts to reading something simple, but longer. Of course, vocabulary needs expansion for that as well. I find this stage really challenging in Japanese!

I had a lot more books related to kanji learning than I remembered. I have:

Teach yourself Japanese (all in romaji, but good for occasional revision)
Japanese for Busy People 1-3 (the revised edition, kana&kanji versions)
Kodansha's Japanese sentence patterns (love this book)
Kodansha's Japanese Particles (had completely forgotten about this one!)
Furigana dictionary
The Kanji Learner's Dictionary (forgotten)
O'Neill's Essential Kanji (the main 2000)
Read Real Japanese (this one I had forgotten, too. It's too advanced for me, I think)
Three Finnish children's books in Japanese translation (I must have been really well off back then)
A Russian book on Japanese Folktales (in romaji and kana & kanji)
Learn Japanese through Comics (I think I wasted my money on that one)

And now of course I had to buy another book :silly: , this time Tuttle's Basic Japanese Kanji Volume 1. I like it, and it was affordable, but I was disappointed to learn after I bought it that there actually is no Volume 2. :( I think I would have needed the Volume 2 more than the Volume 1, and took it for granted that it exists somewhere. But maybe Tuttle plans to publish it in the future --- I suppose I could write them and ask.

Ciarán12

Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Ciarán12 » 2014-08-26, 20:15

Varislintu wrote:
Cool! :) I haven't heard about memrise before, I might look into that.


It's like an online Anki, but for whatever reason I find I'm much better at sticking with it than with Anki. I think it's the fact that I can use if on any device that I have internet access on and my progress is updated automatically.

Varislintu wrote:My plan/goal is to learn to recognise about 500 kanji for meaning, if nothing else, so that I could start truly working on reading comprehension. That was basically where I ran out of steam last time, that leap from beginner texts to reading something simple, but longer.


I always say this when kanji comes up, but I think you should look into Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig. I can't say enough good things about it. That said, Yasna hates it, so it obviously isn't for everyone, but if you'd like to check it out you can download a sample section of the book containing the first 275 kanji in it for free on this site (the rest of the site is dedicated to reviewing kanji through that method and it has a really good forum too).

Varislintu wrote:Of course, vocabulary needs expansion for that as well.


That's where Memrise comes in very handy ;)

Varislintu wrote: I find this stage really challenging in Japanese!


Yup, Japanese is a very hard language to become literate in and we in the West have few opportunities outside of reading to engage with the language, which means stunted reading progress frequently means stunted vocab and grammar progress because your not able to reinforce grammar and vocab drills by actually seeing it used in texts.

Varislintu wrote:Japanese for Busy People 1-3 (the revised edition, kana&kanji versions)


I had "Japanese for Young People 1-2" which was aimed at US high school students (but made by the same people who made "Japanese for Busy People"). I would't advice it as the best material to use, I think the Genki series is much better, but it gave me a nice intro to the language. It was 10 years ago now since I used that book... (when did I get so old?)

Varislintu wrote:Kodansha's Japanese sentence patterns (love this book)
Kodansha's Japanese Particles (had completely forgotten about this one!)


Ooh! Those are good! :waytogo: I'm jealous!

Varislintu wrote:The Kanji Learner's Dictionary (forgotten)


That's a nice dictionary. It's even just nice to browse through it and look at all the pretty kanji.

Varislintu wrote:O'Neill's Essential Kanji (the main 2000)


We had this in college, it was pretty much a list of all the kanji we had to learn and in what order we would be tested on them. I always resented having to use it, because the Heisig method gives them in a different order (for good reason, which will become apparent if you check that book out) and I didn't like having to go in the order in the O'Neill's book because I was trying to follow RTK (Remembering the Kanji).

Varislintu wrote:Read Real Japanese (this one I had forgotten, too. It's too advanced for me, I think)


There are two of those (or at least I have two, there might be more), and they are really, really nice books. They are halfway between a book meant to teach you Japanese and actually just a compilation of really cool Japanese short stories, so even when you have learnt all you can from them they are still nice to have so you can reread the stories. It's a nice intro to Japanese literature too.

