Telepathic.Geometry wrote: Careful, that's not all it means. |
Learning Japanese I think I'm learning Japanese I really think so
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JinTypeNoir 4,368 posts
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Registered 16 years ago -
JinTypeNoir 4,368 posts
Seen 7 years ago
Registered 16 years agoFWB wrote:
Could mean both. After all, what other kinds of fields are there in Japan?
野 原 畑 農場 amongst others. -
JinTypeNoir 4,368 posts
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Registered 16 years agoTelepathic.Geometry wrote:
desu is fine, but it's polite. If I were to be polite, I might say 『私はアイルランド人ですよ』 which would be read "Watashi ha airurando-jin desuyo" and otherwise mean the same thing.
Except you most likely wouldn't put the yo at the end if you wanted to be polite. -
Telepathic.Geometry 12,422 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 15 years agoTelepathic.Geometry wrote: やった = yatta, which means "yay" pretty much, although did or done works too.
JinTypeNoir wrote: Careful, that's not all it means.
I know.
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Genji 19,682 posts
Seen 10 years ago
Registered 17 years agoYatta has 4 meanings that I know of.
"Yatta! Yatta!"
Each one of those has a different meaning. Can you guess what I am saying? Hint: it's dirty.
Also, any discussion of 'yatta' must necessarily include [link=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgFCCQFTkXw">this, and also the original -
FWB 56,369 posts
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Registered 20 years ago -
Well, spent a good few hours studying hiragana and I've pretty much learnt the basic ones (iKana is giving me a 95% success rate, but that's when given multiple choice).
I'm trying to find sheets of words using the basic hiragana (so the less dakuon and youon ideally the better). Kind of surprised none of the books and internet resources I look though seem to contain a nice little list of them for me to convert into romanji.
can only find this.
Any of you chaps mind writing a short list of hiragana words for me to practice on? -
ProfessorLesser 19,693 posts
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Registered 17 years agoPirotic, if you have a DS, I highly recommend My Japanese Coach for character teaching and practise. Look elsewhere for grammar though. -
Telepathic.Geometry 12,422 posts
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Registered 15 years agoEvery word is a hiragana word really. .gif)
Just try to think of words you can think of that are Japanese, like samurai or sushi or kimono or whatever. Then write them in Japanese. -
I've got that, it's what got me started (somebody got it for a joke birthday present and I just 'clicked' with japanese and loved it).
iKana for mac is superb I've learnt most of the basic hiragana in a day with it and can romanji about 20% of all the hiragana words I can dig up off the internet now (and most of the others I can at least partially translate). At the moment I feel like I'm translating 3 times, so i'm really looking forward to learning enough kana to ditch the romanji and hopefully things will seem a lot easier then.
It's a bit annoying how a couple of the numbers have two completely different words (4 and 7 I think). Most of the time they seem to stick with shichi for seven but yon for 4 which is what I've learnt is often changed to shi in the other tutorials. Which one is most common? -
Telepathic.Geometry 12,422 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 15 years agoPirotic man, all of the numbers have two basic readings. Get used to it. For example, for April, you use the "shi" reading of four, as April is "four-month" or "shigatsu". But for the fourth day of the month, you'll use the "yon/yo" reading (i.e. the fourth = yokka).
The other numbers are no different. The number two for example is usually "ni" for counting, or for February (Nigatsu), but if you're counting people or a lot of general things, you'll use the "futa" reading.
I agree that 4 and 7 are the worst, as in some places they seem to have things the other way around. Where I live, everybody says "yon" for four and "nana" for seven, when reading out phone numbers for example, but I understand that in some places they might use "shichi" instead, although I think "shi" is supposed to be a no-no generally, as it means death, and is kinda bad luck. -
ProfessorLesser 19,693 posts
Seen 4 months ago
Registered 17 years agoAll chinese-derived kanji, so far as I know, have two readings - onyomi, the chinese reading, and kunyomi, the japanese reading. I'm not clear at all on why both readings are used, nor the appropriate circumstances for using them. -
boo 13,901 posts
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Registered 18 years agoPirotic!
iKana for Mac. Tell me more!!
