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[RevenantKioku]

Do yourself some Heisig and that stuff becomes natural.

Just saying.

 

[cntr]

I'm using them in my Heisig review cards, that's all. >.>

 

[BocoDragon]

I should look into this Heisig method...

Kanji is the bane of my Japanese-learning existance.

You know what I love about Koreans? They ditched their Chinese characters in general usage! Very smart!

 

[cntr]

They actually went further than that. The Korean writing system, Hangul, is literally considered the best writing system, ever.

That said, they still sometimes use characters (hanja), but they're slowly vanishing over time except in the formal academic stuff.

 

[345triangle]

it wouldn't work in japanese, though, due to the excessive homonymity. have you ever tried reading something solely in kana? it takes forever!

japanese is a reader's language. sure it takes time to learn kanji and i wish it didn't, but it's worth it.

 

[BocoDragon]

They actually went further than that. The Korean writing system, Hangul, is literally considered the best writing system, ever.

Considered so... by Koreans? :lol

But I do like Hangul. I think it's really cool how you can combine two or even three characters into one letter, to make different sounds. Very compact and neat.

But do consider that hangul was actually shunned for hundreds of years by mainstream Korea. The only reason they adopted it as their writing was for reasons of nationalism... it happened to be an old Korean invention and they wanted to de-Chinafy themselves, so they switched. If it was so obviously better, they didn't collectively think so for a long time.

Also... I feel that roman characters are far more flexible than Korean language, which is a syllabery. Roman letters can represent korean sounds... but korean sounds/hangul can't represent all that roman letters can (although Koreans will claim the opposite).

That said, they still sometimes use characters (hanja), but they're slowly vanishing over time except in the formal academic stuff.

Yeah they're just symbols now, basically... not really "letters".

 

[cntr]

It wouldn't be impossible, being able to understand speech is proof of that.

That said, I kinda like kanji, so I wouldn't really want to see it go. >__>

 

[BocoDragon]

it wouldn't work in japanese, though, due to the excessive homonymity. have you ever tried reading something solely in kana? it takes forever!

japanese is a reader's language. sure it takes time to learn kanji and i wish it didn't, but it's worth it.

It would probably be similar to writing in Roman languages.

But that is one of the cool things about Kanji.. the ability to greatly compress the Japanese writing.

I do like the challenge, too.

 

[cntr]

Considered so... by Koreans? :lol

No, by linguists. The reason is that the letter shapes are based on articulation.

For example, ㄱ is pronounced like a k or g. Now, say a [k] sound. Notice how the back of your tongue rises up to make the sound, and this is a pictographic picture of that.

ㅋ is pronounced like k, but with a puff of air, like the beginning of the word "kill". A line was added to signify that.

ㄲ is a sound that doesn't exist in English, but's another variation on k, and that's signified by doubling.

Now, the hangul for t is ㄷ, a picture of your tongue rising up at the front of your mouth, and it's variations are ㅌ and ㄸ. It's pretty consistent and ingenious.

But do consider that hangul was actually shunned for hundreds of years by mainstream Korea. The only reason they adopted it as their writing was for reasons of nationalism... it happened to be an old Korean invention and they wanted to de-Chinafy themselves, so they switched. If it was so obviously better, they didn't collectively think so for a long time.

Actually, iirc, they was opposed because the scholars and academics thought that the ease of learning hangul was bad, and people needed to put in effort to learn how to write.

Also... I feel that roman characters are far more flexible than Korean language, which is a syllabery. Roman letters can represent korean sounds... but korean sounds/hangul can't represent all that roman letters can (although Koreans will claim the opposite).

Oh yeah, of course. Hangul is terrible for writing anything other than Korean.

Edit: oh, and, Hangul is known as a "featural alphabet". Stuff like kana are syllabaries.

 

[BocoDragon]

No, by linguists. The reason is that the letter shapes are based on articulation.

For example, ㄱ is pronounced like a k or g. Now, say a [k] sound. Notice how the back of your tongue rises up to make the sound, and this is a pictographic picture of that.

ㅋ is pronounced like k, but with a puff of air, like the beginning of the word "kill". A line was added to signify that.

