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Japanese thread (Nihongo wo hanasou!)

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36 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 35  Next >>
Fiveonefive
Diglot
Groupie
Japan
Joined 5707 days ago

69 posts - 88 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: Swedish

 
 Message 25 of 36
14 September 2012 at 1:41am | IP Logged 
ごめん、ローマ字が嫌いじゃないけど、ロー マ字で書いて日本語あまり好きではない。
Gomen, roumaji ga kiraijanai kedo, roumaji de kaite nihongo amari sukidehanai.

私は最初から仮名を使って日本語を学んだ。 ローマ字を使うことに慣れていない。
Watashi ha, saisho kara kana wo tukatte nihongo wo mananda. Roumaji wo tukau koto ni nareteinai.

I understand what you are saying about the islands there but those are very rare cases and almost no Japanese would ever read them wrong even if they didn't learn them individually in Japanese geography class. Simply because they would know X kanji doesn't have a Japanese reading or because the Japanese readings would be ridiculously complicated for a place name.

I did mention that there were rare exceptions to the rule :)
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stifa
Triglot
Senior Member
Norway
lang-8.com/448715
Joined 4887 days ago

629 posts - 813 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German
Studies: Japanese, Spanish

 
 Message 26 of 36
14 September 2012 at 10:57pm | IP Logged 
Hiiro Yui wrote:

stifa-san
eigo wa roomaji de kakarete imasu. nihongo ga roomaji de kakaretara, hiragana wo manabu
hitsuyou wa nakunarimasu. chotto renshuu sureba, roomaji wo hiragana/kanji yori hayaku
yomeru you ni narimasu.

English is written using letters. If Japanese was written using letters, there would be
no need to learn hiragana. If you practice a little, you'll be able to read it faster
than hiragana.

nannenkan nihongo wo benkyou shite kimashita ka. kanji ga daisuki to iimashita ga, baai
ni yotte, kanji no yomikata wa ookiku chigaimasu yo. nihonjin mo machigatta yomikata wo
shimasu. tatoeba, ioutou wa ioujima to shite machigaete yobarete kimashita. shima no
kanji ga shima no namae ni areba, "shima" ka "jima" ka "tou" ka, dou yobu beki ka
mayotte shimaimasu yo. nihonjin de mo mayou you na baai de atte mo, furigana wa hotondo
arimasen. subete no kotoba no yomikata wo hitotsu hitotsu oboete iku shika nai n desu.
benkyou wo tsudzukereba, kanji wo kirau you ni naru deshou.

How many years have you been studying Japanese? You said you like kanji, but the
readings differ depending on the situation. Even Japanese people misread words. For
example, Iwojima is supposed to be read as Ioutou, but Japanese people have been
reading it wrong for decades (if I'm not mistaken). Whenever 島 comes at the end of an
island's name, you won't know if it's supposed to be shima, jima, or tou. Even in the
cases where Japanese people would be unsure of how to read a word, furigana is rarely
given. You have no choice but to memorize each word's reading as you go (never guess!).
As you continue your studies, you'll probably come to hate kanji, too.

Why would I practice a foreign way of reading a language? When I learn new words, I
also learn their kanjis, so if I don't know how to read it, I don't know it. Studying
hiragana takes a few hours, or at most, days. I want to read stuff written by Japanese
people, not foreigners who are too lazy to bother with proper reading.

Names are always a bit tough in Japan, because at times, they utilise rarely used
readings of Kanji. In fact, the writing system was one of the things that brought me to
Japanese. I love kanji!

I've only been learning for three months, but I learnt hiragana and katakana before I
started studying Japanese, I also went through Remembering the Kanji whilst studying
vocabulary. I even find reading much easier than listening, because I can read at my
own pace, and sometimes four or five morae are packed into one kanji, which is great
for me because my reading speed is generally slow because of my low vision.

To be frank, I struggled with hituyou before I realised it was 必要 (or is it 必用).

Sorry for the slightly hostile tone in this post. I was a bit frustrated because you
almost encouraged me to start practicing ローマ字...