But yeah, it's a bit advanced (though I think the stories are all glossed fairly comprehensively), you could make it a medium-term goal to try to finish one of the short stories.

Varislintu wrote:Three Finnish children's books in Japanese translation (I must have been really well off back then)


Cool! I have a book of the Brother's Grimm's stories in Japanese translation, I found that there is a lot weird vocab in them like "Heave-ho" and "Fee-Fie-Foe-Fum" etc...[/quote]

Varislintu wrote:A Russian book on Japanese Folktales (in romaji and kana & kanji)


Interesting (I didn't think you spoke Russian though?)

Varislintu wrote:Learn Japanese through Comics (I think I wasted my money on that one)


There are a few of those types of books (Japanese the Manga Way is another one), I never invested in any of them. I bought a load of actual Japanese manga when I was there and that is a lot more interesting than the contrived kind.

Varislintu wrote:And now of course I had to buy another book :silly: , this time Tuttle's Basic Japanese Kanji Volume 1. I like it, and it was affordable, but I was disappointed to learn after I bought it that there actually is no Volume 2. :( I think I would have needed the Volume 2 more than the Volume 1, and took it for granted that it exists somewhere. But maybe Tuttle plans to publish it in the future --- I suppose I could write them and ask.


That is annoying :? What's the layout like? Is it just a list of kanji with it's readings and example vocab (like the O'Neill's book)?

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Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Varislintu » 2014-08-28, 11:10

Ciarán12 wrote:I always say this when kanji comes up, but I think you should look into Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig. I can't say enough good things about it. That said, Yasna hates it, so it obviously isn't for everyone, but if you'd like to check it out you can download a sample section of the book containing the first 275 kanji in it for free on this site (the rest of the site is dedicated to reviewing kanji through that method and it has a really good forum too).


Thanks for the tip! It sounds vaguely familiar -- maybe I've seen it in the bookstore or online stores. But I'm not familiar with it. I'll definitely look out for it tomorrow when I'm going to the bookstore again!

The downtown bookstore also had the two first volumes of The Basic Kanji Book series, which I've since gathered is actually out of print nowadays. So I was tempted to buy those as well, before they're all gone. Then again, the first book is available easily as a pdf online. But if using the pdf, you have to either skip the writing exercises or print it out, which is cumbersome.

Ciarán12 wrote:
Varislintu wrote:Of course, vocabulary needs expansion for that as well.


That's where Memrise comes in very handy ;)


Indeed. I should get some kind of thing like that for my phone. :)

Ciarán12 wrote:Yup, Japanese is a very hard language to become literate in and we in the West have few opportunities outside of reading to engage with the language, which means stunted reading progress frequently means stunted vocab and grammar progress because your not able to reinforce grammar and vocab drills by actually seeing it used in texts.


It's like a spiral of failure, sort of. I feel you really have to put effort into this phase so that you find a method that suits you, that allows you to advance past it.

Ciarán12 wrote:I had "Japanese for Young People 1-2" which was aimed at US high school students (but made by the same people who made "Japanese for Busy People"). I would't advice it as the best material to use, I think the Genki series is much better, but it gave me a nice intro to the language. It was 10 years ago now since I used that book... (when did I get so old?)


I've actually liked the JfBP books -- apart from the focus they have on business vocabulary. The kana versions slowly introduce kanji as well, so you get a small start into that (not a very deep one since the series is only 3 books long) alongside the grammar lessons. The revised (3rd?) editions look really nice and fresh, too.

Ciarán12 wrote:That's a nice dictionary. It's even just nice to browse through it and look at all the pretty kanji.


Yes. :D

Ciarán12 wrote:
Varislintu wrote:O'Neill's Essential Kanji (the main 2000)


We had this in college, it was pretty much a list of all the kanji we had to learn and in what order we would be tested on them. I always resented having to use it, because the Heisig method gives them in a different order (for good reason, which will become apparent if you check that book out) and I didn't like having to go in the order in the O'Neill's book because I was trying to follow RTK (Remembering the Kanji).


