Japanese Language

Git Gud

12:43 AM

Hello. Can anyone help me out with something?

Anonymous

What's up?

ssb

sure

oh, timing

@GitGud if you're still here!

Git Gud

@ssb I am, thanks.

I started learning japanese on my own a bit more than a month ago.

At the moment I'm trying to learn and memorize Hiragana.

One of the things I do on the website I'm learning from is play the sounds of words without looking at them and try to write them in Hiragana.

Just a moment ago I heard 'nuzu' and I wrote down ぬず, but then it showed ぬぐ which I'd assume would sound like 'nugu'.

I understand that some words simply aren't read as the concatenation of sounds.

What I want to ask is if there's a mistake or if ぬぐ is correct.

Anonymous

ぬぐ generally does not sound like 'nuzu'

Anonymous

Can you share the audio?

ssb

12:52 AM

Yeah, is this audio file somewhere we can easily listen?

Git Gud

I tried it on Google Translate, it sounds the same. Here: translate.google.com/#ja/en/%E3%81%AC%E3%81%90

The meaning according to YesJapan is 'to undress'.

ssb

Sounds like a g to me

Anonymous

Yeah, but let's get you some easier-to-hear audio

Anonymous

gavo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/ojad/search/index/sortprefix:accent/…

Git Gud

@ssb Thanks. I can't hear it. If any of you has a YesJapan account I can't show the file there.

@snailboat Where is the play button? :P

Anonymous

12:55 AM

The /g/ can be pronounced [g] or [ŋ]

Anonymous

@GitGud Click "female" or "male" under ぬぐ

ssb

@GitGud is your native language English?

This could be another issue like that recent one!

Git Gud

@ssb It isn't.

@snailboat I swapped the language to english, can't find what you mentioned or any audio button.

@snailboat OK, I was looking at a different entry of ぬぐ, I will try it now.

I can definitely hear 'nugu' in the male voice, but I'm hearing 'nunu' in the female voice -_-

Anonymous

Yeah, she's pronouncing it with the [ŋ] pronunciation

Anonymous

If you aren't familiar with that notation,

Anonymous

1:00 AM

Then it's the same as the "ng" sound in English "ring"

Anonymous

Whether the /g/ in nugu is pronounced as [g] or [ŋ] depends on the speaker―you'll hear the [ŋ] pronunciation on TV and radio

Git Gud

@snailboat Thanks.

I can hear 'nugu' on Google Translate now. But I still hear 'nuzu' on YesJapan -_-

But OK, I know it's supposed to be 'nugu'.

Thank you very much both of you.

ssb

Don't worry about it too much if you're only having the problem with the YesJapan audio

It could just be a bad recording

If every ぐ word sounds like ず then you might have an issue, but I think you'll be ok!

Git Gud

Yeah, I think I'll be OK.

I'll start having japanese lessons in a couple of weeks.

I'm hoping to have memorized hiragana by then as I read that romaji is a cancer.

ssb

hiragana will come easily as you start using it

Git Gud

1:08 AM

I think so too, so far it has been easy.

By the way, is there a standard order on the hiragana tables?

The one I'm learning from starts from the vowels and goes: k,g,s,z,t,d,n... (I'm at the n)

But I noticed that on wikipedia the order is different.

ssb

Yes!

There is a standard order

the wikipedia order should be correct

Git Gud

On a second look, now that I've learned more about this, the order seems to be the same, only wikipedia relegates the characters with the dakuten to a secondary table while mine groups the 'original' characters with the ones which have dakuten on them.

I'm off, guys. Thank you very much.

Anonymous

1:51 AM

@GitGud The main reason it's a good idea to use Japanese writing is that Japanese is written in it 99.9% of the time.

Anonymous

Kind of circular, but true :-)

Anonymous

The more practice you get with kana, the better.