hiragana and katakana?

ryanloveyukie wrote:50,000? are u kidding?

that surely breaks my head..
:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

A lot of them are archaic, rare or obsolete, so you don't have to worry about them unless you want to study old Japanese texts. If you want proficiency you should aim for the 1945 Joyo kanji. But even if you just learn the 500 most common kanji, you should be able to read about 80% of most modern texts. 500 isn't so hard. I believe kids in Japan learn about 1000 kanji in primary school.

does anyone know what the best book for learning kanji is? or maybe a website? that would be even better :fingerscrossed:

suave_yamapi wrote:does anyone know what the best book for learning kanji is? or maybe a website? that would be even better :fingerscrossed:

James Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji" seems like a pretty good book (2 volumes). I've seen people recommend it before, and I think it uses an interesting method for remembering the kanji. But it may not work for everyone.

š wrote:

James Heisig's "Remembering the Kanji" seems like a pretty good book (2 volumes). I've seen people recommend it before, and I think it uses an interesting method for remembering the kanji. But it may not work for everyone.

thanks :D

suave_yamapi wrote:does anyone know what the best book for learning kanji is? or maybe a website? that would be even better :fingerscrossed:

You can try this site:

http://japanese.about.com/

suave_yamapi wrote:does anyone know what the best book for learning kanji is? or maybe a website? that would be even better :fingerscrossed:

You can try http://www.8ung.at/aikikai-wien/kanji.htm

There are different grades(lessons) at the bottom, hope that helps.

I think it fits here.
I've got a question to the experts. ^^

I was looking a kanji in my dictionary these days and I came across the kanji •Ä [kome] (uncooked rice). The dictionary I have is quite detailed and it lists a lot of readings, even the most uncommon ones. I knew the kanji before, but not that it could also be read as [mêtoru]. So if I want to, I could also write the word for 'meter' (usually Katakana) with this Kanji, couldn't I? I also know that country names can be written in Kanji, too and that words with uncommon Kanji like deseases, and so on, are written in Katakana for easier reading.

But is it possible to write words with foreign origin, like [makudonarudo] (Mc Donald's) or [kêki] (cake) etc. with Kanji, too (like the Chinese have to do)? So in other words: Are there kanji behind every Katakana word?

(Of course everybody uses the Katakana, but I'm interested. :bonk:)

Tsuchiya wrote:I think it fits here.
I've got a question to the experts. ^^

I was looking a kanji in my dictionary these days and I came across the kanji •Ä [kome] (uncooked rice). The dictionary I have is quite detailed and it lists a lot of readings, even the most uncommon ones. I knew the kanji before, but not that it could also be read as [mêtoru]. So if I want to, I could also write the word for 'meter' (usually Katakana) with this Kanji, couldn't I? I also know that country names can be written in Kanji, too and that words with uncommon Kanji like deseases, and so on, are written in Katakana for easier reading.

But is it possible to write words with foreign origin, like [makudonarudo] (Mc Donald's) or [kêki] (cake) etc. with Kanji, too (like the Chinese have to do)? So in other words: Are there kanji behind every Katakana word?

(Of course everybody uses the Katakana, but I'm interested. :bonk:)

Nope. Just as in English, even though two words may have the same pronunciation (like "too" as in "too much" and the number "two"), you cannot interchange them.

The kanji '•Ä' means "uncooked rice", and has no relation to (nor can you infer any relation to) the distance measurement: meter.

Now the Chinese write words in characters only because they do not have a phonetical writing system (ie hiragana or katakana). ... (It could be that what we consider characters are their phonetical system, but someone else would have to chime in).

dochira wrote:
Nope. Just as in English, even though two words may have the same pronunciation (like "too" as in "too much" and the number "two"), you cannot interchange them.

The kanji '•Ä' means "uncooked rice", and has no relation to (nor can you infer any relation to) the distance measurement: meter.

Now the Chinese write words in characters only because they do not have a phonetical writing system (ie hiragana or katakana). ... (It could be that what we consider characters are their phonetical system, but someone else would have to chime in).