I like it okay, but I don't feel it alone is enough to really learn kanji. But as a revision tool, it's pretty good. Something to browse. :)

Ciarán12 wrote:
Varislintu wrote:Three Finnish children's books in Japanese translation (I must have been really well off back then)


Cool! I have a book of the Brother's Grimm's stories in Japanese translation, I found that there is a lot weird vocab in them like "Heave-ho" and "Fee-Fie-Foe-Fum" etc...


Yeah, that's the problem with children's literature... However, I think these ones are less problematic, since they're more like "proper" novels, not fairytales. However, last time I tried reading them, even the one with full kanji reading aids felt a bit too difficult, mostly because I lacked vocabulary. But this is one area where technology has advanced to people's aid, because now there is (pretty functional) smart phone voice translation! :good4u: :lol: Seriously, it feels a lot easier to just speak the words I don't understand into my phone while reading, instead of having to look them up in that furigana dictionary for example. A huge, huge difference to last time. :)

Ciarán12 wrote:
Varislintu wrote:A Russian book on Japanese Folktales (in romaji and kana & kanji)


Interesting (I didn't think you spoke Russian though?)


Haha, no, I don't speak any Russian, but it was actually a present from a friend who had been in Russia. :) I can't understand the cyrillic commentary, but the stories come in latin transliteration and the commentary actually contains for example the dictionary form of the verbs in latin script, so it's still helpful. It's proven to be a really good book for complete beginner reading comprehension. Very simple stories. :)

Ciarán12 wrote:That is annoying :? What's the layout like? Is it just a list of kanji with it's readings and example vocab (like the O'Neill's book)?


No, it's more of a workbook and reader combination. You get the kanji broken down per stroke, a little practice space, a short list of common compounds, and then a short reader after every two kanji, where the kanji are used. The readers have reading comprehension questions, and then there is an exercise section after every chapter (chapters are around 10 kanjis long), where all the kanji is revised. Oh, and all the kanji get a visual mnemonic, that I think they've come up with themselves. Someof them are more useful than others. :P

What made me decide to buy it was the readers, since the book contains quite a few of those, and they're nice and short. Unfortunately Volume 1 only contains about 250 kanji, so they are mostly familiar to me from before, but at least this is a fun way to relearn them. :)

Koko

Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Koko » 2014-08-30, 0:15

When writing the kanji for a verb like "taberu," do you have to write the kana for be rather than just writing 食る?

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Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby hashi » 2014-08-30, 1:54

Koko wrote:When writing the kanji for a verb like "taberu," do you have to write the kana for be rather than just writing 食る?
Every teacher I've had has written 食べる, and thus, I do too. Then when you try to look up 食る in a dictionary (I use both this dictionary and this one), neither have results. I would therefore assume that 食べる is the only correct way to spell it.
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Sono ancora qui (a volte), ma probabilmente non ti voglio parlare.

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Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Koko » 2014-08-30, 3:12

Thanks! I just found it a little strange and redundant since… how could you mistake it for anything else؟

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Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Yasna » 2014-08-30, 3:28

Koko wrote:Thanks! I just found it a little strange and redundant since… how could you mistake it for anything else؟

食べる is easier to read since it has more pronunciation clues. Although you do sometimes run into long verbs where for whatever reason they decided not to give much help with pronunciation, e.g.:
司る つかさどる
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Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Ciarán12 » 2014-09-02, 19:19

I just bought Routledge's "Modern Japanese Grammar: A Practical Guide". It's fairly comprehensive, my plan is to go through it from cover to cover to refresh any points I forgot and pick up anything I missed. Reading through it is reminding me why I like Japanese and feeding my enthusiasm even more, so I think it was definitely a good buy. :)

Also a friend of mine who was two years below me in my degree course has just graduated, so everything is still fresh for him and he has a Japanese girlfriend (always a benefit when learning Japanese, from what I've see of those friends of mine that have gone out with Japanese people) and he and I have been having conversations in Japanese. I've made a point of asking him to translate any words he uses that I don't understand or anything I want to say that I've forgotten how to say (he has been quite patient with me), and I've been writing all these expressions down with the intention of feeding them into my memrise courses later.

Koko

Re: 日本語の雑談 (Japanese Language Discussion)

Postby Koko » 2014-11-16, 21:11

What titles can you use with pets? San, kun, chan? I assume these are possible, but are there any titles specific to use with pets?


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