日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 4

If you have a question about the language, ask it and fellow 4channers might see it and answer it for you.


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

Japanese Ask Questions Thread3
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1267485093/1-40

A piece of song of AKFG;

変わりない日々の
逃げ入るその地下室の片隅から
さぁ始めよう
胸躍るような新しい世界


Escape the days that don`t change, go into a corner of a basement.
Let`s start a new, exciting world.


Could it be correct?

Thanks in advance.

>>719

I was assuming that, after I knew the keywords, I'd pick up the readings through context. Is this not a good method?

What's the next step for speaking practice after Pimsleur? I doubt I'd be good enough to learn from TV shows and the like at that point. Am I wrong?

>>718
RTK doesn't give you kanji in an order that's useful for concurrently learning Japanese, but rather, one that will help you write all of the kanji once you've finished the book. So, you really should finish first if you are learning kanji this way.

You will need to look up the reading of every word you learn, although it will become easier to guess the more you do learn.

>>723
Reality. You're going to have to go through a period of not being "good enough" at some point.

>>724

So when I come across things I don't understand, should I (Obviously not EVERY time) go back and listen again and try and learn it, or should I just watch stuff and try and let it sink in? Or a mix of both?

>>725
Get a dictionary. Use it.

i'm japanese
i'll answer your questions as possible

i'm japanese
i'll answer your questions as possible

What is the quickest way to learn kanji? I can already speak japanese and read some kanji and all kana. The reason is that i learned how to speak from exposure from relatives and friends, and of course you cannot learn kanji that way.

>>35

lol when those sounds are inexistent in japanese

>>729
Write all of the kanji down on a piece of paper.
Put this paper with kanji in a blender, with several ice cubes, and blend until you have a fine puree.
Allow the puree to melt for several minutes.
With a syringe, inject some of the kanji puree directly into your brain.

You may have to repeat this process over the course of several days if it's not immediately effective.

This is the quickest way to learn kanji.

i'm korean
i'll answer your questions better than >>728
this is because all japanese language and culture derivative of korean's.
great comrade kim jeong eun guide us to victoly

Studying japanese reveals a surprising amount of their culture to you. I didn't think studying a language could be this interesting.

>>732
corean??
don't make me laugh lol

I'm reading some very basic manga in hopes to increase my Japanese proficiency.  I've come across this phrase:

もうすぐなぞー

I believe the message is:
"Soon" or "We'll be there soon."

Am I on the right track?

I understand that ぞ is typically used by males to emphasizes one's own opinion.  I'm not entirely sure how to relate that to this sentence.

I've also come across this phrase:
おーつ

I believe it means "Oats" (オーツ) but I'm not sure why it's written in ひらがな instead of かたかな.

>>735
>もうすぐなぞー
Actually, I think this is:

"There will be a mystery soon."

>>735
your おーつ is probably just an exaggerated and abbreviated おつかれ.

>>735
もうすぐなぞー　false　　

もうすぐだぞー　true

I haven't learned hiragana, yet I am in the process of learning how to use Kanjidamage for kanji. I mostly understand how everything is set up for each kanji. What I don't understand is the kunyomi/jukugo. For instance:
http://kanjidamage.com/japanese_symbols/241

On this page, you have 2 sentences for the kunyomi which shows how the present tense word "bury" becomes "buried" when being inflected by the okurigana もれる. The word "bury" itself is う ＊ める when using only hiragana, and becomes 埋める when combining the kanji with hiragana (okurigana). Assuming I have this right so far, my question then becomes why tf is "( を )" and "( が )" at the beginning of both bury and buried? What's their purpose?

My next question is about the jukugo. If jukugo are supposed to be compound words (like douche+bag = douchebag), then why doesn't the compound word bury (埋) + to suit (合) = "burytosuit" (even though that makes no sense whatsoever) instead of "compensate for" (which isn't even a compound word, nor does it relate in any way to the words used to create it)?

I think I understand why okurigana are added onto the jokugo, though. Say for instance you have the compound word "asshole". It can mean someone's asshole or that they ARE an asshole. My understanding is obviously fucked up somewhere, so I'll list off the way I understand things here:

radicals = letters (sometimes with or w/o meaning)

words = kanji (can be radicals themselves sometimes)

jukugo = compound words (douche+bag = douchebag)

okurigana = hiragana thrown at the end of a kanji to inflect it (say from past tense to present tense) or can be used to clear up the meaning of a kanji that might have multiple meanings (like in english the word "ass" can mean donkey, someone who is mean spirited, someone's rear, or to get sex ("get some ass"))

onyomi = how a kanji is supposed to be pronounced when in a compound word??????? (seeing as I don't understand wtf the deal with jukugo is, I don't really get this either at this point)

And ya... that's about it. I really don't understand how you would pronounce "bury" by itself seeing as I don't understand how the kunyomi part is setup, and also because of the fact I can't read all the hiragana yet.

