ELL's Cabin

Anonymous

20:00

Learning a language is a process―you don't suddenly go from "not knowing" to "knowing"

MARamezani

If there were more, they wouldn't have survived Snailor learning them.

Lamart

There are 7000

Anonymous

So which languages should I say I "know" out of the ones I've studied? I'm not sure...

MARamezani

@snailboat It's just like covalent vs. ionic.

Anonymous

I prefer to just say I'm "learning" these languages :-)

Catija

20:01

@snailboat Japanese is hard. I'm not surprised. I took it in college for two years and all I manage to remember is chotto matte kudasai and mou ichido onegai shimasu. Which are probably spelled atrociously.

Anonymous

I never say I "know" Japanese, only that I'm "learning" Japanese :-)

Lamart

Covalent bonds and ionic bonds!

Anonymous

@Catija Perfect!

MARamezani

@snailboat Yeah. We say snailor knows Japanese.

Lamart

Veh, how many are you learning then? :p

MARamezani

20:02

@Lamart Ahan.

Anonymous

I dunno, maybe like fifteen?

MARamezani

Times 40.

Catija

Oh, and niwa ni wa niwa ni wa tori ga imasu. But I can never remember where the spaces go.

Anonymous

Not very well, though, so don't get impressed :-)

Lamart

List them please

Anonymous

20:02

@Catija Niwatori is one word, from niwa + tori

Suade

I recommend Arabic for everyone are planning to learn a new language ..

Catija

@snailboat Ah, that makes sense. :)

Lamart

@Suade Are you learning English?

Suade

Yes

Lamart

Can I suggest something?

MARamezani

20:04

I recommend Turkish for anyone who are planning to learn a new language...

Anonymous

@Catija Niwa 'garden' ni (locative) wa (topic) ni-wa 'two' + birds (counter) niwatori 'chicken' :-)

MARamezani

@Lamart No.

Lamart

@MARamezani Why?

MARamezani

You just didn't suggest anything!

Lamart

I asked if I could suggest.

Anonymous

20:06

Tori, by the way, is 'bird', so niwatori 'chicken' is literally 'garden bird' :-)

MARamezani

I'm just messing with you man! Suggest everything you want!

Catija

@snailboat Yeah, that should help. We mostly learned it as an example of how limiting their syllabary can be.

MARamezani

@snailboat I bet Japanese is so charming to you.

Catija

Yes, and chicken is usually just tori, like yakitori.

Anonymous

@Catija Yeah, s'what linguists call "phonologically impoverished"

Anonymous

20:07

Quite unlike English!

Lamart

@MARamezani I would, if he/she replied. :(

Catija

And English isn't even the most varied, I think. Do you happen to know, offhand, what is the least impoverished of the languages?

MARamezani

@Lamart He would.

Suggest.

But don't forget to ping.

Anonymous

Japanese used to have more sounds and more possible phonotactic combinations

Anonymous

It used to have eight vowels

Anonymous

20:08

Hmm, the most vowels and consonants?

Anonymous

I'm not sure, but you could check WALS

Anonymous

But rather than looking for "impoverished", look for "consonant inventory" and "vowel inventory"

MARamezani

@Catija History bends languages.

Anonymous

Or just "phonemic inventory"

Lamart

Kon'nichiwa!

Anonymous

20:09

Those are more neutral terms for the number of sounds in a language

MARamezani

If you want a not so impoverished thingy, I recommend LaTeX.

Anonymous

@Lamart Kon'nichiwa, Lamart-san! :-)

Catija

@snailboat What? That's crazy. ... though, I guess we have more than five, we just pronounce our five in more than one way each.

Anonymous

Nihongo ga dekiru no?

Anonymous

@Catija Ah, when linguists say "vowel" they almost invariably mean "vowel sounds"

MARamezani

20:09

@Lamart Ko'nichiwa! Whatever, that means.

Anonymous

Our English spelling doesn't correspond very well to English pronunciation

Anonymous

@MARamezani Kon'nichiwa (though you can leave out that apostrophe) is "hello"! :-)

Anonymous

It's a greeting people use during the day.

Suade

that is right and cause a lot of troubles to me

Catija

@snailboat Yes, as well emphasized by many of the questions here on ELL. Do you go on the JLL site, too?