ㄲ is a sound that doesn't exist in English, but's another variation on k, and that's signified by doubling.

Now, the hangul for t is ㄷ, a picture of your tongue rising up at the front of your mouth, and it's variations are ㅌ and ㄸ. It's pretty consistent and ingenious.

Whoa... mind blown!

Actually, iirc, they was opposed because the scholars and academics thought that the ease of learning hangul was bad, and people needed to put in effort to learn how to write.

Yeah.. that does sound very Confucian mindset... the old ways are best and you need to study them hard.

Oh yeah, of course. Hangul is terrible for writing anything other than Korean.

Haha... pity me for not speaking the language which can be matched to the best writing :lol Could you make a writing system like this for English? I think no?

oh, and, Hangul is known as a "featural alphabet". Stuff like kana are syllabaries.

Ohhh... I see. But I the language is composed of individual syllable noises I believe? (I don't think English is but I might be blind to it??)

 

[cntr]

Haha... pity me for not speaking the language which can be matched to the best writing :lol Could you make a writing system like this for English? I think no?

Oh, sure you could. The problem would be to get people to adopt it. :lol

Ohhh... I see. But I the language is composed of individual syllable noises I believe? (I don't think English is but I might be blind to it??)

"True" alphabets are scripts that use a single letter to (roughly) represent a single sound. Hangul's letters (called jamo) each represent a single sound, so it's considered an alphabet. It's a featural alphabet because it adds extra lines and stuff to regularly modify a sound.

Syllabaries use a separate character for each syllable, like kana.

 

[BocoDragon]

Oh, sure you could. The problem would be to get people to adopt it. :lol

I'll make it happen!

True" alphabets are scripts that use a single letter to (roughly) represent a single sound. Hangul's letters (called jamo) each represent a single sound, so it's considered an alphabet. It's a featural alphabet because it adds extra lines and stuff to regularly modify a sound.

Syllabaries use a separate character for each syllable, like kana.

Oh. But each individually spaced character is a syllable, right? The piece that can have 1,2 or 3 "jamo". Or is that character the jamo....?

We need a Big Ass Superior Thread of Learning Korean.

 

[cntr]

Each symbol is a jamo and they're organized into blocks which represent syllables, yeah.

 

[BocoDragon]

Each symbol is a jamo and they're organized into blocks which represent syllables, yeah.

Jesus. The Korean hype was kind of right :lol That's pretty logical.

 

[Zoe]

It wouldn't be impossible, being able to understand speech is proof of that.

It's not impossible, but like he said it would take forever.

It would probably work better if they used spaces though.

 

[cntr]

Yeah, they do use spaces in the all-kana stuff read by kids.

 

[Masked Man]

Anyone else taking N1 next week? I did a semester-long grammar review, and I've been consistently scoring around 90% on my vocabulary practice tests, so I'm feeling pretty confident. Plus, the pass rate for N1 is 100/160 overall, and 19/60 on the individual sections. Am I being deceived numerically, or are those standards kind of low?

 

[345triangle]

Really really late on this, but here's the reasoning:

sa, shi, su, se, so
za, ji, zu, ze, zo
ta, chi, tsu, te, to

You notice how the -i line is has different pronunciation? That's because of a phenomenon in Japanese where the sounds before change to a different sound, this is known in linguistics as palatalization. Russian has something similar. So, from a linguistic perspective, si, zi, ti (and tu) make sense.

...but from a perspective of general English speakers, shi, ji, chi, and tsu make the most sense, since it more closely approximates the actual pronunciation.

And if you're wondering, most of the sounds in the -i syllables have different sounds due to palatalization. hi has a sound closer to English "human" in certain dialects, rather than a regular h.

this isn't really linguistically any sounder, though, unless you don't consider phonetics part of linguistics. the only reason to prefer it is that it's theoretically neater, but japanese pronunciation isn't that neat in reality.

most japanese people learn it that way because it's easier and faster to type wapro-style (and i type the same way), but apart from that i think the shi/tsu/chi etc romanisations are and should be standard, because the whole point of romanising the language in the first place is to make it make sense to other people - not to give japanese people a sense of sophistication when they look at the walls of pachinko parlours.

it'd be nice if people could agree on how to render おう sounds consistently, too. the whole topic is a minefield.

i guess korean has it worse, though!