Keep it simple as I obviously didn't get the how-to section the first time around. Dunno if I'm stupid or just don't know enough yet.

Thanks.

>>739
OP. I forgot to ask whether okurigana change the pronunciation of a word, or do they serve purely as an inflector/clarification tool when reading?

>>739
the を　and が　are respective particles used with that verb form in junction with the preceding noun.

を direct action. i BURY something.
が object identifier. something GOT buried.

You're thoughts on jukugo are just completely fucked up. You don't add two kanji together to get a directly combined meaning. They would have needed to make their words out of our english language and made kanji for them for that to be valid. One can extrapolate WHY certain kanji are used together to create a jukugo but if you try to take them literally you're going to make your head hurt. Go back and read the general background info on kanjidamage.

radicals = kanji, or other made up building blocks used to make other kanji. They don't directly affect the meaning of the kanji they make up but just use them to form mnemonic devices.

words = jukugo, kanji with kunyomi readings, or kanji who's kunyomi is the kanji alone.

>>741
didn't bother opening your whole post. addendum.

okurigana = just the hiragana used with a kanji's kunyomi reading. when you see hiragana following a kanji that isn't part of a jukugo, then it uses it's kun-yomi.

onyomi = exactly as you said. reading a kanji uses when used in a jukugo.

It even states throughout kanjidamage, there are exceptions to these rules. Some compounds use kunyomi for both kanji, like 埋め合わせ, some use kun-yomi without hiragana, some use a kun/on combination. MOST are on-yomi only jukugo. You just memorize the exceptions as they come. Eventually when you familiarize yourself with kanji enough and know how it "acts" you will come to pick up on when it's an exception case. Because often when it is an exception it's because the on/on configuration sounds weird or awkward.

I want to stress again for you to go back and read the info about what kanji are, how they are made etc because by 242 you should be familiar with how this works. Also take the time to go finish memorizing hiragana before you continue.

>>735
hes saying whatever will happen soon.. ぞ is the same thing as よ, meaningwise anyway...


the おーつ is probably just an exclamation like wow... but i dont know for sure because i dont know whats going on in the manga.

Also for everyone else. Im just asking again.. Whats the fastest way to learn kanji?

Does kanjidamage work?

Or is the remembering the kanji 2 book series better? (http://www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Complete-Japanese-Characters/dp/0824835921/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327032357&sr=8-1)

Or is there something altogether better than these?

>>703
If youre still here.. わけ means a reason to do something

行くわけはない。-theres no reason for me to go-why should i go?

>>744
>>744


Yes still here. Ok so, わけ means only reason? No other meanings?

What about ような　/　ように。 I know it means ~like and one is adjective and other is what, adverb? Thanks

>>745
No wake also holds a kind of meaning that indicates "the situation". You hear it used in kansai dialect a lot.

>>743
I do recommend Kanjidamage.com and just making your own flashcards. I don't like RTK and feel KD's organization is efficient.

>>745

While ような often takes the meaning of something being like something else, there are a lot of meanings for ように depending on where and what it's being used for in a sentence.

For example, two that I seem to see fairly frequently:
One meaning "in order to" in the pattern of "Xように、Y", meaning to do/cause X, do Y.

Another meaning "I hope" or "you should" in the pattern of "～ますように" at the end of sentence.

>>741
>>742
I think you missed the part where I mentioned I was just starting out (I just used number 243 as an example). In any case, I kind of get what you're saying, but I still don't understand what I'm looking at when I see the kunyomi/jukugo sections.

Is う＊める how you would pronounce 埋 (which means bury) when using a Japanese (kunyomi) pronunciation(e.g you read the hiragana(excluding the asterisk) from left to right just like you would a word in english and try to pronounce it that way)?

Furthermore, if this is the way 埋 in a kunyomi form is meant to be pronounced, why is there う＊ before the okurigana instead of 埋 being placed directly into the pronunciation (う埋める)? I don't understand the need for the asterisk. Is there something that is interchangeable here?

Same question applies for the jukugo section for 埋 (bury). Is 埋め合わせ a pronunciation of 埋 + 合 that is meant to be read from left to right and pronounced accordingly like a word in english would be pronounced, or what? Also, if we already have the onyomi/kunyomi pronunciation for 埋 (bury), why do we need a jukugo pronunciation example?

I'll go back and reread, but I doubt I'll pick up anything the second time around - this setup just doesn't make sense to me.

As a side note about jukugo: I could get passed the wierd compound word combinations (such as 埋 (bury) + 合 (to suit) = 埋め合わせ (compensate for) ) that come out to create a totally different meaning if they had been explained in a more similar fashion to kanji (whole kanji can be combined to form a new kanji, thus losing their prior meaning completely), but that's not how it was explained. Jukugo were likened to compound words in english which usually make sense (blackhole, waterfall, grasshopper, etc). I guess if you think about it bury could mean "hide" and to suit could mean "dressing something up", and thus could loosely be interpreted to mean "compensate for", but I don't know if that's the case.

