Weeaboos vs Sinophiles: The Final Battle

the worst part...

japanese language has:

katakana: symbols used to represent words of foreign origin

hirigana: symbols used to write words of japanese origin

kanji: chinese charecters that can be spelled out using hirigana that represent ideas/concepts. used for words.

now for the worst part...

japanese kanji has 2 sources:
kun: japanese origin
on: chinese origin

pure japanese kanji has only 1 reading ( kun )

chinese kanji have anywhere from 1 reading ( either kun or on ) up to as many as 6 ( no more than 3 kun and 3 on ) that determine when the kanji symbol was taken from chinese language.

and it also depends on context as to the 1 of 6 possible meanings the writer intends. most kanji has a "common" kun and on reading and if the writer does not intend to use the common reading, then they attach some hirigana noting the differences so the reader knows which reading the writer intends.

most words are made up of 2-4 kanji
 
Yeah but you don't need to learn phonics or spelling in Japanese. My daughter has learned to read in hiragana before english.
 
Funny to see how one writer's misuse of a word has turned the topic into a discussion on Japanese culture. :lol:
 
Rufus Luccarelli said:
Funny to see how one writer's misuse of a word has turned the topic into a discussion on Japanese culture. :lol:
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What is inteersting is that a discussion about japanese culture is on a Fallout fan site in a Fallout 3 DLC topic more interesting then talking about the Fallout 3 DLCs ...
 
UncannyGarlic said:
.....

Kashrlyyk said:
And don´t forget there are around 2000(!) different kanji symbols used in Japanese.
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I haven't gotten around to taking a kanji class yet but I had heard that there were over 6000 different kanji symbols.
....
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Yes, but the japanese government decided on 2000 of those, which are commonly used according to a book I rented for the last 3 months and only read in it once.

And I completly agree: Get rid of the kanji. But there seems to be always something in a language that has to make it hard to learn. Anyone read "The awful German language" by Mark Twain?
 
Crni Vuk said:
Rufus Luccarelli said:
Funny to see how one writer's misuse of a word has turned the topic into a discussion on Japanese culture. :lol:
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What is inteersting is that a discussion about japanese culture is on a Fallout fan site in a Fallout 3 DLC topic more interesting then talking about the Fallout 3 DLCs ...
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Ok, someone has to turn that into a motivational poster.
 
What's funny is that I came into this thread to complain about the writer using a japanese word in reference to a Chinese man and find that the whole thread is about that exact same thing.

日本４エーバー！
 
Kashrlyyk said:
And don´t forget there are around 2000(!) different kanji symbols used in Japanese.
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there are several categories of japanese kana

1) hirigana
2) katakana
3) grade 1-6 kanji
4) grade 6-9 kanji
5) grade 10-12 kanji

now, up through grade 12 kanji is 2,000 WORD kanji, and an additional ~950 kanji used exclusively in names.

so by the time you graduate from high school, you know under 3,000 kanji

now for professional kanji

6) professional kanji - additional 3,000 kanji, commonly used but only tought in college/university, what ones you learn depend on your profession, each profession usually has 200-500 they learn

7) extended kanji - additional 3,000 kanji on top of professional kanji.

8) full kanji - additional 41,000 kanji

by the time you know #5, you have 99.0% literacy in japanese

by the time you know #6, you have 99.7% literacy in japanese

by the time you know #7, you have 99.9% literacy in japanese

current rules are that if its not within 1-7, it cannot be on a legal document i believe. and common practice is if its not 1-6 you dont write kanji but rather the hirigana of it rather than the kanji symbol.

so if you do the math of any single kanji has at most 6 readings, and there is ~50,000 kanji, japanese has less than 350,000 words. and the vast majority of their words are what in english would be considerd compound words ( 2-4 kanji per "word" ) which is how they get away with having so few words. for the most part.
 
Kashrlyyk said:
Get rid of the kanji.
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There's an interesting bit about the script reform issue on Language Log: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003962.html
Kashrlyyk said:
And I completly agree: Get rid of the kanji. But there seems to be always something in a language that has to make it hard to learn.
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It's not the language itself (its grammar, morphology, phonology etc) that is difficult, but the script that is used to write it. The two should not be confused. Any symbols can be used to write any language.
 
Kashrlyyk said:
And I completly agree: Get rid of the kanji. But there seems to be always something in a language that has to make it hard to learn. Anyone read "The awful German language" by Mark Twain?
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I actually don't agree. Kanji (Chinese characters) have a certain... something to them. Don't know what the right word to use is. Effect? Feel? Presence?

Also, the ability to represent an object or idea with a single character does, sometimes, have advantages.

Plus, they just look cool.

Really, the system just needs to be simplified, with less variations in reading and fewer kanji overall (probably a lot, if not all, of the extended kanji in the "professional" "extended" and "full" categories -- as professed by WesDude -- are totally unnecessary).

Hm. I have a feeling if this off-topic discussion continues much further it's going to be broken off into it's own thread. But who wants to talk about Beth's garbage DLCs anymore?
 
Kyuu said:
I have a feeling if this off-topic discussion continues much further it's going to be broken off into it's own thread.
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Oh yeah.

Split.

Vats.

Or General Discussion?

Hmmm, tough call.

Eh, I'll be nice.

General Discussion it is.
 
Brother None said:
Kyuu said:
I have a feeling if this off-topic discussion continues much further it's going to be broken off into it's own thread.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah.

Split.

Vats.

Or General Discussion?

Hmmm, tough call.

Eh, I'll be nice.

General Discussion it is.
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Whoa. I was like, "When did I start this thread?? And what the hell is a "weeaboo" and "shinophile"??"

Haha, I'm real tired... :lol:
 
there are like 3 testing "services" for japanese fluency...

all 3 offer up to grade 12 proficency

but the thing is... after that point is where they start deviating...

the "official" cert tests you up through the professional or first 6,000 kanji

i think there is only 1 place that tests the full 9,000 kanji.

the 2 biggest is the official and then there is one that does "profession" based testing. that is where they dont test you on the full 6,000, but rather the 3,000 + your 200-500 that your profession uses.

im not sure which is preferred over there as i dont really have any contact with people over there nor have i ever gone.

but in the next year or 2 im probably going to try to take some college courses on learning japanese.


there are movements to actually get rid of all of their kana and move to romaji, or just get rid of kanji and use hirigana+katakana only.


the biggest problem with kanji is each kanji represents an idea/concept.

in english, all you do is learn the definition, and what letters go in what order to write it.

for kanji, you have to learn 1-6 ways to pronounce it, the definition for each way of pronouncing it, and the uniqe symbol to write it. now, all 50,000 kanji are all uniqely written, anywhere from 1 to i think its 120 strokes to write that charecter ( most are under 25 strokes ), which means that it is much harder to learn a new word. that being said, ALL kanji is based off 1 of 6 core ideas, and MOST are combinations of "roots" or "stems" which once you get to a certian point makes the invidual kanji easier to learn, you just have to learn what stem goes where, the order, and if you have to use hirigana for different "definitions" of the word...

it is horribly unwieldly to say the least. the only real benifit, is once you learn japanese/chinese/korean, it is not very difficult to learn the other 2.
 
Get rid of Kanji, then everything else. What good is Japanese outside Japan? I know the Okinawans and Ainu wouldn't shed no fucking tears.

日本は負けた。
ばかやろ。


And why haven't you all watched Hara-kiri yet?
I'm telling you, one of the greatest films ever made. No joke.
 
The best Japanese film I have ever seen would be Ikiru. It is one of the very few films that got me emotionally involved.

Anything by Kurosawa is pretty awesome, though.
 
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