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Trying to learn japanese!

Started by doorknob, January 12, 2016, 09:49:41 AM

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Shiranu

#45
Quote from: SoldierofFortune on January 20, 2016, 06:33:20 AM
What do you do with japanese?
There is no use...


Learning a second (or third or...) language is extremely useful to the overall intelligence of the individual. While it may not be the most "practical" language in terms of making money... the overall benefits of learning how to learn a new language are simply worth the time and effort it requires. But seriously... go look up the studies on how bilinguals perform in education and in terms of their gray matter and mental aging compared to monolinguals.

On topic... I am dropping Spanish and really considering Japanese.

I can't fucking do the Romance languages. I have failed and failed and failed them and I am just too frustrated with them now. The Spanish class I passed last semester was literally the first time in like... 4 or so tries (counting high school) that I passed a Spanish or french class. But then I get to Spanish two and the professor is 3 chapters ahead of where mine had left off and my class missed so many rules that I cant understand 80 percent of what she is saying.

I just cant put up with that frustration. I don't even care that la chica next to me is smoking hot and I actually managed to say more than two words to her... that's how serious I am about how over Spanish I am.

I have passed German before so perhaps I should take it but... I want something as far removed from European languages as I can take and that leaves Arabic or Japanese at Texas State. I am just so over anything remotely close to french or spanish.
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

SoldierofFortune

Quote from: Shiranu on January 20, 2016, 08:18:08 PM
Learning a second (or third or...) language is extremely useful to the overall intelligence of the individual. While it may not be the most "practical" language in terms of making money... the overall benefits of learning how to learn a new language are simply worth the time and effort it requires. But seriously... go look up the studies on how bilinguals perform in education and in terms of their gray matter and mental aging compared to monolinguals.

On topic... I am dropping Spanish and really considering Japanese.

I can't fucking do the Romance languages. I have failed and failed and failed them and I am just too frustrated with them now. The Spanish class I passed last semester was literally the first time in like... 4 or so tries (counting high school) that I passed a Spanish or french class. But then I get to Spanish two and the professor is 3 chapters ahead of where mine had left off and my class missed so many rules that I cant understand 80 percent of what she is saying.

I just cant put up with that frustration. I don't even care that la chica next to me is smoking hot and I actually managed to say more than two words to her... that's how serious I am about how over Spanish I am.

I have passed German before so perhaps I should take it but... I want something as far removed from European languages as I can take and that leaves Arabic or Japanese at Texas State. I am just so over anything remotely close to french or spanish.

yes...you perform a lot of cognitive effort while reading a foreign language, which helps you enhance your cognitive abilities...for example, bilinguals can memorize easier than monolinguals can...but you must learn the language between the age of 0-5 to be a bilingual...but for those who learn after that age...you may know the language very well and can make social communications comfortably and understand academic literature...how ever when it comes to be a bilingual; it's another level of language that you're a speaker who speaks like your mother tongue...

SoldierofFortune

Quote from: Baruch on January 20, 2016, 07:09:26 PM
You can shout ã,´ã,¸ãƒ©æ¥ã¦ã,,ます
i won't be taller if i shout... :)

why japanese don't latinize the language in writing...they would be more integrated to the rest of the world; namely europe and amerika...: ); or else i think they think they protect their culture remaining the tradition in writing...Atatürk made the letter revolution in 1928...the arabic alphabeta had been used to write turkish for 8 century...because it was said that the arabic alphabet which is used to write kuran is holy...actually turkish was written in 8 different alphabet along the history...arabic alphabet is very useful and suits perfectly to write arabic but does'nt suit to write turkish...it has no wovel...

Baruch

#48
Quote from: SoldierofFortune on January 21, 2016, 10:55:56 AM
i won't be taller if i shout... :)

why japanese don't latinize the language in writing...they would be more integrated to the rest of the world; namely europe and amerika...: ); or else i think they think they protect their culture remaining the tradition in writing...Atatürk made the letter revolution in 1928...the arabic alphabeta had been used to write turkish for 8 century...because it was said that the arabic alphabet which is used to write kuran is holy...actually turkish was written in 8 different alphabet along the history...arabic alphabet is very useful and suits perfectly to write arabic but does'nt suit to write turkish...it has no wovel...

Super question!  But first Shiranu ...

