Kanji practice (kanji book recommendations)

[Tomtom]

Ah man, UFO, you're making me want to quit, with my 60 or so kanji that I know, many of which I can't write. But congratulations, it's inspiring in a way, too.

*tries to remember character for "yomu"*

[extrarice]

Japanese humor is... different. There are no "guy walks into a bar" jokes. The written language allows for quite a few puns, and there is some silly shit out there, but it's quite different.

Here's an example of the kind of word puns and puzzles you can get with Japanese. Crazy stuff indeed!

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

Ah man, UFO, you're making me want to quit, with my 60 or so kanji that I know, many of which I can't write. But congratulations, it's inspiring in a way, too.

*tries to remember character for "yomu"*

I know as much as I do because I've got plenty of time in my hands . I just go to school and back home, no work at all. 60 kanji is pretty good too since most of my classmates don't know ten. Keep working on 'em.

[zaphod]

English haws never been a consistent language. EVER.

It has words that are pronounced the same, but spelled different. It has words that are spelled the same, but pronounced different. and it has words that are spelled AND pronounced the same, but have totally different meanings that can only be determined from context. and let's not even get started on the idioms...

Pronunciation and spelling will get you every time when you are trying to learn english as a second language. Many other things are a LOT simpler in english then other languages though. For example, biological, and not "grammatical" gender determines whether he, she, or it is the appropriate term. while certain other entities are sometimes referred to by masculine and or feminine pronouns, comparisons with humans are nearly ALWAYS intended in the process (giving hurricane's women's names for years was quite intentional!).

Now we take a languge like German. Pronunciation and spellings are incredibly easy. you know german, you see a word, you can pronounce it. you hear a word you can write it. But young women are grammaticaly neutral, and therefore reference das "it" while a turnip has a grammatical gender, and gets the same gendered pronoun that an adult gets. But wait it gets worse. Now word endings change in a fairly consistent manner when you go from singular to plural. Usually you add a lettet e to the end. problem is, in one of the grammatical cases is *also* signified by adding an e to the end of the word. Sure you also change their equivalent of "the" to reflect the case (and the grammatical gender!) but it's still very confusing. and then we have dative plurals (you usually add an e AND an s, i think?) Even the germans recognize that their language is difficult. they have a saying for it. The things that drive yo unts in german 3 or 4 drive native children nuts at first too!

[GaijinPunch]

Here's an example of the kind of word puns and puzzles you can get with Japanese. Crazy stuff indeed!

Very cool website. I'll have to dig deeper into it.

Umi: Vocab isn't the only part I'm worried about, but it's the easiest to study for, as you said. The biggest train wreck on the test is the reading comprehension and grammar portion. The reading being the hardest to study for. HOwever, if you don't know the vocab or the grammar, you can't possibly dream of holding up on the reading portion, so I figured I'd sick my teeth into those two parts first. I just don't think I'll have time to get it all in. 2 months to go though... we'll see.

[greg]

Hey Extrarice...
I don't know what it is, but I quite like your avatar.
(Yea, I know its a smilie playing with a joystick, but its just cool to me)

Oh... I thought he was picking his nose.

EDIT: About Japanese humor, I don't care how many times Beat Takeshi hits Tokoro-san on the head with a plastic mallet. I _still_ refuse to laugh.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

Hmmm, I got a question. Why do I see a lot of words/phrases written in hiragana only? For example, "koko", as in here. I've never seen it written in kanji in anything I've tried to read.

[GaijinPunch]

B/c there's such thing as over-kanjing. Words you'll rarely see in kanji.

koko/soko/asoko
kore/sore/are
kono/sono/ano
...errr, there's too many of them. There's a lot of words that have kanji's, but are not used for one reason or another... mainly b/c it's painfully clear what word is being used. Just one of many things you have to remember. o_O

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

I don't know whether that is good news or just another thing to mess me up. I've learned a at least a dozen or so kanji whose use are in doubt. Never seen "arigatou" or "o, go (as in o-negai)" written in kanji but I learned them 'cause I felt they'd be useful. It seems they're not. Guess I'll stick to my kanji book unless I'm clear on the usage.

