Japanese Language

Earthliŋ

17:53

0

On every proposal there is a link to a PNG file, which may be used to advertise the proposal. I always assumed these ads update themselves, but at the moment the ad for the Japanese Culture proposal shows 44% committed. The ad is used on Travel.SE and I think it would be fairer to the proposa...

Anonymous

19:57

0

Q: 母 stroke order irregular compared to 日

As I have learned kanji, I have been under the impressions stroke order for box kanji like 日 should be left to right, top to bottom. Most kanji seem very consistent, or so I thought. I recently discovered I have been writing 母 like I would 日、whereas it should be instead the first stroke is the l...

kanji stroke-order

Anonymous

I think this question is okay on Japanese.SE, but I do think the question would be substantially unchanged on Chinese.SE

Anonymous

In the past we migrated a question or two about Chinese characters when there was nothing Japanese-specific in them.

Anonymous

Anyone have any thoughts?

Austin French

I get to join another stack site? Yay! No objections if its a better fit.

Anonymous

@AustinFrench I'm happy leaving it here. But I wanted to bring it up in chat in case anyone had any opinions :-)

Anonymous

20:06

The stroke order for 母 and 日, as well as the (lack of) relationship between them are the same whether you're talking about Chinese or Japanese.

Anonymous

1

Q: Is there a more natural way of asking this:「どんなカメラを使いましたか。」?

I'm trying to ask a photographer what camera they used for some pictures they took, but I'm not sure if what I think I should say is correct. I was gonna ask: どんなカメラを使いましたか。 Is that correct? It kinda sounds unnatural/stiff to me so I'm asking here just to make sure. Will using が instead of を ma...

translation

Anonymous

In this question, the asker wrote:

Anonymous

> If I use the て form for 使う, would that be too impolite?

Anonymous

Their original sentence is:

Anonymous

> どんなカメラを使いましたか。

Anonymous

20:07

It's not clear to me what sentence they mean by "use the て form for 使う".

Austin French

My only thought: As a primarily Japanese learner it makes sense to me for Japanese learners to ask it here. Even though Kanji is of Chinese decent, it adds a few extra considerations between traditional, simplified and other morphing of the characters (from my understanding at least) that a Japanese learner might not need to know...

Of course I assume that it happens often enough that there is no difference, and the Chinese site would make sense but why drive traffic to another site when the audience is Japanese-centric?

Anonymous

Seems reasonable :-)

Austin French

lol, seems easy enough then!
What's your question about the て　/ カメラ question? Seems like he just wants to know if 使って is too impolite...?

Anonymous

20:26

So you think they'd want to say 「どんなカメラを使ってか。」?

Anonymous

I didn't think that was very likely.

Austin French

Perhaps that's why he thought it sounded unnatural? IDK, guessing as to what he meant, or as the first respondent suggested maybe they wanted to say 「どんなカメラを使っていますか」 I think your comment needs an answer on the question though to see what he was doing that sounded unnatural, so we know if he did anything besides change one word's form

Anonymous

Yeah, I have a feeling some people describe 〜ている as "the て form"...

Austin French

20:41

So 使っている？

Anonymous

20:57

Well, I was agreeing they might mean 使っています, but they've phrased it too imprecisely for me to assume that's correct.

Anonymous

When I wrote 〜ている, I was including its polite inflection 〜ています

Earthliŋ

21:20

@snailboat Not sure what to say. I don't think there was any consensus to actually move questions like that, so maybe we wait to see if anyone starts casting migration votes...?

Anonymous

Sure, I'm not doing anything :-)

Earthliŋ

I was going to post a comment to refer to chineseetymology.org (to look at the history of 母 vs 日), but when I looked at the 母 entry there, there was adult content!

So I didn't...

Austin French

21:46

@Earthliŋ, I am guessing I can guess what it was!

Anonymous

@AustinFrench Well, you could just look, unless breasts offend you: chineseetymology.org/…

Austin French

lol, they don't offend me one bit, but on a company machine and company network right now soooo...

Anonymous

Let me edit my message then:

Anonymous

Unless breasts offend you and/or your workplace :-)

Anonymous

Maybe an answer could use that link (if the answerer wanted to), but with a little warning.

Austin French

21:51

or perhaps the link to image s09144 (Decided to see how bad it was on my phone) and describe it from there? Or just use the link and a big Possibly NSFW warning.