 

[Metroid Killer]

it'd be nice if people could agree on how to render おう sounds consistently, too. the whole topic is a minefield.

Yeah it would be nice if there was a set standard.

Conerning おう, I like just o or ō the best. Oh, Oo and Ou looks weird to me and I only use them in words where it's become the norm (Like Noh for example).

 

[345triangle]

the problem with "o" (and by extension "ō", as no-one bothers to type it (to illustrate - i don't even know how, so i copied it from your post just then)) is that お and おう aren't the same thing, and removing the distinction can make things kind of confusing. for example, i have to remember that while tokyo is とうきょう, kyoto is きょうと - the final "o" is almost silent in many japanese people's speech, but you wouldn't know this unless you noticed it when talking to a native speaker.

i mean, it's a hurdle you'll overcome quickly if you're studying the language in any depth, but a hurdle nonetheless. "ou" makes sense to me, because it's consistent (except for stuff like tokyo, which obviously we can't do much about) and while the sound isn't identical it's the same o>u principle as the long "O" diphthong in english.

 

[Metroid Killer]

Yeah that's why I use ō pretty consistently (and I can never find it either XD).

Maybe it's because I'm veiwing this as a Danish student learning Japanese, but a lot of beginningers pronounce the u in ou too much here in Denmark (and then they learn correct pronounciation after a week, so it's not a huge deal of course).

 

[cntr]

Eh, it's what I've heard, 345triangle.

Ī cān tȳpē mācrōns jūst fīne, wōō.

 

[345triangle]

Eh, it's what I've heard, 345triangle.

i'm not taking issue with the argument (of course i've heard the same thing, and it's really a matter of perspective), just your wording - i think "consistent" would be more accurate than "linguistic". the reason i don't subscribe to the argument is that, by the phonetics in the roman alphabet, japanese pronunciation isn't really consistent in a sa/si/su/se/so kind of way - "shi" is equally as linguistically sound, because it converts a phonetic ɕ or ʃ into the conventions of english spelling.

it depends what area of linguistics you think is most important, basically!

 

[Zoe]

I prefer to write out "ou" because with the other options you can't tell the difference between おお and おう.

 

[cntr]

Hmm, point taken, 345triangle.

 

[RevenantKioku]

for example, i have to remember that while tokyo is とうきょう, kyoto is きょうと - the final "o" is almost silent in many japanese people's speech, but you wouldn't know this unless you noticed it when talking to a native speaker.

This confuses me when I'm being spoken to in English and someone tells me how Mr. Yamamot has gone to Kyot.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

What?

That's just simply not true...

The "o" is not silent at all.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

this isn't really linguistically any sounder, though, unless you don't consider phonetics part of linguistics. the only reason to prefer it is that it's theoretically neater, but japanese pronunciation isn't that neat in reality.

most japanese people learn it that way because it's easier and faster to type wapro-style (and i type the same way), but apart from that i think the shi/tsu/chi etc romanisations are and should be standard, because the whole point of romanising the language in the first place is to make it make sense to other people - not to give japanese people a sense of sophistication when they look at the walls of pachinko parlours.

it'd be nice if people could agree on how to render おう sounds consistently, too. the whole topic is a minefield.

i guess korean has it worse, though!

But which people? The characters in the Latin alphabet are not pronounced the same in every language that uses them.

 

[cntr]

What?

That's just simply not true...

The "o" is not silent at all.

It's technically not silent, but eliding vowels is really common in informal Japanese.

 

[345triangle]

that is a very valid point (and the reason i included both ɕ and ʃ in my last post), but japanese people tend to assume that all foreigners speak english anyway, so i'm speaking from both my own perspective and a plausible japanese one. it goes without saying that english-speakers are the largest "userbase" of any romanisation effort.

What?

That's just simply not true...

