Learning Japanese...

Postby **Tycho** » Mon Nov 24, 2003 2:41 pm

shooraijin wrote: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.

I know how to set my character set (command - space to switch), but when I type, all I get is ????? (see below)

???????????????????????????

Postby **Azier the Swordsman** » Mon Nov 24, 2003 5:32 pm

I have never been able to get Japanese characters to display on the internet.

EDIT: All that shows up are square boxes.

Postby **inkhana** » Mon Nov 24, 2003 6:14 pm

すし
testing, I've never tried to use the MS Global IME to type Japanese before tonight...heck, it might not work now but I'm interested. I'm learning Japanese too! ^^

EDIT: Gyah ha ha! It worked!

Incidentally, the thought of learning kanji scares me. Katakana and hiragana seem easy enough, but kanji...

Postby **shooraijin** » Mon Nov 24, 2003 7:42 pm

I know how to set my character set (command - space to switch), but when I type, all I get is ????? (see below)

???????????????????????????

Yep, that's all that's showing up. What version of Mac OS are you using? If you're using OS 9, did you properly install the language kits from the system CD? And what encoding is your browser set to?

In Jaguar 10.2.8, and Camino 0.7, I just open up the Character Palette and double click on the characters I want.

そうですね。

But even typing it in Kotoeri, 動くよ！ (I typed in u-go-ku yo ... and it even figures out the correct kanji for the verb without me doing anything! Macs rock, of course. Eat that, Gates, you big nerdy turtle. :grin:

)

First, Ban all the Trolls. . . · Postby **MillyFan** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 3:47 am

LOL, I wanted to speak it, I'm even taking a class next year, but I don't really think I'll get anything better than an "F" no matter how hard I work. ^sigh^

I have a very heavy southern/southwestern accent (to the point where people have asked me if I was from Texas :wow!:

) and no matter how hard I attempt to lose it, I can't. I can't afford voice lessons or anything like that either :sniffle:

and even if I *could,* it wouldn't work for me.

Postby **shooraijin** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 4:16 am

Wrong-o. If you have a good ear, you can definitely work on losing the accent, and as someone else said in this thread, if you can speak Spanish with reasonable vowels, the vowels /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/ are the same in Japanese.

The trick is just not to put a glide on them, which is the so-called bad habit we do in English (we say /ow/ "oh" instead of /o/ -- try taking the "h" off of "oh", for example).

First, Ban all the Trolls. . . · Postby **MillyFan** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 4:23 am

Thanks! LOL, I wish I had good ears. I can't hear well at all. . .inherited and due to living in a house with my even more hard of hearing father's TV blaring at all hours. ^sigh^

Postby **inkhana** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 9:18 am

If it makes you feel better MillyFan, I have a distinct southern accent and I'm gonna give this my best shot too! ^^ I may never get to the point where I can be totally fluent, but I wanna at least be able to read Japanese (the real reason I even picked up the language).

Shooraijin: Gates = Big nerdy turtle...*giggles insanely* About that glide thingie though...and you gave the example of "o" would the correct pronunciation be rather...clipped? I know that souds kinda stupid since you just said "glide", but I'm trying to figure the sound out and when I clip it like that, it seems more like what it ought to be (albeit a little forced). I'm also trying to get what my tutorial calls the "metronome" of the language right...it's a little tricky at first... :sweat:

But I can figure it out...I know I can...

Postby **Mithrandir** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 9:23 am

[quote="inkhana"]す]

NANI? Your message implied that you don't know hiragana. Did you have that translated for you? Or did you randomly come up with "Sushi" by clicking characters?!?

Postby **inkhana** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 9:42 am

LOL! Well, I -do- have a kana table...

Actually, the MS Global IME will convert to hiragana if I type in a romaji (romaji..?) word. That's what I did in that instance. However, I did learn the hiragana for sushi yesterday...^^

Postby **shooraijin** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 9:53 am

> would the correct pronunciation be rather...clipped?

I guess it would sound clipped to us since we're cutting the "end" off, so that's a good approximation to start with.

Ditto for "ee" which we tend to put a little "yuh" at the end (we should be saying /i/ rather than /ij/). But we have halfway normal /a/ and /3/ (trying to find one not badly affected by regionalisms ... um ... try the 'a' in 'ahh', or the 'e' in 'pet' ... those aren't optimal either but they'll do for starters).

Postby **shooraijin** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 9:54 am

Oh, and 'oo' shouldn't be glided either (we say /uw/ in English instead of /u/). Same thing.

Postby **inkhana** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 10:43 am

*grits teeth in determination* OK...I think I got all that! ^^ Oh well, can't expect too much, I haven't been serious about this for very long...LOL

Postby **Tycho** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 8:46 pm

shooraijin wrote:Yep, that's all that's showing up. What version of Mac OS are you using? If you're using OS 9, did you properly install the language kits from the system CD? And what encoding is your browser set to?

In Jaguar 10.2.8, and Camino 0.7, I just open up the Character Palette and double click on the characters I want.

??????

But even typing it in Kotoeri, ???? (I typed in u-go-ku yo ... and it even figures out the correct kanji for the verb without me doing anything! Macs rock, of course. Eat that, Gates, you big nerdy turtle. )

OS 10.2. I type the characters into the text box and they show up as the correct characters. But when I submit, only ?????. Which isn't an encoding problems. Encoding issues usually show up as boxes or wierd characters. Plus I changed my encoding.

????????????

