日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 3

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Japanese Ask Questions Thread2
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1206158123/1-40

Hi everyone,

I've just started learning Japanese. I've learned the 2042 RTK1 kanji and I'm now working on sentences as others in this thread have recommended. I've been learning a fair few sentences recently with kanji in them, and although these are quite easy, I was just wondering if I could get some opinions regarding learning the kanji versions of the names of people. Should I just use hiragana to save time while I gain confidence in the language, or would it save me pain in the long run if I were to just learn people's names in kanji immediately? It just seems like a waste of time to learn the names at a beginner's level when I may not even meet people with these names.

Edict says that

触る [さわる] /(v5r,vi) to touch/to feel/(P)/

Wiktionary:

触る (transitive, godan conjugation, hiragana さわる, romaji sawaru)

I'm confused. Who should I believe?

>>842
触る is intransitive but it can take the を　particle to create sentences like those seen on Wiktionary. に　can also be, and is more often, used to the same effect.

>>843
Intransitive verb that takes を? Now as someone who relied on Tae Kim's guide I'm completely confused:

電気をついた。- （「を」 should be replaced with 「が」 or 「は」）

触る was originally just an intransitive verb, but in recent years it's also being used as a transitive verb (probably because it's so close in meaning to 触れる).

Sometimes it's difficult to tell whether it's being used as a transitive/intransitive verb when the object and particle are omitted, but either way there's not much of a difference in meaning, so I wouldn't worry about it. Here are a few examples:

触る (intransitive):
肩に触る - to touch [someone] on the shoulder
展示品には触らないでください。 - Please do not touch the exhibit.

触る (transitive):
壁を触る - to touch a wall
子どもたちがウサギを触ってはしゃぎ回る。 - The children are happily petting the rabbits and frolicking about.

>>845
Just to add some info, to some native speakers, the use of に in examples such as the above is felt to be more removed or indirect. The を particle, on the other hand, highlights intent or involvement. Largely, the two are interchangeable where certain intransitive verbs are concerned.

I'm kind of lower intermediate in my Japanese study and so I decided to check out the Japanese version of Star Wars The Phantom Menace seeing as I have a DVD copy in my collection. Do my dismay, however, the Japanese subtitles seem to be outlining the meaning of what they're saying instead of being syllable-by-syllable. I know even English subtitles aren't always perfect transcriptions, but is this true of all Japanese subtitles or did I just pick a bad movie?

>>847
*To my dismay

>>846
>>845

Thank you, that was a nice read.

What is with japanese people calling America 米国?

It means rice both in chinese and japanese.

So America is the land of Rice now?

Hahaohwow

>>850
That's mutilated 亜米利加. Dunno why they didn't use kana from the very beginning. China uses 美 instead of 米. Which makes even less sense because america is fat and ugly.

>>847
Almost the same story here except with Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles. Anyone?

>>851
jelly of murrica

亜(a) + 米(me) + 利(ri) + 加(ka) = america

Hey I was looking up やさしい, and I got these results from this dictionary.

http://eow.alc.co.jp/%E3%82%84%E3%81%95%E3%81%97%E3%81%84/UTF-8/?ref=sa

やさしい

1. easy
2. gravy (俗)
3. kickback (俗)

やさしい こと

1. picnic (俗)
2. snap (米話)

Can anyone explain what the slang words mean?  Apparently I'm not American because I have no idea what "snap" is supposed to mean in that context.

>>855
Like "that's a snap" or "it'll be a snap", when referring to a proposed venture or task. "Cakewalk", "picnic", and "breeze" all amount to the same idea.　The average society-minded individual can figure out the basic idea from context; even if that same individual is surprised to hear that their board meeting with corporate planned for this morning will actually involve the winning and distribution of sugar-glazed bread.

日本語の問題じゃないのにそんなに苦労することなんて大丈夫かな？
休みを取ったほうがいいかもね。
それとも米国仲間とゆっくりして、日常の俗語を習おうとすることにするべきかも。

Alright, I've just recently started picking up Japanese and due to a stressful college phase I haven't been able to pick up more than the Kanas (I can use them fluently in both reading and writing now) and working myself through 7 Chapters of Genki I (including memorizing the Kanji).

However, I'm finding myself with a shitload of time starting next week and I want to get serious:
I want to learn the language as fast and efficient as possible in the direction of using it naturally in both normal life and the education/work sector. I'm talking about ~8 hours a day I could spend on picking it up.

