Japanese Language

Aerovistae

00:01

good to remember what?

Chris Harris

If I make a question based on a false presumption, it will probably hit the sawa wall. Here's an example: japanese.stackexchange.com/q/6282/1328

Aerovistae

00:18

Oh, I wouldn't have thought of that as the wall...seems like a good answer

cypher

I must admit I did find it surprising that FLU doesn't have a single downvoted question, I was wondering whether the standard of the questions asked is higher than here or something

Aerovistae

i believe that is true....they do not generally downvote.

they just close

lol, or should i say we, since i have close-voting power there...easy to forget sometimes

silvermaple

@Aerovistae There are several different orders to learn kanji in, and one of them is by stroke order

small simple ones first, then more and more complicated

Aerovistae

is that what you'd call genetickanji?

silvermaple

No, I forget what site it is...

Chris Harris

00:27

it seems like genetickanji goes by grade

silvermaple

Yes

Chris Harris

However, in my opinion, I don't think that is useful to non-natives

Aerovistae

i really like genetic kanji's explanations, they're fantastic for remembering the kanji...they describe what it's a pictograph OF. but tae kim has the advantage of only teaching you one meaning at a time, in context, which helps to remember a lot

it's hard to find middle ground

silvermaple

I'm not sure it's the way I would recommend someone to learn them, I'm just putting it out there

you strike me as an analytical person, so you might like it :)

Aerovistae

this is true

how did you learn them?

silvermaple

00:28

By grade, as given to me by Genki textbooks :)

I think they went generally by frequiency

but now at higher levels I learn them as I find them

Chris Harris

@silvermaple: grade is not always by frequency

cypher

I learnt a lot of my Kanji using Kanji Gold (a free program), it's getting a bit old now but I think it's still pretty effective (web.uvic.ca/kanji-gold)

silvermaple

If you'd like to learn the meanings for kanji, I would so highly recommend The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary

Aerovistae

haha so many paths

silvermaple

If you buy one Japanese learning dictionary in your entire life, by that one

amazon.com/The-Kodansha-Kanji-Learners-Dictionary/dp/4770028555

Aerovistae

00:31

I'll check it out

for now I know one, two, three, four, person, tree, land, month, fire, and origin. oh, and eye. think that'll be enough kanji to get around japan?

silvermaple

And it gives what you were asking about, one (or two) core meanings for each kanji, and a list of compound words it is in

The only poor mark I would give it is that it is entirely in romaji, but it's worth it

Aerovistae

that is a downside

silvermaple

That dictionary is honestly the reason I figured out how to read romaji...

But! I would still recommend it any day

@Aerovistae Haha, not even a little bit :D

Also, a general piece of advice that I wish I had done when I started...learn the kanji by itself, then as a compound

Aerovistae

oh you're japanese!

or...

at least not american/english!

silvermaple

Oh! Heheh, I am not Japanese, I'm American :)

Why do you say that

Chris Harris

00:35

@silvermaple why do you recommend learning kanji by themselves first?

Aerovistae

"that dictionary is honestly the reason I figured out how to read romaji"

I would think you'd already be able to read romaji if you know the English alphabet

natively

silvermaple

Oh, hah, my class learned hiragana the first week of class, then katakana the second...we didn't use romaji after the first week

@ChrisHarris Oh, sorry, I was unclear, I meant at the same time

Hey, where's my language bar...

Aerovistae

LOL I misread that as "Hey where's my language bear!"

I was like you have a language bear?

I want one...

silvermaple

Haha, yeah, he's missing :(

Oh I found him

Aerovistae

haha

silvermaple

00:37

Anyway: for example, if you're learning the kanji 日

Learn it as 日{にち} but at the same time as 日本{にほん}

as opposed to just the first one

Aerovistae

nichi!

nihon!

silvermaple

seikai!

Aerovistae

I don't know what that means!

silvermaple

correct!

Aerovistae

haha

silvermaple

00:40

正解

Aerovistae

nope.

silvermaple

That was it

seikai

Aerovistae

oh

silvermaple

:)

Aerovistae

I also have no idea how you're entering kanji into the chat

or hiragana/katakana

silvermaple

00:40

my language bear!

Aerovistae

HAHA

Chris Harris

I think it should be 正答

Aerovistae

now i get it

how do i get a language bear

silvermaple

@ChrisHarris I've never heard someone say that in that context, it's always 正解 afaik

@Aerovistae what os do you have?

