Japanese Society

spencer smith

Rubbish.

漢字万歳！

Personally I think it's painful to read Japanese written out in only kana. Especially without spaces.

Reply 182

Zhen Lin

漢字万歳！

Personally I think it's painful to read Japanese written out in only kana. Especially without spaces.

True. Just hiragana is painful - and if something written only in katakana it's even worse! I can't read it without really, really concentrating. Kanji makes Japanese so easy to read quickly, because the characters have a meaning on their own rather than just as letters. I love kanji :wink:

Reply 183

dominiclmorris

Back duing the meiji era, with Japan's rush to modernise and westernise, alongside proposals to make Christianity Japan's national religion, there was serious debate about elminating Japanese writing and replacing it with roman characters. Interesting fact of the day~

Reply 184

But of course we know what happens if we let the Japanese design their own rōmaji...

tatoeba, ano yûmei no yama no na wa "huzisan" ni nari, mata, totyô (tôkyô-to tyôsya) ni aru sono tokubetuku no na wa "sinzyuku" ni naru n desu. yahari kono kunreisiki rômazi ga watasitati gaikokuzin ni wa tukaemasen yo ne. gengogakuteki ni yûri to wa ieru no ni ne.

But for some reason rōmaji isn't as bad as all-kana. Except when written with, say, spacing like this:

tatoeba, ano yûmeino yamano nawa "huzisan"ni nari, mata, totyô (tôkyôtotyôsya)ni aru sono tokubetukuno nawa "sinzyuku"ni narundesu. yahari kono kunreisiki rômaziga watasitati gaikokuzinniwa tukaemasen'yone. gengogakutekini yûritowa ierunonine.

Reply 185

Zhen Lin

But of course we know what happens if we let the Japanese design their own rōmaji...

tatoeba, ano yûmei no yama no na wa "huzisan" ni nari, mata, totyô (tôkyô-to tyôsya) ni aru sono tokubetuku no na wa "sinzyuku" ni naru n desu. yahari kono kunreisiki rômazi ga watasitati gaikokuzin ni wa tukaemasen yo ne. gengogakuteki ni yûri to wa ieru no ni ne.

But for some reason rōmaji isn't as bad as all-kana. Except when written with, say, spacing like this:

tatoeba, ano yûmeino yamano nawa "huzisan"ni nari, mata, totyô (tôkyôtotyôsya)ni aru sono tokubetukuno nawa "sinzyuku"ni narundesu. yahari kono kunreisiki rômaziga watasitati gaikokuzinniwa tukaemasen'yone. gengogakutekini yûritowa ierunonine.

God that's difficult to read! That's how I send text messages to my Japanese friends though... takes even longer to type it. :p:

Reply 186

まあ、ここは何だか不活発ですね……

Is it my imagination, or do I see a few Cantabrigians/Cantabrigians-to-be here in this thread, who are not doing MML or Japanese?

Reply 187

dominiclmorris

Zhen Lin are you applying for Japanese? If so your offer from Emma may be why I was pooled out >_>

Reply 188

dominiclmorris

Zhen Lin are you applying for Japanese? If so your offer from Emma may be why I was pooled out >_>

G100 is for Maths, I think. (madness! :wink:

)

Reply 189

Tianbao

1

漢字Rocks again!!!!haha

Reply 190

Tianbao

1

Excalibur

G100 is for Maths, I think. (madness! :wink:

)

Excaliburさんは日本人ですか。　私は中国人です。鍾(しょ&#12358 :wink:

晨(し&#12435 :wink:

です。
はじめまして、皆さんがんばてください！ :smile:

Sorry i have a qusetion: 今日は = こんにちは ???

Thank you :smile:

Reply 191

dominiclmorris

Zhen Lin are you applying for Japanese? If so your offer from Emma may be why I was pooled out >_>

そんな事ありません！

Excalibur

G100 is for Maths, I think. (madness! :wink:

)

正解！

SinoSamurai

Excaliburさん日本人ですか。　私は中国人です。鍾(しょ&#12358 :wink:

晨(し&#12435 :wink:

です。
はじめまして、皆さんがんばてください！ :smile:

はじめまして！私は振霖（しんりん）です。中国人ではなく、華人です。よろしくお願いします！

Sorry i have a qusetion: 今日は = こんにちは ???

こんにちは is very rarely with kanji, but 今日は is technically correct. 今日は is more likely to be read as きょうは.

はい、ありがとうございます！

SinoSamurai

Excaliburさん日本人ですか。　私は中国人です。鍾(しょ&#12358 :wink:

晨(し&#12435 :wink:

です。
はじめまして、皆さんがんばてください！ :smile:

Sorry i have a qusetion: 今日は = こんにちは ???

Thank you :smile:

はい、私は日本人です。母国語は日本語ですが、イギリスにもう十年住んでいるので、英語もできます。よろしく！

Reply 194

よろしくお願いいたします！

で、ExcaliburさんはDowningから自然科学のオファーを持っていらっしゃいますよね。AAオファーなんて、羨ましいわ。とにかくおめでとうございます！

SinoSamurai

吾人之魂，古今神勇志士。
中華之魂，乃中華武士道也。

I have no clue whether this is classical Japanese or classical Chinese. It seems like it can be read as either? But I'm not sure what the 乃 means.

Reply 195

Zhen Lin

よろしくお願いいたします！

で、ExcaliburさんはDowningから自然科学のオファーを持っていらっしゃいますよね。AAオファーなんて、羨ましいわ。とにかくおめでとうございます！

Just a few things - the suffix (I think is the grammatical term? Sorry, my japanese grammar is awful :p:

) 「わ」is for women; if you're a guy you'd say something like うらやましいです(&#12397 :wink:

, which would fit in best with the formalness of your other sentences. If you're being more informal うらやましい or うらやましいな would do :smile:

ありがとう :biggrin:

あなたも、数学のオファーおめでとう。ケンブリッジの数学は世界一だから本当にすごい！STEP、　頑張ってね！

I have no clue whether this is classical Japanese or classical Chinese. It seems like it can be read as either? But I'm not sure what the 乃 means.

Well there's no hiragana in it so it's definitely not Japanese :p:

乃 is probably just read as の.

Reply 196

Excalibur

Just a few things - the suffix (I think is the grammatical term? Sorry, my japanese grammar is awful :p:

) 「わ」is for women;

I know that. :-) I don't speak like that in real life... often.

ありがとう :biggrin:

あなたも、数学のオファーおめでとう。ケンブリッジの数学は世界一だから本当にすごい！STEP、　頑張ってね！

頑張ります！

Well there's no hiragana in it so it's definitely not Japanese :p:

乃 is probably just read as の.

Ah, but you can get away with writing almost no kana in classical Japanese. For example, 「僕本月本日を以て目出度死去致候間此段広告仕候也」, which is read 「ぼく　ほんげつほんじつをもって　めでたくしきょいたしそうろうあいだ　このだん　こうこくつかまつりそうろうなり」. And of course, we all know that the Nihonshoki and the Manyōshū was written entirely in kanji.

Reply 197

Eien

16

Another interesting fact - two old hiragana which are no longer used include "wi" (&#12432 :wink:

　and "we" (&#12433 :wink:

. Also, men can occasionally use "wa" as a termination to the sentence as a remark - I've heard Japanese old men use it a couple of times, but I don't think it's that often - it's probably similar to how women sometimes use "僕" for "I" sometimes (normally singers) when it is normally reserved for men.

Reply 198