This is a great phrase to learn even if you can't say anything else at all in Japanese. I absolutely love the phrase, and I wonder why my Japanese teacher at Uni never thought to include it in a lesson.
Maybe because it's not Mombusho Japanese (all-Japanese site - consider yourself warned).
ていうか can be translated in a lot of different ways. It's a slang expression for all practical purposes, and, like English slang, is fluid and easy to slip into conversation.
Some possible meanings are:
"like..."
"well..."
"you know..."
"actually..."
When I hear the phrase on Japanese television, it feels like "you know..." most of the time. Sometimes "you know..." doesn't work in my head in English, so I think of ていうか as "like..."
A few simple examples are:
ていうか、お風呂に入りたいですけど (teiuka, ofuro ni hairitai desu kedo)
You know, I'd like to hop in the shower but [something is stopping me - probably the person being spoken to]
ね、ね、これ何？(ne, ne, kore nani?)
ていうか、それは。。。え～っと。。。分からん(teiuka, sore ha... e~tto... wakaran)
Hey, hey, what's this?
Like, it's like... umm... I dunno.
ていうか、マックの代わりにモスバーガーに行こうか(teiuka, makku no kawari ni mosu ba-ga- ni ikou ka)
Actually, let's go to Mos Burger instead of McDonald's.
You can see quickly that ていうか is used to introduce a thought or what I like to think of as stalling for time.
The Japanese are famous for this. Go anywhere, meet anyone, and within the first 5 minutes you will hear a "stalling" expression like: え～っと、あのね、あのぉ、さあ、and of course ていうか.
I should point out that ていうか usually flows with whatever follows it - that is to say, it is NOT used in the same way that English speakers use "ummm" to stall for time when collecting thoughts or when lost for words.
So, if you're just starting out with Japanese, try to insert ていうか into your next conversation lesson and maybe score some brownie points with the teacher -- excuse me, 先生.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Viewing Japanese TV Programs
So I finished my last post and wanted to research Japanese television programs online.
Here's some of the stuff I've found:
http://beelinetv.com/ -- streamed Japanese television stations.
http://www.telsat.com/frequ.htm -- Satellite Feeds for those in New Zealand!
http://www.mpeg2-dvb.com/iprog1.htm -- Satellite company offering free feeds from various companies and pay-per-view feeds from others. Japan's NHK!
http://www.ftasatellite.com/JapaneseTV.htm -- Free To Air Satellite Channels from Japan!
http://www.tvjapan.net/eng/index.html -- Japanese Company's homepage for Satellite feed.
Dish Network -- not a lot going on from Dish Network...
Direct TV -- doesn't even offer a Japanese channel in it's South Asian package
Online TV Player -- could this be for real? Don't take my word for it - looks promising though.
Here's some of the stuff I've found:
http://beelinetv.com/ -- streamed Japanese television stations.
http://www.telsat.com/frequ.htm -- Satellite Feeds for those in New Zealand!
http://www.mpeg2-dvb.com/iprog1.htm -- Satellite company offering free feeds from various companies and pay-per-view feeds from others. Japan's NHK!
http://www.ftasatellite.com/JapaneseTV.htm -- Free To Air Satellite Channels from Japan!
http://www.tvjapan.net/eng/index.html -- Japanese Company's homepage for Satellite feed.
Dish Network -- not a lot going on from Dish Network...
Direct TV -- doesn't even offer a Japanese channel in it's South Asian package
Online TV Player -- could this be for real? Don't take my word for it - looks promising though.
A Note about Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji
When I was thinking of what to write for my next post, I settled on the phrase "ていうか" which will be discussed in more detail later.
What I realized is missing from a lot of student's knowledge base is a basic explanation of why and when Japanese people use Hiragana over Katakana and vice versa, and why sometimes obvious, even easy kanji (if such a thing can be said without accusations of clinical insanity thrown in one's face) are not used when they could be used.
The best example of this in my opinion is Japanese television. Anyone who has been made to sit through one of these programs will appreciate my next statement:
The Japanese have a quirky love of subtitles.
With the exception of Japanese Drama's (like "Last Christmas" of 2004, and "電車男" [densha otoko, Train Boy] of early 2005), I'm prepared to state that all Japanese television programs employ Japanese "subtitles" of a sort throughout the show.
It's kind of unfair to call these "subtitles" because in the strictest sense of the term they don't follow a uniform font, size, or color, and they certainly don't appear in locations that do not conflict with the action.
A Japanese pop star will be on some kind of "talk show," for lack of a better term, and she will say something in her local dialect, something humorous, or something out of character, and as the show is pre-recorded, the AV people will print out exactly what she says in various fonts (even as far as changing the font within a sentence goes) in order to emphasize her words. Sometimes the text is animated.
And the quirkiest thing of all is that there seems to be no rhyme or reason to why they choose Hiragana, Katakana, or Kanji for their "subtitles."
Now ok the explanation might leave you going "huh?" if you've never seen one of these shows. So let me give you a brief example:
The Show's Host will say something to which the star replies in shock or awe. By far the most common expression of being impressed with something is "すごい (sugoi)" which can be translated as one of a thousand different English expressions. For the purposes of simplicity let's go with "wow" as one possible meaning.
But in Japanese, the word すごい can be changed based on location, demographic, or generation. That's my over-complicated way of saying language takes on a personal twist. Easy example in English is that not everyone says "wow" when something appropriate for that response happens. Some people say "whoa!" or "neat!" or "goodness!" (if we want to go back in time a bit). A professor, which I am not, could argue that "whoa" is an evolution of "wow" but I would only smile and nod to appease him. I personally think they are two distinct words which may be related, but are in no way a mutation one of the other.
However in Japanese, the term すごい doesn't get dismantled and reassembled with new kana like "whoa" gets the 'a' and 'h' and drops a 'w' making it a cousin to "wow."
No no - in Japanese, the word literally morphs in a way based on, well, where you grew up. There are also some gender issues, but that doesn't appear so much in English, and is at best a thing you "have to accept" when learning a European language with gender roots (like "el" and "la" in Spanish - never really could grip it myself - just had to bite the bullet and go "ok sure").
So back to my original point - the word すごい can change to be すげぇ (sugee) - yes that is a little え on purpose if you haven't seen something like it before. Now most Japanese people will tell you that this word makes you sound like a boy (if you are a boy I don't suppose that it's a problem), but let's assume this pop star on the TV show says すげぇぇぇぇ because, most likely, it's something she heard a lot growing up from her siblings (brothers) or it is a popular (read: common) expression where she grew up. Or maybe she's just trying to be cheeky on purpose. Who knows.
The point is that they AV people will print すげぇぇぇぇ on the TV right over her head in some kind of strange orange and black flaming font that adds an ぇ for as long as she holds the sound. But here's the kicker - most Japanese people will tell you that a word like すごい is written in Hiragana. Indeed, you will not find it on your JLPT or other test written in Katakana (at least I hope you haven't because I would be a liar then). However - on the TV show, you can see the word in Katakana! Then it would be スゲェェェェ instead.
