[Other] Japanese

[sosia]

I, like brute, studied some japanese years ago (1 year). Now I have forgotten everything

[ookami]

It's common for people to study one year Japanese and leave?
I (and two friends) did the same a few years ago (now I started again)

[Jessica]

Originally Posted by brute

ko n ba n wa mi na sa n.
I studied Japanese for almost a year at a local school about 10 years ago, but I have now forgotten most of it.
Japanese is not a tonal language. (It is a bit like French in that respect.) The voice does not rise and fall in pitch like in other languages.
They have yet another "alphabet" called romaji, which is a European transliteration of the 46 sounds of two kana systems. It is used as a means of teaching communicating with users of the latin or roman alphabet. The most popular version is called he bo n, named after its inventor (Hepburn)

The alphabets do not relate to individual letters, but to just 46 permissible syllables. Apart from the vowels (aieou) and n, all the other symbols of this so-called syllabary are a consonant+vowel combination. Romanji is a phonetic system pronounced like Italian.
Because the language has so few sounds, it is rich in ambiguity and puns.


The Kanji characters are the same as Chinese, of which a well educated Japanese would know and use about 2000. They are not phonetic. Each character will normally have 2 entirely different meanings, which adds to the ambiguity. The most useful kana for us is Katakana (the spikey alphabet), which is usually is close to an English word.
Like in Spanish V and B sound the same. L sounds like an R, which leads to words such as "te re bi" for televi(sion)

The writing systems are the hardest part of this language, as grammar is relatively simple. Fascinating!

I knew it.

[bobjenkins]

Hola ayer empecé a aprender japonés, querría aprender las kanjis, porque son bonitas! Siempre las he vistO en las películas. Estoy triste que sean muy complicadas, las otras letras me parecen una poca más fácil.

¡Qué linda!


¡¿cómo se lo recuerda?!

[ookami]

But you can't start learning that!

First Hiragana, then Katakana, then some gramatic and then kanjis with an order of difficult because the more complex kanjis are made from simplier ones. The kanji you wrote there is made from many parts/radicals. Once you know the 300++ radicals is easier. Download "kanji gold", is a free software to learn them. You have to start with Grade 1 kanjis, they are 90. And you have to learn how to write them in the correct order. But this is not the time to learn kanjis! you can start looking at the firsts 90 kanjis, but Kanas are the first step.

I have just started with kanjis. Slowly.

[bobjenkins]

Originally Posted by ookami

But you can't start learning that!

First Hiragana, then Katakana, then some gramatic and then kanjis with an order of difficult because the more complex kanjis are made from simplier ones. The kanji you wrote there is made from many parts/radicals. Once you know the 300++ radicals is easier. Download "kanji gold", is a free software to learn them. You have to start with Grade 1 kanjis, they are 90. And you have to learn how to write them in the correct order. But this is not the time to learn kanjis! you can start looking at the firsts 90 kanjis, but Kanas are the first step.

I have just started with kanjis. Slowly.

GRacias por el consejo! Tarde voy a aprender un poco de las Hiraganas

[brute]

Originally Posted by bobjenkins

GRacias por el consejo! Tarde voy a aprender un poco de las Hiraganas

I learned Katakana first. You can often make sense of Katakana words if you read them out loud. They usually sound something like an English word. You need to understand real Japanese to make sense of Hirugana. However you will make rapid progress in speaking Japanese by using Romaji (Roman script Hepburn).

Perhaps you can decypher these words,written in Hepburn
guroubarizeeshyon, oudoburu, Itaria, Osuturaria, Rosanzerusu

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Click to show hidden text - Da click para revelar el texto oculto

globalisation ,hor d'oevres, Italy, Australia and CALIFORNIA

When you start learning Kanji, learn the useful ones first, such as place names and common street signs. Also, each Kanji usually has two totally different interpretations or readings.

[ookami]

But if you start learning Katakana, when you know it, you can only start reading and writing some objects/places/names,... vocabulary.
If you learn Hiragana, you can start learning the grammar, making sentences and reading almost all things. The difficulty is the same because we are talking about memorizing symbols and not the vocabulary.
Iif we think about it, you can learn the two at the same time making some more effort. They are very alike. After that you start learning grammar and eventually, when you want, learn some kanjis.

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I don't recomend starting learning kanji by studying the useful ones. There are Grades for learning kanjis (as japanese teach them in school and highschool) Grade I, II, etc. If you study them in order I belive is better because more complex kanjis (that are popular ones too) use simplier ones in their composition, so if you know the easyest kanjis, the other are easier.

And the grades are well think, in Grade I you learn for example: tree, wood, air, fire, water, moon, sun, mounth, day, gold, left, right, up, under, in, out, big, small, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 100, 1000, 10000, etc.

[Jessica]

I believe that the characters of the numbers in Japanese is same as the ones in Chinese, but their "pin yin" or whatever is different?

[ookami]

Yes, they are the same. Almost all Japanese kanjis are from China. You have two phonetical ways to read a kanji in Japanese, the Chinese(on'yomi) way and the Japanese(kun'yomi) way. (when you use a kanji alone, you read it in kun'yomi, when you use it combined with another, you read in on'yomi)

一 here it is pronunced ichi (kun'yomi, Japanese way). It means one.
一人 here 一 is pronunced hito (on'yomi, Chinese way, it means the same as before) because it is combined with another kanji: 人 that here is pronunced as ri, acting as a counter for people. So it is hito(one)ri(counter for people) -> hitori, that means alone.