Do you know how to read/write kanji/kana? I also like kana because they represent one
mora, whilst romaji mix up にょ and んよ and stuff like that. I do use romaji-input
though, but that is because I find it unnecessary to learn a new keyboard layout. Alos,
it means that i write ち as ti, つ as tu, し as si, etc.

I also write more readable kanji than roman letters. :p
Hiiro Yui wrote:
though. English and the other european languages are written using
letters. How can you hate it if you're a native speaker of English? Don't you mean the
Japanese script is more beautiful, or that you're not used to using letters for
Japanese?

Everything has its place.

I like this article:
http://japaneselevelup.com/2012/05/27/romancing-the-romaji/

Also,
ura niwa niwa niwa, niwa niwa niwa niwatori ga iru.


Edited by stifa on 14 September 2012 at 11:09pm

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Hiiro Yui
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4731 days ago

111 posts - 126 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese

 
 Message 27 of 36
15 September 2012 at 5:44am | IP Logged 
Fiveonefive-san, naremasu yo! narete shimaimasu! kono mama tsudzukereba. The process has already started. Don't resist.

yutouyomi to juubakoyomi no shima no kazu wa hikakuteki ni sukunai ka mo shiremasen kedo, -shima to -jima wa ooi desu ne. dore wo erabu ka mayoimasen ka?

Island names with mixed kun'yomi and on'yomi may be rare compared to normal names, but -shima and -jima are both common. How will you choose which one to use? There is no pattern, so you'll have to guess, right? And remember, I only mentioned island names as an example. There are tons of words throughout the language where the second half of the word might begin with "sa" or "za", "ha" or "ba". ワロタ話 is netspeak one of my Skype partners wrote me. Because it was written using kanji and it wasn't in the dictionary, I had to ask him how to read it: -hanashi or -banashi. He told me the answer, and when I asked him how he learned it himself, he said he first saw it online and guessed it was the pronunciation that was easier (and his guess was confirmed later)!

stifa, it seems like you are more interested in reading than in writing, listening or speaking. If this is true, and you find the Japanese script beautiful, it makes sense for you to spend as much time as possible trying to read the script. That's how you will increase your reading speed. When, however, you tire of its "beauty" and you want to actually understand what's written (instead of just getting the gist), you'll be thankful for people like me who can explain it using letters!

I wrote 必要(which is the normal word). 必用(which I just looked up and learned now) should mean "must-use", but apparently it's also used to mean "necessary".

That article doesn't go far enough for me. The author doesn't feel as strongly as I do. "ura niwa niwa niwa, niwa niwa niwa niwatori ga iru." What does this say in English? "In the backyard, there are two chickens"? Still no need for kanji.
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stifa
Triglot
Senior Member
Norway
lang-8.com/448715
Joined 4887 days ago

629 posts - 813 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German
Studies: Japanese, Spanish

 
 Message 28 of 36
15 September 2012 at 9:50am | IP Logged 
I'm interested in reading, writing, speaking and listening. Why should I learn romaji
just to understand foreigners writing in Japanese? Why should I return to gaijinease if
I'm tired of real Japanese?

And the sentece mean "there are two chickens in the back yard, and two in the front
yard."
Turns out you need kanji after all.
裏庭には二羽、庭には二羽鶏が居る。

If I want to understand a word, I check the dictionary. Japanese people don't write in
romaji, then why should I?

Most of my contact with Japanese outside Japan would be on the internet anyway, and on
the internet, stuff is written.

My anki deck is devoid of romaji, and I have even ~200 cards with Japanese definitions.

It's almost like you're saying that romaji is the true way of writing Japanese. Why
don't Japanese people write in this true way then?

Edited by stifa on 15 September 2012 at 9:54am

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Hiiro Yui
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4731 days ago

111 posts - 126 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese

 
 Message 29 of 36
15 September 2012 at 2:44pm | IP Logged 
"I'm interested in reading, writing, speaking and listening." What I mean is, which of these skills are your priorities? Maybe both reading and listening? It seems like you love kanji for their beauty and you want to increase your reading speed as quickly as possible. Then, when you finish learning all the Jouyou Kanji and you can read real Japanese quickly enough, you will start concentrating on writing and speaking. If this is the case, it makes sense to read only kana/kanji for now.