Anonymous

20:10

@Catija I'm a moderator on Japanese.SE

MARamezani

@snailboat What is hullo in Japanese?

Anonymous

@MARamezani Does not compute, ERROR

Lamart

@snailboat I used google translate for that.

MARamezani

You just made me say hello during the day. Aaargh!

Lamart

2 mins ago, by snailboat

Nihongo ga dekiru no?

What does this mean?

Anonymous

20:11

"Can you speak Japanese?"

Catija

@snailboat Nice. :) I guess i could have figured that out myself :P

MARamezani

@snailboat Haha! This is ironic!

Lamart

le

łe

MARamezani

I'm off to sleep. Later people!

Catija

@snailboat the hanging "no" makes it a more pointed question, though, right? Rather than Nihongo wo hanashimasu ka?

Lamart

20:13

Cya

Damkerng T.

@MARamezani Have a good sleep!

Anonymous

@Catija I was really just being informal :-)

Lamart

Goodbye guys @MARamezani @DamkerngT. @snailboat @Catija @Suade

Catija

Bye!

Damkerng T.

Bye!

Anonymous

20:15

See you @Lamart!

Anonymous

No as a question particle is another example of grammaticalization

Anonymous

Since it's etymologically a nominalizer (as in no da)

Anonymous

So you could view it as something like Nihongo ga dekiru no ~~desu ka~~?

Catija

@snailboat In my head, I translated it as something more like "You know Japanese, right?"... isn't that what "no" at the ending of the sentence can mean?

Anonymous

@Catija Hmm, I would have just said it was a neutral question particle. It's really pretty common in informal speech, more common than ka actually

Catija

20:18

@snailboat wow, that's crazy because our courses were always emphasizing -ka as a question word. And our teachers and TAs were all native Japanese.

Anonymous

excite.co.jp/dictionary/japanese/…

Anonymous

四② here

Anonymous

@Catija They started you out speaking politely, right? :-)

Catija

@snailboat That's true. The first thing we learned was how to trade meishi...

Anonymous

So I'm sure you learned the right way to speak politely to people you don't know, in business situations, and so on

Catija

20:22

Yeah, but most of the people are taking the classes because they want to watch anime without it being subbed/dubbed.

Anonymous

Hee

Anonymous

I feel like Japanese has gotten a lot popular as a language to learn over the last 20 years :-)

Suade

Ohaio gozaimass

Catija

Well, anything to do with Japan was a bit problematic 60 years ago... so all it could do is improve.

Anyway, I'm going to totter off and stop the Japanese discussion in the ELL chat space ;)

Damkerng T.

@Suade モーニング!

Anonymous

20:26

@Suade Ohayō! :-)

Anonymous

Though it's 13:26 here!

Anonymous

@Catija Sorry, I somehow get us talking about Japanese all the time... :-)

Anonymous

I'm a troublemaker!

Suade

Thanks

Damkerng T.

I like Japanese myself, too!

Catija

20:27

@snailboat It's both of us. I think we both like the language and (at least in my case) the culture, so it makes sense.

Anonymous

Stop by Japanese.SE sometime! :-) 大歓迎だよ♪

Damkerng T.

Hehe! 大!

大 indeed!

Anonymous

I kind of wish I watched more anime when I was starting to learn Japanese.

Anonymous

I was still in my rebellious phase where I didn't want to watch TV at all!

Anonymous

I bet the extra listening practice and language exposure would have been helpful though :-)

Damkerng T.

20:32

nods

Anonymous

Of course it's not the same as how people talk normally, but I think it helps!

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Dorama and TV shows can help a lot, I think.

Anonymous

Just like people don't really talk like actors in movies in English, but I'm sure ELLers find watching English movies helpful :-)

Damkerng T.

Particularly when the show is about an interview with local people.

@snailboat Exactly!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Neither anime nor dorama is particularly realistic, but somehow dorama feels a bit closer to listening to someone talk in real life

Anonymous

20:33

I'm not sure what exactly the difference is

Anonymous

It's not "realism", but

Damkerng T.

Perhaps Japanese people see dorama (and live action movies) differently.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Do you watch variety shows or game shows or that sorta thing?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Yes, but the most realistic part would be outside of the studios.