Why?
I have no clue. I've asked and received laureat-worthy answers from academic and drunken salaryman alike, but honestly, I don't believe there really is a reason. It's one of those feeling situations that a very very long time living in Japan will breed inside a person. This stuff goes beyond classroom learning and into that special area of linguistics that I don't know the name for. I call it "touchy feely lingo," but I'm sure someone much more in the know has coined a far more complicated and less understandable term.
The popular response is that katakana adds emphasis over hiragana, but even that theme doesn't hold across all television shows, nor situations which can be paralelled with the example I've given above. It seems like AV people at studios just do it on a whim.
Of course kanji is used extensively to print what people are saying. And the only evidence I can find to support why the AV staff working on a television show needs to do this is:
Imagine that - that's how strange it can be at times.
What I realized is missing from a lot of student's knowledge base is a basic explanation of why and when Japanese people use Hiragana over Katakana and vice versa, and why sometimes obvious, even easy kanji (if such a thing can be said without accusations of clinical insanity thrown in one's face) are not used when they could be used.
The best example of this in my opinion is Japanese television. Anyone who has been made to sit through one of these programs will appreciate my next statement:
The Japanese have a quirky love of subtitles.
With the exception of Japanese Drama's (like "Last Christmas" of 2004, and "電車男" [densha otoko, Train Boy] of early 2005), I'm prepared to state that all Japanese television programs employ Japanese "subtitles" of a sort throughout the show.
It's kind of unfair to call these "subtitles" because in the strictest sense of the term they don't follow a uniform font, size, or color, and they certainly don't appear in locations that do not conflict with the action.
A Japanese pop star will be on some kind of "talk show," for lack of a better term, and she will say something in her local dialect, something humorous, or something out of character, and as the show is pre-recorded, the AV people will print out exactly what she says in various fonts (even as far as changing the font within a sentence goes) in order to emphasize her words. Sometimes the text is animated.
And the quirkiest thing of all is that there seems to be no rhyme or reason to why they choose Hiragana, Katakana, or Kanji for their "subtitles."
Now ok the explanation might leave you going "huh?" if you've never seen one of these shows. So let me give you a brief example:
The Show's Host will say something to which the star replies in shock or awe. By far the most common expression of being impressed with something is "すごい (sugoi)" which can be translated as one of a thousand different English expressions. For the purposes of simplicity let's go with "wow" as one possible meaning.
But in Japanese, the word すごい can be changed based on location, demographic, or generation. That's my over-complicated way of saying language takes on a personal twist. Easy example in English is that not everyone says "wow" when something appropriate for that response happens. Some people say "whoa!" or "neat!" or "goodness!" (if we want to go back in time a bit). A professor, which I am not, could argue that "whoa" is an evolution of "wow" but I would only smile and nod to appease him. I personally think they are two distinct words which may be related, but are in no way a mutation one of the other.
However in Japanese, the term すごい doesn't get dismantled and reassembled with new kana like "whoa" gets the 'a' and 'h' and drops a 'w' making it a cousin to "wow."
No no - in Japanese, the word literally morphs in a way based on, well, where you grew up. There are also some gender issues, but that doesn't appear so much in English, and is at best a thing you "have to accept" when learning a European language with gender roots (like "el" and "la" in Spanish - never really could grip it myself - just had to bite the bullet and go "ok sure").
So back to my original point - the word すごい can change to be すげぇ (sugee) - yes that is a little え on purpose if you haven't seen something like it before. Now most Japanese people will tell you that this word makes you sound like a boy (if you are a boy I don't suppose that it's a problem), but let's assume this pop star on the TV show says すげぇぇぇぇ because, most likely, it's something she heard a lot growing up from her siblings (brothers) or it is a popular (read: common) expression where she grew up. Or maybe she's just trying to be cheeky on purpose. Who knows.
The point is that they AV people will print すげぇぇぇぇ on the TV right over her head in some kind of strange orange and black flaming font that adds an ぇ for as long as she holds the sound. But here's the kicker - most Japanese people will tell you that a word like すごい is written in Hiragana. Indeed, you will not find it on your JLPT or other test written in Katakana (at least I hope you haven't because I would be a liar then). However - on the TV show, you can see the word in Katakana! Then it would be スゲェェェェ instead.
Why?
I have no clue. I've asked and received laureat-worthy answers from academic and drunken salaryman alike, but honestly, I don't believe there really is a reason. It's one of those feeling situations that a very very long time living in Japan will breed inside a person. This stuff goes beyond classroom learning and into that special area of linguistics that I don't know the name for. I call it "touchy feely lingo," but I'm sure someone much more in the know has coined a far more complicated and less understandable term.
The popular response is that katakana adds emphasis over hiragana, but even that theme doesn't hold across all television shows, nor situations which can be paralelled with the example I've given above. It seems like AV people at studios just do it on a whim.
Of course kanji is used extensively to print what people are saying. And the only evidence I can find to support why the AV staff working on a television show needs to do this is:
- It's culture. They've been doing this for years and years (hmm - might be interesting to research that actually - note to self) and it just sticks. Fair enough.
- Japanese people are terrible at speaking Japanese. They really are bad! Someone living here 10 years or more who has traveled to remote areas of Japan would swear in court that Japanese skills among Japanese people are very very poor. They need these subtitles at times just to understand the various dialects of these pop stars and other personalities who appear on TV.
Imagine that - that's how strange it can be at times.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Let's Talk About 羅
I was prodded in the direction to make my blog more about the things I find interesting. I suppose that was always the original intent of this blog, but as of this moment I'm taking a renewed interest in writing in my own "voice" so to speak, rather than trying to appease the ghost of many a lit professor of the past looking over my shoulder and constantly grading for sense and sensibility. Here we go.
You might notice in the navigation bar to the left that my name is listed as 帝羅. I can promise you, whether you are Japanese or Chinese, you probably cannot read this kanji as I intend it to be read the first time.
I don't particularly want to discuss the first kanji, because it's very easy. It is the kanji used for Emperor in the Japanese sense. Soothill's Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms (login with the UserID "guest" for full access) can be quickly consulted to show the meaning of 帝 and it's list of pronunciations. If you're not of the mental persuasion to visit such a site at this time, I can tell you for naught that there are ten listed pronunciations two of which - だい (dai) and たい (tai) - are used in Japanese.
So - 帝 means Emperor - sorted.
羅 on the other hand is a very mixed bag. Keeping in mind that I'm not a professional please accept my explanation on faith alone that, yes, I was told these things about this kanji when I first chose it as one of the characters to represent my name. Opps - that was a bit of private information thrown in there accidentally.
Of course I consulted a few online sites for help with understanding the history of this kanji. First I found Kiki's Kanji Dictionary which returned the results as:
components:
nb of strokes: 19
translation: net, put in a row (conf.)