The reason Japanese people write using kana/kanji is tradition. They want to protect their tradition. Maybe you want to protect their tradition as well, but it's more likely that you think kana/kanji are beautiful. I'm going to try to convince Japanese people to stop using kana/kanji. If I succeed one day and no Japanese people use kana/kanji, will you say, "If Japanese people don't write in kana/kanji, why should I?" Or, will you feel sad that they aren't using the beautiful script anymore and try to get them to start again?

"Why should I learn romaji just to understand foreigners writing in Japanese? Why should I return to gaijinease if I'm tired of real Japanese?"
From the perspective of Japan, I am a gaijin and I am writing gaijin-ese right now. I'm using roomaji right now. You said you look up words you don't know, but in which dictionary? J-E or J-J? If you use J-E, you're reading roomaji. If you only use Japanese to Japanese dictionaries, it would make sense if you don't know the difference between 必要 and 必用. The definition of the words you look up will include other words and grammar you don't know. (http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/) 必用[名・形動]必ず用いなくてはいけない こと。なくてはならないこと。また、そのさ ま。My translation: "It can be used as a noun or as a na-adjective. A must-use thing. A necessary thing." You may not have realized it, but this definition is giving two different meanings even though it doesn't use "or". "A must-use thing OR a necessary thing" would have been clearer, but it assumes you know that "or" is implied. Neither http://www.alc.co.jp/ nor http://wwwjdic.com/ make this distinction. You might tire of reading beautiful kana/kanji, but not fully understanding. You can get the gist from the kanji, but I can explain the nuances because I already went through the process and can use English to help you. On the other hand, I don't care about preserving their kanji tradition, so...
"裏庭には二羽、庭には二羽鶏が居る。" Okay you got me, but spaces would have helped: uraniwa ni wa niwa, niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru.

Edited by Hiiro Yui on 15 September 2012 at 2:46pm

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stifa
Triglot
Senior Member
Norway
lang-8.com/448715
Joined 4887 days ago

629 posts - 813 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German
Studies: Japanese, Spanish

 
 Message 30 of 36
15 September 2012 at 3:10pm | IP Logged 
I use a J-J dictionary. That's the sole reason I had to learn that word. It's one of
those dictionary words, I suppose. Also, jisho.org uses kanji+kana, so I never had to
look up words in romaji dictionaries. The only reason I have ever used romaji was to
google grammar details in English because google would mess up at times if I included
the kana.

And I read kanji/kana first and foremost because Japanese people use them to write
Japanese. That it is "beautiful" would never have convinced me on its own. If Japanese
people used Romaji, I would use Romaji.

If I decide to learnt Arabic, I would write and read Arabic script.
If I decide to learn Russian, I would write and read Russian script.
If I decide to learn Chinese, well you got it.

Now when I know the kanji, I realise how convenient it actually is to read with kanji
and kana. There are still 1000s kanji I can't read, and probably 20,000 words I still
have to learn.

If I haven't had the opportunity to read English as it is written, I would never have
level I'm currently at.

But how do you interact with native material if you can't read?
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Hiiro Yui
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4731 days ago

111 posts - 126 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese

 
 Message 31 of 36
15 September 2012 at 3:35pm | IP Logged 
Please confirm your priorities. You mention reading and writing, but you've said nothing about listening and speaking practice.
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stifa
Triglot
Senior Member
Norway
lang-8.com/448715
Joined 4887 days ago

629 posts - 813 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, EnglishC2, German
Studies: Japanese, Spanish

 
 Message 32 of 36
15 September 2012 at 3:41pm | IP Logged 
Input is my top priority, that means both reading and listening. Why don't you write in
all kana instead?

Also, Japanese is a moraic language, and the most precise way to write it phonetically
would be using kana, as にょ and んよ is both spelled 'nyo' in romaji. Hiragana, or
hiragana combos like しゃ and ぎょ are one mora.


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