Edit
Found it - the thinkmac thing, yes? -
Telepathic.Geometry 12,422 posts
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Registered 15 years agoI suppose it's kinda like the way we have words like "quadrangle", "octuplets", "trio", "dodecahedron", "bipedal", "dual-layered" and so on. We use greek and latin suffices to mean words which we could use from English. I mean, why not call a triangle a three-angle? Ya know? It's not so strange when you think about it... -
silentbob 29,527 posts
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Registered 19 years agoBut why would you need to learn Japanese Teeg? It's not as if ..
Actually a colleague at work has me believing that learning spoken Japanese is actually easier than is generally thought. I suspect that I'd still be a complete tard with it though. -
Telepathic.Geometry 12,422 posts
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Registered 15 years agoI LIVE IN JAPAN! ;D It is far far easier than is generally thought. .gif)
Speaking appropriately in a given situation and becoming literate, that's the bitch. -
ProfessorLesser 19,693 posts
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Registered 17 years agoTelepathic.Geometry wrote:
Erm, I've no problem with including words from other languages in our own. But it's not like we say 'triangle' AND 'three-angle', is it?
I suppose it's kinda like the way we have words like "quadrangle", "octuplets", "trio", "dodecahedron", "bipedal", "dual-layered" and so on. We use greek and latin suffices to mean words which we could use from English. I mean, why not call a triangle a three-angle? Ya know? It's not so strange when you think about it... -
Telepathic.Geometry 12,422 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 15 years agoTrue, but neither do the Japanese in general. For example two people = futari, not niri. February is nigatsu, not futagatsu. Generally speaking, there's not much degeneracy. True, seven and four are exceptions, but people might say pair or couple for two people, and I'm sure that doesn't bother you.
Besides, my point is simply that we have a precedent for the same kind of thing in English. What's your point exactly? I'm not sure I follow? -
ilmaestro 32,932 posts
Seen 10 months ago
Registered 18 years agoProfessorLesser wrote:
If you want the most general, "there are pages and pages of exceptions", "use this if you need to make a best guess" rule, you use the kunyomi when the kanji is on its own, and the onyomi when it's in a kanji compound.
All chinese-derived kanji, so far as I know, have two readings - onyomi, the chinese reading, and kunyomi, the japanese reading. I'm not clear at all on why both readings are used, nor the appropriate circumstances for using them. -
Telepathic.Geometry 12,422 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 15 years agoHey il, you're Japanese is way higher level than mine, so maybe you can give me a bit of advice as I make my move from level three to level two. Well, it seems to me that learning which is the onyomi and which is the kunyomi is more or less useless. What do you think?
In my case, I usually just remember the various readings of a kanji and which goes where. For example, for person, I know when to use jin and when to use hito, but I don't see it as being especially useful to know that hito is the kunyomi and jin is one of the onyomi. Do you know what I mean? -
uiruki 5,975 posts
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Registered 18 years agoLearning which is which is essential if you don't want to mix up the readings when encountering new compound words, for example. Just ask John Romero. -
ProfessorLesser 19,693 posts
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Registered 17 years agoTelepathic.Geometry wrote:
My point is that kanji on their own are given different pronunciations and are used in different contexts, but not necessarily different meanings. Thus the distinction is somewhat arbitrary.
True, but neither do the Japanese in general. For example two people = futari, not niri. February is nigatsu, not futagatsu. Generally speaking, there's not much degeneracy. True, seven and four are exceptions, but people might say pair or couple for two people, and I'm sure that doesn't bother you.
Besides, my point is simply that we have a precedent for the same kind of thing in English. What's your point exactly? I'm not sure I follow?