ラ
あみ: net
つら．ねる: put in a row
うすもの: light stuff
Which comes from the English-Japanese Dictionary of Kanji Character #136.
So "net" can be made of something like "thread" and I can go with it linking the meanings "gauze" and "thin silk" because we're discovering a kind of clothy theme with this kanji. I still don't buy "Rome."
So I continued in my search towards a point that I felt was more accurate. Here is where my personal story enters.
This kanji was chosen for me by some of my favorite students. They chose it because it is "cool." Which doesn't mean something is "cool" at all by traditional definitions. However, I confirmed with independent sources that 羅 is cool because a lot of YAKUZA MEMBERS like to use this kanji for their nicknames.
Perhaps the beloved students I thought were looking out for me were trying to get me into trouble with the Japanese mafia?
Anyway - I liked the look of it, and it was a far sight better than alternative kanji with the same reading like 平 (たいら taira "flat, smooth surface" /yawn /cough /lame), so I stuck with it. One of my professor friends with degrees and awards and other pieces of paper besides relating to Chinese Poetry and Buddhism told me that 羅 was the kanji used representing one of the Buddhist "realms" of reality outside our own. This 羅 represents the Realm of the Titans where there are, presumably of course, some rather large beings of titanic size doing rather large things with themselves. I immediately imagined Cyclops from Roman tales (Greek?) and "got" the connection with Rome. It's also far more cool to us 羅 just for the sound effect. 羅 should be said "ra~" with a kind of trail one uses when opening one's mouth to let a doctor look at the back of the throat. Better than "net" anyway.
Still I am not satisfied with this explanation. My electronic dictionary also confirms that 羅 can be used as a noun for "net" or as a verb for "put things in a straight line" which I suppose is what a net is like when it's constructed. I am not a maker of nets, nor do I plan to try anytime in the forseeable future (read: never).
I turned up at a site by Soothill and Hodous which gave me this interesting defintion that I've linked and copied for you:
多羅 tārā, in the sense of starry, or scintillation; Tāla, for the fan-palm; Tara, from 'to pass over', a ferry, etc. Tārā, starry, piercing, the eye, the pupil; the last two are both Sanskrit and Chinese definitions; it is a term applied to certain female deities and has been adopted especially by Tibetan Buddhism for certain devīs of the Tantric school. The origin of the term is also ascribed to tar meaning 'to cross', i. e. she who aids to cross the sea of mortality. Getty, 19-27. The Chinese derivation is the eye; the tara devīs; either as śakti or independent, are little known outside Lamaism. Tāla is the palmyra, or fan-palm, whose leaves are used for writing and known as 具多 Pei-to, pattra. The tree is described as 70 or 80 feet high, with fruit like yellow rice-seeds; the borassus eabelliformis; a measure of 70 feet. Taras, from to cross over, also means a ferry, and a bank, or the other shore. Also 呾囉.
Now the first kanji listed there is "た (ta)" and means 【多い】 [おおい] (adj) many/numerous/(P) by itself. So you'll immediately think "right, a large number of nets." But instead, almost cruelly, you get the meaning "in the sense of starry" which may refer to the skies where these other realms of Buddhism are thought to exist. So perhaps we have a connection to the Realm of the Titans meaning by virtue of "a lot of RA" being starry or scintillating. I remain unconvinced.
I wanted a definition of just this one kanji, so I refined my search and came up with:
羅 A net (for catching birds), gauze, open work; sieve; to arrange in order; translit. la and ra南羅 S. Lāra; Lāḍa; Lāṭa, in Gujarāt; 北羅 N. Lāra, Valabhī, on the western coast of Gujarāt. sounds, e.g.
Now we're back to the gauze meaning. Although we have gained "sieve" which could be a good thing, time has yet to tell.
The interesting point of all this information is that I was shown a site very soon after I started using this kanji with the listed defintions:
1. Realm of the Titans
2. Penis
I'm not big on making my discussions anything more than PG-13 at worst, so I'll let you re-read it to avoid re-typing. I have been unable to find this definition again through the websites I used today, but I will persevere and find out how "net," "Rome," and "XXXXX" all came to use the same kanji (probably 1 kanji among many for the latter of the three words).
Moral of the story: choose your kanji wisely. Like all elements of language (any language) one definition does not satisfy the range of possibly interpretations (which is like saying "green" is in the eye of the beholder).
You might notice in the navigation bar to the left that my name is listed as 帝羅. I can promise you, whether you are Japanese or Chinese, you probably cannot read this kanji as I intend it to be read the first time.
I don't particularly want to discuss the first kanji, because it's very easy. It is the kanji used for Emperor in the Japanese sense. Soothill's Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms (login with the UserID "guest" for full access) can be quickly consulted to show the meaning of 帝 and it's list of pronunciations. If you're not of the mental persuasion to visit such a site at this time, I can tell you for naught that there are ten listed pronunciations two of which - だい (dai) and たい (tai) - are used in Japanese.
So - 帝 means Emperor - sorted.
羅 on the other hand is a very mixed bag. Keeping in mind that I'm not a professional please accept my explanation on faith alone that, yes, I was told these things about this kanji when I first chose it as one of the characters to represent my name. Opps - that was a bit of private information thrown in there accidentally.
Of course I consulted a few online sites for help with understanding the history of this kanji. First I found Kiki's Kanji Dictionary which returned the results as:
| 羅 | ラ gauze, thin silk, Rome |
This kanji has 19 strokes: 6 in the "net crown" radical 网 (あみがしら) and 13 other strokes. (I copied the stroke count information just for those wishing the full range of mental anguish per new kanji).
Look at that, the kanji 羅 can mean gauze and Rome (depending on context!).
This is where kanji always does my head in. It's fine if the kanji is used to mean gauze or thin silk because it does, in deed, have the kanji for thread (糸 いと) right inside it! Hint: You can use the Edict Kanji Dictionary to verify that if you'd like. Just type in いと (ito) in the search engine and use your browser's Search or Find On Page function to seek out the text "thread" quickly. When you find 糸 on it's own you can come back and say "ok now I believe you."
But "Rome"? How does a kanji get to share the meaning for one of the greatest civilizations ever with the rather drab word "thread"?
I didn't buy it either - so I moved on in my search to:
羅
category: 常用漢字components:
nb of strokes: 19
translation: net, put in a row (conf.)
ラ
あみ: net
つら．ねる: put in a row
うすもの: light stuff
Which comes from the English-Japanese Dictionary of Kanji Character #136.
So "net" can be made of something like "thread" and I can go with it linking the meanings "gauze" and "thin silk" because we're discovering a kind of clothy theme with this kanji. I still don't buy "Rome."
So I continued in my search towards a point that I felt was more accurate. Here is where my personal story enters.
