@jkerian 1: All the kana and understanding of kanji, this means an integrated understanding that all sum up to be part of the language and there is no such thing as an all hiragana understanding or all katakana understanding or all kanji understanding.
I have had people ask me "So when do you use which?", and it was a rather tough time explaining that a word is not limited to the "class of kana/kanji"
2: I think it helps that sound comes before written text
3: the concept of postpositional markers
4: basic particles like は が を に で と から まで
5: the copula
6: verbs いる and ある
7: the concept of conjugations and declensions
8: past tense and て-form
I think after these a beginner will be somewhat well equipped to continue learning
@jkerian In my recollection, they had macrons (is that the correct term?) over the vowels. See, for example, the first picture in jrpass.com/blogs/english-at-japanese-stations . How useful having the macrons are is debatable, but it's not "without any indication ... at all".
@Flaw I assume most Japanese classes at primary school and high school aren't taught by nihonjin. According to Wikipedia, 381,000 Australians have studied Japanese. Even if every Japanese person who came to Australia taught Japanese, that wouldn't be enough to account for that figure.
(Many Japanese restaurants in Australia aren't run by Japanese people either)
Does anyone here have experience with the book "Remembering the Kanji"? It seems to be using a lot of "alternative" meanings for the kanjis in order to fit it into the nut case stories, I'm wondering if this will come back to bite me if I keep up with this book.. Otherwise it seems like a decent way of learning them.
Yeah I just feel that would incur a lot of overhead. I mean the main appeal is that it's fast to learn. Otherwise I may just use a dictionary, I think I'm sufficiently mental to make up similar stories on my own. (but the order of the kanjis would not be great then..)
Osaka merchants' sons didn't need education, because they didn't have to find jobs themselves, they can just take over their fathers' companies. So 学問/education was worthless for Osaka merchants and their sons. (This is only what I just read online)
Yeah you should post it there, there'll be interesting answers cos it seems like there're several theories (but I might not post an answer myself... hehe)
You might not get the "right, definite" answer to it, but you'll have an interesting answer like the one Matt posted in Chris's thread about 水無月/神無月
Oh, just random thought I had while talking to someone (not even in/about japanese).. によると (according to) and によって (depending on), are those the same よる?
There're four 寄る as verbs in 岩波: 1) 因る(依る・拠る・由るetc), 2)寄る, 3)撚る・縒る , 4)選る, 1=cause, depend on, be based on, owe to, because of, by means of, by~... 2=come near, drop in, lean on, get together... 3= twist, twine, 4=choose, select And ...によると and ...によって are (1).
Japanese Language
Japanese Language