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Japanese thread (Nihongo wo hanasou!)

  Tags: Japanese
 Language Learning Forum : Multilingual Lounge Post Reply
36 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4
Hiiro Yui
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4730 days ago

111 posts - 126 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese

 
 Message 33 of 36
15 September 2012 at 5:44pm | IP Logged 
So you prioritize input. When you listen to Japanese, do they tell you which kanji they are speaking? You don't necessarily need to visualize the kanji as you listen, you know.

I started with wanting to understand anime. I wanted to increase my passive vocabulary and was afraid of kana/kanji. I was eventually forced to learn kana because there are no big dictionaries that use roomaji. That's unfair. I chose to put off kana/kanji for later, but other people prevented me from increasing my vocabulary by trying to get rid of roomaji. There are other people out there like me who just want to listen and maybe speak. Forcing those people to learn kana/kanji is not morally good. That's why I don't write in all kana.

にょ=nyo. んよ=n'yo.
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Fiveonefive
Diglot
Groupie
Japan
Joined 5706 days ago

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

 
 Message 34 of 36
18 September 2012 at 2:46pm | IP Logged 
Hiiro Yui wrote:


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)!


Your language partner may not be consciously aware of it but there are rules which dictate how ワロタ話 and ~島 are read. The rules are called "rendaku" (連濁) in Japanese and all Japanese speakers know them deep down in their core being. Literally 99.9% of Japanese speakers will never make the mistakes you are mentioning while trying to guess changes from sa->za, ha->ba, shima->jima. They will come to you too in time as you continue speaking Japanese.

A good overview of rendaku can be found here.
http://www.tofugu.com/guides/rendaku-sequential-voicing/
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stifa
Triglot
Senior Member
Norway
lang-8.com/448715
Joined 4886 days ago

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

 
 Message 35 of 36
18 September 2012 at 3:48pm | IP Logged 
Hiiro Yui wrote:
So you prioritize input. When you listen to Japanese, do they tell
you which kanji they are speaking? You don't necessarily need to visualize the kanji as
you listen, you know.

I started with wanting to understand anime. I wanted to increase my passive vocabulary
and was afraid of kana/kanji. I was eventually forced to learn kana because there are
no big dictionaries that use roomaji. That's unfair. I chose to put off kana/kanji for
later, but other people prevented me from increasing my vocabulary by trying to get rid
of roomaji. There are other people out there like me who just want to listen and maybe
speak. Forcing those people to learn kana/kanji is not morally good. That's why I don't
write in all kana.

にょ=nyo. んよ=n'yo.

If they told me which kanji they used, I wouldn't have needed to practice listening,
would I? I prefer to learn listening while listening and reading while reading because
it is better than learning neither by reading romaji.

jisho.org let you input words in romaji and even give romaji readings if you can't be
bothered to learn kana. Until now, more than 95% of all the English input I've had have
been reading. Unless I move to Japan, most of my contact with Japanese would be reading
because I aim to do what I do in English, in Japanese, and if I read a lot on the
internet in English, I want to be able to do the same in Japanese.

Also, with methods such as Heisig's remembering the kanji, learning words with kanji is
actually very easy, because I can always associate kanji of which I don't know any
words with something, and that how our (at least my) memory work; by linking stuff
together. Also, some kanji can replace even as much as 10-11 latin letters. An excample
is 志. My reading speed in general is very poor because of my vision, thus this is just
fantastic.

But I can see your attitude; you are simply creating problems where there are none. And
I have been learning Japanese rather quickly compared to other languages despite the
"horrible" Japanese script.

And I have always been taught to face my fears rather than run away from them.

Edited by stifa on 18 September 2012 at 3:51pm

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Hiiro Yui
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4730 days ago

111 posts - 126 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese

 
 Message 36 of 36
21 September 2012 at 3:17am | IP Logged 
stifa-san, your goals are different from what mine were. It makes perfect sense for you to avoid roomaji so that your kana/kanji reading speed will increase. Avert your eyes: roomaji de no nihongo!

fiveonefive-san, gomen. boku, wasurete shimaimashita. kono sureddo wa "kanji ni hantai shite iru" to sakebu tokoro de wa arimasen. "kana ni hantai shite iru" to iu tokoro desu no de, -shima/-jima no mondai wa kankei arimasen. I'm supposed to be explaining why I dislike forcing beginners to learn kana...

ワロタ話 wa warotahanashi desu. boku no kangaekata de wa, "warota" wa kansaiben no "warouta"(=waratta) na no de, meishi ga doushi no ato ni kureba rendaku ga okoranai kara, -hanashi wa -banashi ni narimasen.

sono webupeiji wa omoshiroi desu yo. "futatsume no go ni dakuon ga areba, rendaku wa okoranai" to iu ruuru wa mae kara shitta kedo, "kanarazu rendaku shinai kotoba" nante hajimete shirimashita. sono risuto wo hayaku anki shinakya...

Edited by Hiiro Yui on 21 September 2012 at 5:58am



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