Anonymous

There's a lot of shows where tarento ("talents") go on air and talk fairly naturally :-) Mostly :-)

Damkerng T.

20:35

nods

Anonymous

And there's the news . . . Oh, I can never get myself to listen to the news on a regular basis

Damkerng T.

Ah, yes! NHK!

By the way, 時をかける少女角川文庫 I had ordered arrived today!

Anonymous

Well, none of it is actually like talking to someone in person, but I think all of it can be helpful in its own way :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yay!

Damkerng T.

Yay!

Anonymous

20:36

角川文庫 isn't actually part of the title, by the way

Damkerng T.

Hehe! ~~Sorry!~~

Anonymous

Oh, I'm just letting you know :-)

Anonymous

角川 is Kadokawa, as in 角川書店 Kadokawa Shoten

Anonymous

角川文庫 is an imprint of theirs

Damkerng T.

And the pages are in the right-to-left direction!

Anonymous

20:37

Yes! As are almost all Japanese novels

Anonymous

In Japanese, you say 横書き yoko-gaki 'horizontal writing' and 縦書き tate-gaki 'vertical writing'

Damkerng T.

My first impression is there are lots of kana in there, not many kanji.

Ahh

Anonymous

Fiction is usually written vertically, and vertical writing is arranged right-to-left

Damkerng T.

It's definitely tategaki! (縦書き)

Anonymous

It's not universal though. Some books are written the other way

Anonymous

20:39

A few books (mostly reference books) are even published both ways :-) A 横書き edition and a 縦書き edition!

Anonymous

In 2015, horizontal writing is almost exclusively left-to-right

Damkerng T.

Hah!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's a young adult novel

Damkerng T.

Interesting!

Anonymous

So it won't be as challenging as if you picked up, say, something by Natsume Sōseki

Damkerng T.

20:41

Maybe I can try Japanese Siri this time. :D

Anonymous

Japanese Siri is fun!

Anonymous

Make her sing! Say うたってください！

Damkerng T.

I must switch the settings first.

Sakura sakura!

:D

Anonymous

I tried, and she recited いろはうた！

Damkerng T.

Is it the same Sakura poem?

Anonymous

20:44

No

Damkerng T.

Aww...

Let me try again...

Anonymous

いろはうた is a Japanese poem that you might think of as the ABCs of Japanese

Anonymous

い・ろ・は

Anonymous

Those are the first three, like ABC!

Anonymous

It was a really important poem from about a thousand years ago

Anonymous

20:45

It helped establish the kana orthography

Damkerng T.

Hmm... she said "watashiwa uttai masen"

Anonymous

Sometimes she doesn't want to sing :-) Probably utaimasen?

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Ah, yes! It was a bit too quick for me. :D

Anonymous

The basic verb is うたう 'sing'

Anonymous

The polite form is うたいます 'sing (polite)'

Anonymous

20:47

You add 〜ます to verbs to make them polite.

Anonymous

When you negate 〜ます, you get 〜ません

Anonymous

うたう　→　うたいます　→　うたいません 'sing (polite + negative)'

Damkerng T.

Ahh... Thanks for the tip!

Anonymous

You know,

Anonymous

Sometimes they teach the polite form first, and then introduce the non-polite (or "plain") form later

Anonymous

20:49

One of my friends ended up pretty confused because of that!

Anonymous

She thinks of some verbs first as having the polite form, and others as having the plain form

Damkerng T.

Hehe! I guess the polite form is supposed to be safer at work.

Anonymous

It doesn't seem like she's going to get over her confusion

Anonymous

Learners seem to run into all sorts of different problems

Anonymous

I'm sure learning the polite form first isn't a problem for other people

Anonymous

20:51

And I know why they do it, too

Anonymous

Because yeah, what you said :-) Safer at work, safer with strangers, etc.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

If you only know one or the other, the polite form is safer

Anonymous

Since being more polite than necessary is better than being less polite than necessary! :-)

Damkerng T.

I've heard that a lot of expat English teachers here have to learn a super-polite version of Thai too. :D

Anonymous

20:53

But the polite form really isn't a basic form. From a morphological point of view, it's like if you taught the negative forms first, and then showed people how to use affirmative forms

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I guess that justifies it.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yeah, I don't mean to argue with the way it's taught

Damkerng T.