Btw, I'm almost finished with my "basic kanji book" and know a good many kanji well (a little over 200). I can't say they're hard-wired into my brain yet but that's for when I take my first kanji course (I'll take it for review.)

Edit: Someone link me to a place with those sneaky hiragana words.

[CIT]

I'm in a similar position as Gaijin Punch. I can read Kanji okay, but if you ask me to write them I just draw a blank. Been using computers and cellphones too much.

What pissed me off about the way Japanese is tought in the West, is that everybody just expects you too hammer them into your brain by brute force, kind of the way Japanese schoolkids are forced to study stuff. Actually many Kanji contain a radical that is a clue as to how the word is pronounced, once you've identified that radical it will be a lot harder for you to forget the pronounciation. (e.g. The "go" of "eigo" has a small number five in the upper right hand corner, indicating the pronounciation as "go"). None of my teachers at university ever bothered to tell us stuff like that. A good book that explains where and how this works is "The Complete Guide to Everyday Kanji", Habein, Mathias.

I'm taking JLPT Level 2 this year, which should be okay. I've chickened out on Level 1 though, that reading comp is just hard as bones. I just don't think I could pass it... yet.


@UFO

Actually you do see "arigatou" and "o/go" written in Kanji about 50% of the time, so don't worry.

[NTSC-J]

The hiragana-only words, like GP said, appear so frequently that they're generally not confusing. Onegai is a good one to know, I use the kanji when writing it. Wakaru bugs me, since I see it written with the kanji about as much as I see it written entirely in hiragana, but again, its a verb you need to know anyways.

I'm up to about 1,200 kanji on a good day. Every now and then my brain will burn out and I'm lucky to get watashi down.

[EOJ]

Is Japanese harder than English? I guess it depends on the person and exactly what one is trying to achieve. They indeed both have a multitude of pitfalls. I'd like to hear twe's take on it. He's studied a lot of langauges extensively.

Indeed you shall.
I just noticed this thread. Anyway, Japanese has the most complex orthography of the world's living languages but in its linguistic makeup it's nothing all that strange or unique typologically. It's SOV in its word order. The majority (about 50%) of the world's approximately 6000 languages are of this type. It's agglutinating in its word formation, which is also in the majority of the world's languages. Turkish, Mongolian, Finnish, and Korean all function very similarly. Its sound system (phonology) is simplistic in the vowel inventory (just 5 phonemes), but fairly robust in its consonants (25 phonemes, with a full palatal series akin to Russian). However, it also has phonemic vowel and consonant length, which English lacks. It also has a complex pitch accent system (English is stress-based), which few foreigners even bother to try to learn, and this is one of the main glaring flaws in their pronunciation.

Japanese has a complex honorific system, but it's much more toned down than it was 1000 years ago, and many other languages have such honorific systems including Korean. There are languages in the Pacific, particularly in Micronesia, that have honorific systems even more complex than Japanese, such as Pohnpeian.

However, Japanese is not "easy", but no language is. Again, it is rather relativistic: a Korean will probably learn Japanese faster than an American English-speaker due to Japanese and Korean having very similar structures (even though they are not related to each other historically, contrary to common myth), and English and Japanese being more dissimilar. Chinese speakers often learn Japanese quicker due to their intensive knowledge of characters (kanji, or Hanzi as it is pronounced in Mandarin Chinese), which gives them a good knowledge, at least semantically and in writing, of about 70% of the vocabulary in the Japanese lexicon. I am currently learning Mandarin and due to my knowledge of Japanese (I can read over 2000 Kanji, I'd estimate, and I can write over half that number without the aid of a dictionary), it's progressing very fast, though I have to learn a new reading for each character all over again (a reading with one of 4 tones!), and often the semantics don't match up one-to-one from Japanese to Chinese. The trouble with Chinese is the sound system is extremely difficult for English speakers to master, as it is a tone language. Speaking Chinese is much, much more difficult than speaking Japanese for English speakers, in the purely phonetic sense. However, I've seen Japanese speakers often have an even more difficult time learning the pronunciation of Chinese.

Japanese is particularly challenging in its sociolinguistics, such as situational discourse and the polite and plain forms of the language which are very tricky to master at a 'native' level. It has a rich lexicon, with many specialised words, but again, many languages do (like English!). The Japanese language also has a very symbiotic relationship with its orthography, moreso than most languages, and this is something that is challenging to master. This symbiotic relationship is partly a byproduct of the amount of homophony acquired with the influx of Chinese loanwords when the tonal contrasts used in Chinese to differentiate homophonic morphemes were neutralized in the importation of said morphemes into Japanese.

[GaijinPunch]

Well, that was very thorough. Indeed, there's a lot going on in those langauges. I gave tonal langauges about 10 seconds thought, and decided that it just wasn't for me. Japanese pronunciation (while the subleties are easyto screw up) is about the easiest part of the langauge -- makes studying on your own that much eaiser.

What pissed me off about the way Japanese is tought in the West,

Well, you can't blame them. It's still taugt on very small scale. It's getting better, but there's been few enough students over the last... well... since the beginning of time that outstanding teaching methods just don't exist. Relative to other langauges (I'm guessing) the English/Japanese text books stop pretty early. I've never seen anything with any English in it that's more advanced than my 4th year university books. It's all Japanese/Japanese. Oh, yeah. If you want some great text books, go to the 7th floor of Kinokuniya (the big one) in Shinjuku. Stuff there that you can't find outside of Japan. The Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar is a must-have, btw. Very hard to get outside of Japan.

that reading comp is just hard as bones.

It is a whore. But you know what, it's not all ham's and plaque on the level 2 either. You should really be able to read and comprehend something of a semi complex nature pretty quickly, even on the level 2. The level 1 is just a fuck job. I don't think I have enough cramming time.

Wakaru bugs me,

This is where it gets rather shitty. •ª‚©‚é, ”»‚é, and ‰ð‚é are all fair game, but the direct object dictates which character is used. Œ©‚é, ?f‚é, ŠÏ‚é is the same thing. You'll see crap like this on the level 2 if I'm not mistaken, although it's not extensive. The worst is when they give you a word you use frequently ’T‚·with their rarer pronunciation ’T‚é. Gotta get cracking on the books. O_o

[EOJ]

English haws never been a consistent language. EVER.

This is not true, of course. The English writing system was fairly consistent in Old English. Before the influx of French loanwords and French morphology into English (the cause of much of the irregularity in the modern language), English was a typical Germanic language. All languages have irregularity in some aspect. Japanese verbs are quite regular according to their class, though there are three verbs that conjugate irregularly: kuru 'to come', iku 'to go', and suru 'to do'.

It has words that are pronounced the same, but spelled different. It has words that are spelled the same, but pronounced different. and it has words that are spelled AND pronounced the same, but have totally different meanings that can only be determined from context. and let's not even get started on the idioms...

Yes, this is true, but the English orthography has had a long and convoluted history. If you write English phonemically, it looks rather more like German. And this is to be expected as it is related to German (it's also related to French and ultimately Latin, but much more distantly). Reading and writing English is a difficult task for both native speakers and foreigners alike due to the inconsistency of symbol to sound.

[EOJ]

Well, that was very thorough. Indeed, there's a lot going on in those langauges. I gave tonal langauges about 10 seconds thought, and decided that it just wasn't for me. Japanese pronunciation (while the subleties are easyto screw up) is about the easiest part of the langauge -- makes studying on your own that much eaiser.