Anonymous

You can see that they're different in the modern forms, too:

Anonymous

Anonymous

Maybe an answer could use these images :-)

Austin French

So basically we are saying because of the etymology and original ideograms as they morphed the stroke order carried over, consequently breaking the "rule" I had learned for stroke order?

Anonymous

21:57

Well, I think it's not what you're calling a "box-type" character.

Anonymous

(If I remember what you wrote)

Austin French

I think I am sort of borrowing kodansha's terminology and possibly mixing it with something else too...

Anonymous

Have you ever seen characters like 貫? kakijun.jp/page/11214200.html

Austin French

Yes,
This is sort of what I meant, what Kodansha calls "solid"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodansha_Kanji_Learner%27s_Dictionary#4.29_Solid

Anonymous

I don't think the SKIP classification in the KLD is very useful for stroke order

Anonymous

22:01

Give me a minute to find my copy of the KLD

Austin French

That's why I said I think I mixing and borrowing some in my explanation. What KDL calls solid I learned somewhere (can't remember where) that the general rule is left to right, top to bottom and most kanji (Solid or not) is really predictable with it, 買、耳、日

At least I hope they are and I haven't been doing it wrong!

Anonymous

I don't see any general rules in the KLD, although it has a bunch of helpful stroke order diagrams in the main entries :-)

Anonymous

Stroke order is mostly fairly predictable, but you're going to have to do some memorization anyway.

Anonymous

Any rule you can come up with has exceptions, I think.

Anonymous

I mean, if you want to memorize stroke order. It's useful for some stuff, but it's okay if your stroke order isn't always perfect :-)

Austin French

22:05

"Any rule you can come up with has exceptions" About the only rule I know without any exceptions ;)

Anonymous

By the way, you can usually find the stroke order for a character if you google for it and 筆順.

Anonymous

(or 笔顺 for Chinese)

Austin French

good tip!
I usually just do the kanji and "stroke order" but thats good to know!

Anonymous

Oh, I guess that works too! :-)

Anonymous

Sometimes stroke order is kind of arbitrary. And sometimes it's different in Chinese and Japanese.

Anonymous

22:08

Like with 臣.

Anonymous

That seems like a relevant example here.

Anonymous

It used to be the lower-left L thingy was written as one stroke. But they changed it in Japanese, separating it into two strokes so the | on the left is first, and the _ on bottom is last.

Anonymous

But in Chinese and Korean, the L thingy is still written as one stroke.

Anonymous

Japanese stroke order - Chinese stroke order

Anonymous

I wonder what the rules you memorized have to say about that

Anonymous

22:13

I started by memorizing the 12 rules in the front cover of either Henshall's book or O'Neill's book… I don't remember which. I don't remember what the rules are anymore, either :-(

Austin French

Super relevant! Actually;
Between 臣 etymology and change in Japanese, comparing it directly to 日　and 母 is a great answer!

Anonymous

I think one of the rules was: if you write a horizontal stroke that goes all the way through like in 母 or 女, you write it last. (but 世 is an exception)

Anonymous

And in 日 the stroke doesn't go all the way through

Austin French

But my "rules" would work perfectly for the Japanese version but fail miserably for the Chinese version

regardless, I think I am going to make it a point to double check strokes even on easy ones moving forward

Anonymous

It's not a bad idea, as long as you're prioritizing your learning appropriately :-)

Anonymous

22:18

That is, I think stroke order is useful to know, but I wouldn't spend all my time on it!

Anonymous

I get it stuck in my head by writing a lot

Anonymous

There are times I forget, though...

Anonymous

I'm okay with that, personally :-)

Anonymous

The nice thing is that when you learn characters later, most of them contain things you've already learned the stroke order for, so you just have to remember what order to put the big chunks in.

Anonymous

That can be kind of arbitrary, too. Why is 廴 written last in 建, but 走 written first in 起...? Dunno!

Anonymous

22:22

Just have to memorize it, I guess...

Anonymous

(You don't even really have to memorize it, unless you're trying to write pretty characters. My electronic dictionary recognizes those even if you write them in the wrong order :-)

Austin French

I'm going to make a rule for 建: Because the radical is too crazy to right first, crazy is always last.

Anonymous

22:40

I guess you can learn to write 鬱 last, then :-)

Austin French

lol, that one is like a prophecy!

Transcript for