Learning Japanese...

[Azier the Swordsman]

I am studying the language, however, I seem to sometimes have a problem pronouncing the phrases as fluently as the Japanese speakers on the program I'm using. Sometimes, I stutter and have to start over again. Some sounds I have to strain to get out. Is this normal and will it dissappear with time?

[Lochaber Axe]

Yes of course it will. Any new language or any thing new at that will make you stumble at the beginning. Its just like learning how to ride a bike.

[Tet-chan]

u will get used to the language after a few years

[Bobtheduck]

1. there are only 5 vowels (unlike english which has something like 9-11 vowels... annoying, really, and our 9 vowels with only 5 letters is cause for our confusion in learning Japanese vowels) The japanese vowels are almost identical to spanish... I'd sit for a while, listening to native speakers, and focus on the vowels
2. There are the shi, tsu, chi, fu, ji, and all the r's... Those require more work
3. There's the small tsu which represents a hard break, and then there's the double vowels... I think this is the hardest thing to get used to

With the first two, it's a matter of studying what the person's mouth does... Those syllables are much easier than, say, some syllables in Danish...

The hardest thing is being able to hear the hard breaks and the double vowells...

It will come to you well enough to communicate after a while, but some people will NEVER speak like a native... It all depends on your abiity to listen and study and immitate, and how much work you pu into it... But, that's ok since you don't need to be perfect, just understandable and you will get that far after a while.

[Azier the Swordsman]

I did a lot better in today's lesson, but I'm still having trouble getting out 'Eego ga' (English language used in a sentence) and 'Nihongo ga' Japanese language used in a sentence). I guess I just need practice. I've the the "r's" completely down. Unfortunately, as a bad side effect, I have a nagging temptation to pronounce any English word with an 'r' in as a Japanese 'r' sound.

[HondaTooru]

I would love to chat with you some time! I'm nearing the end of JPN101 and I've really enjoyed it! I think I'm going to continue on with it until I'm fluent. Yeah, the pronunciation is way easier than English once you get used to the 5 basic vowel sounds! Are you in a class or just learning on your own?

[shooraijin]

'Eigo ga' to iu de wa arimasen kedo ... ? ('Eego ga' to iu ja nai)

[Bobtheduck]

Nihongo wa muzukashii desu ga totemo omoshiroi desu. (I think... I've never used "ga" as "but" so I'm not sure I used it right)

As for the rs? I found after watching a string of subtitled anime, I have a hard time saying (english) words with r or l in them... It'll wear off when you get into conversation with someone.

[shooraijin]

It sounds right to me, though I've sometimes heard 'shikashi' used in the same place. We really need some native speakers here! *beg*

[Azier the Swordsman]

I would love to chat with you some time! I'm nearing the end of JPN101 and I've really enjoyed it! I think I'm going to continue on with it until I'm fluent. Yeah, the pronunciation is way easier than English once you get used to the 5 basic vowel sounds! Are you in a class or just learning on your own?

Pimsluers Japanese I

http://www.pimsleurapproach.com


Highly recommended.

[Straylight]

My flatmate has got a load of tutorial materials for Japanese and Mandarin. I'm thinking of learning Mandarin actually - there are a lot of foreign students here and one of my friends is Chinese, so plenty of opportunities to practice

Pimsluers Japanese I

http://www.pimsleurapproach.com


Highly recommended.

As far as that course goes, the quality looks pretty good. However the prices are so high that if I was willing to fork that much out, I'd get proper lessons.

[shooraijin]

> It actually sounds closer to a "d."

To English ears, yeah -- it's an apical flap (a kick of the tip of the tongue). We actually have an apical flap instead of a real /d/ in words like "ladder."

[Azier the Swordsman]

My flatmate has got a load of tutorial materials for Japanese and Mandarin. I'm thinking of learning Mandarin actually - there are a lot of foreign students here and one of my friends is Chinese, so plenty of opportunities to practice



As far as that course goes, the quality looks pretty good. However the prices are so high that if I was willing to fork that much out, I'd get proper lessons.

You mean classroom lessons? I personally find it much more convenient doing it at home. It's a very well done course, and while the price is high, it's worth it.

[Bobtheduck]

The "r-l" thing is misleading. It actually sounds closer to a "d."

It depends on who is saying it... Sometimes it sounds like an l, to me anyhow. But, the r is like the spanish r only it's not "rolled" just "tapped", while "d" is a much harder sound... I can easily tell the difference, but I suppose not everyone can...

[shooraijin]

Be specific with which /d/ you're talking about.

In Japanese, there's only one /d/, the voiced alveolar stop (tongue to the alveolar ridge at the top of the mouth with larynx vibrating).