But again, you're probably not learning the pitch accent for each word in standard Japanese (pitch accents are not predictable, and vary based on the dialect). Japanese has pitch contrasts like Chinese, but only 'low' versus 'high' (and some dialects also have a 'falling' pitch, as in the second syllable of the word /saru/ 'monkey'). The main difference is they are level pitches whereas Chinese has contour pitches (=tones), which are more difficult to master. Also, every syllable in Chinese gets a tone, whereas there is only one pitch accent per word in Japanese (and the words can have many syllables as you know). Essentially in a Japanese word you can start with a Low pitch and either stay low or change to High, but then you cannot go back down to Low. Likewise words that start with a High pitch can either remain high or drop down to Low, but then they cannot go back up to High. You should test your wife on this, if you haven't already. Give her the triplet:

hashi-ga 'edge-NOM'
hashi-ga 'chopsticks-NOM'
hashi-ga 'bridge-NOM'

NOM=Nominative case (a fancy linguistic term for "subject marker")

Listen for the pitch on 'ga', and see which word is different from the others. This only works in Standard (Tokyo and neighboring dialects) Japanese, I believe.

You can also try this pair with your wife:

ha-ga "leaf-NOM"
ha-ga "tooth-NOM"

The first 'ha' will have a low pitch, while the second 'ha' will have a high pitch. The addition of the 'ga' suffix helps to hear the contrast properly.


It's strange, Japanese textbooks don't even mention the pitch accent. I'm OK with the Tokyo dialect and Mikawa dialect (spoken in Aichi-ken) pitch accents, and I've studied the Kyoto dialect & Osaka dialect pitch accents as well as some northern dialects like Tohoku.

[CIT]

What pissed me off about the way Japanese is tought in the West,

Well, you can't blame them. It's still taugt on very small scale. It's getting better, but there's been few enough students over the last... well... since the beginning of time that outstanding teaching methods just don't exist. Relative to other langauges (I'm guessing) the English/Japanese text books stop pretty early. I've never seen anything with any English in it that's more advanced than my 4th year university books. It's all Japanese/Japanese. Oh, yeah. If you want some great text books, go to the 7th floor of Kinokuniya (the big one) in Shinjuku. Stuff there that you can't find outside of Japan. The Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar is a must-have, btw. Very hard to get outside of Japan.

Yeah. Actually I was referring more to the way Kanji is taught. There should be one class a week just for Kanji. Instead Japanese learners are just given a Kanji sheet and are told "learn how to write these". Not the best method if you ask me.
The English textbooks ending at 4th year is fine, if you ask me. By that point I think one will have studied most grammatical structures, and from then on it's best to just read articles and novels, get comfortable with the grammar and build a vocabulary.
I have the Intermediate Guide to Japanese Grammar btw, I agree it's essential.

that reading comp is just hard as bones.

It is a whore. But you know what, it's not all ham's and plaque on the level 2 either. You should really be able to read and comprehend something of a semi complex nature pretty quickly, even on the level 2.

That's true. However the vocabulary isn't as broad and the reading sections are shorter. Makes those "what does "sore ha" refer to?" questions a hell of a lot easier.
Just curious, have you taken JLPT-2 before?

[JAPJAC]

Child's play, compared to English. It has been called the "Devil's language", but that's only due to the fright factor of the various scripts, which is pretty easy. Pronounciation and syllabaries? Arguably the easiest in the world (especially for English speakers, one would think). Conjugation? Beautifully consistent. If you're talking contextual issues, then I agree, not easy.

I feel sorry for Japanese learning English :/

p.s. No, unfortunately I'm not an expert

t's an easy language

You must've not gotten very far into it yet.

Kimoi.

Bollox. I live in Tokyo and Engrish is everywhere. In my country (England) one can count the amount of Japanese words used on one hand (probably due to their contribution to the World as a whole as opposed to England and her British Empire of old).

American English is taught in Japan now because of the simpler/limited nature of it as opposed to English. IMO Japanese doesn't not offer the extent of expressions, sayings, slang and regional dialects that England's English offers/challenges (even the N.American version of The Office DVD comes with a 'dick 'n harry'!), something that many a Japanese person that I know can testify to. So therefore to become 'fluent' is very difficult if not impossbile. My point is the average Japanese should be better now than they are as they have less excuses in learning the business language of the World over a foreigner trying to learn Japanese that has limited use outside of Japan.