One teacher was very surprised, because he was taught to pronounce ร (our /r/) so clearly. But when he tried it in real-life he found that every Thai he met cheated! (by not pronouncing our /r/!)

Anonymous

It's easy to come up with views about how things should be taught, but it's never really very simple, is it? :-)

Damkerng T.

Indeed!

Anonymous

20:54

My instinct is that the plain form of the verb should be taught as the basic form and the polite form as derived from that

Damkerng T.

Is the derivation regular?

Anonymous

It's extremely regular. There are five lexical irregularities

Damkerng T.

Oh! Then it shouldn't be too complicated.

Anonymous

ござる　　　　→　　　　ございます
なさる　　　　→　　　　なさいます
くださる　　　→　　　くださいます
いらっしゃる　→　いらっしゃいます
おっしゃる　　→　　おっしゃいます

Anonymous

In all of these, the /r/ has been elided. We'd expect ござる→ござります

Anonymous

20:56

But instead of り, we find い!

Damkerng T.

Will that confuse a newcomer of the room? I wonder!

Anonymous

All five are 尊敬（そんけい） verbs, which we might translate as 'respectful' or 'honorific'

Damkerng T.

A-ha!

Anonymous

I'm sure you recognize ございます from おはようございます or ありがとうございます

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

20:58

What it does there is add politeness :-)

Damkerng T.

I don't know why it's there, but it's there. :-)

Anonymous

And you probably recognize ください 'please'

Damkerng T.

Yes, yamete kudasai!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It's a polite construction from Western Japanese

Damkerng T.

Oh! Eh? Western?

Anonymous

21:00

はやい 'early' →　お- '(honorific prefix)' + はやく 'early (continuative form)' + ござる (polite dummy verb) + -ます '(polite auxiliary)'

Anonymous

おはやくござります
　　　　↓
おはようございます

Damkerng T.

Oh, I could hardly see the difference!

Anonymous

The /k/ is elided from はやく and it becomes はやう which undergoes the regular /au/ → /oo/ sound change to はよう, and the /r/ is elided from ござります which becomes ございます

Anonymous

But just like our earlier examples, おはよう ~~ございます~~ has now taken on a new use 'Good morning!' and lost its literal meaning of 'It is early (honorific polite)'

Damkerng T.

Oh, I always thought that word for "quick" was "haiyaku"! (Now I know that it's "hayaku".)

Anonymous

21:03

Yes,

Anonymous

Actually, /j/ is the semivowel version of /i/

Anonymous

Physically they're more or less the same thing

Anonymous

But we call it /j/ (or "y") when it's used as a consonant and /i/ when it's used as a vowel

Anonymous

So the "i" you're hearing is actually the "y" sound

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

21:04

If you actually said "haiyaku" in Japanese, you'd basically be making the "y" sound three times longer than it normally is :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

But I don't think your ears were wrong :-) It just doesn't match up with how Japanese ears interpret what you heard

Damkerng T.

I think it's about the way I divide sounds into phonemes (or moras).

I had to check whether 'moras' is okay. :P

Anonymous

It is.

Anonymous

But people often say morae.

Anonymous

21:08

When I started learning Japanese, I didn't know what a mora was, and I thought it was a Japanese word!

Anonymous

So I thought the plural was mora! :-)

Anonymous

But when I said it to a Japanese friend, they didn't know what it was

Damkerng T.

It does look like a Japanese word!

Anonymous

I've always liked irregular plurals, so I kind of like morae more than moras

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. In Japanese, a mora contains between one and three phonemes

Damkerng T.

21:11

Eh?

Anonymous

The maximal mora is CCV, where the middle consonant can only be the semivowel y

Damkerng T.

One?

Oh!

Anonymous

Yes,

Anonymous

ああ　＝　a + a

Anonymous

Two morae, one vowel apiece :-)

Damkerng T.

21:11

Hehe! Indeed!

Anonymous

(ああ can be like English "Yeah", depending on how it's used)

Anonymous

But rather than write CCV, we can write CyV

Anonymous

Since the middle C can really only be y :-)

Anonymous

So we have four types of mora!

Damkerng T.