This kanji was chosen for me by some of my favorite students. They chose it because it is "cool." Which doesn't mean something is "cool" at all by traditional definitions. However, I confirmed with independent sources that 羅 is cool because a lot of YAKUZA MEMBERS like to use this kanji for their nicknames.
Perhaps the beloved students I thought were looking out for me were trying to get me into trouble with the Japanese mafia?
Anyway - I liked the look of it, and it was a far sight better than alternative kanji with the same reading like 平 (たいら taira "flat, smooth surface" /yawn /cough /lame), so I stuck with it. One of my professor friends with degrees and awards and other pieces of paper besides relating to Chinese Poetry and Buddhism told me that 羅 was the kanji used representing one of the Buddhist "realms" of reality outside our own. This 羅 represents the Realm of the Titans where there are, presumably of course, some rather large beings of titanic size doing rather large things with themselves. I immediately imagined Cyclops from Roman tales (Greek?) and "got" the connection with Rome. It's also far more cool to us 羅 just for the sound effect. 羅 should be said "ra~" with a kind of trail one uses when opening one's mouth to let a doctor look at the back of the throat. Better than "net" anyway.
Still I am not satisfied with this explanation. My electronic dictionary also confirms that 羅 can be used as a noun for "net" or as a verb for "put things in a straight line" which I suppose is what a net is like when it's constructed. I am not a maker of nets, nor do I plan to try anytime in the forseeable future (read: never).
I turned up at a site by Soothill and Hodous which gave me this interesting defintion that I've linked and copied for you:
多羅 tārā, in the sense of starry, or scintillation; Tāla, for the fan-palm; Tara, from 'to pass over', a ferry, etc. Tārā, starry, piercing, the eye, the pupil; the last two are both Sanskrit and Chinese definitions; it is a term applied to certain female deities and has been adopted especially by Tibetan Buddhism for certain devīs of the Tantric school. The origin of the term is also ascribed to tar meaning 'to cross', i. e. she who aids to cross the sea of mortality. Getty, 19-27. The Chinese derivation is the eye; the tara devīs; either as śakti or independent, are little known outside Lamaism. Tāla is the palmyra, or fan-palm, whose leaves are used for writing and known as 具多 Pei-to, pattra. The tree is described as 70 or 80 feet high, with fruit like yellow rice-seeds; the borassus eabelliformis; a measure of 70 feet. Taras, from to cross over, also means a ferry, and a bank, or the other shore. Also 呾囉.
Now the first kanji listed there is "た (ta)" and means 【多い】 [おおい] (adj) many/numerous/(P) by itself. So you'll immediately think "right, a large number of nets." But instead, almost cruelly, you get the meaning "in the sense of starry" which may refer to the skies where these other realms of Buddhism are thought to exist. So perhaps we have a connection to the Realm of the Titans meaning by virtue of "a lot of RA" being starry or scintillating. I remain unconvinced.
I wanted a definition of just this one kanji, so I refined my search and came up with:
羅 A net (for catching birds), gauze, open work; sieve; to arrange in order; translit. la and ra南羅 S. Lāra; Lāḍa; Lāṭa, in Gujarāt; 北羅 N. Lāra, Valabhī, on the western coast of Gujarāt. sounds, e.g.
Now we're back to the gauze meaning. Although we have gained "sieve" which could be a good thing, time has yet to tell.
The interesting point of all this information is that I was shown a site very soon after I started using this kanji with the listed defintions:
1. Realm of the Titans
2. Penis
I'm not big on making my discussions anything more than PG-13 at worst, so I'll let you re-read it to avoid re-typing. I have been unable to find this definition again through the websites I used today, but I will persevere and find out how "net," "Rome," and "XXXXX" all came to use the same kanji (probably 1 kanji among many for the latter of the three words).
Moral of the story: choose your kanji wisely. Like all elements of language (any language) one definition does not satisfy the range of possibly interpretations (which is like saying "green" is in the eye of the beholder).
Friday, July 22, 2005
The History of Kanji
In trying to decide how best to begin my assault on explaining kanji, I've been searching the internet for information about the history of kanji. I found an interesting website that I would like to share, and while I will continue to read it and round-out my own understanding of this system of writing, I invite others to check it out and do the same.
The Kanji History
The Kanji History
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Your First Encounter with Katakana
Keeping in mind that I'm only sharing methods that worked for me, let's take a look at Katakana.
Googling for "katakana" instantly turns up more results that you could ever need. The same 47 important characters in Hiragana have their Katakana counterparts. The image section on google alone turned up 6,500 images for "katakana." You should be pretty well off with one of those charts (^_^).
Of course, using flashcards like the one over at zompist.com is helpful when beginning to drill for katakana.
In fact, I have basically the same advice for learning katakana as I had for learning hiragana.
Some of the pitfalls that you want to be careful of when studying katakana are:
サ (sa) - looks a lot like hiragana せ (se) only backwards.
ヌ (nu) and タ (ta) are one stroke short (or long) of each other. The good news is that not too many words are written with katakana "nu" - words like "new" are written ニュ (nyu).
ケ (ke) and ク (ku) can throw you as well, so make sure you have them straight in your head!
No one I know really likes ソ (so) and ノ (no) and ン (n) - you get used to them after awhile. The best advice I can offer is that you'll probably pick up ン the fastest as you'll use it often. Once you get ン clear, it's easy to differetiate the other two.
The other pairing is ツ (tsu) and シ (shi). Again, focus on ツ because you use it frequently for doubling up the following consonant sound like キッチン (kicchin or kitchen). Once you have the one, the other is easy to remember.
It's 47 characters, and I'm sure you can do it in a day or two if you're really focused. Try some writing exercises. I recommend writing practice books like those on amazon.com
頑張ってね！
Googling for "katakana" instantly turns up more results that you could ever need. The same 47 important characters in Hiragana have their Katakana counterparts. The image section on google alone turned up 6,500 images for "katakana." You should be pretty well off with one of those charts (^_^).
Of course, using flashcards like the one over at zompist.com is helpful when beginning to drill for katakana.
In fact, I have basically the same advice for learning katakana as I had for learning hiragana.
Some of the pitfalls that you want to be careful of when studying katakana are:
サ (sa) - looks a lot like hiragana せ (se) only backwards.
ヌ (nu) and タ (ta) are one stroke short (or long) of each other. The good news is that not too many words are written with katakana "nu" - words like "new" are written ニュ (nyu).
ケ (ke) and ク (ku) can throw you as well, so make sure you have them straight in your head!
No one I know really likes ソ (so) and ノ (no) and ン (n) - you get used to them after awhile. The best advice I can offer is that you'll probably pick up ン the fastest as you'll use it often. Once you get ン clear, it's easy to differetiate the other two.
The other pairing is ツ (tsu) and シ (shi). Again, focus on ツ because you use it frequently for doubling up the following consonant sound like キッチン (kicchin or kitchen). Once you have the one, the other is easy to remember.