A few words, if I may. :D

In response to Tsuchiya, while a long time ago, writing •Ä [kome] after a numeral may have, in fact, been understood to mean 'meter', that is not the case today. Most Japanese would be puzzled to see something like '4•Ä'.
Chinese languages, such as Mandarin, however, do use •Ä to mean 'meter' (which is most likely where the Japanese association you find in your dictionary came from).

Which is connected to dochira's response.
The reason they use this character is because it phonetically resembles the word 'meter' (it is read [mei] in Mandarin).
While they don't have a set of characters for specifically writing foreign or import words like katakana, they do use characters with similar pronunciations to do so.


For example:

êm [mai] ác [dang] ™§ [lao]

Can you guess which establishment name that is by the reading?


While it may be difficult to an English speaker not familiar with Mandarin, once you know that the above means "McDonald's," it's easy to see the connection.

‘‰¤š

kokuou wrote:
While it may be difficult to an English speaker not familiar with Mandarin, once you know that the above means "McDonald's," it's easy to see the connection.

‘‰¤š

Hmm, so in Chinese (Mandarin, at least), words are formed by characters that have a similar pronunciation, even if the actual meaning of those characters (when put together) do not have a logical meaning?

The things I learn each day.

•Ä = [mi] in mandarin.
”ü = [mei] in mandarin (”üš   USA)


IMHO. :mrgreen:

But it's true that Japanese people would be able to read and understand the names of countries, when those are written in Kanji (taking into consideration that those Kanji are Joyo Kanji and not very exotic ones)?

For example:
ˆŸ•Ä—˜‰Á o‚’ “ƈí

Tsuchiya wrote:But it's true that Japanese people would be able to read and understand the names of countries, when those are written in Kanji (taking into consideration that those Kanji are Joyo Kanji and not very exotic ones)?

For example:
ˆŸ•Ä—˜‰Á o‚’ “ƈí

Well, it's true that Japanese sometimes use Kanji for country names. For well-known foreign countries in newspaper headlines, for example, you might see something like “ú•ÄŠÖŒW (Japan-USA relations) or “Ɛ­•{ (German government), but that's as far as it goes. You'd rarely, if ever, see the kanji for, say, šº‹y (Egypt), even though both of those are Joyo Kanji.
Some of the ones I've seen this way are:

•Ä (America)
‰Á (Canada)
‹ (Australia)
ˆ¤ (Ireland)
•§ (France)
ˆó (India)
‰p (England)

There are probably more, but that's all I can think of at the mo'.

HTH,

‘‰¤š

Wow, I'm sorry to say I forgot about this topic.

It took me about 1 month to memorize the kana. (That is, Hiragana and Katakana. Yes, I am slow.) After that I got lazy. I haven't started on Kanji. Then again, my vocabulary is very weak. Would it be better to focus on vocab before kanji? How long do you think it would take someone to memorize the joyo kanji?

TrigunX89 wrote:Wow, I'm sorry to say I forgot about this topic.

It took me about 1 month to memorize the kana. (That is, Hiragana and Katakana. Yes, I am slow.) After that I got lazy. I haven't started on Kanji. Then again, my vocabulary is very weak. Would it be better to focus on vocab before kanji? How long do you think it would take someone to memorize the joyo kanji?

If it took a month to memorize the kana, then it'll take a few years to memorize the Kanji. They are much more complicated. You might try James Heisig's "Learning the Kanji" which teaches a mnemonic system to memorize them quickly, but different methods work for different people.

I'd say, try increasing your vocabulary first, then worry about the Kanji.

is there a site that can teach me 1945 kanji?

any tips for easy remembering kanji? im thinking of going to japanese class next semester..

i find it fun to translate the kanji on tv shows or translate the karaoke on music shows like Music Station.
ive learned a lot of my kanji this way :)

a-nesuto wrote:i find it fun to translate the kanji on tv shows or translate the karaoke on music shows like Music Station.
ive learned a lot of my kanji this way :)

ohh..nice idea too. we can do 2 in 1 at the same time. enjoy the show and learning as well. :mrgreen:

btw..do you have your signature in a bigger pic size? kawaii yo mao-chan.

on page 3 in Mao's thread :victory: