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Learning Japanese |OT| ..honor and shame are huge parts of it. Let's!

Jintor

Member
I've been using the Hellotalk language exchange app but my attach rate is abysmal. It's like online dating only even more depressing lol. I am talking to a vet in japanese/english though which is nice. I'll post something more detailed if I get off the ground using this dumb thing.

If you're going to move to Japan, be very wary of putting yourself in a bubble of English-language stuff. It's very, very easy to do. I was in one for at least a full year - hell, I'm still kinda in one. Of course, it's also incredibly stressful to exist in the other language for long periods of time; some people have the mental fortitude required, others have to build up to it. I'm definitely in the latter category.
 

Resilient

Member
Honestly I don't even know where I stand on this anymore lol.

I read the back and forth as it was happening, and I just think that if there is a written difference, then there is a pronounciation difference. You guys have more exposure than I do though. Dunno.

whenever I speak to native friends/tutor they'll be confused if, when saying one of the words that would fall in this category, I don't pronounce it as it is read. Who said it in the last thread? You wouldn't say 英語 or 映画 as ee-go or ee-ga.
 

dhlt25

Member
subbed, I really need to improve my japanese. Despite living in hawaii, having tons of japanese friends and previous gfs, and a few years of classes in college, my japanese is still no where near the level I want it to be.
 

hohoXD123

Member
I'll be going to Japan in a few months and I'm pretty much a complete beginner. If I just want to focus on speaking rather than reading and writing, what resources would you guys recommend?
 
I read the back and forth as it was happening, and I just think that if there is a written difference, then there is a pronounciation difference. You guys have more exposure than I do though. Dunno.

whenever I speak to native friends/tutor they'll be confused if, when saying one of the words that would fall in this category, I don't pronounce it as it is read. Who said it in the last thread? You wouldn't say 英語 or 映画 as ee-go or ee-ga.

The NHK disagrees!

As does alc.co.jp! This is actually even better, as it explains that the difference is that 和語 words kept the ええ spelling which we see in ねえさん, ええ (affirmative) and せえの (all together now), while words derived from kanji readings were all changed to be written with えい (arbitrarily) along with the reform to extending お行 with う. It actually starts off with a note that the current pronunciation predates the current spelling.

Like I said, I used to think that there was a difference, but now I really don't. I'll ask some coworkers about it later if we don't want to believe the two reference sources that have been turned up so far, but I have a feeling I'm going to get a bunch of very puzzled looks.

I'll be going to Japan in a few months and I'm pretty much a complete beginner. If I just want to focus on speaking rather than reading and writing, what resources would you guys recommend?

That's not very easily accomplished, unfortunately, without simply being thrust into a Japanese-speaking environment. If you really want to work on conversation skills without touching the written component of the language, you could try to run through a textbook called "Japanese the Spoken Language." I used it long, long ago, and it's really not too bad in terms of achieving what it sets out to do, but it will definitely run the risk of leaving you stuck you in bad practices with romaji when it comes time to move into your written studies.

EDIT: Thinking a little longer, I don't know how useful that book would be for self-study and without all of the audio material that's meant to go with it. There may be other options, but I'm not familiar with any good ones.
 

Stalk

Member
Has anyone checked out Satori reader? I would give a little review but I'm away on business at the moment. Seems neat, basically gives you tailored reading based on your level. So you can say how much kanji you know and so on and it will adapt the story your reading to your level, mixed in with adding new ones for you to learn. Has a basic srs that can be exported to other things like Anki as well.
 

DMB4237

Neo Member
I stopped formal classes almost two years ago, but I've been able to keep up with some conversational Japanese due to my girlfriend. But, I feel that I've gotten a little complacent when it comes to maybe learning and practicing new words and grammar. Also, my kanji sucks now I bet.

Anyone have a good self-studying routine that they found works?
 

Alanae

Member
I stopped formal classes almost two years ago, but I've been able to keep up with some conversational Japanese due to my girlfriend. But, I feel that I've gotten a little complacent when it comes to maybe learning and practicing new words and grammar. Also, my kanji sucks now I bet.