In English, there's several sounds we think of as /d/. There's the apical flap [r"] (which should be an r with no side hook, but I don't have a Unicode font to display IPA) which is the tongue tapped lightly against the alveolar ridge, and this is the same as the "r" in Japanese. We use it between vowels in words like "ladder" which comes out as [la r"3r]. Then, there's the true [d], which we have too, but in English voicing does not determine perception between /d/ and /t/ (or /p/-/b/ or other stops), so an unaspirated [t] where there's no puff of air will also be heard as /d/ to most English speakers (versus [t_h] -- test this yourself; put a hand in front of your mouth and say /bad/ and /bat/ in the mirror alternately, or /dad/ and /tad/).

Amusingly, one of my Japanese textbooks says, "To American speakers, /d/ and /r/ may sound alike."

Anyway, be specific

IPA character sets: http://www.blahedo.org/ascii-ipa.html
Since I have a formal background, I tend to write in SAMPA.

[shooraijin]

Well, I don't know. I tried to pick up some Malay not because I had to (most people I encountered in Malaysia spoke English well enough), but because I wanted to (it was a language group I was unfamiliar with and sufficiently different from Indo-European languages to help expand my mind a little).

There's other reasons to explore languages besides utility, after all.

[Mithrandir]

For what it's worth, my Japanese instructor (native japanese, Dr in linguistics) informmed me that most Japanese people can't hear the difference between the phrases "Next Right" and "Next Light" which caused her some real problems when she was chauffering a few friends from the old country around.

[ShiroiHikari]

I think Japanese is really interesting, and I kinda have a tendency to remember language stuff pretty well. Also, I was familiar with the vowel system already 'cause I took Spanish class for about 3 years. (Although don't ask me to speak Spanish because I'm very rusty nowadays...hehe -_-)

Can anyone else read hiragana and katakana? In high school, instead of doing my geometry or English, I was working on learning kana ^^; Eheh.

[Azier the Swordsman]

I can read hiragana, and very little of katakana, no Kanji yet.

[Mithrandir]

There are at least 4 people I know of who do. Both Shooby and I do. Any others...?

[The Silence]

- - My daddy always walks in and says whatever random japanese thing he learned that day, and expects us to understand him... of course mostly we go -blink- what?

though sometimes it's possible to figure it out from context....

[shooraijin]

I remember talking with your dad over at Rich and Sharon's when you and oldphil and Eire and everyone else was RPGing, and he was working on a kanji dictionary on his laptop to translate some random manga (I think it was for Aron?). I'll have to ask him again for the source code.

[kaze]

Can anyone else read hiragana and katakana?

I've been taking Japanese for almost as long as i can remember...Actually the first language I spoke was Japanese, but it sort of deteriorated over the years...^_^;; But i still have a teacher that comes one day a week, and japanese school on saturdays. @_@

[LorentzForce]

i can't be bothered to remember all those letters. although i can pronounce any of them right, if they are written in english. or even korean.

such similarities in pronounciation...

well, i'm learning slowly, learning when i get to use a japanese word or such. i'm not really a language person.

[vinci]

I've been learning the wonderful language of Japanese too! hehe all I did when I first started learning it was picturing the r's as l's and f's as h's and i's as ee's... so on and so forth. Later on, it just comes naturally without any picturing involved. It's very fun ^^

Oh yes, and I forgot to add that I can read hiragana too ^^ Some kanji, but no katakana at all I'm a strange being, eh?

[Tet-chan]

I can read hiragana and katakana
I dont know many words for kanji

[Mithrandir]

...I can read hiragana too ^^ Some kanji, but no katakana at all

If you can read hiragana, then you can also read SOME katakana. For example...

Romaji / Hiragana / Katakana
ka / か / カ
ki / き / キ
he / へ / ヘ
mo / も / モ
ri / り / リ

Those are the only one's that pop to mind at the moment. 'se' was a little too far off for my taste, but the rest of those are fairly easy to read (provided you know stoke order, ki is easy).

NOTE: If you do not have the hiragana/katakana packages installed on your machine, you will not be able to read the above characters. They will appear as squares or question marks.

[Technomancer]

I can read hiragana and katakana, and a handful of kanji characters. I've found the "TileTag" program to be useful for learning the kana, and "Kanji Gold" as well for kanji, but it also can be used for a vocabulary drill program if you've got JWP.

[Tycho]

I can read both hiragana and katakana along with about 150 kanji. Japanese is easy once you get past the new character set. The grammar is drop dead easy. Its the vocab that kills me.


[quote="oldphilosopher"]Romaji / Hiragana / Katakana
ka / か]

Ohhhh, how did you do that? Everytime I type japanese characters in this forum, they never show up in the message after I submit it.

[shooraijin]

You're a Mac guy, too, so just use the Character Palette (in OS X). You might have to enable this in System Preferences if you don't see a little flag in the menu bar.