Learning Japanese languages... how is it?

[noahkumahara]

Originally Posted by Decimus

Ahem.



Now with that said, almost every single person who learns Japanese, including native speakers, would probably learn hiragana and katakana first before moving unto kanji. The only exceptions are native Chinese speakers, or people who have otherwise learnt Chinese first.

This is partly because learning kanji is hardly useful if you don't know how to
read them. And since most pronunciations are written in kana...





Japanese has three basic components in its writing system. These are Hiragana, the Broad-stroke syllabary, Katakana, the Fragmentary Syllabary, and Kanji, the Chinese Characters.

Both Hiragana and Katakana are syllabaries, that is, they are sets of written symbols that represent sounds (syllables in this case), similar to how the Latin alphabet (ABC) is used for both English and French.

Kanji, on the other hand, is logographic -- they represent meanings instead of sounds. Instead of spelling out "D-o-g" or "É-t-o-i-l-e", for example, these words would be written as 「犬」 and　「星」 in kanji.

Kanji is generally used for "concrete" words, such as nouns, verb stems (the 'root' part of a word, like "swim" for the English "swimming"), adjectives, and adverbs. In a sense, kanji are the building blocks in your average Japanese sentence.

Hiragana is usually used for grammatical particles (like the word "to" in English), verb and adjective inflectional endings (like the "-ing" in the word "swimming"), and exclamations (Like the English "Ah!" and "Hey!'). Hiragana can be viewed as the "glue" which bind the "meatier" parts of sentences together.

Hiragana can also also used as furigana, in which case they are often found on the top of kanji as a pronunciation guide. Some words with obscure or hard-to-read kanji are also more commonly written in hiragana.

Katakana is most commonly used for loan-words, or words borrowed from a foreign language. "France", or example, would be written as 「フランス」. Foreign (non-Chinese/Korean) names are also written similarly, like 「ジョン」 for "John". Onomatopoeia, or words that imitate sounds, like "oink", "meow", and "boom", are also written in katakana.

Katakana can also be used for emphasis (similar to italicization or writing in ALL-CAPS) Some animal or plant names with obscure kanji are also written in katakana instead of hiragana, like 「バラ」　for "rose".

This article may be useful if you have any further questions.

that is a lot of righting for someone like you dont you thing

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by NightBird

Well I know that it's nearly impossible to speak fluent for the second/third language, but what do you mean by good? Like we can make a conversation of "anything" without

Sorry, 'Good' sounds pretty arbitrary doesn't it? I'd say it would probably mean 'advanced' level language. You can live and work in the country without issue, but may still struggle to read/write or converse on some levels. It's still a long way from 'native', but you have enough competence to do all you need to do.

Originally Posted by NightBird

Well is my 17 years old may meet problems to learn another language?

No. Your ability to achieve -full native fluency- is reduced but you are not incapable of learning the language to an advanced level. It will take conscious effort, but you can learn it if you want to. Don't be discouraged!

Originally Posted by NightBird

I don't know if this "kind of experience" can motive/proof as I'm able/ready to learn another language which I like? It's maybe crazy but it's just a question huh? It won't kill me lol)

I hated french but I've always enjoyed Japanese. Others I know loved japan and languages but found they hated learning Japanese. It just depends on your interest and your personality.

Originally Posted by NightBird

I already heared some songs in Japanese... some short English sentences looks really long in Japanese... Is this normal (I suppose yes...)?

Sentences sometimes appear longer in Japanese, but on the other hand, long words in English are sometimes much shorted in Japanese!

[Decimus]

Originally Posted by noahkumahara

that is a lot of righting for someone like you dont you thing

Please, would you mind speaking English? I can't quite understand your cretinous brogue, and the rampant slaughter of punctuation doesn't help either.

[NightBird]

I took some little informations about Japanese language...
Are these things are right?

- Hiragana and Katakana have both 46 syllabes...
(ka, ki, ku, ke, ko…)

- Kanji have officially 1945 characters, also called "Jouyou Kanji"

- Some Kanji can be converted to Hiragana/Katakana

- Grammar is much more simply than English/French
- No "singular/plurial"
- No "male/female" words

Do I missed something?
Oh yeah...
Mhhh can't write already but...

無理はいけません

(is it right? [Nothing is impossible/Impossible is impossible])

[MMM]

Originally Posted by NightBird

無理はいけません

(is it right? [Nothing is possible/Impossible is impossible])

That means "Impossible is bad/wrong."

[NightBird]

Euh xD
So the quote is wrong...

I also heard this... is it true?:

- Only 5 vowel sounds
- Only 2 verb tenses: present and past

[Decimus]

Originally Posted by NightBird

I took some little informations about Japanese language...
Are these things are right?

- Hiragana and Katakana have both 46 syllabes...
(ka, ki, ku, ke, ko…)

- Kanji have officially 1945 characters, also called "Jouyou Kanji"

- Some Kanji can be converted to Hiragana/Katakana

- Grammar is much more simply than English/French
- No "singular/plurial"
- No "male/female" words

Do I missed something?
Oh yeah...
Mhhh can't write already but...