Anyone have a good self-studying routine that they found works?
if you like reading a lot, this:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/15uvv72eVFBtcOlfHaHUfT_HhZsgWxd7VjT9u-zVSwdw/edit?pref=2&pli=1
might help.

to summarize, instead of learning things on a list basis, you can learn them on a encounter basis instead.

basically:
read -> see something you don't know/don't remember anymore -> look it up in a dictionary or read an explanation if its grammar -> repeat

with enough exposure you'll be able to remember it, and as you learn more, it becomes easier to memorize new things.
alternatively you could also add the things you come across to an anki deck if you feel the need to.
 

dhlt25

Member
Has anyone checked out Satori reader? I would give a little review but I'm away on business at the moment. Seems neat, basically gives you tailored reading based on your level. So you can say how much kanji you know and so on and it will adapt the story your reading to your level, mixed in with adding new ones for you to learn. Has a basic srs that can be exported to other things like Anki as well.

thanks! sounds exactly like what I need to practice my reading. Reading fb status from friends is not as useful lol. Hopefully I'll get into the beta
 

Jintor

Member
Has anyone checked out Satori reader? I would give a little review but I'm away on business at the moment. Seems neat, basically gives you tailored reading based on your level. So you can say how much kanji you know and so on and it will adapt the story your reading to your level, mixed in with adding new ones for you to learn. Has a basic srs that can be exported to other things like Anki as well.

It's a good level for me but the SRS is completely undermined by the fact that every click you take takes a second or two seconds longer than you'd want. An SRS should be instant. I also don't understand how the export to anki function works if you're supposed to be continually adding words to the SRS.
 

I'm an expert

Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
Sorry bit busy with work this week (actually basically till the day I leave) but will update the op when I can with the links from the other thread. At the very least I'm on two Japanese inbound year ends so it's a good excuse.
 

Stalk

Member
It's a good level for me but the SRS is completely undermined by the fact that every click you take takes a second or two seconds longer than you'd want. An SRS should be instant. I also don't understand how the export to anki function works if you're supposed to be continually adding words to the SRS.

Aye I did find that last part weird as well. Overall seems to be improving though, since it is still in development.
 
You wouldn't say 英語 or 映画 as ee-go or ee-ga.

I think you definitely would. "eega" is a much better pronunciation of 映画. There may be some odd cases where えい isn't pronounced エー, but your Japanese will sound much more natural if you pronounce it エー as Japanese do.
 

eefara

Member
Has anyone checked out Satori reader? I would give a little review but I'm away on business at the moment. Seems neat, basically gives you tailored reading based on your level. So you can say how much kanji you know and so on and it will adapt the story your reading to your level, mixed in with adding new ones for you to learn. Has a basic srs that can be exported to other things like Anki as well.

I actually just got my beta invite a few days ago. I'm enjoying it so far, bit like others have said, their SRS isn't quite clicking with me.

It's also a bit barebones in regards to content, but that's easily forgiven given given how they're still adding and improving things.
 

LayLa

Member
Started studying kanji & vocab in January in my spare time, mainly via Wanikani but also using white rabbit flashcards. I'm absolutely fascinated the way different kanji are joined together to form new words & concepts, sometimes they make perfect sense while others are seemingly bizarre!

The next step is starting to learn grammar/sentence structure in parallel - I guess Genki is the tried & tested way to go?
 
Started studying kanji & vocab in January in my spare time, mainly via Wanikani but also using white rabbit flashcards. I'm absolutely fascinated the way different kanji are joined together to form new words & concepts, sometimes they make perfect sense while others are seemingly bizarre!

The next step is starting to learn grammar/sentence structure in parallel - I guess Genki is the tried & tested way to go?

Some of the kanji radicals may not make sense since it was originally Chinese and so one half of the character relates to the meaning and the other is a character which sounds similar to the the way the character is pronounced at least in Chinese. I would assume any oddities would be due to that.
 
So, as promised, I asked a few people about this. The first seemed to think I was asking if it was acceptable to write 学生 as がくせえ and started to go on about how there are different rules for writing and speaking and just because we say a word one way doesn't mean it can be written that way - until I interrupted him and pointed out that that was the case for like everything in English and I was just trying to ask if the sounds were the same when spoken during a normal conversation. Then he just looked at me kind of quizzically and said [well yeah, of course].

