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Meophist from Toronto, Canada Since: May, 2010
#176: Jan 9th 2011 at 12:35:52 PM

Let me correct some things:

田中山日本人上下
Rice paddy, Middle, Mountain, Sun, Land, People, Up, Down, right?

本 can mean "book" or "origin" depending on context, not "land". 人 isn't "people", but "person". People is 人人, often written as 人々.

Most other stuff were corrected later.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.
Zersk o-o from Columbia District, BNA Since: May, 2010
o-o
#177: Jan 9th 2011 at 12:46:03 PM

Really? I thought that the kanji for tree + a line = land. :/

ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖅ ᐊᑕᐅᓯᖅ ᓈᒻᒪᔪᐃᑦᑐᖅ
Meophist from Toronto, Canada Since: May, 2010
#178: Jan 9th 2011 at 12:48:49 PM

Depending on which English definition of "Land" you're using, it can be 地,大地,国 or something else.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.
INUH Since: Jul, 2009
#179: Jan 9th 2011 at 12:48:49 PM

Japan is often called "the land of the rising sun," so that might be where you got that from. The kanji 日本 means "origin of the sun."

edited 9th Jan '11 12:49:27 PM by INUH

Infinite Tree: an experimental story
Zersk o-o from Columbia District, BNA Since: May, 2010
o-o
#180: Jan 9th 2011 at 12:55:48 PM

Ah, okay.

^ Yeah, that's where it was from.

edited 9th Jan '11 12:56:15 PM by Zersk

ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖅ ᐊᑕᐅᓯᖅ ᓈᒻᒪᔪᐃᑦᑐᖅ
Fawriel Since: Jan, 2001
#181: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:06:22 PM

Yeah, Japanese is a confusing language. "Nihon" also means "two long objects", even though Japan is actually one long object and a bunch of weird shapes.

Please don't hit me.

Meophist from Toronto, Canada Since: May, 2010
#182: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:07:59 PM

Yeah, Japanese is a confusing language. "Nihon" also means "two long objects", even though Japan is actually one long object and a bunch of weird shapes.
Yes... the difference between 二本 and 日本.

The latter is also commonly pronounced "Nippon" as well.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.
Chagen46 Dude Looks Like a Lady from I don't really know Since: Jan, 2010
#183: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:12:12 PM

Holy fuck, it's like I'm the only person on this fora who doesn't know Japanese.

"Who wants to hear about good stuff when the bottom of the abyss of human failure that you know doesn't exist is so much greater?"-Wraith
Zersk o-o from Columbia District, BNA Since: May, 2010
o-o
#184: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:12:50 PM

You kidding? I know, like, none. :P

edited 9th Jan '11 1:13:15 PM by Zersk

ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖅ ᐊᑕᐅᓯᖅ ᓈᒻᒪᔪᐃᑦᑐᖅ
Tzetze DUMB from a converted church in Venice, Italy Since: Jan, 2001
DUMB
#185: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:15:20 PM

I honestly don't think that I could bring myself to learn Japanese. I'd feel like such a dirty weeaboo. Irrational, but oh well.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.
Meophist from Toronto, Canada Since: May, 2010
#186: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:16:53 PM

It's not exactly an easy language to learn. If I were not Japanese myself, I doubt I would've bothered.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.
Tzetze DUMB from a converted church in Venice, Italy Since: Jan, 2001
DUMB
#187: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:18:55 PM

No offense, but I'm not too convinced that a native speaker knows how hard it is to learn their language.

Er, are you a native speaker?

edited 9th Jan '11 1:19:10 PM by Tzetze

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.
INUH Since: Jul, 2009
#188: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:19:57 PM

I don't really know much. I've only had a semester.

Infinite Tree: an experimental story
Meophist from Toronto, Canada Since: May, 2010
#189: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:21:14 PM

I've learned both Japanese and English while growing up but was never quite proficient at either, although better at English. After a while, I kinda stopped bothering with Japanese for the most part but has gone back into it.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.
Tzetze DUMB from a converted church in Venice, Italy Since: Jan, 2001
DUMB
#190: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:23:44 PM

Ah. Well, still, native language acquisition is a very different process from L2 acquisition.

Though, it's probably objectively more difficult for a native English language speaker to learn Japanese than, say, French.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.
Zudak Since: Dec, 1969
#191: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:26:47 PM

I would definitely learn Japanese, given the chance. Although I could say the same for just about any other language, too.

