(no subject)

[oyceter]

I 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:

The Japanese alphabet isn't purely sound-based like the English one, but they do split words up into different sounds. There are 46 hiragana (one of the writing systems) that are usually taught:

a	i	u	e	o
ka	ki	ku	ke	ko
sa	shi	su	se	so
ta	chi	tsu	te	to
na	ni	nu	ne	no
ha	hi	fu	he	ho
ma	mi	mu	me	mo
ya	-	yu	-	yo
ra	ri	ru	re	ro
wa	-	-	-	wo
n	-	-	-	-

You can see that everything consists mostly of syllables that are formed by a consonant+vowel. The first row has hiragana that are vowels only, and "n" is the only ending consonant.

I have no idea what happened to the missing "w" row, and while Wikipedia shows them in its hiragana table, those hiragana are very rarely used these days. The "wo" is actually pronounced just "o," but most romanization systems spell it out as "wo," probably because of its placement on the "w" row.

There are also seemingly random pronunciations in the table: "chi" instead of "ti," "shi" instead of "si," "tsu" instead of "tu" and "fu" instead of "hu." I think some other romanization systems will just use "ti" and etc. instead of sort of spelling the hiragana like it's pronounced. The fu/hu is sort of funny because it's half between an "h" and an "f;" sort of pronounced by trying to say "fu" without letting your teeth touch your lower lip. It sounds a little breathy.

I also have no idea who came up with this table in the first place.

The rows for "k," "s," "t," and "h" have the added option of adding two little marks to the upper right ("h" also has the option of an empty circle). This changes them to "g," "z," "d," and "b" ("p" with the empty circle). Except "shi" with two marks becomes "ji" instead of "zi." And "tsu" with the two marks becomes "zu" instead of "du." You can see these in Wikipedia's nifty cool hiragana table.

There's also an option of adding a small "ya," "yu" or "yo" or a small "tsu" to hiragana, but will touch on that in pronunciation.

Hiragana is mostly based off a style of Chinese calligraphy, supposedly (I'm not sure how true this is or how much it's one of those "Chinese characters look like what they represent" type things). So "a" supposedly looks like the Chinese character "an," written very messily in calligraphy. (The style is called tsau zi/grass words).

Supposedly, katakana is as well. Hiragana is swirly and round and somewhat organic-looking (imho), while katakana is very angular. Katakana has all the same corresponding kana as hiragana, though the one for "wo" isn't used all too often. I also don't know when katakana was invented.

Most of you probably already know that hiragana is used largely for "native" Japanese words while katakana is used for loan words. Ex. "watashi" (me) would be written out in hiragana if you didn't already know the kanji for it, while "pan" (bread, from Portuguese) is usually still written out in katakana. My linguistics teacher also had a theory that since katakana looks more angular, it's more often used as emphasis. In manga, I've seen it used completely randomly, for emphasis, for names when the author doesn't want to associate kanji meanings, for names authors want to sound more foreign, and etc. Usually I'll see bits and pieces of katakana used for sentence endings like "yo" and "no" for emotional emphasis.

The most interesting use I've seen is using katakana to act as furigana (the hiragana/katakana next to kanji telling you how to pronounce them) for kanji to indicate a completely different reading. Ex. The kanji for "monkey," usually pronounced "saru," will be printed with "Goku" in katakana so that visually you know that the author is equating "Goku" with "monkey" even though it sounds like "Goku" (one of the reasons why I like the graphic novel medium).

Kanji is technically not an alphabet, so I'm ignoring it here.

Pronunciation:

Japanese is actually pretty easy to pronounce (it's the grammar and the formality levels that get a little complicated).

"a" - a short "ah," as in "father"
"i" - a short "ee," as in "bee"
"u" - a short "oo," as in "whoo!" or "boot," if you whoo differently from me
"e" - a short "eh," as in "elf"
"o" - a short "oh," as in "sofa"

I stuck "short" in all the descriptions because that's what my teachers said. Also, they just sound a wee bit shorter. Of course, the length of the vowels completely varies with emotional state. Ex. "Hara ga heta" (I'm hungry, or, literally, guts empty/lacking) becomes "Hara ga hetaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" when Goku is very hungry (aka, most of the time).

The vowels can be elongated as follows:

a --> aa ("ah" --> "aah" aka the sound Oyce makes when she is enlightened in the non-Buddhist way)
i --> ii ("ee" --> "eeee" aka the sound Oyce makes when she is overly excited)
u --> uu ("oo" --> "oooo" aka the sound Oyce makes when she is confronted by something shiny)
e --> ee or ei (both pronounced "eh" --> "eeh" aka the sound Oyce makes when confused)
o --> oo or ou (both pronounced "oh" -- "ooh" aka the other sound Oyce makes when enlightened)

The long forms of the vowels are usually romanized with a macron or the little upside-down "v" accent mark; I think the macron is pretty standard right now. I've also seen "oo" or "ou" and etc. spelled out though. I personally like spelling out the "ou" just so I know how to spell it in hiragana, but that's just me. So "Tokyo" is actually "Toukyou" and "Kyoto" is actually "Kyouto" (the "kyou" in both is the same character, stands for capital). Ergo funny stories of people who have accidentally called someone's husband (husband is "shujin") a prisoner ("shuujin") by accident. Although my personal favorite is shojo/shoujo (virgin/girl).

