Japanese language

Soul Saver

Soul Saver

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Does anyone here know any Japanese language, etc? Understand the Japanese alphabet? Out of curiosity. God, it looks so difficult to get to grips with all the different characters they have.
 
I don't know any myself but I know a few people who are learning the say its soooo hard to learn. A lot of it is because learning to speak it and learning to read it are two completely different processes so it doubles the workload!!!
 
I can say "hello" in japanese. Such a unique skill.

The japanese language seems very difficult to learn. The writing looks awesome, though.
 
Pooley said:
I can count to ten and say "beers please", so I'm pretty sorted.
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I know naff all, but Id defo need to learn Vodka please. Glad you have your priorities sorted there pools. Now can you just write than down for us? :wacky:
 
I'll move this to Anime & Japan since it seems more appropriate there. ;)

And no, I don't actually know the language, but I do know and recognize a few words/phrases here and there - mainly because I watch a lot of anime. xD
 
Silly me, should've noticed this place actually existed haha.
Seems very complicated, that's granted. How do you get to grips with all the language and the totally bizarre symbols? How asian kids cope with learning all that in childhood is one of the greatest mysteries to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_writing_system

And distinguishing complex characters from one another... :S

But it must work well enough as a language, albeit a very complex one.
 
dog = inu
cat = neko
bird = tori
thank you = arigatou
heart = kokoro

I also know that in japanese, you don't extend the sounds of vowels when there are two of them together, like in english.

i.e.
(english pronunciation) dooku = doo-ku
(japanese pronunciation) dooku = do-o-ku

Same goes for consanents(sp?)

(EP) kutto = cut-oh
(JP) kutto = kut-t-oh

Sometimes, the rules change. I don't know why. Don't ask.
 
From what I've heard it's easy to learn the spoken language but learning to write it takes a while.
 
Well, spoken Japanese is easier than written, for sure. But it can still be pretty difficult depending on how well a person grasps a different concept of grammar - some people are more adept in a specific linguistic family while others are better in spreading themselves pan-linguistically.
 
I know a little bit of japanese because I'm taking a Japanese class at University right now, and I took a class last semester too. Concerning writing in Japanese, I know all of the katakana, a little over half of the hirigana, and only a handful of kanji. I can also count to over nine million.
 
eisprinz said:
Well, spoken Japanese is easier than written, for sure. But it can still be pretty difficult depending on how well a person grasps a different concept of grammar - some people are more adept in a specific linguistic family while others are better in spreading themselves pan-linguistically.
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I'd probably put myself into the first group. I can understand and get ahold of Germanic languages very well, but I suck at Romantic.

Nice, AB. You must be very skilled to learn Japanese. Is there any particular reason for 4 writing systems?
 
Iron_Legion said:
Nice, AB. You must be very skilled to learn Japanese. Is there any particular reason for 4 writing systems?
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Well, Romanji doesn't really count as a writing system. It's just used as a way to read Japanese words without learning all of the Japanese characters. Makes it a lot easier when learning the language.

Katakana are used when writing foreign words in Japanese. For instance, when writing my name or for writing words borrowed from English like beer (biiru) and such. Katakana can also be used to write Japanese words when the writer wants that word to stand out in the text (much like when using bold when typing, or something).

Hiragana are used to write normal Japanese words, like arigato (thank you), konnichiwa (hello/good afternoon). Sore wa, watashi no atarashii kuruma desu. (That is my new car.) would be written in hiragana.

Another example: When asking for a beer (Biiru kudasai), biiru would be written in katakana and kudasai (please) would be written in hiragana.

Kanji is the most complicated and complex of the writing systems. Kanji are used when writing Japanese nouns and names (though there are instances when names are written in hiragana). I can't explain kanji very well because we haven't and won't cover them in my current Japanese class. I just know that there are thousands of them and that they use Chinese characters.

Counting is pretty easy once you know how to say 1-10, 100, 1000, and 10000. After that, it's usually just a matter in the order you say the numbers. For example, ni is two, ju is 10. Ju ni is 12, while ni ju is 20. If you check the Counting to Infinity thread, in the posts where I'm using Japanese I'm just saying "It is number (what ever the current number is)."

Wow, I guess I wrote a lot....
 
I speak okay Japanese. I know hirigana, katakana, and about 300 kanji. I know how to say everyday phrases but nothing too fancy. I could probably have a very pleasant casual conversation in Japanese, as long as the other person wasn't speaking rapid fire.

Honestly, it's the Kanji that gets you. You need to learn about 3,000 to be considered completely literate in Japanese. *Weep*
 
Erythritol said:
I speak okay Japanese. I know hirigana, katakana, and about 300 kanji. I know how to say everyday phrases but nothing too fancy. I could probably have a very pleasant casual conversation in Japanese, as long as the other person wasn't speaking rapid fire.

