Japanese Society

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Reply 2020

I look at the readings, but I feel studying them alone is worthless; I will just forget anyway because then I won't have a context to help me remember them. Well, except if the kanji has one single reading, like 員 (イン).

And there are always the compounds which aren't based on the readings, like 今日 og 土産...

Reply 2021

Ash S

Original post by stifa

土産? What's that? どさん？Oh but they said it isn't based on the readings... wtf is it? Ohhh みやげ！
↑Me just now lol.

And then I looked in the dictionary and it actually can also be read as どさん lol.
ど‐さん【土産】
《「とさん」とも》
１その土地の産物。
２みやげもの。みやげ。

Japanese is fun XD

Reply 2022

stifa

Original post by Ash S

Considering the f'd up spelling of English, that is kind of acceptable in my opinion. :tongue:

Reply 2023

Scootaloo

Original post by atheistwithfaith

Do you want to say you have been studying since 4 year ago? If so you should write 私は４ねん前から. Also, usually people don't use を for べんきょうする.

Did you want to write よわらない? But I feel like that doesn't make sense "My katakana and kanji are not weak".

ARIGATOU! Gosh I had a feeling I sounded nonsensical in some parts (Google you seem a little less credible in checking what I've written now...) and I'm glad you corrected me. Yeah I have been learning for 4 years but doing it by yourself with lack of correction is incredibly difficult as you have pointed out with my mistakes. I think I would have written My Katakana and Kanji are weak (because I do suck at Katakana and Kanji) and I actually have no idea what I've written now :biggrin:

...
No No Now I do: I meant wakaranai: Kanji to Katankana wakaranai. I have no idea where the yo came from

That's a good way to remember the kanji, but not actually the true etymology! The top bit of that kanji didn't used to be 人 at all but was actually a plant (the same radical that you see at the top of 英 in 英語 [and also many others like flower 花])

One of the reasons it's so hard to guess what many kanji mean just by looking at it is because they have changed ALOT since they were first created. Even as recently as 1946 they were still changing the shape of kanji

Oh okay, I just remember seeing it somewhere in one of those ideogram books that uses pictures to morph into Kanji to help you remember but I didn't know that wasn't the correct etymology, thank you for telling I shall no longer pass on that lie hahaha :colondollar:

.

Wow you seem really knowledgeable in Japanese? How long have you been learning

(P.S anata no namae ga daisuki. )

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 2024

eterna

I was wondering if anyone could help me with a problem :smile:

Suppose I search for 'blame' on an online dictionary, I get the result ''seme, tenka, hinan, kyuudan''
Is there any dictionary that shows which of the results are the most common in terms of usage? :beard:

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 2025

Scootaloo

Original post by eterna

I was wondering if anyone could help me with a problem :smile:

I recommend this dictionary, Denshi Jisho (Electronic Dictionary :biggrin:

) and I've linked the word you want below

http://jisho.org/words?jap=&eng=blame&dict=edict

Its a good dictionary because you can only choose to show common used words plus it has sentences with the word used, well most of the time.

Lightening quick response in early times of the morning! I should be doing an essay now but oh weelllll :biggrin:

Hope that helps ^^

Reply 2026

eterna

Original post by Scootaloo

I recommend this dictionary, Denshi Jisho (Electronic Dictionary :biggrin:

Hope that helps ^^

ah thanks! That's a much better dictionary :five:

so in that list, is it ordered by usage?
Because while watching anime, I often hear semeru and not kyuudan. :beard:

Reply 2027

Ash S

Original post by eterna

I was wondering if anyone could help me with a problem :smile:

The words are way different lol.
転嫁 is like shifting your own blame/responsibility onto somebody else
非難 is like general blame, criticizing somebody for a mistake or whatever.
糾弾 is much more serious like for corruption or something with serious responsibility. A good translation would probably be 'denounce'.

edit: and remember the last two and 責める are not blame as in "you are the one who did this. it's your fault", they are more like to criticise or attack somebody (over something they did).
If you mean to blame as in establishing who is at fault you could use among other expressions ~~~のせいにする
ex. お前のせいだ！ - It's your fault!
それを俺のせいにしないでくれ！ - Don't blame me for that!

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 2028

Kallisto

Entertainment Forum Helper

What is the most difficult, when I begin to learn Japanese? the letters? the pronunciation? vocabularies? others? Do you learn Japanese letters from the beginning or later on?

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 2029

Xurvi

Original post by Kallisto

What is the most difficult, when I begin to learn Japanese? the letters? the pronunciation? vocabularies? others? Do you learn Japanese letters from the beginning or later on?