Aerovistae

presently using mac

unfortunately

cypher

00:42

oh ok

silvermaple

Oh, then I have no idea

Aerovistae

?

silvermaple

It should be just an option in the settings area, wherever that is

cypher

sorry, I gave you a link to a windows program before

Aerovistae

yes, but i have a windows computer as well

i just havent been using it as much recently for professional reasons

silvermaple

00:43

For me in windows you get a little bar at the bottom, and there's an EN and a JP and you can switch

Aerovistae

ah so this is an OS thing

silvermaple

it's in settings ->language and regional or somethign close to that

Aerovistae

i was imagining an SE addon

silvermaple

Nope

it ships with it, you just have to activate it, so to speak

(I'm not a computer person)

Chris Harris

@silvermaple you are right, my mistake

silvermaple

00:44

@ChrisHarris It's all good :)

cypher

I used to use iflash (loopware.com/iflash) for vocabulary, it was pretty much the only reason I used my mac :)

Aerovistae

oooh, nice program

Chris Harris

@silvermaple I was under the impression that 正解 referred to a correct solution that took time to solve. However, that seems incorrect and seems interchangeable with 正答

cypher

I think you go to "international" in the system settings, select "input menu" and toggle "kotoeri"

from there you change the language by clicking on the flag in the top right corner of the screen and selecting the input method

or something

Aerovistae

"or something"

cypher

00:49

there's a guide here redcocoon.org/cab/mysoft.html

I don't have have a mac in front of me to check unfortunately

Aerovistae

bookmarked for future use

merci

silvermaple

@ChrisHarris Ah! It's just what my Japanese friends always said when we were studying Japanese

Aerovistae

has anyone ever seen the film kikujiro?

Chris Harris

@silvermaple Lol, however, I have no reason why I thought that..

silvermaple

@ChrisHarris :)

@Aerovistae No, I have not

Aerovistae

01:03

tsk

seen any miyazaki movies?

silvermaple

of course

Aerovistae

oh dandy

its one of the handful of other movies that Joe Hisaishi has scored besides miyazaki's films

i really, really like his music, and I love that movie's theme, so I thought I should watch it

(i havent seen it yet either)

silvermaple

Well, let me know how you like it :)

Aerovistae

alright

cypher

On the Okurigana listed in parenthesis after the Kun readings, they're a lot of the time separate words, so taking "上" as an example:

うえ -> 上 a noun meaning "above"

あ(がる) -> 上がる an intransitive verb meaning "to ascend", but you can also derive from that a noun 上がり "ascent"

あ(げる) -> 上げる a transitive verb "to raise"

Aerovistae

01:11

take the kanji for below

can those same okurigana be applied the same way to obtain descend, descent, to lower?

cypher

sorry, descend -> 下る（くだる）, descent -> 下り（くだり）, to lower -> 下げる（さげる）

there are a lot of exceptions, so you really need to check them individually in a dictionary

Aerovistae

ascend/descend are different but the others are the same

still

its nice to see any patterns

Shazer2

Ooo, people are here.

Aerovistae

no, we're not

Shazer2

I remember learning 下. One of the first kanji I learnt.

Aerovistae

01:20

everybody, shh

Shazer2

But, I find kanji really difficult.

Aerovistae

(same here)

(on both counts_

well, some of them anyway

Shazer2

Hence why I find learning Japanese difficult and I'm not getting very far.

Chris Harris

why are kanji difficult?

Shazer2

I though, oh yeah, kanji is just all about remembering (which it is) then I realised some kanji have 2-8 readings.

:/

silvermaple

01:21

@Shazer2 When I learned 下 can be read as しも I almost gave up on kanji

Aerovistae

what is shimo?

silvermaple

it was like, the 10th reading I learned for it, after I thought I knew them all

it's a reading for 下

Aerovistae

does it still mean under, down?

silvermaple

Oh, 10 is an exaggeration, but "shimo" is for when it's talking about regions of places, or neighborhoods...lower east end or something like that

Aerovistae

ah

intriguing

how many kanji do you know now?

(estimate)

Chris Harris

01:24

It is helpful to learn しも as a reading through compounds that use it: 下座

silvermaple

The neighborhood I lived in was called 宮野上

Chris Harris

Otherwise, you will have a bad time :)

silvermaple

and right under us was 宮野下

And I was floored when I learned that was "Miyano-Kami" and "-Shimo"

@Aerovistae ! 4000?