From Shakespeare to The Beatles to The Streets. The End.

[CIT]

Kimoi.

Bollox. I live in Tokyo and Engrish is everywhere. In my country (England) one can count the amount of Japanese words used on one hand (probably due to their contribution to the World as a whole as opposed to England and her British Empire of old).

The reason English is the lingua franca of the world is because of the USA, not Britain, although I understand I will probably never be able to convince a British person of this fact.

American English is taught in Japan now because of the simpler/limited nature of it as opposed to English.

How is American English "simpler/limited" compared to British English? This makes no sense at all.

The reason American English is taught in Japan is obviously because Japan and the USA have closer economic and political ties.

IMO Japanese doesn't not offer the extent of expressions, sayings, slang and regional dialects that England's English offers/challenges (even the N.American version of The Office DVD comes with a 'dick 'n harry'!), something that many a Japanese person that I know can testify to. So therefore to become 'fluent' is very difficult if not impossbile.

Have you ever left Tokyo? Maybe your Japanese isn't advanced enough to have noticed this, but Japanese has at least as many dialects as Britain, if not more, as the country is larger and has more people. Even places very close to each other, such as Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, or Nagoya and the Mikawa area, have very distinct differences in dialect.
Your example with The Office is also a moot point. How many foreigners do you know who enjoy watching Manzai?
What you are saying is simply wrong.

My point is the average Japanese should be better now than they are as they have less excuses in learning the business language of the World over a foreigner trying to learn Japanese that has limited use outside of Japan.

Thing is though, that the "average Japanese" will never even have to deal with foreigners to the extent that he needs to be fluent in English.
And JAPJAC not being able to get a pizza delivered isn't sufficient reason for the average Japanese person to have to speak good English, sorry.

[JAPJAC]

The reason English is the lingua franca of the world is because of the USA, not Britain, although I understand I will probably never be able to convince a British person of this fact.

Hardly, with all due respect I think we were first communicating in English when your lot was living in wigwams mate. Besides, don't you mainly speak The Spanish now? And it's Great Britain mate, learn that.

American English is taught in Japan now because of the simpler/limited nature of it as opposed to English.

How is American English "simpler/limited" compared to British English? This makes no sense at all.

Prime Prime Example-Prime Minister Blair VS Prime Minister Bush the 2nd. The End. Also there is no such thing as British English as the English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh speak very differently believe you me. Furthermore, no need for a prefix, it's just English, yours being American English very much like it's called Football and American Football. It's our language, no prefix needed.

IMO Japanese doesn't not offer the extent of expressions, sayings, slang and regional dialects that England's English offers/challenges (even the N.American version of The Office DVD comes with a 'dick 'n harry'!), something that many a Japanese person that I know can testify to. So therefore to become 'fluent' is very difficult if not impossbile.

Have you ever left Tokyo? Maybe your Japanese isn't advanced enough to have noticed this, but Japanese has at least as many dialects as Britain, if not more, as the country is larger and has more people. Even places very close to each other, such as Osaka, Kyoto and Kobe, or Nagoya and the Mikawa area, have very distinct differences in dialect.
Your example with The Office is also a moot point. How many foreigners do you know who enjoy watching Manzai?
What you are saying is simply wrong.

I beg to differ. The Bristish Isles is famous for it's rich variations in accents and such like. One word and we can differentiate
between regions only a stones throw away, always to the amazement of Japanese.

My point is the average Japanese should be better now than they are as they have less excuses in learning the business language of the World over a foreigner trying to learn Japanese that has limited use outside of Japan.

Thing is though, that the "average Japanese" will never even have to deal with foreigners to the extent that he needs to be fluent in English.
And JAPJAC not being able to get a pizza delivered isn't sufficient reason for the average Japanese person to have to speak good English, sorry.

Lost in translation. No idea what this has to do with the price of fish.

[CIT]

Umm, right. So I take it your ability to construct an argument, as seen in your last posting, is a prime example of how much more advanced British English is.

Anyway, you're wrong about Japan not having many dialects. End of discussion.

