3 ms·

> Its particle-based system for annotating subjects and objects mean their position is unimportant; the only real requirement is that the verb comes at the end

by bsder 4y ago

> Its particle-based system for annotating subjects and objects mean their position is unimportant; the only real requirement is that the verb comes at the end. Particles are one of the most maddening things about Japanese. Order in sentence may be unimportant but it may not be clear which particle you are supposed to choose. Even native speakers regularly screw up particles and particle use has high regional distinctiveness. It also doesn't help that Japanese is infuriatingly aggressive about omitting things that are supposed to be "implied shared knowledge". If you thought English was bad about pronouns/antecedents, you ain't seen nuthin' until you've tried to unpack a Japanese conversation. Sure, if the particles are present, you can unpack things. However, Japanese speakers like to remove complete subordinate clauses because they are "shared context".

midoridensha 4y ago
>Order in sentence may be unimportant but it may not be clear which particle you are supposed to choose. Even native speakers regularly screw up particles and particle use has high regional distinctiveness. Native English speakers use the wrong prepositions all the time.
Tor3 4y ago
True enough, in many ways Japanese looks like a spoken-only language where the parties communicating are always visible to each other and share the context. They did get their writing system pretty late, though not that much later than many other languages which aren't as context-based. Then you have languages like Latin, which is so precise that there's little or no implied context needed (from the little I know of Latin, anyway). You just have to try Google Translate on Japanese and it messes up all the time, it doesn't understand if it's about a male of female subject, one person or several, and lots of other issues. You can't have machine translation of Japanese until you get true AI - an intelligence that can understand context.[0] Though I don't entirely agree about particles. Sure there are many - I have a little booklet with some 70 of them[1]- but in practice there are vastly fewer in use and the important 6-7 ones are used all the time and aren't (in principle, at least) particularly tricky (though some are often left out in speech). I find them elegant, in many ways. And yes, regional differences.. my wife (Japanese) uses different patterns from "standard" Japanese, but then again my native language has an uncountable number of dialects, often with grammatical differences too, so to me most other languages' variations seem minor.. (I'll add that I'm not fluent in Japanese yet and therefore stumbles on particle use sometimes - in theory I know how, but in practice I'm not good enough. I never imagined it could take so long learning a language, one that I actually like and enjoy listening to. It's very true, as someone said, that "you can know a lot about Japanese but that is not the same as knowing Japanese") [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J4id5jnEo8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J4id5jnEo8 [1] https://www.amazon.com/All-About-Particles-Handbook-Japanese/dp/1568364199 https://www.amazon.com/All-About-Particles-Handbook-Japanese...

by bsder 4y ago

midoridensha 4y ago

>Order in sentence may be unimportant but it may not be clear which particle you are supposed to choose. Even native speakers regularly screw up particles and particle use has high regional distinctiveness. Native English speakers use the wrong prepositions all the time.

Tor3 4y ago

True enough, in many ways Japanese looks like a spoken-only language where the parties communicating are always visible to each other and share the context. They did get their writing system pretty late, though not that much later than many other languages which aren't as context-based. Then you have languages like Latin, which is so precise that there's little or no implied context needed (from the little I know of Latin, anyway). You just have to try Google Translate on Japanese and it messes up all the time, it doesn't understand if it's about a male of female subject, one person or several, and lots of other issues. You can't have machine translation of Japanese until you get true AI - an intelligence that can understand context.[0] Though I don't entirely agree about particles. Sure there are many - I have a little booklet with some 70 of them[1]- but in practice there are vastly fewer in use and the important 6-7 ones are used all the time and aren't (in principle, at least) particularly tricky (though some are often left out in speech). I find them elegant, in many ways. And yes, regional differences.. my wife (Japanese) uses different patterns from "standard" Japanese, but then again my native language has an uncountable number of dialects, often with grammatical differences too, so to me most other languages' variations seem minor.. (I'll add that I'm not fluent in Japanese yet and therefore stumbles on particle use sometimes - in theory I know how, but in practice I'm not good enough. I never imagined it could take so long learning a language, one that I actually like and enjoy listening to. It's very true, as someone said, that "you can know a lot about Japanese but that is not the same as knowing Japanese") [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J4id5jnEo8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J4id5jnEo8 [1] https://www.amazon.com/All-About-Particles-Handbook-Japanese/dp/1568364199 https://www.amazon.com/All-About-Particles-Handbook-Japanese...