ありがとう！

Anonymous

21:14

V: あいうえお
CV: かきくけこさしすせそ etc.
CyV: きゃきゅきょ etc.
C: んっ

Damkerng T.

Oh, it works!

Anonymous

日本語入力成功！

Damkerng T.

はい！

This is kind of fun!

Anonymous

たのしいね＾＾

Anonymous

In the Japanese writing system, kana are indivisible, so か is often thought of as a single unit instead of a combination of k+a

Damkerng T.

21:18

楽しい！

Anonymous

And か doesn't "contain" あ

Damkerng T.

It picked the kanji for me!

Anonymous

It influences how you think about the language

Anonymous

That was the right kanji! :-)

Anonymous

I used kana because I didn't want to make you look it up :-)

Damkerng T.

21:19

I still had to look up the meaning anyway. :-)

Anonymous

Ahh

Anonymous

Well, just remember, there's nothing wrong with using kana if you aren't sure which kanji to use

Anonymous

If you let it pick the kanji, sometimes it'll be wrong!

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

Like if I type kanzi, I might get 感じ or 漢字

Anonymous

21:20

They're both かんじ but only one means "Han character"

Damkerng T.

Ahh

I guess that could be a common kind of typo in Japanese.

Anonymous

Yes!

Anonymous

変換ミス！

Anonymous

変換（へんかん） is 'conversion'

Anonymous

If you have a Japanese keyboard then you have a 変換 key to convert from kana to kanji

Anonymous

21:24

Even if you don't, you still have some keypress to do it

Anonymous

If you do 変換 incorrectly, you get a 変換ミス！

Damkerng T.

A conversion typo!

Anonymous

Yes, ironically I would translate 変換 here as 'conversion' rather than 'translation'

Damkerng T.

I edited it!

:D

Anonymous

Do you know the term 'transformation' as in technical contexts, like a matrix transform?

Anonymous

21:25

Or like in regular expressions tr/a-z/A-Z/

Anonymous

Or C++ std::transform()

Damkerng T.

Oh, no, I don't!

Wait, I do!

Anonymous

Sorry, I just mixed up "transform" and "translate" :-)

Damkerng T.

I thought you were asking about 'translation' as a matrix verb!

Anonymous

I think 変換 fits those definitions of "transform" in technical contexts

Anonymous

21:27

Not sure about "translate"... maybe it has a technical meaning that could be put that way too

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

But in general I would say 変換 is a better fit for "conversion"

Damkerng T.

Maybe because I'm used to another kind of translation as well: signal translation

Anonymous

Ahh

Anonymous

I don't know signal processing terminology in Japanese

Anonymous

21:29

Like, what's DT convolution in Japanese? I guess I'd just write "DT convolution" and hope for the best... :-)

Damkerng T.

:D

I think that works, too!

Anonymous

Well, if I had to I could look it up! I have lots of resources including technical dictionaries

Anonymous

But I'm probably never going to get that sort of vocabulary into my head :-)

Anonymous

I think a lot of that stuff is done in English even when the speakers are of different languages originally

Damkerng T.

nods

A lot of technical terms in Chinese documents are simply written in English, too.

Anonymous

21:31

English terms are more freely borrowed into Japanese, I think in part due to katakana

Anonymous

Chinese certainly has phonetic loanwords, but not nearly to the same extent

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

There are people who say that Japanese borrows more readily than any other language from English

Anonymous

But I don't know enough about enough languages to know whether that's true or not :-)

Damkerng T.

I think English is part of every common language by now.

Anonymous

21:36

But the 旺文社現代カタカナ語辞典 has two million entries

Damkerng T.

Hah!

Anonymous

Not just from English, of course. But I think 90% of カタカナ語 are from English

Damkerng T.

One entry one word?

Anonymous

Hmm, not exactly

Anonymous

Like, if you look up yellow you find the following headwords: yellow card, yellow cab, yellow cake, yellow journalism, yellow zone, yellowbird operation, yellow fever, yellow book, yellow press, yellow page, yellow baby

Anonymous

21:38

Each with its own definition

Damkerng T.

Oh!

That makes sense.

Anonymous

The OED has less than 300,000 headwords, but it's larger than this katakana-go dictionary

Anonymous

(Significantly larger!)

