3 ms·

> two [...] alphabets in Japanese They are syllabaries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabary > distinguish between

by nayuki 8y ago

> two [...] alphabets in Japanese They are syllabaries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabary > distinguish between Japanese and foreign words There are occasionally Japanese words written in katakana (e.g. ラーメン) and foreign words written in hiragana (e.g. たばこ). Also, katakana can be used to emphasize Japanese words (like WE DO in English) (e.g. キミ). > Kanji script [...] is a travesty left over from cave paintings and Chinese There is no evidence that Chinese characters come from cave paintings. You haven't explained what makes kanji a travesty, so I'll grant you the assumption that you think it's hard because there are thousands of characters to learn. I assure you, from all the people I've met who can read kanji/hanzi (including Chinese, Korean, and American people), they agree that the writing system makes sense and delivers a lot of meaning in a small space. > the spoken language is [...] easy to learn Again, no justification given. I would say it's a mixed bag. Some aspects of spoken Japanese are easy to learn, such as most phones overlapping with other languages (i.e. not needing to learn many new sounds), no European grammatical stuff like {plurals, subject-verb agreement, noun genders, case}. But some parts are harder, like distinguishing long consonants and vowels, politeness levels for verbs and nouns, dropping subjects and other information implied by context, and the postfix word order. > they don't have any exceptions in pronunciation There are a couple I can think of. The consonant g can be pronounced [g] or [ŋ], for example in が. The consonant in ず/づ can be pronounced [z] or [dz]. And the major one is that many -u and some -i should be suppressed (e.g. です, ～ます, して); in fact if you don't do this, you sound noticeably non-native. I think overall, Japanese is okay to learn at a casual/colloquial level. The pronunciation structure is transparent, the particles make it easy to prescribe some known-good sentence structures, and the vocabulary seems reasonable. But mastering Japanese, oh boy, that will take a lifetime. (e.g. Just to name some off the top of my head - politeness, nuances over vocabulary, onomatopoeia, different registers like manga vs. newspaper vs. legal, classical Japanese, classical Chinese, reformed spellings and grammars, multiple on'yomi and kun'yomi readings, how to read personal name kanji, reverse-engineering loanwords, studying kanji, puns, distinguishing homophones in speech, ...)

tokyodude 8y ago
AFAIK ラーメン is not a Japanese word. It is Chinese "Lo mein". 中華そば is a effectively a synonym for ラーメン. Also no Japanese restaurant guide lists ラーメン under Japanese cuisine. They either list them on their own or under Chinese cuisine. I'd say one of the hardest parts is the multiple ways to say every kanji with almost no rules, just memorization. Example: 行, 実行, 行う, 膝行, 売れ行き or 先生, 一生, 芝生, 往生, 千生り, 埴生, 平生, 弥生, 蓬生, 生り, 相生, 下生え, 生える
- glandium 8y ago
  Well, in fairness, most characters don't have as many different readings as 生, 行, or 上 (for another example of a character with many readings).
- jefurii 8y ago
  Kanji were imported into Japan from the continent via scholars or printed material. Many of the different pronunciations happened because kanji came during different time periods or from different parts of China where words were pronounced differently.
RobertRoberts 8y ago
>There is no evidence that Chinese characters come from cave paintings. Sarcasm. >Also, katakana can be used to emphasize Japanese words (like WE DO in English) (e.g. キミ). Cool, didn't know that. >...they agree that the writing system makes sense and delivers a lot of meaning in a small space. I've done translation work with Greek, Spanish, English and dealt with Japanese in college (helping translate/edit my Japanese room mate's papers), and why on paper, many things may look a certain way, on a computer screen it's an entirely different world. All the Spanish and Greek stuff took up more space, Spanish especially. But with the Japanese, the keyboards took up more space and were slow to type with. So, the comparisons between space and efficiency and all kinds of other metrics are not universal. >But some parts are harder, like distinguishing long consonants and vowels, politeness levels for verbs and nouns, dropping subjects and other information implied by context, and the postfix word order. Sure, but this is all subjective to you. "Harder" by definition is subjective. So you can't claim your statement (is harder) is any more or less valid than mine (is easier). >"...in fact if you don't do this, you sound noticeably non-native." So? Not a single Japanese could pronounce "level" or "really" correctly that I ever met. The details that iron out an accent are irrelevant in the question "is this language hard to learn". >"I think overall, Japanese is okay to learn at a casual/colloquial level." I guess I should have put that in my post. But again, I have relatives and friends that speak fluently and they've never had an issue saying it was harder than other languages. And everyone polyglot I've met said English was very hard. All subjective.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  I'm currently married to a Chinese born wife who has lived in the US for the past 15 years, but spent most of that time in academia with other foreign born academics. She had developed a habit of saying "BE CAREFUL!" very loudly whenever I was driving and something unexpected happened in traffic. I was patient at first, hoping that she would come to understand that I am quite careful (I'm a bit of a stereotypical asian driver myself) but one day, I snapped at her when the car ahead of me abruptly braked to a stop, then backed towards me to parallel park in a spot they'd spotted last moment. We did talk about it, but whenever we argue, it seems that she thinks I'm lying when I tell her that saying "Be careful!" in that context sounds like an admonishment.
glandium 8y ago
> There are occasionally Japanese words written in katakana (e.g. ラーメン) and foreign words written in hiragana (e.g. たばこ). Also, katakana can be used to emphasize Japanese words (like WE DO in English) (e.g. キミ). If you look back far enough (but as recent as the beginning of the Showa era), you'll even find entire sentences written in katakana+kanji.