The consonants are generally pretty easy (just go with English pronunciations) except for a few things.

There's the breathy "fu" that I mentioned earlier.

A lot of people in my class had problems with the "tsu" sound. It's just how it's typed out, a combination of "s" and "t." My teacher used to tell us to say "cats" and add an "u" to the end.

The "g" sound is supposed to be a combination of "g" and "n," especially in the particle "ga," which sounds more like "nga." (Try saying "ga" with your nose pinched and it's something like that. Very nasal). So while you can say it as a hard "g" and everyone will understand you, I think it's nicer or something to say it with that nasal bit. And it's always a hard "g," like "game" and not a soft one like "genie."

A lot of people in my class also had problems with the "r" sound, which is a combination of "r" and "l" and famously leads to things like "French flies" instead of "French fries." I usually sort of pronounce it as an "l" and then roll my tongue just a wee bit.

The y hiragana (ya, yu, yo) can be written small next to a normal-sized hiragana that's a consonant (it's usually placed to the bottom right when it's written vertically and on the bottom like a subscript when written horizontally). You can see these in Wikipedia's cool hiragana table. This results in very confusing attempts to romanize things! Sometimes it comes up with sounds that don't usually happen in English ("kya," "nyo," "hyu,") but sometimes they do have English counterparts. So then you get "sha" or "shya" or "jo" or "jyo." They're the same thing, in terms of hiragana spelling.

There's also the little "tsu," placed at the same place the y's are. The small tsu can only be placed in front of consonants, because it means you do this funny thing when you almost hold your breath a teeny bit at the small tsu and pronounce the consonant after it more strongly. So "Hakkai" is pronounced with a bit of a glottal stop (I think that's what it's called) right before the "k." So... it sounds sort of like "Hak" after you swallow the k, pause a tiny, tiny bit, and then spit out the "kai."

Ok, that didn't even make sense to me, but it's hard to demo without being able to say something! Also, as you have probably noticed, the small tsu is represented in romanization by the doubled consonant, since there's only one ending consonant in Japanese (n, sometimes spelled as m in front of p or b sounds). That's why there's sometimes the little apostrophe to illustrate the difference between a small tsu + n and an actual ending n + n. Ex. Ten'no instead of Tenno. Although for the life of me, I can't think of a small tsu + n vocab word off the top of my head.

For word pronunciation... hrm. Japanese isn't a tonal language like Chinese, but there are high and low tones in words that are almost sort of like emphasis but not really. It's almost like pitch, if that makes sense. And the stresses make a big difference. I've found that generally, three-syllable words usually have the stress on the first syllable, as opposed to the second (where English-speaking people would usually place it). Ergo, SA-ku-ra instead of sa-KU-ra or YA-ku-za instead of ya-KU-za. I am snobby and will grate my teeth when people say ya-KU-za. And often with four syllable words, the syllable is often on the second syllable, but then again, I could totally be making that one up.

There's also a rhythm to the sentences... instead of wa-TA-shi WA (the general pronunciation used in class, wargh), it should be just wa-ta-shi wa, without any one syllable being stressed. I dunno. I guess I get the feeling that there just aren't that many drawls or stresses, the entire spoken language sounds higher and smoother to me. But, um, that could just be me

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).

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

The kanji for "monkey," usually pronounced "saru," will be printed with "Goku" in katakana so that visually you know that the author is equating "Goku" with "monkey" even though it sounds like "Goku" (one of the reasons why I like the graphic novel medium).

Ahh, that is so cool! And I never would have noticed because I don't know that kanji. Although just with my very pathetic knowledge of Japanese I often catch cool stuff in Japanese manga that makes me regret not really being able to read them in the original-- there's so much stuff that you lose just by losing the ability to see kanji. Like, I just noticed this the other day, but doesn't Konzen use the kanji for gold? Which is so cool, because his hair is gold like the sun and that is a motif, and it's actually in his name!

Or like reading Nana, the "Hachi" thing is also a pun, I assume, because "Nana" can mean seven and "Hachi" can mean eight, although that one probably does not depend on knowing kanji, since it looks like Nana is spelled in katakana.

[brettw.livejournal.com]

This is cool stuff. I'm sporadically trying to teach myself Japanese so reminders or cool things I didn't know are most appreciated!

(By the way, Hi! This is my first comment here.)