Ask yourself, in the grammatical order of a sentence, to you prefer SVO, VOS, SOV.  Subject, Verb, Object is English etc.  Verb, Object, Subject is Israeli etc.  Subject, Object, Verb is Japanese etc.  Is that what is blocking you?  Spanish and French are very close to English, maybe too close not to be confusing, particularly all the loan words.  But German, Hindi and Japanese have the verb at the end (usually).  Arabic and Israeli have the verb at the beginning.  The writing system for Japanese is very challenging ... so it depends on if you want to read/write vs speak/hear.  But to properly learn to speak/hear you have to immerse yourself ... you can't do it from a book, like you can read/write.

Soldier of Fortune is correct ... there are two breaks in human language development.  You learn all the sounds you will learn (but you can mimic more) by the time you are one year old, from listening to adults.  Newborns can do every possible vocal sound, but they lose the ability to do most of them in the first year.  So it isn't possible for a native English speaker to learn to speak good Hindi or Arabic as an adult ... you will always have an English accent.  This is why native Japanese can't separate R from L.  Children learn the language, beyond the phonetics, by the time they are six years old.  This has been demonstrated in neurology.  A bilingual child will show uniform development in the language center.  But for a person who learns a second language after six ... there are striations.  Each striation is a new neural development, one for each additional language.

Writing systems are limited by the vocal systems.  Ancient Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese ... are homonym rich and variety poor.  In Chinese, there are 24 different words that all are pronounced "ma".  Though there are 4 tones in Mandarin, this still means when you say that word in isolation, it could be any of 6 different meanings.  Natives learn by context, and such languages, you have to beat about the bush, like Irishmen talking, for people to understand you.  Greek on the other hand has very few homonyms ... each concept has an almost unique phonetic construct ... context isn't necessary if your vocabulary is good.  This impacts writing systems.  Only high variety languages can use an alphabetic, consonantal or syllabic writing system.  Consonantal systems like Arabic ... the vowels are implied.  In alphabetic, the vowels are clearly shown.  In syllabic, there are more than the usual number of consonants ... they were originally consonantal, but because of greater difficulty, the vowels were added as jots and tittles, like in Hindi.  All of these writing systems are easily managable.  High homonym languages, you simply can't read it, without an indicator as to which of the 24 or 6 different ideas the sound could represent.  In this way, China and Japan, could have easily surpassed the West long ago, if they hadn't been stuck with a Cuneiform/Hieroglyphic system of writing.  Semitic languages and even Egyptian, eventually were able to drop the "character" based writing, once their variety increased.  But Chinese and Japanese are still stuck back 2000 years ago.  Otherwise the Chinese Bill Gates or Japanese Steve Jobs would have been building low-wage factories over here.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Hijiri Byakuren

Quote from: SoldierofFortune on January 21, 2016, 10:55:56 AMwhy japanese don't latinize the language in writing
Because China is closer.
Speak when you have something to say, not when you have to say something.

Sargon The Grape - My Youtube Channel

doorknob

So far I've translated "ayato problem child, 3rd son of the sakamaki family."

Thank you kanji dictionary for being straight forward and easy to use. The next sentence none of which is in kanji is giving me a hell of a time! determination and more studying is needed. But I swear I will learn damn it!

Baruch

Quote from: doorknob on January 24, 2016, 12:29:11 PM
So far I've translated "ayato problem child, 3rd son of the sakamaki family."

Thank you kanji dictionary for being straight forward and easy to use. The next sentence none of which is in kanji is giving me a hell of a time! determination and more studying is needed. But I swear I will learn damn it!

Kanji at the start of most word that aren't grammatical particles.  Only a few words are only hiragana.  Loan words (other than from Chinese) are katakana.  Conjugations of words are in hiragana.  You have to separate the words.  Japanese gives you inadequate punctuation.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: doorknob on January 19, 2016, 05:36:32 PM
finally all the books I ordered came! yay! I was so excited I could barely contain myself. Now I can tackle translating things. I'm starting with the simple looking things. Like small sentences.

Wish me luck!
大日本帝国/大日本帝國 Dai Nippon Teikoku
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Atheon

ã,´ã,¸ãƒ©æ¨£ Gojira sama
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." - Seneca

Baruch

To the actual dominant life forms, we are just bugs.  Unless you can melt a car with radioactive breath, after an all night bender ;-)
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Gawdzilla Sama

We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Gawdzilla Sama

Quote from: Baruch on January 26, 2016, 07:59:21 PM
To the actual dominant life forms, we are just bugs.  Unless you can melt a car with radioactive breath, after an all night bender ;-)
Sadly misunderstood, those 121.92 meter fire-breathing mutant lizard-thingies.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers