Japanese Language

Anonymous

2:47 AM

The semantic leap from modifiers expressing truth to modifiers with an intensifying meaning is interesting

Anonymous

In English, we have for example really and very and truly

Anonymous

All of which mean "to a great extent"

Anonymous

But all of which originally meant something like "in truth; in reality"

Anonymous

There are more members of that class in English, of course, some newer than others

Anonymous

Literally has only gotten its intensifier meaning in the last 150 years

Darius Jahandarie

2:48 AM

That is pretty interesting.

Anonymous

Real is an intensifier in informal (nonstandard) speech: "real good"

Anonymous

I find it interesting that 本当に and 実に are listed as 副詞 in dictionaries

Anonymous

You'd think they could just be the 形容動詞の連用形

Anonymous

So, listed under 本当 and 実

Anonymous

Not all dictionaries list them separately, but most that I checked do

Darius Jahandarie

2:49 AM

Probably due to the semantic divergence from the 形容動詞.

The alternative would having a line under 本当 specifically for 本当に, no?

Anonymous

広辞苑 gives 程度の甚だしいさま。 as a meaning for 本当に

Anonymous

Whereas in 日国 it's just considered sense 3 of 本当

Anonymous

広辞苑 gives sense 2 of 実に as 全く。非常に。

Anonymous

(Where sense one is うたがいなく。ほんとうに。まことに。げに。)

Anonymous

I'm actually not familiar with 実{げ}に

Darius Jahandarie

2:54 AM

Hmm, I guess it's true that the intensifier meaning does work when it's adnominal too: 本当のバカ or whatever. Feels just like "real idiot" in English in fact.

Anonymous

It's true cross-linguistically. 本当に, truly, vraiment, veramente, realmente

Darius Jahandarie

Hmm, in Farsi I don't think خیلی has a root anything like that.

But I also don't know how to look up etymology for words in Farsi...

Anonymous

3:13 AM

I don't see it here: archive.org/details/…

Anonymous

خیلی is literally just "many"?

Anonymous

Meaning great extent (both count and non-count)

Darius Jahandarie

Hmm... I think it's non-count. But my Farsi is god-awful. :)

Anonymous

3:35 AM

About 〜とおり・〜どおり

Anonymous

I was thinking the difference might trace back to prenasalization from の

Anonymous

Rendaku is thought to trace back etymologically to reduced particles like の or に becoming ん and then coalescing into a voiced version of the following consonant

Anonymous

As in にて＞んて＞で

Anonymous

So, 言ったとおり but 予定のとおり→どおり

Anonymous

思ったとおり
　思いどおり　←　「思いのとおり」から転じたかな

Darius Jahandarie

3:42 AM

Makes sense.

Aerovistae

4:02 AM

I was having an infuriating time the other day--

a girl who speaks Japanese was trying to tell me how to say "no" in Japanese.

She would say it (sounded like "dameh") and I would repeat back exactly what I heard

no matter how many times we went back and forth, every single time she told me i had it completely wrong

is there a trick to this or something??

Anonymous

Can you do a recording?

Anonymous

I don't know which languages you already speak

Anonymous

English doesn't have a vowel exactly like Japanese /e/

Anonymous

But there's a vowel pretty similar to /e/ in lots of languages that should be close enough …

Aerovistae

English and French....few words of Mandarin :)

let's see

give me a sex

2

sec*****

Anonymous

4:05 AM

Since Japanese has so few vowels, each vowel has a fairly wide space in the spectrum

Darius Jahandarie

I pronounce dame as daaaaawmeh sometimes if I'm trying to be funny.

Aerovistae

clyp.it/umiviyar

there is my (apparently TOTALLY wrong) pronunciation

Darius Jahandarie

I wouldn't go as far as calling that totally wrong...

Aerovistae

haha

Darius Jahandarie

But I'm also not a native Japanese speaker :)

Aerovistae

4:07 AM

snailboat are you a native speaker?