[kchew.livejournal.com]

The Beloved Spouse is natively bilingual in Japanese and English, and we're trying to raise the Beloved Son the same way (he's off to Japanese-language daycare as I write). I, on the other hand, am still woefully bad at the language (after 8 years!), and am not looking forward to the day when Beloved Son is chattering circles around me. He's already learning to speak English to me instead of Japanese, although I can still understand most of what he says to his dad.

I'm impressed with the amount of time you've spent on the language. Please keep talking about it! I need some more formal work in it (can order in restaurants, and speak fairly good Toddler, but not much more than that), and this is a good way to inspire me.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Interesting, thanks. I should start studying Japanese again, but I don't know when I'll have the processor time for it.

notes and corrections

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

I think this is very cool, but ARGH!!! It is not an alphabet, it is a syllabary. (There are finer distinctions, but Japanese is very unambiguous in the world of syllabaries.)

The breathy "fu" is because it's a bilabial rather than a labiodental consonant. The English "f" (labiodental) is spoken with your lip touching teeth; the "f" in "fu" is spoken with your lips open, no touching teeth or anything.

A lot of people in my class also had problems with the "r" sound, which is a combination of "r" and "l" and famously leads to things like "French flies" instead of "French fries." I usually sort of pronounce it as an "l" and then roll my tongue just a wee bit.

That's an alveolar tap--if you say "butter" fast it's similar to the sound in the middle. ("t" and "d" happen at the same place in the mouth as the Japanese "r"--many other rhotics, too. English "r" is a weird retroflex thingy.)

The high and low tones are something called pitch accent. I don't speak Japanese, and Korean may not although there are arguments otherwise (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/Events/PLC/plc23/ko.html), but here's a summary of the rules (http://www.spinnoff.com/zbb/viewtopic.php?p=331805&).

allophones

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot:

There are also seemingly random pronunciations in the table: "chi" instead of "ti," "shi" instead of "si," "tsu" instead of "tu" and "fu" instead of "hu." I think some other romanization systems will just use "ti" and etc. instead of sort of spelling the hiragana like it's pronounced.

These are called allophones--
[tSi] "chi" replaces [ti] "ti"
[tsu] "tsu" replaces. [tu] "tu"
[Si] "shi" replaces [si] "si"
--and fill up the syllabary, so to speak. Morally, you can say that [tSi] "is" [ti], because we don't have another sound [ti] floating around; there's no separate sound (as you note). The reason for the pronuncation change in [tSi] and [Si] is something called palatalization. The presence of the high front vowel [i] influences the consonant in front of it ([S] is palatal) so there's a shift in pronunciation. Palatalization is a specific case of assimilation, which is when one sound causes another to shift its characterizations in the other's direction. This is harder to discuss without getting more technical. :-)

[fiveandfour.livejournal.com]

Well, this subject is interesting to me because I had a similar history to yours of studying the language, but it's been years and years since then so that now I only recall the barest minimum of words and kanji.

I'm at a stage now where (if I had the time) I'd like to get back in to studying languages that are foreign to me, but since I'd have to start all over with Japanese I would potentially choose something else to widen my horizons a bit even though Japanese still interests me.

(And now I realize I have no kanji icons. ::Blushes::)

Re: notes and corrections

[oyceter]

Syllabary! That's what it's called! Fear not, your calls have not been in vain, as I did actually remember that it wasn't an alphabet, but could not for the life of me remember what it actually was.

And I sadly cannot comment on the rest, it being totally out of my depth, but thanks for the additional info!

Re: allophones

[oyceter]

I will take your word for it! ;)

[oyceter]

Ooo yeah, I loved that thing with Konzen and gold! I totally didn't note any of this in my Gaiden write-up, I could do another post later or something if it's itneresting.

I don't actually know if Minekura specifically did "monkey" pronounced "Goku," but she did something very similar, and I totally cracked up.

I love the hachi thing with Nana and just how superstitious Nana Komatsu is about her name.

[oyceter]

Oh I'm glad! I wasn't actually sure if it was helpful, but it was fun typing up.

[oyceter]

Oh wow, that's so cool! I always regret not practising Chinese enough at home and having a horrible accent now =(.

[oyceter]

Heh, me too, me too... I forgot so much, all of which I noticed to while attempting to read Gaiden.

(Ex. "Hitotsu shika nai"... hrm... there's a nai. But I remember something about shika always being with a negative... hrm... so does that mean one, or none? Oh screw it!)

[oyceter]

I know... I am woefully losing my Japanese. Of course, this means I should buy more manga and watch more anime to practice! I'm sure that's what the universe is trying to tell me!

[rilina.livejournal.com]

The kanji for gold is basically the only Chinese character that I know--it's part of my Korean name--so I was very amused when I was looking at the Gaiden tankoubons and put 2 and 2 together. :)

[ckd]

Oh, this is so great! I did take a semester of Japanese back in 19umptymumble, but had almost totally forgotten it...this brings back a bunch of it, though.

yhlee: syllabary! Yes!

[oyceter]

Oh, yay, I'm glad!

I have been mightily struggling to remember my own Japanese as well.