Japanese Language Questions? Ask Here.

tabana wrote:You can get the whole list here

Wow, that's really useful Tabana.
I've just printed that out, and also the stuff about "yous".

Thank you. :woot:

You're welcome. I never heard half of them, but it's nice to know. :)

I have a question.... I have not started learning kana yet (one day.......) but when I do..... most written Japanese I see appears to be in one continuous line.... how do I know where one word ends and another begins?

Anime Dad wrote:I have a question.... I have not started learning kana yet (one day.......) but when I do..... most written Japanese I see appears to be in one continuous line.... how do I know where one word ends and another begins?

You don't - that's part of what makes Japanese a difficult language to learn. I joined a beginner's course (level 4) a few months ago and asked my teacher how long would it take me to understand Japanese publications (newspapers, novels etc., manga is easier). My teacher said I'll need to go up to level 2 to understand fully, and that's assuming the text is in standard (as opposed to regional, e.g. Kansai) dialect. At the rate I'll going I'm better off marrying a Japanese woman and get her to translate for me... :shakehead:

Sometimes you can decipher the sentence just by looking at the particles or shift to katakana/kanji. You may not understand the meaning, but it's usually relatively easy to split words in simple sentences.

Something like kanji, kanji, kanji, no kanji, kanji, kanji... katakana...

For example, got this in the news on asahi's webpage.
ƒr[ƒgƒ‹ƒY‚Ì•œ‚Í‚Á‚Ò‚ðƒvƒŒƒ[ƒ“ƒg@‚i‚`‚k
ƒr[ƒgƒ‹ƒY / ‚Ì / •œ / ‚Í‚Á‚Ò / ‚ð / ƒvƒŒƒ[ƒ“ƒg / ‚i‚`‚k
Beatles no fukkoku happi wo purezento ‚i‚`‚k


IIRC, to read a newspaper, you need to know at least 3000 kanji.

Anime Dad wrote:I have a question.... I have not started learning kana yet (one day.......) but when I do..... most written Japanese I see appears to be in one continuous line.... how do I know where one word ends and another begins?

I have Korean young guy friend.
He can read Japanese that was written 1000 years ago.
He needs 6 years.
( grammer of Korean is similar to Japnese, it is advantage. )

I also have Taiwanese student friend in Japan.
He learned Japanese in Taiwan about 7 years, and 5 months in Japan.
He can speak and write perfectly.
( Taiwanese use Chinese characters... it is advantage )

If you want mainly to read Japanese continuous line, you must learn Kanji( Chinese characters, but usage of Chinese charcter in China is very different from that in Japan )
If possible, you must learn to write and read about 1000 Chinese characters( Usually Japanese learns them in elementary school ) and read more 1000.
2000 Kanji is enough to read news papers.
But there are no limit.. hehe. Do you want to try 10000 or 30000?


If you use Latin based language like English, because in Japanese sentence, role of each parts of sentence is not decided by word order, then you must be accustomed to that.
Native japanese speaker starts the sentence from topic phrase, not subject phrase or word. If two japanese talk about common topic obviously for both person, topic phrase is omitted. Topics phrase is appeared when they want to change the topics or want to talk about sub-topics and also they think the enphasis on current topics again, for example they talk about elephant firstly, topics phrase is appeared when they want to talk about fish as another topics or, nose of elephant as sub-topics.
And because Japanese sentence is not depend on phrase order, subject phrase is also omitted if not necessary.

Verbal phrase( I mean verb and verbal auxiliary ) is appeared usually at the end of the sentence, but if there are reason, order of phrase is changed especially in conversation.

At last, Japanese is plenty of elements like particle in English at the end of sentence. But this elements doesnt exist in English. Every statement has its intention. This elements express a lot of degrees of the confidence of statement, need or no need of agreement, feeling when they make statement( for example, some types of jokes or not,@with contenpt or not, with laugh or not.... ).
You may be accustomed to that. but it seems to be hard. For example, there two particles that expresses confidence at the end of sentence, why dose he need two? Sometimes it is caused by lack of enough confidence.
But about those kanda, you are interested in Japanese dorama, naturally you will learn.

Please enjoy Japanese. And I'm sorry, my poor English.

snowmackerel wrote:
If possible, you must learn to write and read about 1000 Chinese characters( Usually Japanese learns them in elementary school ) and read more 1000.
2000 Kanji is enough to read news papers.
But there are no limit.. hehe. Do you want to try 10000 or 30000?

For me the problem is that a lot of modern literature are written more in Hiragana than Kanji, making it difficult to 'guess' the meaning.

Please enjoy Japanese. And I'm sorry, my poor English.

Thank you for your insight. Your English is a hell of a lot better than my Japanese. :bonk:

Thanks for that guys. I never thought it would be easy, and you've just confirmed that thought :)

thtl wrote:
For me the problem is that a lot of modern literature are written more in Hiragana than Kanji, making it difficult to 'guess' the meaning.

You seem to be in Shanghai, China.
Do you know —RŒÉ—¢( Yukuri, ŒÃ–kV‹æ )?
I find it in Japanese website.
That is Manga Kissa( Manga cafe, –Ÿ‰æ‹i’ƒ ).
( by that website, that cafe is for people loves Japanese editon of Manga in Shanghai. )
There you seem to be able to read Japanese edition Manga.
In addtion, there seems some place where you can read Manga of Japanese editon in Shanghai.