Second was far more amusing, as he (while rather drunk) insisted that the sounds were totally different. I asked him to alternate between saying 性能 and せーの; and 丁寧 and 姉さん and he did so, saying that they were very clearly different, while another coworker stared at him like he was insane and told him that he was saying them exactly the same. He started to get flustered, but then someone came over to pour drinks and the conversation changed to how good I am at using chopsticks.
 

urfe

Member
I definitely say エーィゴ or something for 英語, and people understand me so other people can say whatever they want.

おう is definitely おー though. Even in お家 where you think it wouldn't be.
 

Nakho

Member
Wow, what an awesome thread. Wish I had this last year when I was trying to learn Japanese. Gave up on it for the moment and went for Russian instead. Incredible language too!
 

Kilrogg

paid requisite penance
So, as promised, I asked a few people about this. The first seemed to think I was asking if it was acceptable to write 学生 as がくせえ and started to go on about how there are different rules for writing and speaking and just because we say a word one way doesn't mean it can be written that way - until I interrupted him and pointed out that that was the case for like everything in English and I was just trying to ask if the sounds were the same when spoken during a normal conversation. Then he just looked at me kind of quizzically and said [well yeah, of course].

Second was far more amusing, as he (while rather drunk) insisted that the sounds were totally different. I asked him to alternate between saying 性能 and せーの; and 丁寧 and 姉さん and he did so, saying that they were very clearly different, while another coworker stared at him like he was insane and told him that he was saying them exactly the same. He started to get flustered, but then someone came over to pour drinks and the conversation changed to how good I am at using chopsticks.

goddammit we're never gonna get to the truth of this, are we? smh

箸メッチャ上手だね、ザ・スポーク・ウィゼィンさん!
 

Tuck

Member
Finishing up Genki 2 now. Spending this month reviewing all the stuff I've learned (Going through it all at once makes it seem like I barely learned anything at all!)

Tobira is on its way. That should be fun (and hard =/)

Also doing Wanikani (Level 13), making decent progress (A level every 2 weeks). Its kind of a godsend. Though my ability to recall words isn't as high as my ability to recognize them.

Also may have found myself a speaking/writing partner, though she takes kind of a long time to reply to messages, so I may need to find another.

Has anyone checked out Satori reader? I would give a little review but I'm away on business at the moment. Seems neat, basically gives you tailored reading based on your level. So you can say how much kanji you know and so on and it will adapt the story your reading to your level, mixed in with adding new ones for you to learn. Has a basic srs that can be exported to other things like Anki as well.

I've played around with it. Its slick as hell, though low on content (Of course, this will change in time).
 

eefara

Member
箸メッチャ上手だね、ザ・スポーク・ウィゼィンさん!

What's the deal with the 箸 here?
 

Beckx

Member
Finishing up Genki 2 now. Spending this month reviewing all the stuff I've learned (Going through it all at once makes it seem like I barely learned anything at all!)

Tobira is on its way. That should be fun (and hard =/)

Also doing Wanikani (Level 13), making decent progress (A level every 2 weeks). Its kind of a godsend. Though my ability to recall words isn't as high as my ability to recognize them.

Also may have found myself a speaking/writing partner, though she takes kind of a long time to reply to messages, so I may need to find another.

I finished Genki I in February and then realized that the back sections had significant listening comprehension exercises. Really revealed that I've neglected my listening practice. I knew that, too, as I'd been slacking off on shadowing exercises and listening exercises. So I've spent the last month (I study slow) really working on my listening comprehension. verb stem + に(action verb) (like 買いに行く) constructions still give me fits though.

Moving on to Genki II now and hammering vocab/kanji readings as well. I wish I'd known about wanikani last year, I would've done that over RTK, but here we are, I completed RTK last fall. Still figuring out how to improve the ways I learn readings.
 

Tuck

Member
I finished Genki I in February and then realized that the back sections had significant listening comprehension exercises. Really revealed that I've neglected my listening practice. I knew that, too, as I'd been slacking off on shadowing exercises and listening exercises. So I've spent the last month (I study slow) really working on my listening comprehension. verb stem + に(action verb) (like 買いに行く) constructions still give me fits though.