It's 47 characters, and I'm sure you can do it in a day or two if you're really focused. Try some writing exercises. I recommend writing practice books like those on amazon.com
頑張ってね！
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Your First Encounter with Hiragana
I'm not a professional. But let's dive into hiragana.
You've got your tools in place, you've prepared yourself for a system of writing radically different from any other, and away we go...
Hiragana are the most common and simple characters in written Japanese. I recommend becoming familiar with hiragana before you begin learning words/phrases/expressions/etc. I have tried to explain to many a beginning Japanese language student that learning the romanized (romaji) spelling of Japanese words is detrimental to your overall progress, but, alas, not many of them were willing to give up the roman alphabet. "It's easier," they say. You might as well make up your own system for reading music. Instead of reading musical notes on a standard musical scale, you could replace the notes with the letters "a, b, c, d, e, f, g" that we use to talk about those notes. You could learn to read music with the notes replaced by written letters in straight-line sentence format, and you might be able to play any piece of music very well like this. However, the day someone puts a genuine musical piece in front of you (scale, staff, and notes) you will be useless at reading it.
This is exactly like learning Japanese with a romanized alphabet instead of kana. The musical piece that is the Japanese language wasn't written in the Western alphabet. This beautiful language didn't pause for a second thinking about how best to bridge the gap between the East and the West. Keep this in mind when you are trying to learn Japanese: it is not the responsibility of Japanese to cross the bridge and render itself in the roman alphabet so you can understand it more easily; it is your job to cross the bridge from West to East using your native alphabet as a starting place and leaving it behind as quickly as possible.
Learn hiragana.
Wikipedia has an excellent yet concise history of hiragana. Read it for fun.
From the Wikipedia chart, there are 41 essential hiragana for you to learn. Just like learning the English alphabet, this is a process you can knock out in a few hours if you just sit down and study. I think it took me a full week to learn all of them because I was a very lazy student in the beginning. My example shows that you can either be dedicated and knock it out quickly, or you can sit around and be lazy and learn 5 at a time. It's probably best if you just knock out the hiragana quickly.
Some great online tools for studying hiragana are:
TheJapanesePage.com This is a nice little flashcard-style learning tool. It just displays random hiragana from sets that you choose.
Hiragana Screen Saver Shows random hiragana as a screen saver for the windows desktop.
Genki Flash Cards An online study tool for hiragana to be used with the Genki I lesson 1.
Charles Kelly's Online Japanese Language Study Materials A nice hiragana flash-based quiz tool, as well as many other resources you can use at more advanced levels.
Hiragana Flash Card Trainer An application for hiragana training on the Palm OS.
The Kanji Site A fun pop-up window shows all 46 common hiragana and displays the romaji upon mouse-over. Good for just starting to learn hiragana because you can change to romaji to kana instantly over-and-over.
There are many, many more sites out there with valuable tools for learning. I tried to provide a sample of those sites with a variety of interfaces. I will compile a huge list of links in the future and comment on the ones that helped me the most.
Everyone will make mental associations with each hiragana. While these associations are unique for each person - I'd like to point out some of the visually similar hiragana that might trip you up.
NU - NE - WA
ぬ ね わ
These three kana gave me a world of trouble in the beginning. You can see how I have them listed, from left to right, they change by one little detail only. For me, it came down to associating ぬ with いぬ (dog). The kanji kind of looks like a curled up dog to me. ね was locked into my mind after I realized that ね is used kind of like "yup" or "right" or "uh huh" at the end of many sentences. Statistically, I'm not sure which kana appears most often in writing, but I think overall ね is the most frequently used kana in speech. Once you learn Japanese well enough to hold a conversation, you will hear ね so often it makes your ears tired. Everytime you hear someone say it - just visualize it. わ actually has four distinct pen movements - just like an English "W." That might be a weak association for some; I hope it helps someone.
TSU
つ
Tsu is probably the most versatile kana because a tsu is necessary any time you have a double consonant sound in Japanese (with the exception of an "nna" sound that I will discuss later). Anytime you see a small tsu (っ) you know to make the very next consonant sound into something like a stutter. Conveying this sound on the internet is next to impossible. I strongly advise you to seek the help of anyone who has been exposed to Japanese for no less than 2 months - they will know how to make this sound for any of the kana consonants (k, s, t, h, b, p, r, n, m, y). When writing Japanese words in the English alphabet (also known as romaji), a small tsu character effects the following change: そか (soka) そっか (sokka). The "k" from the か (ka) character is doubled in romanized spelling and the pronunciation is such that the word almost sounds like two words instead of one: sok-ka. Having a teacher or friend demonstrate this for you (if this is your first encounter with Japanese) will save you a lot of stress trying to perfect the pronunciation on your own.
The other hiragana are, in fact, pretty easy to learn. I haven't known anyone to spend more than a week learning all of them. So I probably shouldn't spend too much time talking about them ^_^ There are other, more worthy pursuits for us to spend our time diving into. Like the all important kanji!!!
You've got your tools in place, you've prepared yourself for a system of writing radically different from any other, and away we go...
Hiragana are the most common and simple characters in written Japanese. I recommend becoming familiar with hiragana before you begin learning words/phrases/expressions/etc. I have tried to explain to many a beginning Japanese language student that learning the romanized (romaji) spelling of Japanese words is detrimental to your overall progress, but, alas, not many of them were willing to give up the roman alphabet. "It's easier," they say. You might as well make up your own system for reading music. Instead of reading musical notes on a standard musical scale, you could replace the notes with the letters "a, b, c, d, e, f, g" that we use to talk about those notes. You could learn to read music with the notes replaced by written letters in straight-line sentence format, and you might be able to play any piece of music very well like this. However, the day someone puts a genuine musical piece in front of you (scale, staff, and notes) you will be useless at reading it.
This is exactly like learning Japanese with a romanized alphabet instead of kana. The musical piece that is the Japanese language wasn't written in the Western alphabet. This beautiful language didn't pause for a second thinking about how best to bridge the gap between the East and the West. Keep this in mind when you are trying to learn Japanese: it is not the responsibility of Japanese to cross the bridge and render itself in the roman alphabet so you can understand it more easily; it is your job to cross the bridge from West to East using your native alphabet as a starting place and leaving it behind as quickly as possible.
Learn hiragana.
Wikipedia has an excellent yet concise history of hiragana. Read it for fun.
From the Wikipedia chart, there are 41 essential hiragana for you to learn. Just like learning the English alphabet, this is a process you can knock out in a few hours if you just sit down and study. I think it took me a full week to learn all of them because I was a very lazy student in the beginning. My example shows that you can either be dedicated and knock it out quickly, or you can sit around and be lazy and learn 5 at a time. It's probably best if you just knock out the hiragana quickly.
Some great online tools for studying hiragana are:
TheJapanesePage.com This is a nice little flashcard-style learning tool. It just displays random hiragana from sets that you choose.
Hiragana Screen Saver Shows random hiragana as a screen saver for the windows desktop.