Anonymous

Some katakana-go are made in Japan

Anonymous

So-called 和製英語（わせいえいご） (lit. "Japan-made English") words

Anonymous

21:40

Like カンニングペーパー 'cheat sheet' (lit. "cunning paper")

Damkerng T.

Hehe! I like that word!

Anonymous

Me too! :-)

Anonymous

I love 和製英語

Anonymous

There's a funny phenomenon

Anonymous

Some people decry these as "misuses" of English

Anonymous

21:41

I don't see it that way, because in my mind "cunning paper" is a Japanese word (though clearly made from English parts etymologically)

Anonymous

And I'm in no position to tell speakers of Japanese that they're using their own language wrong (of course they aren't, it's their language! :-)

Anonymous

Some English speakers learning Japanese dislike using words loaned from English, even if they're used the same way they're used in English

Anonymous

But it's really hard to speak Japanese without using any words from English...

Anonymous

It's a bit too widespread now :-)

Anonymous

It's like if you tried to speak English without using any words from French

Damkerng T.

21:42

Oh, I just thought of this Thai word, pronounced "chill chill"!

Anonymous

A reduplication? What does it mean? :-)

Damkerng T.

Take it easy!

Anonymous

Is it like English chill?

Anonymous

"I'm just gonna chill here for a few"

Damkerng T.

It' from English "chill"!

Anonymous

21:44

Neat!

Anonymous

The Thai language likes reduplication, doesn't it?

Damkerng T.

Yes!

And we pro dropping, too!

Hmm... Reduplication in a pro-drop language...

If a place is "chill chill", it's a comfy place. :-)

Anonymous

Japanese uses a fair bit of reduplication

Anonymous

The most notable use is in sound symbolic words, which is pretty widespread

Anonymous

Reduplication is also used in pet names and in certain morphological plurals

Anonymous

21:49

There's some other morphological reduplication in Japanese, but I don't know enough about it to describe it off the top of my head

Damkerng T.

Oh, and Japanese uses "Moshi Moshi" (right?)

Anonymous

Yes!

Anonymous

That is "hello" (as on a phone)

Anonymous

Though it can be used when you're not on a phone, too

Anonymous

"Hello (are you hearing me?)"

Anonymous

21:49

It's not the normal greeting in person, though

Damkerng T.

Oh, I haven't heard it out of the phone context.

Anonymous

Yeah, 95% of the time you'll hear it in the phone context

Anonymous

Ever see an English speaker on TV say "Hellooooo?" in person, and like, wave a hand to see if the person is still there (mentally) and listening

Anonymous

Something like that? :-)

Anonymous

My impression of moshi mooooshi in person is something kind of like that

Anonymous

21:52

A native speaker would probably not give you that exact description, though, I'm guessing :-)

Anonymous

It's the best I can describe it off the top of my head

Damkerng T.

I've only heard it in dorama.

And probably some ads.

Anonymous

Moshi moshi is a good example of reduplication though!

Anonymous

There are actually a bunch of other uses I haven't listed yet

Anonymous

Like reduplication of adjective stems (いたい 'ouch / it hurts') → いたいた 'owww'

Anonymous

21:55

べつ 'separate' → べつべつ（に・で） 'separately'

Damkerng T.

Oh, I always wonder about that word!

I mean, it's a verb, not a sound, but maybe it's indeed a sound!

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Even back in Old Japanese, the root of an adjective could be used as an exclamation

Anonymous

They still have that use today

Anonymous

Chop off the い at the end :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

21:57

Sometimes in Japanese, when you say something emphatically, you cut it off at the end with a glottal stop, and this is written with っ

Anonymous

So いたい /itai/ → いたっ！ /itaQ/ 'Oww!'

Damkerng T.

Neat!

Anonymous

/Q/ is how Japanese phonologists represent っ in phonemic transcription

Damkerng T.

Maybe Q was chosen for Quiet!

Anonymous

I honestly could never figure out why Q was chosen :-)

Anonymous

21:59

In phonology papers written in Japanese, it's usually said that there are four "special" segments, and they have names in Japanese (written in kanji), but in phonemic transcriptions each one has a symbol

Anonymous

A long vowel is /R/ or /H/ (depending on the linguist)

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