It's got to be less than that...that sounds too high

Shazer2

I learned, しも、した, もと、さ、くだ、お、カ、ゲ readings for 下

Aerovistae

4k is rather a lot

how long have you been doing this?

silvermaple

01:29

Yeah, I was trying to add numbers from a website, there has to be some overlaps

I would guess 2000

Chris Harris

4k is interestingly a lot

silvermaple

Yeah, I don't don't think that's possible

Aerovistae

that would be closer to normal lol

slightly

even sawa may not know 4000

!

Chris Harris

you would know kanji that is not in circulation if that is true

silvermaple

I typed it down, and then I was thinking, I don't even know if there's that many jyoyou kanji

Aerovistae

01:31

1945 joyo

joyou

cypher

I would I know say maybe about 2000 as well, a fair number of the jouyou kanji (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Dy%C5%8D_kanji) and a few characters used in names

silvermaple

@Shazer2 When I first learned it I learned "した"

So yeah 2000 is a much safer bet

Chris Harris

wow you guys making me feel bad >_>

I know about 1500

Aerovistae

FEEL BAD CHRIS

FEEL BAD.

silvermaple

Oh, don't feel bad, that's good

Chris Harris

01:31

(T_T)

Aerovistae

I know 10. about.

cypher

the number of jouyou Kanji has increased 2,136 apparently

Chris Harris

@Aerovistae but you know french

Aerovistae

good, theyre raising the literacy level

well im a language person

silvermaple

It won't do much good

Aerovistae

01:32

i always hated being monolingual, im working on changing that so my future self can be someone I admire

silvermaple

With electronic typing people are learning to recognize kanji, but not actually write them

That's a good goal :)

Aerovistae

plus i had nothing else to do this summer, lol

cypher

I can't write most Kanji myself unless I look them up

Aerovistae

most?

Shazer2

@silvermaple yeah, I have an app for my iPad called StickyStudy and it shows every meaning. :P

silvermaple

01:34

For example, even (Japanese) kids can recognize 曜 now-a-days, even though it used to be way beyond their level, so they didn't teach it. But it's really a commonly used kanji (it's in all the days of the week), so if they recognize it when it pops up on the computer, they can write it down.

@Shazer2 Yeah, I wish I had rikaichan when I started studying Japanese

Aerovistae

i have an app for my Mac called Safari and it's useless

Shazer2

@silvermaple that is youbi, right?

silvermaple

I wish I had done a lot differently @.@

yes

Well, "you"

Shazer2

Yeah

silvermaple

曜日

Shazer2

01:35

曜日

That's youbi. :P

How do you wish you learned, @silvermaple?

silvermaple

正解！

Shazer2

I'm not getting anywhere, and maybe I'm doing something wrong.

silvermaple

Hmm, well, first off, it takes a long time, no matter how you learn

Practice, practice, practice

Chris Harris

Shazer2

So true, @ChrisHarris

silvermaple

01:37

I wish I understood the importance of different readings in a word, and their use in compounds, instead of just focusing on the "meaning" of a kanji

I wish I tried less rote memorization and more reading books and watching TV

Shazer2

Are you fluent though, @silvermaple?

silvermaple

Well, I can carry out a conversation, but that's due to living in Japan for a year

Aerovistae

i feel like thats going to make a lot of sense to me once i get going on it.....ive always gained a huge advantage off recognizing word roots in English

i feel like it will be similar

but i could be dead wrong

silvermaple

If by roots you mean kanji compounds, there is some element to that there

Aerovistae

yes

silvermaple

01:40

if you know half of a compound, you can sort of take a stab at the meaning

Aerovistae

exactly

silvermaple

Buuuut, I would caution you against relying on that too much...especially in higher levels, the nuance becomes too great between words

At least that's what I feel like

Aerovistae

of course

silvermaple

:)

Aerovistae

i generally always look it up if im not positive.

which i rarely am

silvermaple

01:42

That's good

:)

I look things up even if I'm 90% sure...and 9 times out of 10 I'm right!

haha, I made a joke

It's okay, you can tell me that was a bad joke

Shazer2

So.. what approach would you all take to learning Japanese

?

silvermaple

Hmm, well, what level are you, @Shazer2?