Thanks again.

>>748
That jukugo is an example of those exceptions where it's a kun+kun jukugo.

all text, unless written in a traditional vertical orientation is read left to right.

For kunyomi, the asterisk indicates what hiragana come after the kanji, and what hiragana are shown AS the kanji. Anything BEFORE the asterisk will just be the kanji, anything after it is the okurigana.
うめる
埋める
う＊める

Schultz gives you jukugo examples to give you vocab words. It's for seeing Kanji's onyomi in action.

Lastly, I'll spin my own interpretation about 埋め合わせ but I advise you to not think THAT deeply about why certain kanji make up a compound, again, it will just make your head hurt.

合う,holds more meanings than just "to suit something" it also means "coming together" "merging" the majority of the time.
埋める, bury.
埋め合わせ, to compensate, to make amends.

You bury what happened in the past, any ill actions or misconduct and seek to make amends and reconnect together the relationship again.

Now, my interpretation could be completely fucking off of what a native kanji expert would say, but it really doesn't matter. What matters is how YOU understand the meaning of kanji and burn it into your brain. If it doesn't make sense on the surface, than you make it make sense.

>>749
How do I pronounce うめる and 埋める in english (not the meaning, the literal pronunciation)? Once I know how to pronounce them verbally, it may clear up some of the confusion here. I googled the hiragana for うめる, and it spells umeru in romaji. After that, I tried google translate and got nothing, so I'm doing something wrong apparently. What?

>>750
I forgot to add I did google translate with the romaji, not the hiragana form. Got "fill" for the hiragana just now, so it was probably just the fact I was using romaji. In any case, is umeru the correct verbal pronunciation for うめる?

>>751
Yes but find somewhere on the net that teaches you proper phonetic readings for japanese.

ka ki ku ke ko
sa shi su se so

etc etc. You can probably find something on youtube.

Holy shit, stop asking such stupid questions.

Is it ok to ignore the section on reading/writing in Genki, and just do the speaking/listening parts until I'm finished with Heisig, then I can come back and learn readings and the like? Thinking I might just be wasting my time trying to learn the kanji from Genki and Heisig simultaneously.

>>752
Thanks a million. I think I finally have a solid enough understanding to feel comfortable learning the kanji now (not knowing what's an exception and what isn't is gonna really bug me, but I'll figure it out eventually).

My final question here is whether or not there's any kind of rule when adding okurigana into a jukugo? For instance, in the jukugo 埋め合わせ, the る from う＊める's okurigana is omitted. Is there a solidified reason for this (other than the fact it's no longer the same word), or is it just one of those "exception" things that I have to feel out?

That's it more or less. I guess you can probably tell I like to have things nicely categorized and specific rules written out for them, lol.

>>753
No. The idea that I should withhold my questions on a public board just because some rube told me to is preposterous. This whole Japanese "ordeal" is nebulous and disconnected in many places (as many languages undoubtedly are). I will ask as many questions as need be until I feel comfortable with the concepts or I feel comfortable enough to surrender myself to the uncertainty of it.

2 nukes weren't enough for Japan.

>>755
I'm not the kind of person that deals with linguistics terms or deep understanding of grammar rules and reasoning. I'm the feely kinda person so I can't really help you on that last question other than just say learn the exceptions and patterns.

>>755
You're retarded.

You didn't learn English by "feeling comfortable with the concepts". Language acquisition isn't supposed to be comfortable. It isn't supposed to be easy, step-by-step bullshit. You're going to need to NOT understand in order to continue. In the time you've wasted talking about something that no one really needs to UNDERSTAND in order to speak, read, or write Japanese, you could have learned 50 more kanji and 10 more grammar patterns and been that much closer to fluency. You're too stupid to understand that though.

>>758
I've never learned another language before, so shoot me. Not being savvy to the kind of info that someone "thinks" you should be savvy to != retarded fyi. You really need to work on your ass pained temper, you might become a more likeable person irl.

The kicker here is that you're fighting a losing argument with some guy on the internet about how asking *legitimate questions* are pointless when he could be doing x number of other things, but the fact is you need your own advice more than I do seeing as you're not even here for a question - you're just being ornery and an outright dick.

I've now progressed onto learning the kanji , though, and no thanks to you (I'm out of a few days now, but so what).

Ok, so I have this sentence:
誰かの泣き声に気づくエル。

Who's the subject here? It must mean "Eru notices someone's crying", right? Doesn't seem to make much sense otherwise. But then why is Eru at the end of the sentece?

Shouldn't it be:
エルが誰かの泣き声に気づく。
?