Postby **shooraijin** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 9:00 pm

What browser are you using?

Postby **Mithrandir** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 9:28 pm

That's GOT to be either:
1. OS 10.1 upgraded to 1.2
or
2. 10.2 without the OS packages installed for foreign (boy, that word looks... unusual)

Postby **ShiroiHikari** » Tue Nov 25, 2003 10:25 pm

I have trouble makin' my vowels too long when I speak them ^^; Like, I usually end up saying "oh" instead of just "o" x_x

Postby **c-girl** » Wed Nov 26, 2003 6:23 pm

I'm studying japanese too. It's hard and I stumble a bit too. So don't worry, you're not alone!

Postby **Azier the Swordsman** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 8:22 pm

The lessons are actually getting harder! >_<

This is going to take longer than I thought....

Postby **Tycho** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 8:33 pm

ShiroiHikari wrote:I have trouble makin' my vowels too long when I speak them ^^]

Ohhh, that's bad. You don't want to mix up koko(here) with koukou (high school). Unless you're at a high school.....

Chris4150 wrote:The lessons are actually getting harder! >_<

This is going to take longer than I thought....

Stick with it. I wish I could say it gets easier, but it doesn't. What until you hit kanji and keego.

Postby **ShiroiHikari** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 8:43 pm

I can type in Japanese now! Windows XP's score goes up a few points

私の名前はアネットです。

Yay! ^_^　Someone lemme know if I picked the right kanji...^^;

Postby **Bobtheduck** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 9:28 pm

Adjustments and reverse adjustments really confuse me! I can read things in Hiragana just fine... I don't need romajii, if everything were in Hiragana, i'd be set... There are so many things people say... To pronounce the word pronounce, I think like "Pronauns" but other people may say "pro-nownse" and all these different things people do to aid in pronucnciation get really confusing... I think the latin pronunciation for everything is so much easier... Then, I read in my 501 Japanese Verbs and see things like "Tyu" and "Sya" and "Hu" and it's really annoying all the different ways people have to do the same thing...

As for the kanji, I don't have a clue... i dont' know much kanji yet... Usually kanji don't ever go by themselves, but have endings to them, but none of your kanji did... Were you saying your name was annette? I don't know the kanji for that, but I think I recognized the kanji for watashi, but I could have sworn it should have a hiragana ending to it... Maybe I'm just rambling...

BTW, what's "Keego"?

Postby **Azier the Swordsman** » Wed Dec 03, 2003 9:37 pm

My main problem is the word order... Kanji is the VERY LAST thing I plan on learning. X_X

Postby **Mimichan** » Fri Dec 05, 2003 11:09 pm

hmm..I always seem to be the last one to wander in...As for me, I have been trying to 'learn' Japanese off and on for a while. If I applied more effort I could probably be alot further along in the program-but I have no practical reason for learning the language. I just happen to love languages and I would like to learn a second one. I have tried Spanish, Italian, Russian, and Irish Gaelic. I got as far as the alphabet/pronunication and very very simple sentences in the first 3...the last one (Irish Gaelic) pretty much beat me up and stole my lunch money. So far I've gotten farther with Japanese than any others, but I think it might be because I'm older and more patient with the process. So far, I have no problem with hiragana--pretty much got that down. I have tried to learn katakana, but my mind can't seem to retain it. And I have memorized approx. 35-40 kanji symbols, which I realize isn't alot. Oh, and I use Pimsleur too. Its a good program and it really helps with pronunciation because they take each word step-by-step. I also have an interactive cdrom LanguageNow series that is pretty good. And let's not forget the kana/kanji workbooks and the Japanese/English dictionary ^_^

Postby **shooraijin** » Sat Dec 06, 2003 6:45 am

アネッテ-ちゃん、かんじは正しいでしょう

Postby **Mimichan** » Sat Dec 06, 2003 10:53 pm

Would anyone happen to know how to view Japanese with Opera?...all I see are squares.

Postby **harina** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 3:46 am

I study japanese too. I can read almost all hiragana, a bit katakana and a bit kanji (very bit..)

But my computer doesn't show any japanese characters.. .__,

Postby **Bobtheduck** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 3:57 am

[quote="shooraijin"]ア]

Is that kanji "muzuka" perhaps??

Or, maybe it's "Yasa" but I wouldn't agree if that's the case...

For pronunciation, it's hard to get used to the "mora" because we don't have that in English, at least I don't think we do... Basically, every syllable must be the same length, and that's how you tell the difference between

Seeta
Seta
Setta (the small tsu makes it a stop... Usually romanized as a double consonant)

I dont' know if those (other than the first one) are actually words... I couldn't think of good examples...

Also, there aren't the tones like in spanish, but there are TWO pitches to worry about, in words like kami and hashi... Oh, and also less important in words like "ne" and "Baka"

Postby **Tycho** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 11:49 am

Iesu_no_Senshi wrote:Would anyone happen to know how to view Japanese with Opera?...all I see are squares.

Almost all english browsers have problems with foreign text. When you visit a japanese site and see boxes or strange characters, you need to change your text encoding. Different browsers have the menu in different places, but its almost always label "Text Encoding" or "Encoding". Select the menu and pick Japanese. Sometimes there are multiple japanese encodings, so try them all until the text is correct.

Postby **Shao Feng-Li** » Sun Dec 07, 2003 11:53 am

you wanna learn japanese? check out this entire site

http://japanese.about.com/library/weekly/blintroduction.htm?terms=japanese

Learning Japanese...

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