Moving on to Genki II now and hammering vocab/kanji readings as well. I wish I'd known about wanikani last year, I would've done that over RTK, but here we are, I completed RTK last fall. Still figuring out how to improve the ways I learn readings.

Listening comprehension is tough. I've kept up with the listening work in Genki and it still gives me trouble. Really, I should start doing listening work from external sources cause its far harder and is gonna take more time than just reading. I'm hoping to go through all the listening exercises in Genki again over the next few weeks, before starting Tobira.

I too wish I started Wanikani earlier. I started about about 6 months of studying.

..Dark Souls 3 and Ratchet came out at a bad time lol.
 

TheChaos0

Member
I should get back into it. I know a lot of Kanji from my time with Wanikani and I can form some (basic) sentences but I haven't done anything in probably 6 months. Would be a shame to let the knowledge I've acquired to go to waste but where to find time and energy? :D
 

Cth

Member
Here's some fun books helped me learn some things that I'd recommend..

Kanji Pict-O-Graphix: Over 1,000 Japanese Kanji and Kana Mnemonics
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0962813702/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Kana Pict-O-Graphix Mnemonics For Japanese Hiragana And Katakana Kana Pict-O-Graphix
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E3GMPM8/?tag=neogaf0e-20

JAPANESE in 10 minutes a day
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1931873380/?tag=neogaf0e-20
(Mainly for the stickers to place on everyday objects)

I don't remember the website (it was an official government sponsored one?) but I ended up conversing with a penpal via email before we visited. Once there, everyone wanted to practice their English with us, it was awesome :)

Also, Memrise is another useful app that's helped to remember phrases.. you can add your own mnemonics/slides to the ones already added by other users. Often times there's been some good suggestions I hadn't considered using the app.
 

Resilient

Member
Uh. You would. You absolutely 100% would.

100%?
so native friends I speak to are wrong about it?

It's not black and white. We established that. There's a difference though. I don't think anyone is gonna agree here.

It just becomes "I asked someone I knew, they said this" vs "I asked someone I knew, and they said THIS", which is all we need really..different opinions. Then you can form your own and do it how you feel. I'm not gonna sit here and go eeiiigo but there's a little flick there that I'm just used to now, cause it's what I've heard before.
 

KTallguy

Banned
You can definitely say 英語 as えーご in casual conversation and it'll sound fine. In my experience, you don't lean on the い、but the sound is definitely there and should be said if you want to sound proper.
 
In my experience, you don't lean on the い、but the sound is definitely there and should be said if you want to sound proper.

It sounds unnatural to pronounce the い in this and all cases I can think of off the top of my head. I wouldn't consider it proper.
 

KTallguy

Banned
I compare it to 好き。 You don't pronounce the す like an individual す。 But the sound す is still there. It's just subtle.

I could be off base though. I'll ask some people around me.
 
I compare it to 好き。 You don't pronounce the す like an individual す。 But the sound す is still there. It's just subtle.

I could be off base though. I'll ask some people around me.

I think the う sound is a lot more varied depending on the situation and person on how much it's pronounced. But the えい being pronounced エー is a bit of different case.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
The NHK disagrees!

As does alc.co.jp! This is actually even better, as it explains that the difference is that 和語 words kept the ええ spelling which we see in ねえさん, ええ (affirmative) and せえの (all together now), while words derived from kanji readings were all changed to be written with えい (arbitrarily) along with the reform to extending お行 with う. It actually starts off with a note that the current pronunciation predates the current spelling.

Like I said, I used to think that there was a difference, but now I really don't. I'll ask some coworkers about it later if we don't want to believe the two reference sources that have been turned up so far, but I have a feeling I'm going to get a bunch of very puzzled looks.

First, the ALC site has this part:

次のような語は、エ列の長音として発音されるか、エイ、ケイなどのように発音されるかにかかわらず、エ列の仮名に『い』を添えて書く。

Indicating that *regardless of pronunciation* they are written with an い instead of an extended え. It says nothing about which words are pronounced which way.

In regards to the NHK, they certainly do have that in their announcer pronunciation guidelines. They are hardly consistent in practice, though. I listen to the NHKジャーナル every day on my way to work and since this topic came up, I've been making mental notes whenever a word in this category comes up. Some from this morning's commute were:

「TPP間太平洋パートナシップ協定」 in which 太平洋 was pronounced (タイヘイヨー) while 協定 was very clearly (キョーテー).

「営業利益」 was very clearly 「エイギョウリエキ」

「過程」 was also very clearly 「カテイ」

Also, any time they have a speaker or special guest on the show and the speech changes from typical news announcer voice, everyone inevitably speaks more naturally using エイ instead of エエ.

Sort of related, but I found this document from an NHK Broadcast Language Committee meeting back in 2005, in which they discussed how society is increasingly using 連母音 (successive vowels) over 長音 (prolonged sounds) for imported foreign words (ネーチャー vs. ネイチャー, for example). I found it to be a pretty interesting read.

https://www.nhk.or.jp/bunken/summary/kotoba/yougo/pdf/011.pdf

おう is definitely おー though. Even in お家 where you think it wouldn't be.

Are you just trolling with this? Because if not, this is some really bad information you're giving out. In no circumstances is お家 (as in お家帰る) pronounced as おおち or オーチ.

Uh. You would. You absolutely 100% would.

100%? This is some massive hyperbole.

I also want to make sure we're all on the same page here... While not perfect, let me use English words as an example.

めい vs めえ(メー)
"May" vs "Meh"

That's we're talking about right?

Yeah, definitely. It happens a lot, particularly in Japanese it seems sometimes.

Not going to say that native speakers are infallible, but this line of thought can be a dangerous path to go down...

Kind of like the OP in the last thread with the guy bragging about being able to correct Japanese people's Kanji because he did RTK. It can be a rather ugly kind of arrogance.
 

Kilrogg

paid requisite penance
Holy crap are we still talking about this? Not that it's not interesting, but at this point I'm leaning more and more towards doing whatever you want, both are fine, because you'll hear native speakers do both, and expert gaijins such as ourselves can't even agree :p.

The お家 thing though, as Zefah pointed out, is ridiculous. It doesn't even count as a 長音, so of course you have to say the う as an actual う.

[EDIT] I'm an expert, you should change the thread title to "Japanese Language |OT| I got 99 problems but a 長音 ain't one."
 

mantidor

Member
The Kanji Study app for Android is great for drilling the kanji into your brain, has examples and stroke order drawing practice.

is the app free?

My spoken Japanese is shit but I'm in.

It seems like a great opportunity to finally determine if えい and ええ are pronounced the same or differently.

I do not understand this, in Japanese if its written differently it is pronounced differently, right? don't tell me japanese has homonyms D:

I'm a native spanish speaker, and our teacher said "pronounce it like spanish except for the "u" sound which usually goes silent, "fu" of course , and the "sh/ch" difference", was he wrong?
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
I do not understand this, in Japanese if its written differently it is pronounced differently, right? don't tell me japanese has homonyms D:

I'm a native spanish speaker, and our teacher said "pronounce it like spanish except for the "u" sound which usually goes silent, "fu" of course , and the "sh/ch" difference", was he wrong?

Japanese has a ton of homonyms.

Do you mean heteronym, where the spelling is the same but the pronunciation (and meaning) are different? Like "lead," as in "leader" vs. "lead" the element, or "tear" as in "tear up a piece of paper" vs. "tear" as in "cry tears of joy."

Sure they exist in Japanese if you are looking purely at the Hiragana/Katakana being used for a word.
 
100%? This is some massive hyperbole.

It's massive common sense and was never up for debate. You can find thousands, if not millions of examples of 英 pronounced as えー on the internet. Claiming that you can't pronounce it as えー is completely insane.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
It's massive common sense and was never up for debate. You can find thousands, if not millions of examples of 英 pronounced as えー on the internet. Claiming that you can't pronounce it as えー is completely insane.

Would you mind pointing me to an example of it being pronounced in that way? As in this pronunciation of Eggo (yes, the waffles), except with a prolonged "e" sound.

https://youtu.be/QNxyTynRJY0?t=16s

Because, that's what I would expect if I saw "ええご" or "エーゴ." Before that, though, please confirm that we're even talking about the same thing. I wrote this in my last post:

I also want to make sure we're all on the same page here... While not perfect, let me use English words as an example.

めい vs めえ(メー)
"May" vs "Meh"

That's we're talking about, right?
 
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