There are no letters in Japanese but syllables.

I would suggest learning the syllabaries first before anything which will allow you to get used to the kana while you learn the grammar and to avoid romaji.

As for what's the hardest, it depends on the learner but I don't think people have trouble with the pronunciation, mainly the kanji and/or vocabulary.

Reply 2030

Ash S

I learnt the 'letters' including all the general use kanji before I started properly trying to learn the rest of the language. Knowing the meaning of the kanji definitely helps with remembering vocabulary, I find.
If we make a distinction between pronunciation and accent/intonation then we can say that pronunciation is relatively easy but the pitch-accent might take a bit of getting used to.

Reply 2031

Kallisto

Entertainment Forum Helper

Original post by Xurvi

There are no letters in Japanese but syllables.
(...)

I see. Those are Japanese ideographs and not letters, right?

Original post by Xurvi

(...)
I would suggest learning the syllabaries first before anything which will allow you to get used to the kana while you learn the grammar and to avoid romaji.
(...)

Is romaji a dialect in Japan or what is that? How much dialects are there in Japan?

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 2032

Im_a_cyborg

Original post by Kallisto

I see. Those are Japanese ideographs and not letters, right?

Is romaji a dialect in Japan or what is that? How much dialects are there in Japan?

Romaji is Japanese written using the roman alphabet. There are around 14 dialects in Japan :smile:

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 2033

Kallisto

Entertainment Forum Helper

Original post by Im_a_cyborg

Romaji is Japanese written using the roman alphabet. There are around 14 dialects in Japan :smile:

Do I have this right that kanji is writing with Japanese ideographs whereas romanji contains roman letters which are use by European people?

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 2034

JamesR1993

Original post by Kallisto

Does I have right this that kanji is writing with Japanese ideographs whereas romanji contains roman letters which are use by European people?

Yes, kanji is made up of ideographs (pictures with a meaning) whereas romaji is an anglicised version of Japanese.

Also, your English doesn't make much sense. "does i have right" should be written as "do i have this right" or "is this right"

:smile:

Reply 2035

Xurvi

Original post by Kallisto

I see. Those are Japanese ideographs and not letters, right?

Is romaji a dialect in Japan or what is that? How much dialects are there in Japan?

Letters represent a sound (a phoneme : a vowel or consonant) but Japanese uses syllables (a mora : consonant+vowel compound) with the exception of the ん which is a single consonant n. Those syllabaries (the proper name of "alphabets" that contains syllables instead of letters) are called hiragana ひらがな and katakana カタカナ and form the writing system of the kana.
The more complex characters are the kanji 漢字, imported from China around the 4th or 5th century if I recall right.
More info on wikipedia.

Romaji is the transcription of Japanese using roman letters. There are a few systems, like the one called Hepburn, that will transcribe things differently.
Example:
Enyou
En'you
Enyō
En'yō
... are all valid transcriptions for
援用 - えんよう

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 2036

Ash S

Original post by Xurvi

Romaji is the transcription of Japanese using roman letters. There are a few systems, like the one called Hepburn, that will transcribe things differently.
Example:
Byouin
Byou'in
Byōin
Byō'in
... are all valid transcriptions for
病院 - びょういん

What are the systems that use a ' between vowels like that? I've never seen that before.

Reply 2037

Tim99

Original post by stifa

初めましてティムさん！元気ですか？

(and use spaces occationally, or else TSR will replace some of your kana/kanji with those ?-diamonds...

はい、元気です、どもあなたが？My kanji is not brill, and didn't understand your first bit; but after reading what you wrote I'm assuming it's the kanji for haji.

今大学で日本語べんきょうをしていますか？私は来月大学に入ります.

To study full time :smile:

Reply 2038

Xurvi

Original post by Ash S

What are the systems that use a ' between vowels like that? I've never seen that before.

In fact I made an error there. I was focused on showing the possible ' in the transcription and didn't realise the example I gave didn't actually use the '.
I changed the example in my previous post. The ' appears in some transcriptions to remove a possible ambiguity regarding a N followed by a vowel.

ie en'you is えんよう but enyou is えにょう. However, some transcription systems will write both enyou.

I don't know the transcription systems and their differences tbh so I couldn't say which systems use an ' with Ns.

Reply 2039

stifa

Original post by Tim99

いいえ、バース大学にコンピュータ工学を勉強します。来月始めます。

I think that is correct, for "No, I study Computer Systems Engineering at the University of Bath. I start next month."

EDIT: To avoid your kana/kanji ****ing up on TSR, put a space in here and there, preferably after each particle. (A regular English input space, of course.)