Honestly, it's the Kanji that gets you. You need to learn about 3,000 to be considered completely literate in Japanese. *Weep*
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そうですよ！!
I can read and write all hiragana, all katakana, and about 80 or so Kanji and Kanji combinations. I know enough to have a short non-intelligent conversation in Japanese.

Kanji is very difficult, but other things that I found difficult were:

1) The fact that you conjugate adjectives, not verbs, when you're describing something in the past (for example: "It is interesting" is "omoshiroi desu" where "desu" is the verb "is/are" But "It was interesting" is "omoshirokatta desu" Desu does not change. Very unusual for someone growing up with Germanic and Latin-based languages

2) The "te" form of verbs can have so many meanings. It can be used to make a request, give/ask permission, state something that is forbidden, connecting sentences that describe two or more events, and it's used to connect adjectives. And I'm sure it's used for so much more.

3) Japanese has many particles that are used to separate and join sentences. For example, "は” or "wa" indicates the topic of a sentence (such as "watashi wa..." meaning "I [the topic of the sentence]...
"の” or "no" is used for possession or joining two nouns [ex. daigaku no sensee" is a college professor, and "を" or "o" is used for objects that take the action "I read books" is "hon o yomu"

4. The sentence structure itself. One of my favorite sentence-structure comparisons is this:

English: Subject + verb + noun + preposition
Example: I read a book at 4pm.

Japanese: Topic + preposition + noun + verb
Example: 私はごご四時に本およみました (watashi wa gogo yoji ni hon o yomimashita) which literally translated says "I pm 4 book read". The underlined words are particles that you have to learn.

Wow, I always get so excited about 日本語! Sorry if this post is too long or too boring...people told me to share my limited Japanese knowledge so I'm trying...
Sumimasen...>_<
 
i can speak some but its been awhile. i cant write much at all. i learned it for when i went to japan. i learned some before going but its crazy how much you can pick up just by being immersed in it
 
*~Sara~* said:
そうですよ！!
1) The fact that you conjugate adjectives, not verbs, when you're describing something in the past (for example: "It is interesting" is "omoshiroi desu" where "desu" is the verb "is/are" But "It was interesting" is "omoshirokatta desu" Desu does not change. Very unusual for someone growing up with Germanic and Latin-based languages
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I remember before we learned this, my teacher trying to explain to us, when we were trying to say something was blue, that adjectives were conjugated. I was like, "what???" It's such a strange concept for someone who speaks a Romance language.

2) The "te" form of verbs can have so many meanings. It can be used to make a request, give/ask permission, state something that is forbidden, connecting sentences that describe two or more events, and it's used to connect adjectives. And I'm sure it's used for so much more.
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Ahhh, I remember the days when I thought the te form was difficult to remember. XD Now it's like...the easiest one. Te forms of verbs are easier to figure out in context, because there's always something that comes after the te-form.

3) Japanese has many particles that are used to separate and join sentences. For example, "は” or "wa" indicates the topic of a sentence (such as "watashi wa..." meaning "I [the topic of the sentence]...
"の” or "no" is used for possession or joining two nouns [ex. daigaku no sensee" is a college professor, and "を" or "o" is used for objects that take the action "I read books" is "hon o yomu"

4. The sentence structure itself.
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I love both of these things! The particles make so much sense to me, for some reason. It just seems like a very straight-forward, efficient way of doing things. I also love that words don't have to be in any particular order.

Wow, I always get so excited about 日本語! Sorry if this post is too long or too boring...people told me to share my limited Japanese knowledge so I'm trying...
Sumimasen...>_<
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Hahahah. It's fine; Japanese is fun XD I'm currently in Tokyo, so Japanese is...a large part of my life. Ugh, coming here was a real wake-up call. I don't know as much Japanese as I liked to think I did. People speak so quickly, and words tend to slur together. I often find myself asking people to repeat themselves slowly x_x And I stumble trying to get sentences out. Although...I haven't studied it for a few months, since I've been on a break. I really hope to improve and become more fluent...
 
To Erythritol (I don't feel like quoting that whole thing lol):

Ehh?? The "te" form is the easiest one?? Well, for me the hardest part is remembering when to use it. Conjugating stuff into the "te" form is easy, but for some reason it doesn't come to me as easily as other conjugations...

And yeah the particles are kinda fun! I've never learned a language that had "topic particles" and "emphasis particles" etc so it's very interesting to learn!

You're in Tokyo right now? Whereabouts? I'm going to be studying in Japan in a couple years and I can't decide between Kyoto and Tokyo. If I go to Tokyo, I'd be in the Ikebukuro area.
Also, how long have you been studying Japanese? I'm only in my second semester at a university...
 
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