[JAPJAC]

Cheers, you know it makes sense.

Anyway, you're wrong about Japan not having many dialects. End of discussion.

If you can read real English properly I hope you understand that I indeed never wrote that. 'N O T T O T H E E X T E N T', 'dude' Comprendi amigo sinyourita siv vous plais (forgive my limited Spanish) desu.

[highlandcattle]

I'm sorry JapPac but your wrong on numerous points:When the americans where still living in wigwams English was not a very important language.French was until right after the first world war the diplomatic/business language of choice.This changed mostly due to the American invasion of popular culture right after WWII.Thanks to them winning the war and infiltrating in europe with the Marshall Plan.Britain has very little to do with this.

Don't forget that these Welsh,Irish,Scottish people were forcefed English in 19/20th century befor that time they all had their own languages hence why they have such strong dialects now

[EOJ]

I don't have time to write in depth here but basically JAPJAC is way off while Seven Force is right. Saying American English is "simpler" with a more "limited nature" than British English is a very ignorant thing indeed.

And Japjac, please learn to QUOTE other people rather than just pasting their words ontop of yours, making your posts an incoherent mess.

[EOJ]

Also there is no such thing as British English as the English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh speak very differently believe you me. Furthermore, no need for a prefix, it's just English, yours being American English very much like it's called Football and American Football. It's our language, no prefix needed.

Many things are wrong in the above post. First, of course there is such a thing as British English. It's a term for the standard dialect of English spoken in England. Of course there are many other dialects spoken within England, such as Cockney, Cornwall, Sussex, and Norfolk. Scots English is a very innovative dialect which some linguists nowadays consider to be a different language, while Irish and Welsh English are separate dialects of English as well.

Likewise "American English" is a term referring to the standard dialect of English spoken in America, though there are many other regional dialects of English spoken in the USA.

Also, the term "American English" does not involve any prefixation, nor does the term "British English".

[GaijinPunch]

though there are three verbs that conjugate irregularly: kuru 'to come', iku 'to go', and suru 'to do'.

don't forget 'da'

Just curious, have you taken JLPT-2 before?

Yeah, I passed it the first time I tried in, but just barely. That was in 1998. I feel old now.

Bollox. I live in Tokyo and Engrish is everywhere.

Yeah well, I lived there about as long as you have according to another thread. The point wasn't was English hard... it was that the statement "Japanese is an easy langauge" wasn't true. I was also pointing out the fact that it's usually said by people that are still at a beginner or intermediate at best level. Is it easy to get your point across? Yes. Is it easy to participate in society with other native speakers on a professional level? No, this is where the challenge comes in, and most people that state the forementioned statement it seems are still in university level. Nothing wrong with the statement, it just needs to be vastly expanded upon.

American English is taught in Japan now because of the simpler/limited nature of it as opposed to English.

That's just horseshit, mate. Woiuldn't have anything to do with the more predominant American influences on the nation? (Business-wise, not individuals). We can argue until we're blue in the face though -- there's no proof either way.

It's our language, no prefix needed.

They were your 13 colonies to start off with as well though. Times change.

IMO Japanese doesn't not offer the extent of expressions, sayings, slang and regional dialects that England's English offers/challenges

Indeed it does not, and I think you'll find that I touched on that point earlier (I think -- I can't be bothered to look right now) but it does offer a whole new can of worms that whities generally have a hard time grasping...regardless of where their from. This is why morons from the Us and wankers from the UK traditionally make themselves look like tools b/c they dont' fully understand the langauge.

The Bristish Isles is famous for it's rich variations in accents and such like

Someone please point me to two cities in any English speaking nation as close together as Tokyo and Osaka that have such differing dialects... and that's just two cities. There's a lot inbetween and beyond, and this is geographically a very small region.

