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Time to read Japanese decently? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6438 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 1 of 17 26 May 2012 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Even after knowing the kana for years, I still read Japanese sooooo slowly. I have to say the word a few times before I realize what word it is.
I've also known hangeul for years and I can read hangeul at least 5x faster than Japanese, even if I don't know the words that I'm reading. Does this match your experience? To me, hangeul is much easier to read because there is consistency amongst the letters. "ka" and "ki" are similar because of the "k", and "ki" and "ni" are similar because of the "i." With kana, everything is its own letter. "ka" and "ki" look nothing alike even though they are both K sounds. "ki" and "ni" look nothing alike even though they are both "ni" sounds. So every time I see a kana, I have to search my memory from the beginning to determine what it is. To put it into practice, assuming I know all the words in a given sentence, if the sentence is in Japanese I will still read it very slowly, possibly more than once, having to sound out every syllable, and only then will I realize what I just said. Assuming I know all the words in a given sentence, I can read the Korean sentence much faster, usually correctly on the first try. In neither of those languages do I ever see a word an associate it with its meaning. For example, if you flash the English word "red" up on a screen for half a second, I know what it means. If you flash "akai" up on a screen for half a second, I'll probably get the "a" but that's about it. If you put it up on a screen for 5 seconds I'll probably get "a-ka-i... uh... oh! That means red!" Now oddly enough I don't have that issue quite as bad with German. If you flash "rot" up on a screen for half a second I would be more like "'rot'... red!" If someone says "akai" I will know it's "red." So it's not a vocab memorization issue with Japanese, it's a writing --> reading --> meaning issue. This was supposed to be a short post. Oops! Edited by IronFist on 26 May 2012 at 5:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| yirmeyahu23 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5097 days ago 5 posts - 6 votes Studies: Biblical Hebrew, English*, Modern Hebrew Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 17 26 May 2012 at 7:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find myself also doing this with Japanese as well, especially when it comes to reading different websites and books online. I always get caught just like you said on making sure I read every syllable that make up the kana and the readings for the kanji. Its almost as if I'm just designed to read it that slow but I know that will improve with repeated exposure and constant practice. Japanese & Chinese just have an extremely difficult writing system and its even worse trying to learn it from a category 1 language like English, whose letters are non-visual and for the most part have set sounds and readings.
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| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5536 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 3 of 17 26 May 2012 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Initially I was thinking that Japanese would be faster for me to learn to read quickly since there are fewer possible syllable patterns than with Korean. However, you make a very good point that there is rarely any visual similarity between syllables that have the same consonants or same vowels like Korean does, so this may actually make it harder instead. Regardless, I'm still at the point where my difficulty in reading Kana is due to both being very new to it *and* having a tiny Japanese vocabulary, so my reading will suck either way for a while yet.
I'll be quite happy when my ability to read Kana matches that of my ability to read Hangul, as I can read Hangul *very* fast now (not quite "English fast" yet, but not too far off in sentences where I already know all the words). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6438 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 4 of 17 26 May 2012 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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You guys ever read something in Japanese, have no idea what you just read, look it up, and then go "oh duh, I know all those words!"?
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| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5650 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 5 of 17 26 May 2012 at 8:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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No, I just think you complain way too much about Korean and Japanese. Japanese isn't hard
to read. Through reading and kanji studies, you quickly learn the meanings and the common readings of characters. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5767 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 6 of 17 27 May 2012 at 2:50am | IP Logged | ||
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Read more. And check yourself for accuracy every now and then: by reading aloud in front of a teacher/tutor if you can, otherwise by transliterating a text to kana and then checking with a dictionary and by recording yourself reading aloud and then checking with a dictionary.
It kind of helps. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| IronFist Senior Member United States Joined 6438 days ago 663 posts - 941 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 7 of 17 27 May 2012 at 3:09am | IP Logged | ||
Be fair. I rarely ever complain about Japanese. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| blackbrich Newbie United States Joined 5230 days ago 13 posts - 30 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 8 of 17 27 May 2012 at 7:41am | IP Logged | ||
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I personally find kana easier to read than hanguel with speed. Though I am a beginner at Korean.
I see か and it's か and there's nothing else it can be. Whereas with Korean I have to read the character parts to get the sound and then from there I can move on to the meaning. I think I just feel Korean has too many combinations. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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