Anonymous

I am not a native speaker of Japanese

Anonymous

My only native language is English

Darius Jahandarie

(Is it possible to be a native speaker of nothing?)

Aerovistae

aw

Anonymous

@DariusJahandarie Yes

Aerovistae

4:11 AM

maybe i can just ignore dame and use iie instead.

Anonymous

@Aerovistae In your recording I hear a mid-open vowel

Aerovistae

that's a good starting plan, yes.

Darius Jahandarie

@Aerovistae They are used in fairly different contexts.

Aerovistae

oh...

Anonymous

Whereas in Japanese, it's just a regular mid vowel

Aerovistae

4:12 AM

would this make a good question for the forum?

Anonymous

But there's relatively little chance of mishearing a mid-open vowel

Anonymous

So I don't think it should interfere with comprehension

Aerovistae

i don't know the difference between mid and mid-open

Anonymous

web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/charts/IPAlab/IPAlab.htm

Anonymous

If you go here

Anonymous

4:13 AM

See at the left side of the vowel chart

Anonymous

Where e and ɛ are

Anonymous

In English we don't distinguish between e and ɛ

Anonymous

(Although we use both)

Anonymous

Japanese e is halfway in between those

Anonymous

4:14 AM

That's a Japanese vowel chart

Aerovistae

wow that's a complicated page

Anonymous

ja.forvo.com/word/%E3%81%A0%E3%82%81/#ja

Aerovistae

you must be into linguistics

Anonymous

Here you can hear recordings

Aerovistae

:.(

sounds like "damet"

Anonymous

4:16 AM

If you click ɛ on the IPA chart and compare it to the recording on Forvo

Anonymous

Oh, there's a reason for that

Anonymous

Umm

Anonymous

Say "Uh oh"

Aerovistae

(brb)

Anonymous

The sound in the middle of "Uh oh" is called a glottal stop.

Anonymous

4:16 AM

It's called that because you stop the airflow in the glottis (your vocal cords, basically in the throat)

Anonymous

In American English, the glottal stop is an allophone of syllable-final /t/, so

Anonymous

When you say "Batman" in normal speech (not in careful speech), you probably actually say a glottal stop rather than a [t] sound

Darius Jahandarie

Wow. Nice off-the-cuff explanation of that.

Anonymous

That means, as a speaker of AmE, you're training yourself to hear a /t/ when you hear a glottal stop in final position, even though it's not technically a [t] sound

Anonymous

Meanwhile in Japanese, it's common to end utterances (especially emphatic utterances) with a glottal stop

Anonymous

4:18 AM

But it's not a /t/ in Japanese

Darius Jahandarie

I wish I had some sort of reward to give you for doing that impromptu.

Anonymous

Hehe, thanks :-)

Aerovistae

wow, that made a lot of sense

great explanation

i understand

still not sure i can reproduce it correctly

Anonymous

4:33 AM

As for the vowel

Anonymous

If you look at that chart, you'll see

Anonymous

Along the left side, from top to bottom

Anonymous

i
e
ɛ
a

Anonymous

The chart probably doesn't make any sense to you yet

Anonymous

But if you click those one at a time... and try making the sounds you hear

Anonymous

4:34 AM

You'll notice that at the top of the chart, your tongue is pretty high up in your mouth

Anonymous

And at the bottom of the chart, your tongue is lower

Anonymous

Your tongue moves into different spots in your mouth, and that changes the airflow and produces a different type of vowel

Anonymous

If you try saying all those 4 sounds on the chart, you should be able to sort of figure out how to move your tongue up and down to make different vowels

Anonymous

And then you should be able to pronounce one halfway between [e] and [ɛ]

Anonymous

That is, pretty much in the middle

Anonymous

4:38 AM

And that's the basic Japanese /e/ sound :-) Of course, in real life, people don't pronounce vowels exactly the same way every time

Anonymous

And in Japanese, there are no other vowels with similar sounds

Anonymous

So if you pronounce it a little differently, it's probably okay.

Anonymous

The chart I showed you above is just an average tongue position for each vowel

Transcript for