[EOJ]

though there are three verbs that conjugate irregularly: kuru 'to come', iku 'to go', and suru 'to do'.

don't forget 'da'

Well, yes, "da" is irregular but only because it doesn't end in "-u" in the infinitive (imperfective) form, but it is a copula, which is different from other verbs as it does not function as a predicate. Copulas are rather aberrant cross-linguistically. Japanese also has a copula "to" found in things like "to suru", and a copula "ni" found things like "ni suru". Historically "ni" was the main copula in Old Japanese. A copula is just a linking verb that acts to connect a subject with its predicate complement, having a meaning that usually corresponds to "to be" (but not in the sense "to exist").

[EOJ]

Someone please point me to two cities in any English speaking nation as close together as Tokyo and Osaka that have such differing dialects... and that's just two cities. There's a lot inbetween and beyond, and this is geographically a very small region.

The dialect variation in the British Isles is akin to the diversity found in Japan, if you're only talking about English and only about geographical proximity (which doesn't mean that much really). For example, the English spoken in Edinburgh and the English spoken in London are just as different from eachother, if not moreso, than Osaka-ben and Tokyo-ben are from eachother.

There are actually two "Japanese" languages (historically there were three, but Western Old Japanese died out--all the modern Japanese dialects are decended from the Central Old Japanese language) today. Japanese proper is spoken in everywhere but the island Hachijoujima, where they speak a language which descends from Eastern Old Japanese, and is unintelligible to Japanese speakers (of any Japanese dialect). This language is often called Hachijoujima-go. There are also about 5 Ryukyuan languages (okinawan, amami, sakishima, miyako, yonaguni) which are distantly related to Japanese and Hachijoujima-go. For an example, in Yonaguni the word for 'mountain' is /dama/, while in Japanese it is /yama/. Likewise the Yonaguni word for 'moon' is /'ki/ (the apostrophe indicates a glottal stop), while in Japanese it is /tuki/.

[biocat]

Here's an example of the kind of word puns and puzzles you can get with Japanese. Crazy stuff indeed!

Very cool website. I'll have to dig deeper into it.

Umi: Vocab isn't the only part I'm worried about, but it's the easiest to study for, as you said. The biggest train wreck on the test is the reading comprehension and grammar portion. The reading being the hardest to study for. HOwever, if you don't know the vocab or the grammar, you can't possibly dream of holding up on the reading portion, so I figured I'd sick my teeth into those two parts first. I just don't think I'll have time to get it all in. 2 months to go though... we'll see.

I signed up for level 2 and I'm soooo going to fail come December. I keep trying to study Japanese but end up reading other stuff. Well, I just bought Xanadu Next. That should give me some decent study playing through at least

[GaijinPunch]

I signed up for level 2 and I'm soooo going to fail come December. I keep trying to study Japanese but end up reading other stuff. Well, I just bought Xanadu Next. That should give me some decent study playing through at least

OT: How is it? It looked... well, about 200% the opposite direction of the other Xanadu games. I'm wondering how the ports of the first two in the package are as well.

[zaphod]

English haws never been a consistent language. EVER.

This is not true, of course. The English writing system was fairly consistent in Old English. Before the influx of French loanwords and French morphology into English (the cause of much of the irregularity in the modern language), English was a typical Germanic language. All languages have irregularity in some aspect. Japanese verbs are quite regular according to their class, though there are three verbs that conjugate irregularly: kuru 'to come', iku 'to go', and suru 'to do'.

As I recall, in the days of "ye olde magick Shoppe" you could spell the same word different ways. and that's consistent? Sure, at the time the spelling was reformed, it was something approacing consistent, but then all the foreign words started getting in, and that took it all out the window.

Most language have their difficult points. People who find that the diffiuclt areas of the new language they are working on are similar to their native one will find the new language easy. Someone who hasn't had to worry aobut grammaticla gender (english speaker) will be driven nuts by having to memorize the grammatical gender of every noun, assigned without rhyme or reason. Somene who speaks a language with consistent spelling and pronunciation rules gets badly tripped up over english, which is the WORST offender in this area now. And people not used to memorizing more than two scripts and 1 alphabet between them (again English) will get seriously bewildered by Japanese, with 2 alphabets+kanji!