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A few japanese basics. | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Ortho Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6292 days ago 58 posts - 60 votes  | Message 1 of 9 22 March 2009 at 3:37am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hello,
I am starting on Japanese. I started by learning the hirgana and katakana and am comfortable with my ability both to recall and produce all the kana, including the extra modified and compound ones. I assumed that what I would then do was move on to reading things that were written in kana and starting to connect the words (written in kana) with the spoken language, learn some basic things to say and understand and practice them with recordings and friends and while on holiday, and that I would begin learning kanji as a more advanced thing when I had developed a basic vocabulary in kana. I assumed that this is how japanese children learn and it seemed like the natural progression for me. So, I was rather surprised when I found out that AJATT, a site that in my view tends rather toward a "natural" idea about learning languages, suggested that the next step (actually he puts it first, but I already know the kana) would be to learn the kanji! As near as I can tell from leafing "Remembering the Kanji", the kanji are actually being linked with words in English. At the end of learning the kanji I'd know the kanji and kana and nothing else. It seems odd to me to put in at least a few hundred hours of effort to learn kanji and not be able to order a cup of coffee or get directions next time I am in Japan. 1. I am too new to Japanese to really have a side in this debate, but can anyone help me with information about how the choices that I make at this point will help/hinder me in the future? I'm a bit stumped. I don't particularly like Pimsleur but thought that I would learn some spoken Japanese. I understand that I would have to learn some grammar in order to actually say things, but are the benefits of knowing the kanji so great that this is a bad idea? I travel to Japan once a year or so and the largest benefits to me would seem to be basic spoken Japanese, although reading is a goal. If there is some great benefit to putting off learning spoken Japanese, then I will consider it but would like opinions. 2. When am I reading about kanji, I see tons of references to the "reading" of a kanji. As far as I can tell this refers to the different pronunciations possible for the same kanji, and that the sense of the word "reading" here refers to which meaning is applied to the kanji (or its pronunciation if you say it aloud), but the term itself seems very clumsy to me and I am wondering if I am not understanding the term. 3. If different meanings ("readings") are attachable to each kanji (i.e. the effect is one of meaning and not just one of pronunciation), then how can "Remembering the Kanji" state "#143 means lively. #144 means extinguish"? Anyway, I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out a direction from here and would appreciate opinions. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6792 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 2 of 9 22 March 2009 at 6:13am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Real Japanese uses kanji. You will not find any kana-only text for native people, only in textbooks for learners. And those dialogues are very contrived. Think about what you would see in a text for English learners. A: How do you do? My name is Mr. Smith. B: Pleased to meet you. My name is Mr. Tanaka. Sure, it's correct, but nobody talks that way. The point of learning all the kanji up front is so that you can expose yourself to authentic Japanese as soon as possible rather than learning awkward, stuffy textbook Japanese. The investment of time up front is totally worth it.
You can (and should) learn spoken Japanese while you're learning kanji. And you can even use kana-only material while you're learning kanji. But the point, like I said, is to move to authentic Japanese as soon as possible. Pimsleur is ok, but I like Japanesepod101 much better. Peter (one of the hosts) is kind of annoying IMO but it's a great resource. During the kanji phase, you also want to expose yourself to real spoken Japanese as much as possible, even though you won't understand it. If you check the table of contents on AJATT, you'll see that the immersion environment is something you keep going the whole time you're learning.
The reading only refers to the pronunciation. There are several possibilities for each kanji.
Heisig doesn' try to give you a full dictionary definition of a kanji in just one single word. He gives you a meaning, but he calls it a keyword. It just gives you a general feel for what the kanji can mean. You'll learn the subtleties of different meaning by actually learning and using the language. I hope all this made sense. It's kind of late. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5708 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 9 22 March 2009 at 7:00am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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1. Depends on your personal preference and learning style. I learnt to read my first ~800 to 1000 kanji as they came (reading magazines mostly).
Think about how you want to be able to use the language first - do you want to watch anime without subtitles, read novels, talk to your Japanese co-workers or study/work there in one or two years? If, let's say, your main incentive were to watch anime or talk to your co-workers, learning all the kanji up front doesn't seem to make too much sense to me. On the other hand, kanji are an essential part of Japanese and not learning them from the start ought to make things harder in the long run. If you want to study there or are desparate to read novels, and have a lot of dedication (something I lack), the kanji-first method might be worth a try. 2. Kanji were brought to Japan by buddhist monks in three waves. They first were used to write Chinese texts, but soon adopted to write Japanese, together with Japanized Chinese. Current Japanese has a lot of vocabulary originating from Sinitic words. These words are usually two-kanji compound words and pronounced in a Japanized version of the Chinese words from the Wu, Han or Tang period they originate from. These are on readings. The kanji also were adopted to write pure Japanese words with Japanese sounding, which is referred to by kun reading. Some kanji have more than one on reading (because they were imported more than once), some have more than one kun reading (because they were used to write different but linked concepts) Reading is a direct translation from the Japanese 読み (meaning of pronunciation or reading), that's why it might sounds a bit obscure. One single reading can mean more than one concept in your first language, whereas two or more readings can all refer to the same concept.* 3. I think that question is obsolete. Mr. Heisig took a dictionary (I don't know which one but it's the same as NJ Star uses) and put the first translation for each kanji in his book, not more. *As is true for any language. My English-German dictionary gives fifteen translations for the word 'cap', referring to five different concepts 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| OneEye Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6792 days ago 518 posts - 784 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, Taiwanese, German, French | Message 4 of 9 22 March 2009 at 7:23am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
No, that is definitely not what he did. His keyword choices were the result of scholarly research, and were carefully chosen so that none of them are the same, and that wouldn't happen if you just arbitrarily decided to take the first word of the dictionary translation. Those words are in that dictionary first because of Dr. Heisig's work. Besides, KANJIDIC (which NJStar uses) is an open-source project that was started nearly 20 years after Heisig's book was released, so he couldn't have used that dictionary. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5708 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 9 22 March 2009 at 9:29am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Oh, alright, thanks for the correction. So it was the other way around. Edited by Bao on 22 March 2009 at 9:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Ortho Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6292 days ago 58 posts - 60 votes | Message 7 of 9 22 March 2009 at 7:10pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Thank you very much to everyone that responded. It will take me a day or two to process all of this and decide what direction I'm going to go in, but I feel much better informed now. Thanks again.
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| Bob Greaves Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6621 days ago 86 posts - 91 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 8 of 9 22 March 2009 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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[/QUOTE]
Then I started to type in easy texts without having seen the written form, listening [/QUOTE] Did you type in Kana?, Romaji? or Kanji? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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