Meophist from Toronto, Canada Since: May, 2010
#192: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:28:55 PM

Ah. Well, still, native language acquisition is a very different process from L2 acquisition.
True. I've just been thinking in terms of how difficult Japanese can be if I didn't have any before-hand knowledge.
Though, it's probably objectively more difficult for a native English language speaker to learn Japanese than, say, French.
Right, and Chinese speakers likely have an easier time with Japanese than, say, French as well. At least, they seem to.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.
Tzetze DUMB from a converted church in Venice, Italy Since: Jan, 2001
DUMB
#193: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:42:03 PM

I imagine they would, given the number of common glyphs, such as (as I just learned) the numbers.

And the problem with the first thing is that it's hard to see from the outside. For example, I used to think that my native language was difficult to learn, after I learned some grammar and some of another language, but having heard testimonials from foreigners I'm no longer so sure.

edited 9th Jan '11 1:42:44 PM by Tzetze

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.
Meophist from Toronto, Canada Since: May, 2010
#194: Jan 9th 2011 at 1:45:18 PM

It would be difficult seeing it objectively, I agree.

In any case, is your native language Chinese? Thinking of it as Japanese without the kana makes it seem rather difficult, but I suppose it's probably simpler than that.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.
Stormtroper from Little Venice Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: I-It's not like I like you, or anything!
#195: Jan 9th 2011 at 2:00:11 PM

It feels like tropers who wish to learn Japanese also want to learn Chinese and/or Russian, for some reason. Maybe I'm just imagining things.

Has anyone here tried the Remembering the Kanji method? I think it's very useful in learning how to break up kanji into primitives. However, I never finished the book due to boredom. It helped me a lot last week when we had to learn 曜. Now I'm trying to figure out a better way to learn kanji that won't bore me out so quickly...

Yes, I tried RTK too. I found it useful.

It did get boring, but I don't think there's a method to learn over 2000 of anything that won't get dull after a while.

edited 9th Jan '11 2:00:21 PM by Stormtroper

And that's how I ended up in the wardrobe. It Just Bugs Me!
Tzetze DUMB from a converted church in Venice, Italy Since: Jan, 2001
DUMB
#196: Jan 9th 2011 at 2:01:08 PM

Nah, it's English, I'm boring and average for this part of the internet. I just intend to learn Chinese  *

.

Chinese and Japanese aren't even in the same language family, and from what I can tell from my reading, they're extremely dissimilar grammatically. But the same is (to a lesser extent) true of English and Latin, and the vocabulary still helps, so yeah.

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.
Zersk o-o from Columbia District, BNA Since: May, 2010
o-o
#197: Jan 9th 2011 at 2:03:14 PM

If I can remember correctly, Japanese is sometimes considered part of the Altaic group of languages, with Chinese, but a lot of the time it's considered it's own separate language group.

And yeah, from what I've seen, Chinese languages are extremely isolating, more so than English, whereas Japanese is agglutinative.

edited 9th Jan '11 2:03:58 PM by Zersk

ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖅ ᐊᑕᐅᓯᖅ ᓈᒻᒪᔪᐃᑦᑐᖅ
Tzetze DUMB from a converted church in Venice, Italy Since: Jan, 2001
DUMB
#198: Jan 9th 2011 at 2:04:14 PM

Counterpoint: Altaic theory is a bunch of crap >_>

And actually, Wikipedia doesn't include Sino-Tibetan languages in Altaic.

EDIT: Need to stop mixing all these words up

edited 9th Jan '11 2:06:19 PM by Tzetze

[1] This facsimile operated in part by synAC.
Zersk o-o from Columbia District, BNA Since: May, 2010
o-o
#199: Jan 9th 2011 at 2:05:22 PM

True. I prefer the separate language group interpretation meself.

^ Huh, really? So even if the Japonic languages were Altaic, they still wouldn't be related.

edited 9th Jan '11 2:07:09 PM by Zersk

ᐅᖃᐅᓯᖅ ᐊᑕᐅᓯᖅ ᓈᒻᒪᔪᐃᑦᑐᖅ
Fawriel Since: Jan, 2001
#200: Jan 9th 2011 at 2:09:52 PM

I was skeptical about learning Japanese, too, and I admit to feeling a little dirty about it, but in the end, I'm doing it for my future as a translator type person. And it's... fun. Kinda. I'm not really finding the language hard to learn at all. If I studied as hard as I did that one day of my holidays, every day, I would be like nigh-fluent by now.


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