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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4977 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 465 of 1702 11 August 2012 at 9:46pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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According to some estimates, Chinese-based words comprise as much as seventy percent of the total vocabulary of the modern Japanese language and form as much as thirty to forty percent of words used in speech.
And they say that Japanese isn't related to Chinese. Phooey. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Takato Tetraglot Senior Member HungaryRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4841 days ago 249 posts - 276 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, EnglishB2, GermanB2, Japanese | Message 466 of 1702 11 August 2012 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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"Japanese isn't related to Chinese" doesn't mean that it has no similarity. It solely means that according to the laws of the linguists, relations are based on the most basic 30 words and grammar points (I don't know the exact numbers, but "ni" not resembling *insert Japanese second person singular pronoun here* was certainly taken into consideration). So if you create a language with simple Japanese grammar (let's call it Jagala), having 30 words (mostly grammar words) then you import English words to Jagala (maybe 10 000 words will suffice for now) then that language is not linguistically related to English (but influenced by English).
P.S.: You can use the English alphabet for Jagala. Edit:
Why? Whom do you read to?
Oh? I was told kanji is not that related to Japanese pronunciation. It seems, if one imports the writing system of a completely unrelated language then it might result in this. Thank god the Chinese haven't ruled Britain making it to import the hanzi writing system to English. Nice thing that there was the Roman empire distributing such an easy writing system, huh? Even a kindergartener can learn it! I myself find learning the readings of five separate kanji as useful as learning how to pronounce the five English vowel letters. Edited by Takato on 11 August 2012 at 11:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4977 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 467 of 1702 12 August 2012 at 2:42am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Kanji is very related to pronunciation. For example, the word manga - 漫画. The first kanji has a chinese
reading of man and the 2nd kanji a chinese reading of ga. These pronunciations get recycled in other words too so they're easier to learn if you know it already. And I think it's interesting. But really it's for reading. I read to myself. Maybe it doesn't bother you if you don't know how to say what you're reading but it bothers me and I don't think it's helping my Japanese if I'm not saying it to myself as I read it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Takato Tetraglot Senior Member HungaryRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4841 days ago 249 posts - 276 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, EnglishB2, GermanB2, Japanese | Message 468 of 1702 12 August 2012 at 10:42am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
What about Japanese readings? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5775 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 469 of 1702 12 August 2012 at 11:30am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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It is certainly possible to make an educated guess to the readings of some words if you know the on reading of a kanji or can recognise a phonetic component...however it is not an exact science. I have been caught out a few times, to the amusement of my Japanese friends. There is also the problem of compounds which can be read in two different ways, depending on the context, again I have been caught out a few times here as well.
Anyway, I promised some suggestions of books and now I am back on a real computer I can do so! Essentially, I recommend that you take a text which will allow you to study a few key compounds for each kanji. As you've already Heisiged, I guess you don't have to worry about writing them, so you just need to memorise the vocabulary and the readings of the compounds. By doing this, the most important kanji readings should sink in over time, and you'll start being able to make educated guesses too, plus you will have the added advantage of a couple of thousand common words memorised. There are a number of different texts which basically present vocabulary in a kanji by kanji order. One that I recommend in particular you look at is the Unicom Kanji book for JLPT 2. You can see a sample of it here. The reason I suggest this book in particular for you is because of the way it groups the characters together by phonetic components/on readings (although it also gives you important vocabulary with kun readings too - which are just as important as the Chinese readings), which I think will fit in quite nicely with the way you are trying to understand kanji at the moment. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4977 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 470 of 1702 12 August 2012 at 2:19pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I guess I could say super heavily influenced by Chinese and not make the linguists feel a need to argue with me but I would take it a step further. Is it the same as if they were once the same language and then split off into separate languages? Probalby not but when a language has such a HUGE impact another that the majority of the vocabulary being used is from this non related language it really feels like they're related. In my case particulary the vocabulary that this book is throwing at me is 95% Chinese origin so far. That might change in later chapters or not. You look at English as another language that borrowed tons of vocabulary just like Japanese did - from Latin and French. English is Germanic per the linguists but English speakers tend to find learning Romance languages easier than other Germanic languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4977 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 471 of 1702 13 August 2012 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Does it matter which edition of the book I get? I see a nice cheap version of the 95 edition and then the 05 edition for 30 dollars more... Neither of which would include the revised versions of the test although I don't know that they made changes really to the N2 anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5775 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 472 of 1702 13 August 2012 at 8:07pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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It's not really a drill book for the test anyway, the true value is in the way they have ordered the kanji and the wealth of example sentences.
Unfortunately I've never seen the 1995 edition so I don't know if there were substantial changes or not. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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