However, I feel that Genki I is inappropriate for that purpose. Getting a proper course seems to be impossible as well, as they're either aimed at just a few hours a week or damn expensive if you want a private tutor.

Is it possible to reach such a level with self-study? If yes, what's the best approach for excessive time involvement and which books/materials should I get?

tl;dr: I need to pick up Japanese on a natural level as fast as possible. (reading, writing, conversation - just everything) I can spend a high amount of hours every day. And I'm lost in how to approach it.

　　　　　　　 　 /二\
　　　　　　 　　　(￣＼__ク　　　／￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
　　　　　　　　　 （　´∀｀）　＜　I' LOVE AND RESPECT JAPAN AND NICO ROBIN!
　　　　　　　　／　　　　|　　　 ＼　I
　　　　　　　/ 　　　 　 .|　　　　　＼＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿　
　　　　　　 / "⌒ヽ |.ｲ |
　　　＿＿ |　　　.ノ | || |＿＿
　 .　　　 ノく＿＿つ∪∪　　 ＼
　　　＿（（＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿_＼
　　 ￣￣ヽつ￣￣￣￣￣￣ | |￣
　　　＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿__| |
　　 ￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| |

>>857
1) Buy/steal RTK by Heisig

2) Learn the 2042 Heisig kanji (~3 months usually if you only have an hour or two per day, but if you can spend 8 hours per day you could do it in around 1 month). Use the Anki (http://ankisrs.net/) shared deck for RTK (downloadable within Anki) to assist you as you do this.

3) Buy/steal a decent source of Japanese basics. Japanese the Manga Way 1 is a good start.

4) Work through whichever source you've chosen, entering sentences that are sufficiently different into Anki (i.e. don't enter "Bob ate this, Jane ate this" because you're not learning anything useful there).

5) Do you have more than 600 sentences in Anki? If no, return to step 3 and work through another source. If yes, continue to step 6.

6) Buy/steal a simple manga (I recommend Yotsuba&!) and work through it. You should be able to understand a small percentage of the words, enough to figure out the rest of the sentence with the help of WWWJDIC (http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1C). Enter new sentences into Anki as per usual. This is where you should try to start typing the definitions in your current (admittedly limited) Japanese if possible - the faster you throw away English, the better.

7) It'll take you ages to work through all of the current Yotsuba volumes, but you'll enjoy it along the way. By the time you're finished, you're ready to move onto pretty much anything (don't expect it to be easy, though). I recommend a few more easy sources to start with (maybe an RPG, or a JDrama for young audiences). Check out subs2srs for putting video sources into Anki.

8) Just repeat this process, and constantly reduce English usage even when defining an item in Anki. After a couple of years, you should be able to throw away Anki and just consume Japanese media. I'd still recommend keeping a deck going in Anki for the particularly difficult sentences.

>>40
Wiki is your friend. Now Wiki is your Japanese friend:
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B

Want to know the words in order to talk about a particular subject? Wiki it then look on the left-hand side for the Japanese page. It's good because they'll normally explain the words right there in the text to you because it's trying to teach you about the subject.

I've come here to say thank you.
I learned from TV news that lots of people around the world are sending aid to Japan.
Thank you!!

>>860
Wow, way to reply to a year old post. It's useful information though, especially if you're hoping to transfer your current job skills to Japan.

>>859

Wow, thanks for this very detailed guide!
However, there's still a question lingering in my mind:

2) I've read quite a lot about RTK, and it seems to be an astonishing method for the vast amount of people... but isn't it contraproductive to associate the Kanji to English definitions/pronunciation if you want to go that far into Japanese? I see that it might be more efficient than repetition, but won't sheer repitition pay off later on? (Talking about all RTK volumes here, not just understanding the English meaning in RTK)

>>863

Another thing just came to my mind:

How can I deal with the pronunciation part? Seems to be quite difficult to figure it out without having a native speaker to take you by the hand.

>>864
Pronunciation is pretty simple. Apart from らりるれろんふ, the consonants are pretty much identical. Do a bit of research on the vowels (reading and videos) because although a vowel sound may be comparable in one regional version of English, it may be completely different in another. Most pronunciation errors can be fixed with careful listening and imitation over time, though.

It may be helpful to have Japanese media (news, dramas, anime) playing in the background even if you don't understand it so you can pick up the pronunciation there, too.

