Japanese

[Dimitri13]

Re: Japanese

Yeah, when I think of the number 5, I always see a big fat "五" in my mind. Or 8: "八". Sure, there are 1, 2, and 3 ("一", "二", "三" respectively), but that means nothing, not when the vast majority of the numbers don't look like what they are.

How about Male/Female? "男"/"女". Looks just like the personification of male/female to me. If it was me, I would have made it | and O...

The only ones that are even similar don't even look much like what they are. Mountain is "山". Does that look like a mountain to you? Fire is "火". Looks a little like fire I guess. Tree is "木". Again, I can see how it could be a tree, but honestly it SORT OF looking like a tree isn't going to help you read it. My point here is that MOST kanji LOOKS NOTHING like what it is.

Actually, Afro, it does. All Kanji comes from a pictograph in Chinese. It may not look like it now, but it did.

This site might be helpful: http://www.kanjigraphy.com/mainpages/info/history.html

[Edit] I do not believe OP is from Japan. She has made too many mistakes in her post. I believe she is a 14 year old American girl who wishes so hard to be Japanese. (Weeaboo) Mod, track IP please :{

That, or she just recently moved to Japan and is trying to share her (albeit partly incorrect) knowledge with us.

Although I'm still going for the first one.

[Afrobean]

Re: Japanese

Actually kanji is very meaningful -- it is useless to look at it as a physical description of each meaning. Sometimes you have to examine the radicals, which have meaning themselves.

For instance: 男 is man, or otoko (or dan or nan depending on context/form). It certainly doesn't look like a man, but that's not the point. It's composed of two radicals:

Chikara (kun-yomi form), ryoku or riki in on-yomi form:力, meaning power or strength
Ta (kun-yomi form), den in on-yomi form: 田, meaning rice field

What do you get when you look at the fusion between power and rice fields? You're looking into historical contexts here about how men of strength were linked to labor with respect to rice fields. Now of course, kanji is basically ripped from Chinese :P

Just a note, on-yomi versus kun-yomi is a sort of difference in reading depending on context. Usually combined forms of kanji take on the Chinese pronounciation (transliterated into Chinese, that is, via on-yomi. The overlap is much more obvious if you actually know Chinese).

You might not believe it, but my first draft of my post above made mention of the rice field + strength thing, but I cut it out because I didn't know the reading for those kanji rofl.

Also you romanize weird rofl who cares about useless U in romaji I dont think ive ever met anyone that would have a problem with "arigato" before

You forgot the 'n' on "yon" in hiragana.

Also, while it's all technically correct, I'd advise just sticking with "chichi" instead of "watashi no chichi" since "chichi" implies "watashi," as you use phrases like "chichi" or "haha" to refer to your own family.

Yeah, that's something else that people just starting out probably won't realize. When referring to your own father, you use chichi yet when you refer to another person's father, you use otoosan.

ps

Yeah, that definitely looks like a woman, and that other one definitely looks like a mother. I think you missed my point completely. There are more than a few that do come from a physical appearance of the thing that it is, but the vast majority of them look nothing like what they are, ESPECIALLY INTANGIBLE THINGS

[Dimitri13]

Re: Japanese

but the vast majority of them look nothing like what they are, ESPECIALLY INTANGIBLE THINGS

...

WHAT'S THINK LOOK LIKE? HMM OK! LET'S MAKE IT LOOK LIKE SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT HURHURHURRR

[SethSquall]

Re: Japanese

You forgot the 'n' on "yon" in hiragana.

Also, while it's all technically correct, I'd advise just sticking with "chichi" instead of "watashi no chichi" since "chichi" implies "watashi," as you use phrases like "chichi" or "haha" to refer to your own family.

Oh yea didn't think of it like that.

So would you say, "Anata no otousan"? As in your father?

Also,　ちちはほんをよんでいます

Is that right?

[Afrobean]

Re: Japanese

Oh yea didn't think of it like that.

So would you say, "Anata no otousan"? As in your father?

Also,　ちちはほんをよんでいます

Is that right?

You can leave out pretty much everything in Japanese. Let the listener fill in the gaps. If you know that they know what you're talking about, then you typically don't need to say it.

[Dimitri13]

Re: Japanese

Oh yea didn't think of it like that.

So would you say, "Anata no otousan"? As in your father?

Also,　ちちはほんをよんでいます

Is that right?

1. Yes

2. If you were trying to say that your(SethSquall's) father is reading a book right now, then yes.

[SethSquall]

Re: Japanese

Awesomeness.

Yea I was hoping to see a thread like this. I know there are a few people who can speak the language and as I'm learning you guys would be a huge help to my study. Cheers.

[sarahxjane]

Re: Japanese

Oh, neat.
Thank you for making this.
:]

[verra]

Re: Japanese

Cool thread...although I think you might have a couple things wrong grammer wise, but other than that neat! I'm kinda learning Japanese now (on my own time...cause I can), and I recognize some of the things you put down.

[UnkownMan]

Re: Japanese

しふ

[MixMasterLar]

Re: Japanese

I kinda knew some of the englished-tized Japnese phrases already (Sayanora)...scary.

I would love to learn Japanese but I really dont have the time lol. Besides I need to get my German in shape

[omgitznpv]

Re: Japanese

Good start. Few suggestions. By the way, I just skimmed through the OP and read a few of the early posts.

In your hiragana table, you should include the sounds soon; the muddied and the /yo/yu/ya whatever sounds. Also include Katakana and all the various extra sounds, too.

When you start your lessons, I think it'd be best off to include kanji in them, because well, they're important.

I don't recommend teaching basic phrases first; it's not efficient and people won't tend to understand how they work.

[QuadDamage]

Re: Japanese

Also you romanize weird rofl who cares about useless U in romaji I dont think ive ever met anyone that would have a problem with "arigato" before

Are you kidding me? My romanization is perfect -- If you're going to romanize, you should do it consistently. If you write something as "kyo" that is a completely different pronounciation than "kyou" or "kyoo". The way I do it is technically the CORRECT way to do it. The extra "u" sound is necessary because, well, it's essential. It's a good way to get your mind working in Japanese and it's essential for pronunciation. I'm as white as they come, but if you heard me on a phone speaking Japanese, you'd have no idea. A lot of people would have a problem with "arigato" because it's incorrect and lazy romanization, and if you start spelling things that way, you're going to have a hell of a time trying to learn a language if you're leaving out relevant things.

omgitznpv: Completely disagree -- when learning a new language, simple phrases are important because it gets your mind trying to wrap itself around the sentence structure of the language. If you learn a system but don't put it to use in a relevant way, your learning speed is decreased by a wide margin. The more associations you generate, the better, especially the more relevant they are.

[omgitznpv]

Re: Japanese

Are you kidding me? My romanization is perfect -- If you're going to romanize, you should do it consistently. If you write something as "kyo" that is a completely different pronounciation than "kyou" or "kyoo". The way I do it is technically the CORRECT way to do it. The extra "u" sound is necessary because, well, it's essential. It's a good way to get your mind working in Japanese and it's essential for pronunciation. I'm as white as they come, but if you heard me on a phone speaking Japanese, you'd have no idea. A lot of people would have a problem with "arigato" because it's incorrect and lazy romanization, and if you start spelling things that way, you're going to have a hell of a time trying to learn a language if you're leaving out relevant things.

100% true.

omgitznpv: Completely disagree -- when learning a new language, simple phrases are important because it gets your mind trying to wrap itself around the sentence structure of the language. If you learn a system but don't put it to use in a relevant way, your learning speed is decreased by a wide margin. The more associations you generate, the better, especially the more relevant they are.

Wait, rephrase please. My mind is kind of fried right now.

*EDIT*

Oh, never mind. I just looked at "simple phrases you should learn" or whatever, and assumed it was going to be like whole sentences or something, not individual words or greetings or whatever. My point, still, though was that when they learn a phrase (not something like はい), they could try to interpret the grammatical structure incorrectly, and say something else using their interpretation and completely screw it up or something. My point being that the phrases should be learned along with a grammatical understanding.

[QuadDamage]

Re: Japanese

"I don't recommend teaching basic phrases first; it's not efficient and people won't tend to understand how they work."

I disagreed with this statement. It's always good to learn basic phrases like, for example, "O namae wa nan desu ka?" because it's extremely practical and a good way to learn basic sentence structure. For instance, literally translated, this is more like "Name (topic) what (is it?)" and therefore you get a better sense for how subjects and verbs are arranged. A lot of people learning a new language tend to build structures off their native tongue if they aren't given sufficient exposure, and that sometimes leads to incorrect sentences. The sooner you get a "feel" for how sentences are arranged, the better off you'll be because with every new thing you learn, you'll automatically have some better idea as to its application and usage.