5 ms·

You aren't biased - just educated in the languages. ;) To illustrate the difficulty of Japanese for others, I'll provide an example: 生 - raw (nama) 生ま

by Nadya 10y ago

You aren't biased - just educated in the languages. ;) To illustrate the difficulty of Japanese for others, I'll provide an example: 生 - raw (nama) 生まれる - to be born (u・mareru) 生きる - to live (i・kiru) 生活 - living; life (sei・katsu) 生地 - cloth; fabric (ki・ji) I'll stop there. There are more readings for that single kanji but they are obscure or an "alternative" to a more commonly used kanji. To my understanding, this problem does not exist in Chinese - which uses a single reading mapped to a single character. The same character, in Mandarin, would be read 'shēng' with many of the same meanings (to be born, life, raw) The above example is one of many kanji with multiple readings in Japanese. How do you know which reading to use? Context and because you know the word. :) That problem isn't unique to Japanese, English suffers from it as well! Think of homophones like tear and tear. You use context to figure out how it is read. It adds some level of difficulty but isn't impossible.

spacehunt 10y ago
There are lots of characters that have more than one reading in Cantonese, Mandarin and other Chinese languages -- in fact 生 has 2 readings in Cantonese: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%94%9F#Pronunciation https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%94%9F#Pronunciation
- Nadya 10y ago
  I stand corrected, thank you. I had Mandarin in mind, although that fact was unclear since I only mentioned it in my example. I'm unfamiliar with Cantonese and lack any knowledge at all of other Chinese dialects. So at least for that character - it has one reading in Mandarin. The two readings in Cantonese are a single (and similar) vowel apart, nothing like the differences between "nama" and "ki". So I'll change my argument: even though Chinese has multiple readings - Japanese takes it a step further in complexity. According to this page [0], most sound differences in Mandarin are a variant opposed to a completely different sound. Variant sounds are easier to memorize because they often "make sense". In Japanese, variant sounds often occur because it is "easier to pronounce". If I had to wager a guess, Chinese variant sounds are done for the same reason - though I could be wrong on that as well. :) Thank you for the correction. [0] http://pinyin.info/chinese_characters/ http://pinyin.info/chinese_characters/
  - spacehunt 10y ago
    I agree, the multiple readings in Cantonese/Mandarin are nowhere near as different as the different readings for the same Kanji in Japanese. I never meant to imply otherwise, sorry if I sounded I was. As someone trying to learn Japanese, it is one of the harder parts of the language for me to learn. Conjugations frustrate me more though. :)
    - Nadya 10y ago
      I didn't take it as such - I took it as a correction to my misinformation and updated my argument to reflect the new information. My backing point was 'Japanese makes kanji more difficult than Chinese" but my information wasn't correct originally. Might I ask what you find difficult about conjugations? I might be able to help. With the exception of U-Verbs (五段) I found that they are very consistent and very "mathematical". Nothing else gets as complicated as "house and houses but mouse and mice, goose and geese but moose and moose". While there are still exceptions due to etymology, they are relatively rare. The same 2 verbs are exceptions to most everything and there are only a few common words which are exceptions, such as いい conjugating as よい. I concede that 五段活用 is a pain in the rear but it is something you get an "ear" for over time. So if that is were you get frustrated my only advice is chug-chug-chug along! Eventually if you conjugate one of the words incorrectly it sounds wrong to you, even if you aren't certain you were wrong or not.
      - spacehunt 10y ago
        Yes, it is the verb conjugations that are tripping me up (the English Wikipedia page on this [1] has a complicated chart that looks slightly scary), but they are getting easier the more I use them. I do find many parts of Japanese grammar to be very consistent, like you said. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugation

by Nadya 10y ago

spacehunt 10y ago

There are lots of characters that have more than one reading in Cantonese, Mandarin and other Chinese languages -- in fact 生 has 2 readings in Cantonese: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%94%9F#Pronunciation https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E7%94%9F#Pronunciation

Nadya 10y ago
I stand corrected, thank you. I had Mandarin in mind, although that fact was unclear since I only mentioned it in my example. I'm unfamiliar with Cantonese and lack any knowledge at all of other Chinese dialects. So at least for that character - it has one reading in Mandarin. The two readings in Cantonese are a single (and similar) vowel apart, nothing like the differences between "nama" and "ki". So I'll change my argument: even though Chinese has multiple readings - Japanese takes it a step further in complexity. According to this page [0], most sound differences in Mandarin are a variant opposed to a completely different sound. Variant sounds are easier to memorize because they often "make sense". In Japanese, variant sounds often occur because it is "easier to pronounce". If I had to wager a guess, Chinese variant sounds are done for the same reason - though I could be wrong on that as well. :) Thank you for the correction. [0] http://pinyin.info/chinese_characters/ http://pinyin.info/chinese_characters/
- spacehunt 10y ago
  I agree, the multiple readings in Cantonese/Mandarin are nowhere near as different as the different readings for the same Kanji in Japanese. I never meant to imply otherwise, sorry if I sounded I was. As someone trying to learn Japanese, it is one of the harder parts of the language for me to learn. Conjugations frustrate me more though. :)
  - Nadya 10y ago
    I didn't take it as such - I took it as a correction to my misinformation and updated my argument to reflect the new information. My backing point was 'Japanese makes kanji more difficult than Chinese" but my information wasn't correct originally. Might I ask what you find difficult about conjugations? I might be able to help. With the exception of U-Verbs (五段) I found that they are very consistent and very "mathematical". Nothing else gets as complicated as "house and houses but mouse and mice, goose and geese but moose and moose". While there are still exceptions due to etymology, they are relatively rare. The same 2 verbs are exceptions to most everything and there are only a few common words which are exceptions, such as いい conjugating as よい. I concede that 五段活用 is a pain in the rear but it is something you get an "ear" for over time. So if that is were you get frustrated my only advice is chug-chug-chug along! Eventually if you conjugate one of the words incorrectly it sounds wrong to you, even if you aren't certain you were wrong or not.
    - spacehunt 10y ago
      Yes, it is the verb conjugations that are tripping me up (the English Wikipedia page on this [1] has a complicated chart that looks slightly scary), but they are getting easier the more I use them. I do find many parts of Japanese grammar to be very consistent, like you said. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_verb_conjugation