The "o" is not silent at all.

where do you live in japan (assuming you do)? i'm not making this up, you know :/ i think it might actually be a kansai thing, but i assure you it's very prevalent here at least, as kioku can evidently confirm.

anyway, the point is that the same speakers obviously wouldn't do the same thing with a word that ended in とう, so people should be clear on the distinction from the start.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

I've lived in a few different places in Japan primarily in and around Osaka and Tokyo. I speak Japanese with native speakers (and non-natives) every single day and am married to a native speaker.

To say that people pronounce やまもと　and きょうと as "Yamamot" and "Kyot" is completely absurd. Sure, the ending vowel (and beginning consonant for that matter) of words may not be pronounced very strongly in most cases, but they are still completely audible.

 

[06nbarnhill]

I am thinking about taking Japanese classes at my university.....scared as none other XD.

I tried taking German there once and it seemed like half the class had taken it 3 years in high school and I was hopelessly behind

 

[Zoe]

I am thinking about taking Japanese classes at my university.....scared as none other XD.

I tried taking German there once and it seemed like half the class had taken it 3 years in high school and I was hopelessly behind

Don't worry, Japanese in high school isn't common.

Though, the good schools make you test out of stuff you've taken before so you can't get easy A's.

 

[RevenantKioku]

To say that people pronounce やまもと　and きょうと as "Yamamot" and "Kyot" is completely absurd. Sure, the ending vowel (and beginning consonant for that matter) of words may not be pronounced very strongly in most cases, but they are still completely audible.

Not when speaking Japanese, no. That's not what I was saying. When speaking English I have on many occasions and with many different people heard "Kyot."

I tried taking German there once and it seemed like half the class had taken it 3 years in high school and I was hopelessly behind

There are four year olds who speak better Japanese than you do. Don't worry about it. Just learn.

 

[KidA Seven]

I say us noob-japanese speakers go on here more often to help each other out.

 

[louis89]

Handed in my JET application today

 

[RevenantKioku]

Handed in my JET application today

God, that was four years ago for me. Four years.
I'm going to go eat some Calorie Mate and drink some café olé. With tears, tears of joy and sadness. And café olé.

In Kyot with Mr. Yamamot.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Not when speaking Japanese, no. That's not what I was saying. When speaking English I have on many occasions and with many different people heard "Kyot."

I grow increasingly suspicious of your hearing ability.

Most Japanese people who are not extremely proficient at English (or another non-Japanese language) tend to have difficulty ending words with a non-"n" consonant.

 

[Zoe]

I grow increasingly suspicious of your hearing ability.

Most Japanese people who are not extremely proficient at English (or another non-Japanese language) tend to have difficulty ending words with a non-"n" consonant.

Some of my teachers and TA's would do this thing in English where they would still move their mouth for the extra beat but would make little to no sound :lol

 

[RevenantKioku]

I grow increasingly suspicious of your hearing ability.

Most Japanese people who are not extremely proficient at English (or another non-Japanese language) tend to have difficulty ending words with a non-"n" consonant.

Whatever makes you happy, man. :lol

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Whatever makes you happy, man. :lol

I didn't realize that my being happy had anything to do with the conversation.

Oh, almost forgot the emoticon to really show that I don't care! :lol

 

[RevenantKioku]

I didn't realize that my being happy had anything to do with the conversation.

Oh, almost forgot the emoticon to really show that I don't care! :lol

I share an amusing anecdote, you tell me that what happened isn't actually happening and then throw out some passive insults. Unless I'm missing something here, I really don't know what this "conversation" is other than you trying to stamp your brand of "I know Japan, fuck you." all over my face.

That may come off more hostile than I intend, but I just really don't get your point. Maybe I'm reading you in a different tone than you are actually using. Anyway, this isn't exactly productive so I'm just going to drop it. I've got Japanese to learn!

 

[345triangle]

I've lived in a few different places in Japan primarily in and around Osaka and Tokyo. I speak Japanese with native speakers (and non-natives) every single day and am married to a native speaker.