by nayuki 8y ago

tokyodude 8y ago

AFAIK ラーメン is not a Japanese word. It is Chinese "Lo mein". 中華そば is a effectively a synonym for ラーメン. Also no Japanese restaurant guide lists ラーメン under Japanese cuisine. They either list them on their own or under Chinese cuisine. I'd say one of the hardest parts is the multiple ways to say every kanji with almost no rules, just memorization. Example: 行, 実行, 行う, 膝行, 売れ行き or 先生, 一生, 芝生, 往生, 千生り, 埴生, 平生, 弥生, 蓬生, 生り, 相生, 下生え, 生える

glandium 8y ago
Well, in fairness, most characters don't have as many different readings as 生, 行, or 上 (for another example of a character with many readings).
jefurii 8y ago
Kanji were imported into Japan from the continent via scholars or printed material. Many of the different pronunciations happened because kanji came during different time periods or from different parts of China where words were pronounced differently.

RobertRoberts 8y ago

>There is no evidence that Chinese characters come from cave paintings. Sarcasm. >Also, katakana can be used to emphasize Japanese words (like WE DO in English) (e.g. キミ). Cool, didn't know that. >...they agree that the writing system makes sense and delivers a lot of meaning in a small space. I've done translation work with Greek, Spanish, English and dealt with Japanese in college (helping translate/edit my Japanese room mate's papers), and why on paper, many things may look a certain way, on a computer screen it's an entirely different world. All the Spanish and Greek stuff took up more space, Spanish especially. But with the Japanese, the keyboards took up more space and were slow to type with. So, the comparisons between space and efficiency and all kinds of other metrics are not universal. >But some parts are harder, like distinguishing long consonants and vowels, politeness levels for verbs and nouns, dropping subjects and other information implied by context, and the postfix word order. Sure, but this is all subjective to you. "Harder" by definition is subjective. So you can't claim your statement (is harder) is any more or less valid than mine (is easier). >"...in fact if you don't do this, you sound noticeably non-native." So? Not a single Japanese could pronounce "level" or "really" correctly that I ever met. The details that iron out an accent are irrelevant in the question "is this language hard to learn". >"I think overall, Japanese is okay to learn at a casual/colloquial level." I guess I should have put that in my post. But again, I have relatives and friends that speak fluently and they've never had an issue saying it was harder than other languages. And everyone polyglot I've met said English was very hard. All subjective.

stcredzero 8y ago
I'm currently married to a Chinese born wife who has lived in the US for the past 15 years, but spent most of that time in academia with other foreign born academics. She had developed a habit of saying "BE CAREFUL!" very loudly whenever I was driving and something unexpected happened in traffic. I was patient at first, hoping that she would come to understand that I am quite careful (I'm a bit of a stereotypical asian driver myself) but one day, I snapped at her when the car ahead of me abruptly braked to a stop, then backed towards me to parallel park in a spot they'd spotted last moment. We did talk about it, but whenever we argue, it seems that she thinks I'm lying when I tell her that saying "Be careful!" in that context sounds like an admonishment.

glandium 8y ago

> There are occasionally Japanese words written in katakana (e.g. ラーメン) and foreign words written in hiragana (e.g. たばこ). Also, katakana can be used to emphasize Japanese words (like WE DO in English) (e.g. キミ). If you look back far enough (but as recent as the beginning of the Showa era), you'll even find entire sentences written in katakana+kanji.