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Thu, Feb. 23rd, 2006 10:38 pmI feel like I have not been writing anything substantial of late in my LJ and that I'm not contributing to general discussion and whatnot.
Ergo, suddenly I have decided that what everyone really needs is a primer on the Japanese language!
This is most likely inspired by having to puzzle through Saiyuki Gaiden vol. 2 in Japanese just to figure out why in the world there was a dinosaur rampaging through Heaven.
The standard disclaimers: I took the equivalent of four and a half years of Japanese in college, including two months of homestay in Japan and a class on Japanese linguistics. Sadly, said class in Japanese linguistics was held entirely in Japanese, which slightly limited the depth of the concepts that could be discussed and understood by me. I am not a native speaker. I am, in fact, nowhere near a native speaker. I am also not a linguist and do not understand most linguistic concepts.
To put it in a little context, my level of Japanese is such that I can generally scan a newspaper or a book and figure out what's going on while mispronouncing half the kanji (I guess at the meanings because I know Chinese) and having some of the more complex grammatical constructions go over my head. I can watch some anime without subtitles, depending on if it's sci-fi (no way!) or My Neighbor Totoro (doable). So... grain of salt, everyone!
I also have no idea what people are interested in or what they already know, so any comments or future topics or questions or "Duh, everyone knows that!" would be very welcome.
Wikipedia has a really cool hiragana table. Actually, they have so much info that I'm not sure why I'm typing this all out. Hrm. Oh well!
( Alphabet )
( Pronunciation )
And now I'm tired. Is this at all useful? Any other topics? I was thinking of doing grammar, verb conjugation, kanji, politeness levels (crucial for understanding anime!), weird things about learning Japanese when you already know Chinese, and a list of common anime and manga vocab words (aka, the words I first learned but still can't use in everyday conversation because they involve mecha).
Ergo, suddenly I have decided that what everyone really needs is a primer on the Japanese language!
This is most likely inspired by having to puzzle through Saiyuki Gaiden vol. 2 in Japanese just to figure out why in the world there was a dinosaur rampaging through Heaven.
The standard disclaimers: I took the equivalent of four and a half years of Japanese in college, including two months of homestay in Japan and a class on Japanese linguistics. Sadly, said class in Japanese linguistics was held entirely in Japanese, which slightly limited the depth of the concepts that could be discussed and understood by me. I am not a native speaker. I am, in fact, nowhere near a native speaker. I am also not a linguist and do not understand most linguistic concepts.
To put it in a little context, my level of Japanese is such that I can generally scan a newspaper or a book and figure out what's going on while mispronouncing half the kanji (I guess at the meanings because I know Chinese) and having some of the more complex grammatical constructions go over my head. I can watch some anime without subtitles, depending on if it's sci-fi (no way!) or My Neighbor Totoro (doable). So... grain of salt, everyone!
I also have no idea what people are interested in or what they already know, so any comments or future topics or questions or "Duh, everyone knows that!" would be very welcome.
Wikipedia has a really cool hiragana table. Actually, they have so much info that I'm not sure why I'm typing this all out. Hrm. Oh well!
( Alphabet )
( Pronunciation )
And now I'm tired. Is this at all useful? Any other topics? I was thinking of doing grammar, verb conjugation, kanji, politeness levels (crucial for understanding anime!), weird things about learning Japanese when you already know Chinese, and a list of common anime and manga vocab words (aka, the words I first learned but still can't use in everyday conversation because they involve mecha).
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