To say that people pronounce やまもと　and きょうと as "Yamamot" and "Kyot" is completely absurd. Sure, the ending vowel (and beginning consonant for that matter) of words may not be pronounced very strongly in most cases, but they are still completely audible.

as audible as the "u" in "~masu", maybe.

look, i live in japan and have a degree in linguistics. i know what phonetics are, and i know what japanese people sound like, and if you're going to tell me that both my brain and ears are broken then i'm going to tell you that you're full of shit, so let's just end it there before i start talking about aspiration

 

[Shouta]

Anyone else taking N1 next week? I did a semester-long grammar review, and I've been consistently scoring around 90% on my vocabulary practice tests, so I'm feeling pretty confident. Plus, the pass rate for N1 is 100/160 overall, and 19/60 on the individual sections. Am I being deceived numerically, or are those standards kind of low?

It's low because it's actually a bit difficult. It's hard enough that most Japanese people I've shown the test to are like "What? I don't know this!" right off the bat. Good luck on it, I failed twice so far, both times by a small margin. Missed the deadline this time so I gotta wait to take it again.

as audible as the "u" in "~masu", maybe.

look, i live in japan and have a degree in linguistics. i know what phonetics are, and i know what japanese people sound like, and if you're going to tell me that both my brain and ears are broken then i'm going to tell you that you're full of shit, so let's just end it there before i start talking about aspiration

Whether you are or not, I've never heard anyone say Kyot or Yamamot for those two in all my years of studying Japanese and the three years that I've been here. Never ever heard said like 'masu where the u kinda disappears.

 

[MadraptorMan]

I've got to agree with Shouta here...I've never noticed the "o" being dropped from "to" in my four years of studying Japanese, and all my time living here...

Not saying it doesn't happen but, I've lived in Chiba/Tokyo, been to Fukuoka, and currently live in Niigata, and never noticed that.

 

[RevenantKioku]

People be getting angry!

Clearly I've dealt with a few outliers on this situation, it's just come up enough times in my life that I find it amusing. In an effort to not pronounce the unneeded vowel sounds at the end (like t-shirt instead of t-shirtsu), some people take this hard stop T to an extreme and have stopped saying the "o" after Kyoto and the like. These are usually above average English speakers who still make some mistakes here and there. That is, they sound pretty good until something unnatural comes out. I even have several emails from a person where they spell things like 山本 and 京都 in English without that final o. I guess I just thought it was more common than my little corner of the world. Sorry for mentioning it!

Actually, I didn't even think it was that common, I was just mentioning how I heard it a few times and it confused me. :lol
Anyway, it isn't that big of a deal!

 

[Deleted member 17706]

"desu" and "masu" I can get behind. Obviously there are many cases where the "u" isn't pronounced and it becomes "des" "mas".

However, saying that Japanese people often end words like きょうと and やまもと with a hard "t" consonant is just misleading. Sure, every single vowel may not be clearly enunciated every time, but to say it's almost silent isn't correct. There are plenty of cases where the vowels "i" and "u" will go nearly silent in a particular word, but an "o" after a "t"? I strongly disagree.

I even have several emails from a person where they spell things like 山本 and 京都 in English without that final o.

...are you sure those weren't just simple typos? This sounds completely absurd.

 

[RevenantKioku]

There are plenty of cases where the vowels "i" and "u" will go nearly silent in a particular word, but an "o" after a "t"? I strongly disagree.

There's nothing to disagree about. I was just saying how I have encountered some people who do it. I wasn't even saying it was common. Oi.

 

[345triangle]

it's cool, i believe you, because i'm not the one saying JAPANESE IS THIS AND ONLY THIS itt :lol

it happens with all sorts of words in conversation here. i've heard people say stuff like "seibu" or "azabu" without really pronouncing the "u", too - now, of course if you make a plosive consonant like b (or t) then something will come after, but it's not a full rendering of the vowel sound and that's the same thing i'm saying's happening when people drop the と in 京都. arguing that japanese people are incapable of ending words in consonants is kind of absurd!

anyway, the only reason i brought it up was that no-one would ever drop the とう in 本当, even to my ears, so any romanisation system should make double-length vowels clear. next time i'll just stick to the oba-san/obaa-san thing :/

 

[Deleted member 17706]

There's nothing to disagree about. I was just saying how I have encountered some people who do it. I wasn't even saying it was common. Oi.

Less to you and more to the "linguist" who also argues that the romanization of "し・つ・ち" should be standardized to better help Anglophones.