Quote:
Originally Posted by steven
I dunno about the French part, but if you do mean 'start studying' then you could be more specific by saying 勉強し始めるかもしれない (べんきょうしはじめるかもしれない）.
Decimus, it looks like you're quoting me as well as somebody else in your post. I realize most of it is directed at me though.
While I agree with a lot of what you're saying and understand it there are a few parts where I disagree. I will agree to disagree with you. I read the article you posted a few times actually (and yes, I realized it clearly stated that ちゃetc are one "syllable" things). Part of the flaw of this kind of thinking is we are talking about the realm that is Japanese in terms of syllables-- when it is really better to think of Japanese in terms of moras (you can perceive them as syllables in English, but they will not line up equally all the time). Haikus and poetry like that have rules based on moras and not syllables. But we're talking about diphthongs as well... and we're defining them by syllables in a sense, which don't really exist in Japanese. The idea that Japanese does or doesn't have diphthongs is not set in stone as far as I can tell. It's a very conceptual idea. You think it doesn't and I think it does. You can give reasons and examples why it doesn't and I can give reasons why it does. If you look you can find articles (scholarly or otherwise) on google or possibly in your college library that go either way on this concept. Personally, my ears hear diphthongs in Japanese-- especially in my dialect (but I hear them in other dialects and standard Japanese as well). If I listen for syllables, I obviously hear different things than you do. I don't think I have the best hearing or the best accent, but I do have a little bit of pride in both of those regards... and I think all of our hearing is colored by how our brains work so I'm not going to say my hearing or my way of perceiving things is better than anyone elses. Thinking the way I do about this has definitely helped my critical listening skills though (not just in the realm of language).
http://www.lit.kobe-u.ac.jp/linguist...1_kubozono.pdf
http://conferences.ncl.ac.uk/pglingu...racts/Hara.pdf
If nothing else, look at the references on both of these. The second abstract refers kind of to what I'm talking about-- there are many outlooks on the subject. I'm sure you and I could both find many articles that contradict each other. This argument is endless and while I enjoy it I'd rather let this thread go in a more helpful direction for the original poster. Although I do think both of our perspectives might give some good insight on the Japanese language from an English speakers perspective  . |
Use "I" instead of "We". You're misrepresenting my position again. On multiple fronts.
I'm actually a native Chinese speaker, not English. Diphthongs are rather prominent in (Mandarin) Chinese, and there are some words that sound nearly identical in both Chinese and Japanese (like 「愛」 and “爱”) except that the Chinese one contains a diphthong with unequal stress while the Japanese word has two separate monophthongs with equal stress on both.
My Japanese teacher actually had to correct me a fair amount of times because I had a habit of pronouncing diphthongs when the vowels are supposed to be separate monophthongs, or in her words, I was "slurring over the vowels."
Diphthongs are not that abstract. ("conceptual idea" just means "ideological idea", which is redundant, the word you're looking for is "abstract".) To have a diphthong, you'll first need a minimum of two
adjacent vowels that are different. (so no double [e]'s, for example.) This part is concrete fact that is about as immutable as the earth is round. (or "oblate spheroid" if you want to be technical.)
The presence of two adjacent vowels does not necessarily indicate a diphthong though. These two vowels must glide -- that is, the speaker shifts the pronunciation from one vowel to another without any pause or re-articulation between the two. They may be some narrow degree of debate on what exactly constitutes a 'glide' though, and the word's definition is not exactly set in stone.
Diphthongs also must occur within the same syllable. A diphthong cannot be split across two or more syllables, and this is another immutable fact.
The two links you provided do raise some good points though, but bear in mind that the second example is careful in mentioning that the "Japanese diphthongs" they call would not be considered diphthongs from an 'English' perspective. Diphthongs, however, are phonetic concepts that do not discriminate between languages -- that is the whole point of phonetics. (or more specifically, the
International Phonetic Alphabet.) As such, those "Japanese diphthongs" would also similarly not be considered diphthongs from a Chinese, Finnish, German, Spanish, French, Yiddish, Irish, Croatian, Portuguese, or any other language's perspective. The writer of the paper was just being concise as it can be assumed that his readers already have a firm understanding of the phonetics that were being discussed.
Which was pretty much similar to my original point, as I'd specifically used the word 'true diphthong' in an attempt to be concise.
The first paper uses a looser definition of 'diphthong' that is not as commonly used. Bear in mind that it also states (perhaps not explicitly) the necessity for the presence of two adjacent vowels, and that diphthongs cannot be split across multiple syllables.
Morae are not a particularly unique Japanese concept. It is a linguistic concept that does not discriminate between languages, and also features heavily in languages like (Ancient) Greek and Hawaiian, and these languages also have heavy use of 'true' diphthongs.
「勉強し始めるかもしれない」 would be a more literal translation, and it did came across my mind (or rather, the 「-かもしれ
ません」 variant), but I did not suggest it as I was not sure if it would 'flow' well. It would appear that my fears were unfounded, though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NightBird
Another questions...
- Is it better to learn writing first and then the rest or is it better to know how to speak it, with grammar and vocabulary and then writing? Or learn both in a same time?
- Do you have a complete list of Kanji, Katakana and Hiragana?
(I've found a Kanji list on Wikipedia with 1945 kanji but without any others informations) and what it means in "rômanji" or something like that? I think it would be interesting to help me... no?
( Tōyō kanji - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
( Jōyō kanji - Wikipédia)
- Are these list of Katakana and Hiragana are good?
( Hiragana - Wikipédia)
( Katakana - Wikipédia)
Xmas soon lol!
Thank you again to take your time to help us! |
The list of 1945 kanji should be good enough for your purposes for now. You might find the following list that Masaegu has kindly provided (in another thread) to be more useful:
Quote:
Originally Posted by masaegu
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Romaji (lit: "Roman Letters") is basically just writing down Japanese sounds by using the Latin alphabet. It's sort of like writing French without any diacritical marks (like writing 'e' instead of 'é'), to make it easier for an English speaker to write. It is used for stuff like documents and company names to make it easier for non-native speakers to read. If I am not mistaken, no native speaker would seriously consider using them in normal writing unless it is inconvenient or impossible to so, like when typing on a computer without any language support for Japanese. (or French, for diacritical marks.)
For... efficiency reasons, I think you should master Hiragana and Katakana first, in that order. Learning them is basically like learning the ABCs of English (or French), and I believe they should take precedence above all else. This helps cut down on the 'relearning' you would have to do later if, for example, you pick up words that you misheard from an anime or something. Having a good mastery of hiragana and katakana is also crucial to the understanding of Japanese phonology (how words should be pronounced).
You can choose to learn a bit of vocabulary to go with your hiragana and katakana lessons if it makes it easier for you. (just so you have 'concrete' examples to work with.)
Romaji should be avoided like the plague. Again, it's sort of like learning French without using diacritical marks, which is a a bad habit that is going to bite you in the ass later on, (Pardon the term) but far worse as kana is significantly different from the English alphabet. Use it if you only want quick results and don't have a long term commitment to learn Japanese correctly.
Once you have mastered both hiragana and katakana you can start picking up more words. Always try to learn words in context if possible, (with example sentences) as dictionary definitions can be a bit misleading at times. (Stuff like that can lead to mistranslating
main-gauche into "left hand".) This is also an ideal time to start learning kanji, since you might as well try writing the new kanji that comes with your brand new vocabulary.
Along the while, learn grammar just so you can string your new-found words into meaningful sentences. Immersing yourself in Japanese culture (like watching anime if you're already into that) would also help you to understand the more idiomatic uses of language.