Genki Flash Cards An online study tool for hiragana to be used with the Genki I lesson 1.
Charles Kelly's Online Japanese Language Study Materials A nice hiragana flash-based quiz tool, as well as many other resources you can use at more advanced levels.
Hiragana Flash Card Trainer An application for hiragana training on the Palm OS.
The Kanji Site A fun pop-up window shows all 46 common hiragana and displays the romaji upon mouse-over. Good for just starting to learn hiragana because you can change to romaji to kana instantly over-and-over.
There are many, many more sites out there with valuable tools for learning. I tried to provide a sample of those sites with a variety of interfaces. I will compile a huge list of links in the future and comment on the ones that helped me the most.
Everyone will make mental associations with each hiragana. While these associations are unique for each person - I'd like to point out some of the visually similar hiragana that might trip you up.
NU - NE - WA
ぬ ね わ
These three kana gave me a world of trouble in the beginning. You can see how I have them listed, from left to right, they change by one little detail only. For me, it came down to associating ぬ with いぬ (dog). The kanji kind of looks like a curled up dog to me. ね was locked into my mind after I realized that ね is used kind of like "yup" or "right" or "uh huh" at the end of many sentences. Statistically, I'm not sure which kana appears most often in writing, but I think overall ね is the most frequently used kana in speech. Once you learn Japanese well enough to hold a conversation, you will hear ね so often it makes your ears tired. Everytime you hear someone say it - just visualize it. わ actually has four distinct pen movements - just like an English "W." That might be a weak association for some; I hope it helps someone.
TSU
つ
Tsu is probably the most versatile kana because a tsu is necessary any time you have a double consonant sound in Japanese (with the exception of an "nna" sound that I will discuss later). Anytime you see a small tsu (っ) you know to make the very next consonant sound into something like a stutter. Conveying this sound on the internet is next to impossible. I strongly advise you to seek the help of anyone who has been exposed to Japanese for no less than 2 months - they will know how to make this sound for any of the kana consonants (k, s, t, h, b, p, r, n, m, y). When writing Japanese words in the English alphabet (also known as romaji), a small tsu character effects the following change: そか (soka) そっか (sokka). The "k" from the か (ka) character is doubled in romanized spelling and the pronunciation is such that the word almost sounds like two words instead of one: sok-ka. Having a teacher or friend demonstrate this for you (if this is your first encounter with Japanese) will save you a lot of stress trying to perfect the pronunciation on your own.
The other hiragana are, in fact, pretty easy to learn. I haven't known anyone to spend more than a week learning all of them. So I probably shouldn't spend too much time talking about them ^_^ There are other, more worthy pursuits for us to spend our time diving into. Like the all important kanji!!!
Friday, November 26, 2004
Preparing to Learn
I am not a professional.
What ever you think you need to learn Japanese, put it to the back of your mind right now. If you're willing to take an alternative point-of-view, I'll tell you the secret (my secret) to learning Japanese or any language.
You'll need tools.
Hit the highlights or journey with me through a metaphor. Think of Japanese (or any language) as a house. Learning the language is comparable to building that house. The roof and exterior are your communication with the outside world, the paint and styling of your interiors represent your special syntax or dialect (unique to each person in my opinion), and all the boards and bricks between the inside and the outside can be compared to every word in your vocabulary, making the language complete and structurally sound even though you don't know every single word in your native tongue. The house is big and unique to each of us in our native tongue.
And it starts with the foundation.
Grammar is the foundation of language. Any language. No one bothers thinking about the foundation of their native "language house" because the structure is completely in tact at a very early age. We spend time studying grammar in school, yet without even bothering we can produce long, complicated thoughts in coherent sentences - whether or not our grammar is perfect (take my punctuation as an example). In fact, when you move into a house in real life you don't bother thinking about the foundation that much. The house is built and livable. Just like your native language. However, contract a company to build your "dream house" and suddenly you are very much involved with the process of laying a foundation. Anyone who has been involved with building, or contracting someone to build, their own house knows that a foundation is not just a concrete slab. Everything you need to make the house "livable" has to be planned out in the foundation. Water is the most essential element. Without running water most of us wouldn't bother moving in to the house. Water is vital to make a house "livable." Grammar is vital to make a language understandable.
A long metaphor - but grammar is to language what water is to life. And modifying a very famous saying, "grammar is like water, it isn't important until you aren't getting any."
So rule number 1 is: forget about English grammar.
Start out with a fresh spot in your mind somewhere near your sylvain fissure, wipe out any remaining English grammar, and prepare to lay a new grammatical foundation for the Japanese language. There are many pieces of the foundation to lay out, but first...
You'll need tools.
I study Japanese everyday armed with the tools of the trade: dictionary, flashcards, Japanese chat sites (I tend towards IRC, but there are plenty of Japanese chat sites), and a professor's office full of books about Japanese.
So before you dive in to putting together a grammar foundation for Japanese, arm yourself with the proper tools:
Dictionary: Japanese-English Dictionary Interface (JEDI). This is an extensive Japanese-English dictionary that handles input of English, hiragana, katakana, and complex kanji. The dictionary will not return results for single kanji, or single kana (if you were using the on-yomi to search for a kanji).
Flashcards: Japanese-kanji.com. This site has an amazing Java applet for quizzing yourself on all 1945 Joyo Kanji in either their traditionally listed order or the JLPT order. This is the best site for kanji learning/recognition practice that I have ever found.
IRC: There are lots of channels on IRC frequented by Japanese people or Japanese speakers. Sometimes the best way to learn another language is from someone who speaks your native language as this person has encountered lots of the same problems with grammar and translations you will likely encounter during your studies. I am a staple on EFnet #japan and #nihongo
Books: There are, at last count, 2039570472935 books about the Japanese language available on 43059673945 different internet retailers. While I haven't used them all, I highly recommend the Genki series created by former students/faculty members at Kansai Gaidai University in Hirakata, Japan. There are many others, but these are great books for those just starting out through intermediate. Also, just because you are not a child doesn't mean you should forget the simple lessons you learned as a child. Most of these lessons came from fairy tales or other children's stories. So read them in Japanese. I recommend ももたろ (momotaro - English version). Find other stories in Japanese at your discretion. The best part is that children's stories in Japanese are mostly written in kana with very few kanji (with side-by-side kana readings). READ!
A final piece of advice for anyone starting out: forget anime/manga.
While not all people interested in learning Japanese have heard of manga, the vast majority of foreigners learning Japanese have either heard of manga/anime or are dedicated fans (or somewhere in the middle). I try not to impose any of my personal biases when teaching, but anime/manga is ruining the average Japanese student's impression of the Japanese language.
I'll explain -
Anime/manga are Japanese cartoons, either in serialized-book form or video (TV, DVD, VHS, whatever). Just like American cartoons, Japanese cartoon characters are famous for the quirks that make them unique. Often these quirks express themselves in language, and characters are renowned for their catch-phrases or special dialect (accent, slang, etc.). Everyone in America knows (or should know) The Simpsons. Everyone I know uses and understands the expression, "doh!" Without the world's most famous cartoon dad, Homer Simpson, that phrase might not ever have become common use in the English language. This is the danger of picking up words from cartoons!!! Using "doh!" in common speech and studying "doh!" as common speech are two separate issues.
Native speakers know intuitively where the word "doh!" comes from (or can at least recognize it is not a word learned from a class in school), but a foreign student studying English might not. The student might come to think that everyone who speaks English uses "doh!" as a natural part of their vocabulary, a formal part even. This is exactly what I hear from Japanese language students who spend a lot of time watching/reading anime/manga.
The best example I can give is the term ～でござる(degozaru) made famous by Rurouni Kenshin, a samurai character with a cult-following. Degozaru takes the place of ～でございます (degozaimasu) - a formal ending for polite speech in Japanese. While there is no exact translation in the English language (a word or phrase we use in exactly the same way), you could probably think of ～でございます(degozaimasu) as something like "if it pleases you" the way you might hear it in very formal, and "oldy" English, conversation. ～でござる(degozaru) follows a sentence that can end in です(desu) or だ(da). This expression was used mostly by Samurai during the Edo Period. For that reason, it is a highly recognizable phrase, something all Japanese people will understand. But using it as a normal part of conversational Japanese is as funny as saying "doh!" during a congressional meeting. Some people may laugh, others may look at you as though you are a madman. I have seen both.
Anime/manga language is wonderful and fun precisely because it is anachronistic in common speech. If you are a native English speaker, imagine an American or Australian with a thick accent using Elizabethan English with their best impersonation of a period accent (though not entirely accurate). On stage from a comedian, this might sound really funny. At the supermarket when you are buying food, this would sound really strange.
Always keep in mind that your pronunciation and mastery of the Japanese language has to be 10 times better than native Japanese speakers because Japanese people have a hard enough time believing Westerners can speak Japanese in the first place. When you use non-standard phrases like ～でござる(degozaru), it serves to totally confuse a native Japanese speaker. They can't be sure if you are intentionally being funny or not.
What ever you think you need to learn Japanese, put it to the back of your mind right now. If you're willing to take an alternative point-of-view, I'll tell you the secret (my secret) to learning Japanese or any language.
You'll need tools.
Hit the highlights or journey with me through a metaphor. Think of Japanese (or any language) as a house. Learning the language is comparable to building that house. The roof and exterior are your communication with the outside world, the paint and styling of your interiors represent your special syntax or dialect (unique to each person in my opinion), and all the boards and bricks between the inside and the outside can be compared to every word in your vocabulary, making the language complete and structurally sound even though you don't know every single word in your native tongue. The house is big and unique to each of us in our native tongue.
And it starts with the foundation.
Grammar is the foundation of language. Any language. No one bothers thinking about the foundation of their native "language house" because the structure is completely in tact at a very early age. We spend time studying grammar in school, yet without even bothering we can produce long, complicated thoughts in coherent sentences - whether or not our grammar is perfect (take my punctuation as an example). In fact, when you move into a house in real life you don't bother thinking about the foundation that much. The house is built and livable. Just like your native language. However, contract a company to build your "dream house" and suddenly you are very much involved with the process of laying a foundation. Anyone who has been involved with building, or contracting someone to build, their own house knows that a foundation is not just a concrete slab. Everything you need to make the house "livable" has to be planned out in the foundation. Water is the most essential element. Without running water most of us wouldn't bother moving in to the house. Water is vital to make a house "livable." Grammar is vital to make a language understandable.
A long metaphor - but grammar is to language what water is to life. And modifying a very famous saying, "grammar is like water, it isn't important until you aren't getting any."
So rule number 1 is: forget about English grammar.
Start out with a fresh spot in your mind somewhere near your sylvain fissure, wipe out any remaining English grammar, and prepare to lay a new grammatical foundation for the Japanese language. There are many pieces of the foundation to lay out, but first...
You'll need tools.
I study Japanese everyday armed with the tools of the trade: dictionary, flashcards, Japanese chat sites (I tend towards IRC, but there are plenty of Japanese chat sites), and a professor's office full of books about Japanese.
So before you dive in to putting together a grammar foundation for Japanese, arm yourself with the proper tools:
Dictionary: Japanese-English Dictionary Interface (JEDI). This is an extensive Japanese-English dictionary that handles input of English, hiragana, katakana, and complex kanji. The dictionary will not return results for single kanji, or single kana (if you were using the on-yomi to search for a kanji).
Flashcards: Japanese-kanji.com. This site has an amazing Java applet for quizzing yourself on all 1945 Joyo Kanji in either their traditionally listed order or the JLPT order. This is the best site for kanji learning/recognition practice that I have ever found.
IRC: There are lots of channels on IRC frequented by Japanese people or Japanese speakers. Sometimes the best way to learn another language is from someone who speaks your native language as this person has encountered lots of the same problems with grammar and translations you will likely encounter during your studies. I am a staple on EFnet #japan and #nihongo
Books: There are, at last count, 2039570472935 books about the Japanese language available on 43059673945 different internet retailers. While I haven't used them all, I highly recommend the Genki series created by former students/faculty members at Kansai Gaidai University in Hirakata, Japan. There are many others, but these are great books for those just starting out through intermediate. Also, just because you are not a child doesn't mean you should forget the simple lessons you learned as a child. Most of these lessons came from fairy tales or other children's stories. So read them in Japanese. I recommend ももたろ (momotaro - English version). Find other stories in Japanese at your discretion. The best part is that children's stories in Japanese are mostly written in kana with very few kanji (with side-by-side kana readings). READ!
A final piece of advice for anyone starting out: forget anime/manga.
While not all people interested in learning Japanese have heard of manga, the vast majority of foreigners learning Japanese have either heard of manga/anime or are dedicated fans (or somewhere in the middle). I try not to impose any of my personal biases when teaching, but anime/manga is ruining the average Japanese student's impression of the Japanese language.
I'll explain -
Anime/manga are Japanese cartoons, either in serialized-book form or video (TV, DVD, VHS, whatever). Just like American cartoons, Japanese cartoon characters are famous for the quirks that make them unique. Often these quirks express themselves in language, and characters are renowned for their catch-phrases or special dialect (accent, slang, etc.). Everyone in America knows (or should know) The Simpsons. Everyone I know uses and understands the expression, "doh!" Without the world's most famous cartoon dad, Homer Simpson, that phrase might not ever have become common use in the English language. This is the danger of picking up words from cartoons!!! Using "doh!" in common speech and studying "doh!" as common speech are two separate issues.
