I've been working on a script for a Visual Novel, in it one of the heroine's Sakura address's the main hero Talavaliau (Tala for short) as Sempai because she has a crush on him and can't bring herself to actually call him by his name even with honorifics but also as a sign of respect for his natu...
@snailboat Hmm, I do not know what is “subjective” or “opinion-based” about this question. It seems like a reasonable question to me.
Q: Which is better to learn first, hiragana or katakana? A: It does not matter much because you will learn both in short time anyway. This seems like a perfect question-answer pair. Of course, if someone tries to argue that one is better than the other, then _that answer_ will be subjective, but that is not the asker’s fault.
I think that many questions can be answered subjectively if one wants to, but that does not make the questions subjective. It seems contradictory to me to close a question which can be (and was already) answered fairly objectively as “opinion-based.”
not saying necessarily that it would, but that someone could potentially argue in favor of one or the other, and ultimately I don't think there is any hard evidence that can deliver a truly objective answer
It's a straightforward "learning" question.... "which do I prioritize in my learning?"
As of now, we've solidly rejected those questions as a category... that doesn't mean that a) we always will or b) that question couldn't be more objectively written to be acceptable
The problem is... everyone who has studied the language for a bit knows that hiragana and katakana are great "litmus tests"
"I'm learning Japanese too!" "Really... cool... what are you studying" "Well, I watch a lot of anime and am almost done with the hiragana" "... oh... okay"
okay, so the "anime" addition probably distracts from my point more than adds to it... but the idea comes across anyways
If the question was closed as off-topic, then I would not have argued this way. (I do not think that it is a good reason to close questions anyway, but this is a long-standing problem with the site and I would not bring it up now.)
Both of you seem to be basing the decision on the worst possible answers, but I do not think that it is reasonable. Potentially many questions can be answered in subjective and silly ways.
Learning a language has some really @*&#ing boring parts... getting over "memorize these 46 symbols... oh and these 46 too" is a decent test to see if someone is serious enough about it to stick with it at all.
@TsuyoshiIto I think the question, as phrased, is clearly offtopic. I can imagine a question on the same topic that would be acceptable, and if I could nail the phrasing down would edit it into shape...
Someone inexperienced might not have the knowledge necessary to understand that both are equally necessary though and ultimately a tiny part of learning
the question could be edited a few ways, I think. would we want to remove the element of learning completely?
Questions should not be deemed subjective just because they could potentially be answered subjectively. I think that my opinion is quite clear. (Some questions cannot be answered objectively at all, and they should be closed.)
So if questions about learning Japanese should be closed, then the question should be closed. I am against this “if” part, but that is a different matter.
I mean, you can provide another answer that would be perhaps a great addition to the site "40% of learners started with katakana, 50% with hiragana, 10% with kanji, of each of these categories, X,Y,Z% had difficulties with the other character sets/continuing to study/etc"... assuming some education researcher has actually studied it
But I'm still not sure how you get to that answer from an acceptable question
Yes, I heard in older time, children learned katakana first, probably because the mixture of katakana and kanji was more formal than the mixture of hiragana and kanji.
Going back to question 13383, I think it was unfortunate that it was closed as “opinion-based,” but I understand that it will be closed as off-topic given the currently prevailing opinion of closing questions about learning.
"もう止まらないあなたがあなたのことが恋しい" / "Mou tomaranai anata ga anata no koto ga koishii"
I know that "mou tomaranai" = "no longer stops" and "anata no koto ga koishii" = "miss/long for you" but that "ga" in the middle throws me off. It looks like it's saying "You miss the you that won't stop anymore", but th...
You know what I've always wondered... If there's a term for that thing in Japanese where you say something, and then after a pause you add something to it that changes or negates the meaning entirely
Like 素直じゃ。
ない！
I could come up with a much better example if I hadn't pulled an all-nighter. My brain are fried.
It's fairly proportional as well... I only slept about 5 and a half hours last night, (about an hour short of normal for me), so there's a somewhat dull pain right below the kneecap right now
I started really noticing the cognitive deficits from lack of sleep a few hours ago. (I still have to wait for a normal time to sleep, so my sleep doesn't get off-schedule)
I posted a comment an hour ago on ssb's answer suggesting to istrasci 同級生
I feel like you have to learn all the different applications of all the rules in context
Because even if you could figure it out, if it's not what you're already expecting by virtue of having already experienced or already figured it out, it doesn't do you good in time
@ssb I have the same problem in both directions. When I talk to people in English and they pronounce things in a normal English-y way, if I'm used to hearing it in Japanese, I sometimes fail to connect it at all to the Japanese word. And vice versa
I actually feel like it would be more personable of me to deliberately pronounce Japanese words as they'd be anglicized when talking to people in English, but that seems like an extra step for my poor brain which is struggling just to understand the word pronounced in a Japanese context :-)
I was talking to a Japanese friend, and I explained that in English, we say futons for the plural--unlike most loans from Japanese, it has been regularized and no longer has a zero plural for most speakers
But she objected, and claimed that futon in English remains a Japanese word (I'll never understand people who advance this argument), and because フトンズ is wrong, I should not say futons
I follow a bunch of urban fantasy series, and even though most of them aren't very good, I'm usually super excited whenever the next book comes out :-)
If I'm reading something I actually need to process, I read much slower
I'm still working through my grammar books!
It's really educational, because you can develop a mental model based on what you hear and read, but that mental model might be somewhat at odds with how things are actually used
Reading about grammar can correct those discrepancies, I think
I'm currently responsible for listening to 2-3 technical meetings per day, translating some terms, and relaying the information in another technical meeting
I've discovered that I'm a slow listener (in English) :P
Honestly, the faster you read, the lower your reading comprehension. That's true for everyone, and pretty much no one reads over 600 wpm with > 50% comprehension
But a lot of speed reading techniques are based on pseudoscientific techniques like suppression of subvocalization, which actually inhibits reading comprehension
@ssb Skimming the student handbook was usually worthwhile
There are all sorts of gems in those, that most students are completely unaware of
You can force most colleges to offer you the final class you need for a degree. You can usually skip classes if you can ace the final exam... stuff like that.
Very few people even in the administration are aware of some of it
I'm beginner in to learn japanese and will would know by what's better start first, hiragana or katakana and why?, Thanks in advance