Oh, and of course, it never hurts to try and find a Japanese friend.

Your last resort would be to hire a Japanese speaker for an hour or so to take you through it. The vowels are very simple, and after that there's just the other 7 I mentioned that are the main culprits. Harshness and tones are also important, but you can pick that up by imitating various forms of media.

>>863
Ah, missed your question (it's late here and I'm about to sleep).

The point of RTK is to learn the general meaning (and perhaps more importantly, writing of including stroke order) of the kanji, and learn it fast. I can assure you that as you begin to use the kanji more and more in actual Japanese, the English keywords will fade because you will have stronger connections between the kanji and pronunciation as well as its connotations than the English keyword.

There are people in both camps, but I've seen so many people who know a whole lot of Japanese but know less than 500 kanji (while I know an estimated 3500 so far + more Japanese than them because I can read everything) that I think you should just get it over with, counterproductive or not.

>>865

As far as I've gotten into Genki, the only problem I've encountered are the r- syllables. I've grown up with both the English and German pronunciation of r (which are completely different) and somehow I just can't get it right in Japanese.
Is there a trick or a bunch of words that resembles this sound?

>>866

I see what you're getting at. I've used the RTK Kana book to get into them and the little stories have almost completely vanished by now.

>>865
the consonants are pretty much identical.
失礼します but some pronunciation is hard to figure out correctly, like that shitsurei. Fortunately, wwwjdic has audio samples.

>>867
The best way (in my opinion) to describe it is as a combination of 'l' and 'd'. Confusing, yes, but here's how I originally found the Japanese 'r':

1) Repeat 'la': "la la la la la la la..."
2) Mix in some 'da's: "la da la da la da"
3) Find the point in the middle such that you're as close to 'd' as possible without losing that slippery 'l' sound.

I'm by no means an expert, but that's the general area you should be aiming for. If you find and repeat an audio clip that contains more らりるれろs than usual, you should be able to fine tune it. When watching TV shows later on in your study, try to repeat any phrase you recognise with the same pronunciation and tones.

>>868
Touche. But a beginner needn't worry about that just yet IMO. As you rightly said, there's usually audio samples available whether on wwwjdic or wherever you originally heard it.

>>869
It's pretty close to what they call flap. Flaps are found in middle consonants in words such as "rider," "ladder," etc.

I'm not sure if this has been answered before, since I will just now start to read all the threads (newfag here).
I just recently started studying japanese, I have a grip on hiragana and half katakana now (following the Human Japanese course, it's working fucking miracles here).
I have a question though. Is there a reliable translator/dictionary where I can just write down in romaji and obtain an english translation? I tried google and babylon, but they seem to miss a lot of words.

諸君！一つの参考を紹介してます、

http://www.skype-ch.com/

このページで、色んな日本人がスカイプの相手を探してるんだ、喋りの練習したいなら、是非使ってください.

では、さらば

davidwilliamsonandgage@yahoo.com
everybody, email here. just spam until you explode

あしたは日本語のクラスがありません。
Came across this sentence in Genki. What's that は doing there? Shouldn't it be something else? I know it can't be に, but isn't there some other particle?

>>872
英語でもスカイプで人の言うことをちゃんと聞くことは大変だから、テキストでチャットしたら相手が構わないといい。。　

>>874
Usually you wouldn't use に with あした. In general with time expressions you can make the time you're talking about the subject of the sentence by using には or just は.

>>38
＞って何？
ちんに。

　　　　　　　　　∧＿∧　　　／￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣
　　　　　　　　　 （　´∀｀）　＜　kawaii desu ne!, oh nanae sa?MEOWXICO?
　　　　　　　　／　　　　|　　　 ＼＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿
　　　　　　　/ 　　　 　 .|　　　　　
　　　　　　 / "⌒ヽ |.ｲ |
　　　＿＿ |　　　.ノ | || |＿＿
　 .　　　 ノく＿＿つ∪∪　　 ＼
　　　＿（（＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿_＼
　　 ￣￣ヽつ￣￣￣￣￣￣ | |￣
　　　＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿__| |

What does 序曲 mean?

>>878
disregard that I suck cocks

Hi Thread :3 The dictionary says 変幻 means transformation and is pronounced へんげん. After watching over 9000 Naruto episodes I'm very sure it's pronounced just へんげ. Without the ん at the end. What gives? I suspect a rule about dropping the final ん that I'm not aware of.