(is it right? [Nothing is possible/Impossible is impossible])

"Jouyou Kanji" are "commonly-used kanji". There are other kanji lists, like the "Jinmeiyou Kanji", which contain additional characters that can be used for personal names.

The "Jouyou Kanji" has been updated recently, and the new list is expected to be announced on 30 November 2010. Which is today, but it might have happened a couple hours ago due to time zones. The new list has a total of 2136 kanji.

Japanese grammar is far more predictable than the irregular monstrosity that is English, but it has some complexities of its own, such as keigo (honourable speech), null subjects, heavy use of particles, subtleties in the progressive tense, passive, causative, volitional, potential, and conditional forms, the ability to chain multiple modifying phrases into one long sentence, and other stuff that tends to confuse native English/French speakers.

There are hardly any grammatical genders in Japanese ("Le Soleil", "He", etc.), but there are differences between male and female patterns of speech. The distinction is usually not present in grammar though.

「無理はいけません 」 means something along the lines of "(Doing) impossible (things) is no good." or "Don't do unreasonable things." If said to a sick person, it can be expressed more colloquially as "Don't push yourself."

"Nothing is impossible!" would be more along the lines of 「不可能なことは存在しない！」 or 「不可能なことは存在しません。」 if you are speaking to 'strangers'.

Originally Posted by NightBird

Euh xD
So the quote is wrong...

I also heard this... is it true?:

- Only 5 vowel sounds
- Only 2 verb tenses: present and past

Strictly speaking, there are only five vowel sounds, but vowels are slightly nasalized when adjacent to the nasal consonants [n] or [m], and are heavily nasalized when occurring before 「ん」. Japanese also has a distinctive pitch accent (「高低アクセント」,think of it as a 'lite' version of the Chinese tonal pitch), so vowels may also occur in 'high' or 'low' pitches.

It's better to think of the tenses as 'past' and 'non-past', since the 'future' tense is also included in the 'non-past' tense.

It's still technically incorrect, but I'll refrain from further discussion as it would only confuse you further.

[NightBird]

Ok thank you for your answer.
It's more comprehensible for me as it looks strange for me if you have a so poor grammar but of course Japanese have its own grammar (like other languages) and a complete one like I see... (lol)

What can I put for my signature about "Nothing is possible" ?
I'd like to add on my MSN status "I will maybe start to learn Japanese soon"... can you translate it for me please?

Well... Now i'm nearly determined for my choice...
I'm going to sleep now (22h30 PM at GMT+1) but I may ask you more questions about it...

Thank you very much again to take your time to help us =)

[Decimus]

Originally Posted by NightBird

Ok thank you for your answer.
It's more comprehensible for me as it looks strange for me if you have a so poor grammar but of course Japanese have its own grammar (like other languages) and a complete one like I see... (lol)

What can I put for my signature about "Nothing is possible" ?
I'd like to add on my MSN status "I will maybe start to learn Japanese soon"... can you translate it for me please?

Well... Now i'm nearly determined for my choice...
I'm going to sleep now (22h30 PM at GMT+1) but I may ask you more questions about it...

Thank you very much again to take your time to help us =)

Forgive me for my poor attempt at French, but...

"Nothing is impossible." = "Rien n'est impossible."= "Impossible n'est pas français." (Citation de Napoléon Bonaparte) = "Tout c'est possible."

"Nothing is possible."= "Rien n'est possible." = "Tout est impossible."

Which is the one you want?

Also...

Were you thinking of "Peut-être je commencerai à apprendre le japonais." when you said "I will maybe start to learn Japanese soon..."?

If so, it would be something like 「（私は）日本語を勉強するかもしれません。」　or 「（私は）日本語の勉強をするかもしれません。」

[Decimus]

Possible translations for "Nothing is impossible."

「不可能なことは存在しない。」　(Impossible things do not exist.)　　

「『不可能』なんて、ありえない。」　("Impossible" is impossible.)

「不可能なことはなにもない。」　(Nothing is impossible.)

「不可能はフランス語に非ず。」/「不可能という言葉はフランス語にはない」- ナポレオン・ボナパルト　
("The word 'impossible' does not exist in French." - Napoleon Bonaparte.)

「精神一到何事か成らざらん。」
("When there is a will, there is a way." Lit: "With perseverance, anything can be done.") This is a Japanese idiom of Chinese origin. “精神一到，何事不成。”

Possible translations for "Nothing is possible."

「何でもできない。」　(Nothing can be done.)

「どうにもならない。」　(Nothing can be done to help.)

「可能な事はない。」 (Nothing is possible.)

「無理です。」　(Impossible.)

「四面楚歌です。」
(The situation is now beyond hope. Lit: "Surrounded on all sides by enemies.")

There may be mistakes, so wait for someone to proof-check the above before using any of them.