Native speakers know intuitively where the word "doh!" comes from (or can at least recognize it is not a word learned from a class in school), but a foreign student studying English might not. The student might come to think that everyone who speaks English uses "doh!" as a natural part of their vocabulary, a formal part even. This is exactly what I hear from Japanese language students who spend a lot of time watching/reading anime/manga.
The best example I can give is the term ～でござる(degozaru) made famous by Rurouni Kenshin, a samurai character with a cult-following. Degozaru takes the place of ～でございます (degozaimasu) - a formal ending for polite speech in Japanese. While there is no exact translation in the English language (a word or phrase we use in exactly the same way), you could probably think of ～でございます(degozaimasu) as something like "if it pleases you" the way you might hear it in very formal, and "oldy" English, conversation. ～でござる(degozaru) follows a sentence that can end in です(desu) or だ(da). This expression was used mostly by Samurai during the Edo Period. For that reason, it is a highly recognizable phrase, something all Japanese people will understand. But using it as a normal part of conversational Japanese is as funny as saying "doh!" during a congressional meeting. Some people may laugh, others may look at you as though you are a madman. I have seen both.
Anime/manga language is wonderful and fun precisely because it is anachronistic in common speech. If you are a native English speaker, imagine an American or Australian with a thick accent using Elizabethan English with their best impersonation of a period accent (though not entirely accurate). On stage from a comedian, this might sound really funny. At the supermarket when you are buying food, this would sound really strange.
Always keep in mind that your pronunciation and mastery of the Japanese language has to be 10 times better than native Japanese speakers because Japanese people have a hard enough time believing Westerners can speak Japanese in the first place. When you use non-standard phrases like ～でござる(degozaru), it serves to totally confuse a native Japanese speaker. They can't be sure if you are intentionally being funny or not.
Learning Japanese
I find it highly unlikely that a reader finds a blogger's first entry before reading anything else on the site, so I write this first entry of my "Learning Japanese" series knowing it will serve as a backlog for interested people who want some background information on me.
I am not a professional Japanese teacher.
In fact, I wouldn't consider myself professional in any way. I teacher technical-college level English in Fukuoka, Japan. Hopefully I won't be doing it forever, but for now, it's a start.
If I could be said to have a hobby, studying Japanese is it. I've loved Japan and everything about Japan (including the more frustrating aspects like indirect EVERYTHING) since I can remember. Literally, I scrolled back in my brain to the earliest logs captured by my rogue thought processes, and I found Japan mentioned many many times for various yet origin-unknown reasons. Let's leave it at that. I can't explain it any better when a Japanese person asks me why I love their country either.
My obsession with studying the Japanese language is comparable to the frenetic Lafcadio Hearn.
With this in mind, I also want to state formally that my musings on the Japanese language, or any mnemonic devices and tips/tricks I might write about, are no substitute for formal Japanese language instruction in an accredited institution. I have studied Japanese in three different academic institutions, two of them located in Japan.
I also want to make it clear that I'm not fluent in the language, yet. I study very very hard everyday, I live in Japan (as I mentioned), and I want to learn this language more than anyone else I know who is studying. That doesn't mean my Japanese is perfect, but the things that I know how to say, I _know_ how to say.
I want to use this blog more as a writing and remembering exercise for myself. One of my college mentors said that you don't really learn anything until you try to teach it. This is the primary purpose of my blog. I am making it a point not to search through other blogs that have Japanese-language related material. I don't want my blog to become a premier spot on the web, and I don't much care for any of the business-related things that are coming out of blogging at this time.
I just want to write about learning Japanese because it is something I know a lot about and some I care a great deal about. With that in mind, read the things I write for additional insight into various aspects of the Japanese language. Never rely on only one person for anything. Networking can be implemented in real life as easily (or perhaps easier) than anything on the web.
But the web is the bridge. I have had a fantastic time digging up a wealth of information about learning Japanese on the web. Each site I find panders to one interesting aspect of the language, or it covers a broad topic with key points necessary to understand and use Japanese in conversation effectively (if you are studying presently, you know how hard it can be to use Japanese effectively in conversation).
So that's my first entry in a nutshell. Kind of a broad disclaimer saying, "Let's explore the language together" instead of "I am your teacher - you will learn from me!"
I hope you find the things I have studied insightful. Many of my postings will probably be inspired by questions people bring up on IRC channels.
For the record - you can find me almost any day of the week on EFnet channel #Japan
If you don't know anything about IRC, I recommend you take a look. Naturally, I have linked to one of the more popular IRC programs. There are plenty of others.
I am not a professional Japanese teacher.
In fact, I wouldn't consider myself professional in any way. I teacher technical-college level English in Fukuoka, Japan. Hopefully I won't be doing it forever, but for now, it's a start.
If I could be said to have a hobby, studying Japanese is it. I've loved Japan and everything about Japan (including the more frustrating aspects like indirect EVERYTHING) since I can remember. Literally, I scrolled back in my brain to the earliest logs captured by my rogue thought processes, and I found Japan mentioned many many times for various yet origin-unknown reasons. Let's leave it at that. I can't explain it any better when a Japanese person asks me why I love their country either.
My obsession with studying the Japanese language is comparable to the frenetic Lafcadio Hearn.
With this in mind, I also want to state formally that my musings on the Japanese language, or any mnemonic devices and tips/tricks I might write about, are no substitute for formal Japanese language instruction in an accredited institution. I have studied Japanese in three different academic institutions, two of them located in Japan.
I also want to make it clear that I'm not fluent in the language, yet. I study very very hard everyday, I live in Japan (as I mentioned), and I want to learn this language more than anyone else I know who is studying. That doesn't mean my Japanese is perfect, but the things that I know how to say, I _know_ how to say.
I want to use this blog more as a writing and remembering exercise for myself. One of my college mentors said that you don't really learn anything until you try to teach it. This is the primary purpose of my blog. I am making it a point not to search through other blogs that have Japanese-language related material. I don't want my blog to become a premier spot on the web, and I don't much care for any of the business-related things that are coming out of blogging at this time.
I just want to write about learning Japanese because it is something I know a lot about and some I care a great deal about. With that in mind, read the things I write for additional insight into various aspects of the Japanese language. Never rely on only one person for anything. Networking can be implemented in real life as easily (or perhaps easier) than anything on the web.
But the web is the bridge. I have had a fantastic time digging up a wealth of information about learning Japanese on the web. Each site I find panders to one interesting aspect of the language, or it covers a broad topic with key points necessary to understand and use Japanese in conversation effectively (if you are studying presently, you know how hard it can be to use Japanese effectively in conversation).
So that's my first entry in a nutshell. Kind of a broad disclaimer saying, "Let's explore the language together" instead of "I am your teacher - you will learn from me!"
I hope you find the things I have studied insightful. Many of my postings will probably be inspired by questions people bring up on IRC channels.
For the record - you can find me almost any day of the week on EFnet channel #Japan
If you don't know anything about IRC, I recommend you take a look. Naturally, I have linked to one of the more popular IRC programs. There are plenty of others.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
