Language discussion

[hailthorn011]

As a learner, you can certainly write in either style, so long as you pick one or the other. In actual Japanese usage, hiragana is used for normal writing and katakana for foreign loan words (in much the same way that we italicize laisser-faire or Schadenfreude). They also use katakana in the contexts where we might use block letters, I believe - filling out forms and so on.

If you can see clearly the difference between the angular, simplified katakana and the flowing, curvy hiragana, learning the pairs at the same time makes perfect sense. If you can't immediately look at one an identify which type of kana it is, then you might end up getting confused about which is which.

If you want to be really ambitious, you might also consider pairing each kana pair with the kanji on which it is based.

Well, since I've been learning Hiragana, I can now see the difference between Hiragana and Katakana when I see it on the internet for the most part. Again the majority of meanings still elude me. But I can recognize (and write) the Hiragana for the following sounds: Ko, N, Ni, Chi, Ha. I learned these first because I could associate them with a word I already knew: Konnichi wa. And due to some informal study, I also recognize (and can write): I, U. So those Hiragana are characters I can reasonably say I KNOW after a just under a week of study.

One thing that raises curiosity though when I look at that Hiragana online keyboard is that the vowels a, e, i, o, u all have a smaller character that looks like the primary character. Why is that?

What is the difference between the two other than size? Do they mean the same thing?

And I apologize for asking so many questions. Rather: ごめんなさい。

[Jedo]

Ok, first of all, hiragana and katakana are not interchangeable. Katana has a very specific role which is almost always for loanwords or to represent foreigners speaking Japanese (ugh). As for learning them, I really recommend that you fully learn how to read one phonetic alphabet before you begin the other (and I would recommend doing hiragana first)

As for the stuff on your keyboard I'm not quite sure what you mean. For e, what it written besides え ?

[Bill Spight]

Except that go terms are often written in katakana.

If somebody were to write go terms with a katana, I'd worry.

Hide you eyes! Here are some book titles.

碁の詰めとヨセ

サバキの最強手筋

ウチコミ大作戦

コウ辞典

シマリの定石

[jts]

Do you mean hiragana or katakana? There may be little katakana letters to facilitate 1-to-1 writing in text editors (the way we use courier when when want all characters to be the same size). Also, in the same way that you add a small ya/yu/yo to ti/ki/si/mi/li to make dipthongs, you can add a small katakana a/e/i/u/o to a voiced U to make va/ve/vi/vu/vo. (Iirc.)

(Btw, Bill, you may be missing the joke - people's phones seem to be repeatedly changing the syllabary to the sword.)

[Splatted]

And that brings me to one of my prominent questions about Hiragana and Katakana: Are they interchangeable when it comes to writing Japanese specific words(Not foreign based words)?

For example. I could write:

こんにちは。(Hiragana)
OR
コンニチハ。(Katakana)

Both mean Konnichiwa.

Just to add a bit to what people have said. The meaning is not linked to whether you use hiragana or katakana, but there are conventions as to which you should use and when. Usually you write in hiragana and use katakana for emphasis and foreign words, but this is entirely stylistic and it's not rare for (fiction) writers to break from the norm.

I also second the reccommendation that you focus on learning hiragana before katakana.

[BaghwanB]

The smaller versions of the vowels are probably for inflecting the "chi" phonome (among others). To make "chu" you start with "chi" and then add a small "u" after it. Also holds true for about 3-4 other sounds as opposed to specific kana for "cha", "chu", and "cho" (don't think "che" exists...).

On the kana/kanji learning situation, personally I memorized both sets of kana and then started to learn kanji as "bonus" work. I just started plowing through the school grade-by-grade sets and managed to retain the meanings (if not at least most of the pronunciations) up to about 3rd grade level.

IMO, you are dealing with one of the most complicated writing systems on the whole planet. Don't be discouraged if you are not picking it up as quickly as you might like to. Any language that doesn't produce functional "formal" literacy until the end of high school is a challenge for everyone, natives included.

Bruce "Kanna not understand this" Young

[hailthorn011]

Ok, first of all, hiragana and katakana are not interchangeable. Katana has a very specific role which is almost always for loanwords or to represent foreigners speaking Japanese (ugh). As for learning them, I really recommend that you fully learn how to read one phonetic alphabet before you begin the other (and I would recommend doing hiragana first)

As for the stuff on your keyboard I'm not quite sure what you mean. For e, what it written besides え ?

Well I knew that that katakana was used primarily for loan words and foreign names, ect. I'll go more in depth in one of my next responses.

Just to add a bit to what people have said. The meaning is not linked to whether you use hiragana or katakana, but there are conventions as to which you should use and when. Usually you write in hiragana and use katakana for emphasis and foreign words, but this is entirely stylistic and it's not rare for (fiction) writers to break from the norm.

I also second the reccommendation that you focus on learning hiragana before katakana.

[/quote="BaghwanB"]
This is what I was getting at Jedo. I think I'm starting to grasp the concept of when to use one over the other. But the emphasis I was placing was not in formulating sentences or writing to anyone. If I just wanted to write random words, I'm assuming it's irrelevant whether I use Katakana or Hiragna. Again this is assuming that it's just writing for fun.