Has anyone got any tips for differentiating between katakana

shi and tsu? ƒV@and@@@@ƒc look the same to me! I'm having awful trouble with them. It seems easier when looking at handwritten stuff cos sometimes I can see where the long stroke has ended (I know it's different for both) But print is really bad.

And also so and n/m ƒ\@@and@@@ƒ“. I can't see a difference!

I'm finding katakana to be hard going. I've memorized hiragana, and that seemed much more straightforward.

Besides a smiley looking up and the other one down... I forgot most of my katakana =T

tabana wrote:Besides a smiley looking up and the other one down... I forgot most of my katakana =T

hahahaha i never thought of it that way.


Yea....katakana for me is a lot harder, I still can't remember some :doh:
something to practice over winter break :beaten:

Keps wrote:Has anyone got any tips for differentiating between katakana

shi and tsu? ƒV@and@@@@ƒc look the same to me! I'm having awful trouble with them. It seems easier when looking at handwritten stuff cos sometimes I can see where the long stroke has ended (I know it's different for both) But print is really bad.

And also so and n/m ƒ\@@and@@@ƒ“. I can't see a difference!

I'm finding katakana to be hard going. I've memorized hiragana, and that seemed much more straightforward.

use this free online katakana quiz to drum it into your dome.....repetitive reinforcement helps....it's pure rote memory.

http://www.manythings.org/q/kana.php?u=katakana

Thanks folks.

*looks at Tabana's post* Hmm, I suppose shi and tsu do look like up/down smiley faces. Perhaps that will help me.

K.T.Tran - I've seen some people say katakana is actually the easier to remember. I dunno how though. None of the hiraganas are really really alike, but lots of katakana look like others.

Tu_Triky - thanks for that. Another website I am going to have to use in my effort to get katakana fixed into my memory.

:)

Keps wrote:Has anyone got any tips for differentiating between katakana

shi and tsu? ƒV@and@@@@ƒc look the same to me! I'm having awful trouble with them. It seems easier when looking at handwritten stuff cos sometimes I can see where the long stroke has ended (I know it's different for both) But print is really bad.

And also so and n/m ƒ\@@and@@@ƒ“. I can't see a difference!

I'm finding katakana to be hard going. I've memorized hiragana, and that seemed much more straightforward.

the two short lines in 'shi' is written up and down. you first write the short line, and then write the second short line beneath the first. and write the long line a little far from the short lines.
as for 'tsu', write the first short line, and then write the other short line beside the first. and write the long line a little close to the short lines.
when you write the long line, it always ends up under the outer short line.
that's how i remember their difference :hehe: hope it'll work for you too :mrgreen:

so and n/m might seen just the same, but they have little difference, so yeah, it's a little hard to see. basically the dot in 'so' is written downward, while the dot in n/m is written more to the side. and the long line is more 'laid-back' compared to so (the long line in so is a little bit more standing straight).

sorry if it's confusing. i'm not too good at explaining xDD but i hope it helps :mrgreen:

by the way, to me hiragana is a lot easier than katakana. i needed more time to memorize katakana but it was quite quick for me memorizing hiragana :sweat:

*Reads kurokage's post*

*Head spins and smoke comes out of ears* :mrgreen:


Your hints do make sense, but it's quite hard to get straight in my head.

I got hiragana fairly quickly, but I'm still wading my way through katakana. I don't want to rush it, as I need to remember properly before moving on. It's just katakana don't stick easily in my memory like hiragana.

Keps wrote:*Reads kurokage's post*

*Head spins and smoke comes out of ears* :mrgreen:


Your hints do make sense, but it's quite hard to get straight in my head.

I got hiragana fairly quickly, but I'm still wading my way through katakana. I don't want to rush it, as I need to remember properly before moving on. It's just katakana don't stick easily in my memory like hiragana.

This is one of the best drills I ever saw for learning both Katakana and Hiragana. When I started I removed the check marks from all the columns except one and then learned just that column. Then going column by column; then doing two columns at a time etc. Whenever I start forgetting some of the symbols I just jump in for a couple of minutes and my memory is refreshed:

http://www.chipchat.com/NihonGo/protect/KatakanaDrill.html

http://www.chipchat.com/NihonGo/protect/HiraganaDrill.html

Ralph I just tried the drill as you suggested, and managed to get lots wrong. :hehe:

Keps wrote:Ralph I just tried the drill as you suggested, and managed to get lots wrong. :hehe:

Start with just one column. Watch how quickly you will learn it. :nut:

There is a little design fault. For example if you want to learn just the column with 'ka' etc. you need to turn of the checkmarks for all columns except the 'ka' and the 'a' column. Then as soon as it gives you a symbol in the 'ka' column turn off the checkmark in the 'a' column.
Otherwise if it shows the 'a' symbol and you turn off the 'a' column checkmark, you can't do anything.

I managed to learn it (to read) in less than a week. I used a program for the PSP, but I forgot the name.

I just did an hour or so a day. The thing is you need to keep on practicing or you'll forget it in no time. :(