A closer analogy in English would be (I think) words which are spelled the same but mean different things, like 'can' a container and 'can' as in "I can". However, in this case the meanings are different, and obvious from context. The distinction isn't arbitrary. -
Telepathic.Geometry 12,422 posts
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Registered 15 years agoHmm, I see what you mean. I was originally just thinking about the numbers in response to Piro's query. When I think about it in the broader context of kanji in general, a better analogy might be words like say "present", "refuse" and "delegate" which have the same core meanings, but which have different pronunciations and meanings when regarded as verbs or nouns. -
ProfessorLesser 19,693 posts
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Registered 17 years agoBut doesn't the kanji for fire have two readings (ki and something else I think), onyomi and kunyomi, both meaning fire? There is no analogy for that in English, I don't think. -
Telepathic.Geometry 12,422 posts
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Registered 15 years agoYou won't find any kind of analogy for it word for word Prof, no chance. I'm only looking for something in English that is similar to this element of Japanese so that English speaking forumites such as Piro might be able to get their head round the concept.
Maybe that's just the way my head works, but if I can find a few instances of the same kinda thing happening in English, it helps me come to terms with alien elements in languages. For example, we don't generally have genders for things in English like they do in Spanish or German, but the fact that we treat some objects as having gender (like boats or cars and whatnot) helped me to accept it in those languages.
In the case of kanji, I think all of the analogies we throw at it probably don't help much. In my eyes, now, they're pictures that have a meaning, and a few associated pronunciations. That's it, init. -
Telepathic.Geometry 12,422 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 15 years agouiruki wrote: Learning which is which is essential if you don't want to mix up the readings when encountering new compound words, for example.
But that's my point though. Even if you know that the kunyomi of 人 is hito, and the onyomi is jin, how can you know that 小人＝こびと and 友人＝ゆうじん except by learning the words individually? -
JinTypeNoir 4,368 posts
Seen 7 years ago
Registered 16 years agoTelepathic.Geometry wrote:
Hey il, you're Japanese is way higher level than mine, so maybe you can give me a bit of advice as I make my move from level three to level two. Well, it seems to me that learning which is the onyomi and which is the kunyomi is more or less useless. What do you think?
In my case, I usually just remember the various readings of a kanji and which goes where. For example, for person, I know when to use jin and when to use hito, but I don't see it as being especially useful to know that hito is the kunyomi and jin is one of the onyomi. Do you know what I mean?
I'm not sure if you caught uiruki's reply, but this would be a baaad idea. In general the Japanese reading is used with other Japanese readings
(人使いが荒い
and the Chinese reading is other Chinese readings
(人権の問題）
If you said jindzukai or hitoken or toidai, basically mixing the readings because you don't know which is which, I can only imagine Japanese would be harder to understand and speak. Though there are exceptions of mixtures between the two, that's actually a time when it's even better to be able to distinguish them.
Also, it would be really hard to read Chinese and Korean names if you didn't know which was the Chinese reading.
And the reason there is a Chinese and a Japanese reading is that originally kanji was like the katakana of today, used to appropriate foreign words from Japan or approximate foreign sounds as in
阿弥陀
あみだ
or
恵比寿
えびす
or
香港
ほんこん
So the kanji was appropriated both to take place of native Japanese words and import Chinese words and names at the same time.
Don't forget though, that kanji have a third set of readings beside the Japanese and Chinese reading, and those are the name readings! -
JinTypeNoir 4,368 posts
Seen 7 years ago
Registered 16 years agoTelepathic.Geometry wrote:
But that's my point though. Even if you know that the kunyomi of 人 is hito, and the onyomi is jin, how can you know that 小人＝こびと and 友人＝ゆうじん except by learning the words individually?
小人 is obvious because there are already too many words that are read kojin, so naturally one would presume it's a mix. 友人 is Chinese-Chinese, so that's normal. -
Telepathic.Geometry 12,422 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 15 years agoWith regard to the first thing you said there Jin, if I understand you rightly: kunyomi tend to pair up with kunyomi in a compound, and onyomi tend to pair up with other onyomi in a compound? Is that about right? (Accepting of course that there will be exceptions.) If it is, it's a very handy rule of thumb. -
SUSHI MORIAWASE HAJIMEMASHITE YOROSHIKUONAGAISHIMAS
That is all I can mostly think of right now. I hope it helps.
.gif)
Just try to think of words you can think of that are Japanese, like samurai or sushi or kimono or whatever. Then write them in Japanese. .gif)
Speaking appropriately in a given situation and becoming literate, that's the bitch. 
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