Shazer2

I have no idea..

I can form a basic sentence, but, often I've just guessing which particle to use etc

Like I know what a few are used for, such as の

silvermaple

Beginning - intermediate - advanced?

Shazer2

But I never know whether to use は or が

silvermaple

01:46

Ohhh, ok, so beginning

Shazer2

and I don't really know what を is used for

Yeah, beginner for sure

Aerovistae

@silvermaple it wasn't so bad

silvermaple

So, first off, particles suck

Shazer2

I studied in school for 3 years, but we didn't learn much

silvermaple

@Aerovistae Aww :)

Aerovistae

01:46

wow what school did you to 5o

@Shazer2

ignore the 5o

lol

Shazer2

Aerovistae, I'm from Australia?

Aerovistae

oh

AWESOME!

Shazer2

:)

silvermaple

I hate particles...they're really tricky and dumb...they're like prepositions...I feel bad for all English learners who have to learn propositions

So don't stress the particles

Aerovistae

my general policy on learning a language is this: first learn the alphabet if need be, learn fundamental pronunciation.

then learn basic grammar

I am a cat

silvermaple

01:47

Yes, they're important, and no, you can't ignore them, but if you get them wrong, it's okay, move on

Aerovistae

He ran to the city.

etc.

Shazer2

私はねこです。

:P

cypher

は and が still confuse me. I never really got the diff, I mostly just try to use them based on the patterns I've seen when reading

Shazer2

@Aerovistae, I know all カタカナ and ひらがな

Aerovistae

then i memorize a basic set of vocabulary....tree, car, house, person, boy, girl, red, blue, etc....about 3000 words, so i dont have to look up everything i see

then i start reading as much as i can, and writing, and listening to movies and radio, to get myself the rest of the way to proficiency

with french im on that last step

with japanese im still on the alphabet.

Shazer2

01:50

Nice! So you know French and Japanese?

Oh, ok :)

Aerovistae

yeah i wish

silvermaple

That's a good way of doing it :) Very step by step :)

Aerovistae

gimme 6 or 7 years

hopefully by then ill be decent with this

not a quick thing, for sure, unless you move there.

silvermaple

I think you should just try to get native materials...living in Japan had so much immersion...I know you hear it all the time that it's the best way to learn, but it really is

Aerovistae

i know, i know

hold on, let me finish memorizing these katakana real quick then ill get a japanese version of War and Peace

silvermaple

01:52

It's also very hard, and a lot of work, but just constantly having things to see and hear in your target language, and having to get over your fear of making a mistake

Aerovistae

jk i know you're right

im just not quite there yet

silvermaple

That's probably the biggest thing...getting over your fear of making a mistake...of having every sentence be perfect before you say it

Aerovistae

ive been talking in FLU chat with the others lately

youre right

i was afraid to talk, but its SO HELPFUL

they fix everything i say

silvermaple

@Shazer2 You should try to do some writing on Lang-8, you too @Aerovistae, they have all sorts of languages

Aerovistae

never heard of it

googling

Shazer2

01:54

@silvermaple, I've done a bit, but I don't really know what to write since my Japanese is VERY limited.

silvermaple

I was thinking of setting up a Japanese only chatroom, to practice

@Shazer2 Pssh, it can be anything

Aerovistae

Hi! I am a blue cat!

Shazer2

@silvermaple, please make the chatroom. :P

Aerovistae

Meow!

silvermaple

I've corrected a lot of English-learners entries (well, not a lot), and some of them are silly, but I'm glad to do it :)

I'm not sure how

Aerovistae

01:55

OH MY GOD

Shazer2

こんにちは！私は青ねこです。

Aerovistae

THIS SITE'S CAPCHA SYSTEM.

Shazer2

What Aerovistae?

LOL, what about it?

Aerovistae

lang-8

i cant by it

cant get by it

wow that took me 7 tries

Shazer2

:P

Aerovistae

01:56

it was completely illegible

Shazer2

The site logic is good, but the site design is pretty average.

Aerovistae

and im used to SE now

the best site design on the web, frankly

after google's main page, maybe

Shazer2

Yeah

silvermaple

did I do it?

I think I did it

Aerovistae

what?

silvermaple

01:58

I made the chat room

I think I did anyway, go see if you can get to it

It'll be difficult to mix the levels, but I think it will be okay

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