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02:00 - 18:0022:00 - 00:00

Hi all :)
'morning silvermaple
How's it going?
not much... trying to figure out how to fake-out this HDD
Sounds fun :)
22:28
I want the error-correcting hardware to churn for a bit before returning... ideally BEFORE we circle around back to the target location
That is so over my head, but I wish you luck
not really over your head... just a codebase you've never seen :)
haha, I think that's the same thing :)
What is the minimum that people on JLU could agree you need to have, when you're starting to learn Japanese?
1: understanding of what kana/kanji are, 2: some sort of plan... textbook, tae kim's... something... 3: some sort of native language materials ?
Humm, I'm not sure what you're asking
Like, what's the least amount of materials one can use to begin studying?
22:36
I'm contemplating the hopeless task of trying to write a FAQ for absolute beginners
Hey, that sounds like a good project
I can't stress enough step 1 being learning kana over romaji
The problem is... assuming there are N users of the site... I'm willing to bet there are (N + 20) methods that the membership will passionately argue for.
@silvermaple meh... I don't think that's anywhere near as important as people say
That is a valid idea
See, I beg to differ...learning romaji is not necessary
"learning romaji" is something that doesn't exist
No, what I mean, is learning to rely on romaji
22:38
largely irrelevent
I beg to differ :)
The important thing is to learn using native materials... which will by necessity require kana and kanji knowledge. IF (and this is a big IF) you are going to start with the written language.
(which is largely insane, but the way most self-studiers have to do it)
Oh, yeah, I mean when you start with the written language
By all means, start by learning the kana. It teaches you the sounds that are possible in the language and a bit of the basic structure.
I think you should start to read/write when you start to hear/speak...I never understood the benefit of learning one skill first
And I think psychologically too. Being able to read the alphabet when you start learning is a great boost.
22:41
They're two seperate skills
You DO learn them seperately, even if you think you don't
There's no reason you can't learn them concurrently though
All of the "integrated" approaches I've seen... sucked
22:42
At some point, pretty much everyone over the N3 (or so) level has decided "okay... for the next X months I'm going to attack the kanji", and done so in a semi-organized manner
Oh yeah, I do that myself...but for beginners, why would I learn to write "今は何時ですか?” but not learn to say it?
Slowing down your understanding of the language (and fluency) by making you integrate kanji studies with learning structure and conversational skills is a waste of time
think the other way around
or even without the kanji
A beginner should know how to say "ima wa nanji desu ka" while they're still nailing down the kana. (for reference... see any Japanese I college course... ever)
Sure, I agree with you there
22:44
So even from the start... the reading and writing are decoupled
No, you just said it yourself
They're learning kana as they learn their first sentences
My favorite example is definitely かえる... in kana (and spoken language), that's all you need to remember. Given that the correct writing is: 変える、代える、換える or 替える, you're probably going to get it wrong anyways.... just given that writing and speaking should be decoupled.
@silvermaple of course... but there's a huge gap between "learn and be comfortable with the kana" and "don't use 'dictionary of basic japanese grammar', 'Green Goddess 4th Ed' or any book on linguistics because they use that icky romaji and you might permanently taint yourself"
@jkerian what's romaji?
Hmm, I think I don't understand what your point is...I want to say what you're saying is "homophones are hard, so don't bother", but I don't think that was what you were trying to say
In the spoken language, the meanings are close enough to be largely irrelevent.
22:51
Hey Chris :) It's when Japanese is written using the Roman alphabet (the alphabet)
watashi ha amerikajin desu
wa?
doesn't matter
I'm too used to typing I guess...
Your original is in what I like to call IME-romaji :)
Haha, yeah
I typed it out and was like, eh? that's not right
22:53
(yet another reason that this idea that 'reading romaji will forever destroy your language-learning soul' is stupid... if you use a computer, it's going to be your primary way of writing the language)
Ok, let's be fair. I never said you should not be familiar with romaji, because there's no way around it. What I said was that when you start learning, you should start learning Kana at the beginning
That's true
I thought romaji was only a means to learn the pronunciation of a kana
Shouldn't it be limited to just that?
@ChrisHarris That's the one thing that it really ISN'T
I dont get it
22:56
And I can say from my personal experience, that I've had friends whose Japanese teacher took forever to teach them kana, then taught them one kanji a week. They hated it when they got to Japan because they were so far behind us, who where from a different school. Granted, this teacher was also bad in other ways, but that was a big one
@ChrisHarris As far as I'm concerned, that's really the only use for romaji in a beginning classroom
does romaji have any other uses?
@silvermaple The japanese seem to disagree with you :)
Well, the Japanese like to use it for style, and of course for typing on a computer
There are layouts where each key is a different kana, but that's hard for me...
@silvermaple In my time in Japan... I've never seen anyone use those layouts
@jkerian Same
@jkerian In what way?
22:59
i know of only one person who did personally
@ChrisHarris One of my Korean friends accidentally switched the keyboard layout to that kind, and he was so annoyed, because he didn't know how to switch it back, heh
@jkerian can you please explain what you meant how "its the one thing that it really isn't"?
@ChrisHarris It's just pretty bad at making pronunciation match
Hepburn is "close enough" for a businessman who is visiting Tokyo once or twice in his life and wants to memorize a few simple greetings
@jkerian Oh. Well, I used a recorded voice to get the pronunciation.
nihonshiki and kunrei are actually 1:1 replacements for kana, and kana-pronunciation
23:01
@ChrisHarris Oh, you get a gold star Chris :)
@silvermaple :P
It should be noted... I don't consider the lack of pronunciation matching to be a big deal. Anyone who thinks this is a major issue with romaji needs to come to terms with the fact that people manage to study Spanish without screwing up 'll' after the first week or so, if you really have problems with reading another language using roman characters, languages may not be your thing.
@jkerian that applies if their native language uses roman characters
With all of that said... the real reason this debate even exists is due to a rather strange resistance on the part of certain publishers to publish anything in the format "kana + spaces"
23:09
I just realized
I have this textbook that uses romaji
Oh, is that a thing?
I dont think I ever used it
@ChrisHarris obviously... is it the MnN series which comes in a few different source languages?
Chinese, Thai, etc...
I had a photocopied textbook (yes, not bound) that was very old and all in romaji
one second
23:10
it was impossible to read (both because of the romaji and because it was a photocopy)
Has anyone else experienced that... Language departments at colleges seem to be the worst "official" copyright offenders I've ever seen.
With me it's been mostly Spanish and Japanese... but I've never studied at a college and NOT been given a copy of something I probably should have paid for. This happened both in the US and Japan.
This was in Japan, so I dunno
@jkerian same
23:13
I've received copies in Canada, but never a whole text book...and also I bought copies that were reprinted legally
@silvermaple see... statements like this just boggle my mind. How could it being in romaji possibly make it impossible to read?
"romaji in an online Japanese discussion" is pretty analogous to "goto with programmers", as a topic that evokes very strong reactions for no particular reason
Heh, at that point I had never had to read full-on romaji sentences, save for the first week of Japanese classes
Without a doubt, the worst romaji system I've ever seen is the one the Japanese have plastered all over the JR stations.
It's sortof Hepburn without any indication of syllable extensions at all
23:32
Ok! So I have a question that does not have to do with romaji!
6割 means 60%?
I guess I'm more looking for a confirmation...I was so confused I thought it meant like, a ration of 6...but I didn't know to what
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