The smaller versions of the vowels are probably for inflecting the "chi" phonome (among others). To make "chu" you start with "chi" and then add a small "u" after it. Also holds true for about 3-4 other sounds as opposed to specific kana for "cha", "chu", and "cho" (don't think "che" exists...).

On the kana/kanji learning situation, personally I memorized both sets of kana and then started to learn kanji as "bonus" work. I just started plowing through the school grade-by-grade sets and managed to retain the meanings (if not at least most of the pronunciations) up to about 3rd grade level.

IMO, you are dealing with one of the most complicated writing systems on the whole planet. Don't be discouraged if you are not picking it up as quickly as you might like to. Any language that doesn't produce functional "formal" literacy until the end of high school is a challenge for everyone, natives included.

Bruce "Kanna not understand this" Young

I know it's going to take some time before I grasp the concepts. That's why I've given myself a week to learn just five characters. I remember taking German and some of the sentence structure I found weird.Ich spiele basketball nicht. Directly translated: I play basketball not. Or another one: Ich spreche Deutsch nicht sehr gut. Directly translated: I speak German not very good.

So yeah, I know it's going to take awhile to even learn Hiragana and then Katakana. And then the even harder part is grammer.

And since the general consensus seems to be to learn Hiragana entirely before switching to Katakana, I believe I'll do that. I was also floating around Barnes & Noble yesterday when I discovered "The Ultimate Japanese Phrase Book: 1800 Sentences for Everyday Use." I figure this would be a great boost in at least learning necessary phrases (obviously). But I didn't see the Kanji book that was mentioned in a prior post. That's actually what I was looking for, but oh well.

こうふんでわくわくしています！

[Splatted]

You can start with the free sample http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/publications ... sample.pdf

And http://kanji.koohii.com/learnmore is very helpful for working your way through it. That site also has the best Japanese learning forum I know of.

[hailthorn011]

You can start with the free sample http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/publications ... sample.pdf

And http://kanji.koohii.com/learnmore is very helpful for working your way through it. That site also has the best Japanese learning forum I know of.

Thanks. I'll have to look into these.

[jts]

Yeah, to get into learning languages you have to learn to let go of some of your prejudices. So long as you get all of the basic concepts packed in there (Me, speaking/understanding, German, ability, negation), the order in which you string them together is pretty arbitrary - the correct order depends on what your audience will understand, not on what pleases you the most. You might as well complain that "Deutsch" doesn't sound at all like "German" - why don't they call Dutch "Deutsch" and German "Germanisch"? Well, there's some interesting history there, but the short version is, who cares? You learn the language the way it's spoken, not as you prefer it. The only reason we need to learn word orders is to differentiate sentences like "The dog bit the man" from "The man bit the dog"; it doesn't matter too much which means which, so long as we all agree.

Once you start to think that it's fun to see the all the different ways that languages solve the problems they face, "weird" grammatical rules aren't distressing anymore. It's like going to an aquarium; you've bought yourself a ticket, and you want to see some exotic fish.

[hailthorn011]

Yeah, to get into learning languages you have to learn to let go of some of your prejudices. So long as you get all of the basic concepts packed in there (Me, speaking/understanding, German, ability, negation), the order in which you string them together is pretty arbitrary - the correct order depends on what your audience will understand, not on what pleases you the most. You might as well complain that "Deutsch" doesn't sound at all like "German" - why don't they call Dutch "Deutsch" and German "Germanisch"? Well, there's some interesting history there, but the short version is, who cares? You learn the language the way it's spoken, not as you prefer it. The only reason we need to learn word orders is to differentiate sentences like "The dog bit the man" from "The man bit the dog"; it doesn't matter too much which means which, so long as we all agree.

Once you start to think that it's fun to see the all the different ways that languages solve the problems they face, "weird" grammatical rules aren't distressing anymore. It's like going to an aquarium; you've bought yourself a ticket, and you want to see some exotic fish.

I wasn't trying to complain that the grammar was different or that sentence structure doesn't match English sentence structure. I was just trying to point out that the difference can definitely cause issues when forming sentences.

I have an interest in languages. I found learning German to be quite fun (I took German because I have German ancestry on my father's side). And I'm taking Japanese for a lot of reasons.

[RobertJasiek]

why don't they call [...] German "Germanisch"?

This is the wrong question. The right question is: Why is German (ab)used for "Deutsch"? Germanisch means Germanic, and usually is associated with old language (the assumed Urgermanisch) or the language group, especially many centuries ago.

[jts]

Yes, precisely. It's an absurd question to ask, which would only be asked if you thought the English language has some special insight into the true nature of things.

[BaghwanB]

Yes, precisely. It's an absurd question to ask, which would only be asked if you thought the English language has some special insight into the true nature of things.

But isn't English the chosen language? Everyone can understand it if you speak it loud and slow enough. And look at all the other languages that have stolen words from us! In another 200 years Dutch will finally BE English and German will put the verb in the middle where it is supposed to be!

(This jingo-linguistic rant brought to you by good 'ol 'merkin-talkin' types).

Bruce "I talk good 'merkin" Young

[konfuzed]

I am also attempting to learn kanji through Heisig and kanji.koohii. I do not think I would have a chance of learning them well without this system. I tried years ago, but this time I want to stick with it better. It is still difficult and time-consuming but you can really feel the progress. 450 down!