3 ms·

Your comment is astonishing. If you know the word 方, that it is /ho:/, and you know that it has a う in it when written out, how can you not know that う stands

Your comment is astonishing. If you know the word 方, that it is /ho:/, and you know that it has a う in it when written out, how can you not know that う stands for making the o long? The only vowel is the long o. Japanese kindergarten kids can recognize hiragana words with "おう", correctly identifying it as /o:/. By the time they learn the 方 kanji they would have seen it written in hiragana upmpteen times, like AよりBのほうがいい and whatnot.

uasi 11mo ago
Well, speaking for myself, I internalized how う is pronounced differently in different contexts when I was young, and by now I've almost forgotten there's a difference I need to be conscious of. When I hear /ho:/ in a certain context, "ほう(方)" immediately comes to mind, without noticing that what I heard was a long o. To me it's just the う sound. And if someone pointed to their face while saying /ho:/, I'd think it's the お sound as in "ほお(頬)".
raincole 11mo ago
Because they're a native speaker. Native speakers are often utterly oblivious to the 'rules' of their own languages. Every time I read a rule about my mother tongue (Mandarin) online I was like, lol what nonsense foreigners made up... And then I realize that rule does exist. I just have internalized it for so long.
- pitkali 11mo ago
  A typical example for English is the adjective order.
  - naniwaduni 11mo ago
    Adjective order in English is basically that most essential qualities of the object go closest to the head. There are lists out there that try to break this down into categories of adjective ("opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose"), and to some extent the anglo intuitions on which sorts of properties are more or less essential are not trivial, but it's not as arbitrary as people want to make it out to be.
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    - SilasX 11mo ago
      This. People act like it's a hyper-complicated rule that English speakers magically infer, when in reality, a) other languages do it, and b) it's a much simpler rule (that you've given) which someone overcomplicated. As a counterexample (in line with your explanation), consider someone snarking on the WallStreetBets forum: "Come on, guys, this is supposed to be Wall Street bets, not Wall Street prudent hedges!" Adjective order changes because the intended significance changes. (Normally it would be "prudent Wall Street hedges".) Side note: please don't nitpick about whether "Wall Street" is functionally an adjective here. The same thing would happen if the forum had been named "FinancialBets".
      - kazinator 11mo ago
        People "overcomplicate" the rule because they find counterexamples to the simple rule. It's a fool's errand because the way human language works is that people happily accept odd exceptions by rote memory. So the rule simply says that there exist these exceptions. Also, there is something called euphony: speakers find utterances questionable if they are not in some canonical form they are used to hearing. For instance "black & white" is preferred over "white & black". The rules boil down to "what people are used to hearing, regardless of the underlying grammar offering other possibilities".
      - Cpoll 11mo ago
        Isn't this a bad example? There's only one adjective in "prudent hedges." Changing which noun "prudent" acts on isn't a matter of adjective order. (I suppose Wall Street is a proper adjective, like "New York pizza," but you said no nitpicking)
        SilasX 11mo ago
        Did you read the second sentence of that paragraph? The same thing would happen with a legit adjective, like if the forum had been named "FinancialBets": "Guys, this is financial bets, not financial prudent hedges."

uasi 11mo ago

Well, speaking for myself, I internalized how う is pronounced differently in different contexts when I was young, and by now I've almost forgotten there's a difference I need to be conscious of. When I hear /ho:/ in a certain context, "ほう(方)" immediately comes to mind, without noticing that what I heard was a long o. To me it's just the う sound. And if someone pointed to their face while saying /ho:/, I'd think it's the お sound as in "ほお(頬)".

raincole 11mo ago

Because they're a native speaker. Native speakers are often utterly oblivious to the 'rules' of their own languages. Every time I read a rule about my mother tongue (Mandarin) online I was like, lol what nonsense foreigners made up... And then I realize that rule does exist. I just have internalized it for so long.

pitkali 11mo ago
A typical example for English is the adjective order.
- naniwaduni 11mo ago
  Adjective order in English is basically that most essential qualities of the object go closest to the head. There are lists out there that try to break this down into categories of adjective ("opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose"), and to some extent the anglo intuitions on which sorts of properties are more or less essential are not trivial, but it's not as arbitrary as people want to make it out to be.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - SilasX 11mo ago
    This. People act like it's a hyper-complicated rule that English speakers magically infer, when in reality, a) other languages do it, and b) it's a much simpler rule (that you've given) which someone overcomplicated. As a counterexample (in line with your explanation), consider someone snarking on the WallStreetBets forum: "Come on, guys, this is supposed to be Wall Street bets, not Wall Street prudent hedges!" Adjective order changes because the intended significance changes. (Normally it would be "prudent Wall Street hedges".) Side note: please don't nitpick about whether "Wall Street" is functionally an adjective here. The same thing would happen if the forum had been named "FinancialBets".
    - kazinator 11mo ago
      People "overcomplicate" the rule because they find counterexamples to the simple rule. It's a fool's errand because the way human language works is that people happily accept odd exceptions by rote memory. So the rule simply says that there exist these exceptions. Also, there is something called euphony: speakers find utterances questionable if they are not in some canonical form they are used to hearing. For instance "black & white" is preferred over "white & black". The rules boil down to "what people are used to hearing, regardless of the underlying grammar offering other possibilities".
    - Cpoll 11mo ago
      Isn't this a bad example? There's only one adjective in "prudent hedges." Changing which noun "prudent" acts on isn't a matter of adjective order. (I suppose Wall Street is a proper adjective, like "New York pizza," but you said no nitpicking)
      - SilasX 11mo ago
        Did you read the second sentence of that paragraph? The same thing would happen with a legit adjective, like if the forum had been named "FinancialBets": "Guys, this is financial bets, not financial prudent hedges."