Re: Learning Japanese - trying to type in word
- From: Ben Finney <bignose+hates-spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:04:24 +1100
"johnvmc@xxxxxxxxx" <johnvmc@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
I'm just starting out trying to learn Japanese
Welcome, and congratulations on this decision!
since I'm not going to have anyone to talk to locally I'm focusing
on being able to read the language first.
This is a reasonable approach, but I will encourage you to try *very*
hard to find someone to speak with. Learning a language only in
written form is a distant second to speaking it with someone in
person.
1. Is there any guidance on what romanji spelling to use in order to
translate the word into the appropriate Japanese kanji or hirgana /
katakana?
First, as KWW pointed out, there's no such thing as "romanji", it's
"romaji" <URL:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romaji>. (This is a very
common mistake for English speakers, so don't be embarrassed about
making it.)
Second, there are several romaji systems for Japanese, with different
purposes. The one you'll see used in publications intended for English
speakers (called "Revised Hepburn romanisation") is meant to guide the
reader to pronounce Japanese as correctly as possible. The one
designed by the Japanese government for teaching purposes (called
"Kunrei-shiki romanization") is meant to be logically coherent and
regular. Other systems exist and are less common.
Fortunately, any decent kana input program will handle just about any
romanisation system out there, so you won't need to know the
differences yet.
For example, when I type in "take" as the Kun reading for bamboo I
get the correct kanji of 竹 but when I try the On reading of "chiku"
I get 地区. Is there a rule about which one to use and where I might
be able to get a more reliable romanji listing?
You've encountered a fact of the Japanese writing system: words with
completely different pronunciations are represented by identical
kanji. This is an artifact of the acquisition of kanji into the
Japanese language: the characters were originally learned with
(distorted renderings of) their Chinese pronunciations, at different
periods in history. They were then also adapted to represent the
phonetically-unrelated Japanese words with similar meanings.
There's no reliable rule of which readings to use, and you will waste
much time if you try to find such a rule. (There are "rules of thumb"
that are somewhat helpful, but the exceptions are many.) Instead, as
KWW indicated, you should best learn pronunciation of kanji by
learning words, and writing those words in kanji.
2. I'm beginning by memorizing the kyoiku kanji? Is there a better way
to go about this in order to learn how to read?
If by "learn to read" you mean "learn how to pronounce written words",
then no, I agree with KWW that memorising kanji pronunciations is not
a good way to do this.
There is another, more narrow, way to remember the kanji: I'm learning
the kanji as characters with *meanings* but not pronunciations, as a
way to have those kanji available when learning words. This is a
useful practice because the kanji's meaning-to-writing associations
are quite reliable and systematic, and easily divorced from the
pronunciations for the purpose of learning.
I don't necessarily recommend *everyone* start with this practice, but
it works well for me and many others if done correctly. Search this
newsgroup's archives for discussions about "Remembering the Kanji" to
find my opinions expressed in the past.
I don't want to read romanji because it seems that I would just be
creating one more layer to work through to get to the actual
language.
I completely agree. Romaji is a necessary evil in a world where people
just want to pronounce words without learning the language, but a
student of Japanese should abandon romaji as a hindrance as soon as
possible.
This is not to say that *learning* romaji is harmful; it's necessary
for using Japanese completely. Learning romaji is easy and inevitable,
but should not get any of your explicit attention in learning the
language. The kana are a more accurate way to both read and write
Japanese pronunciation, and should be preferred as early as possible.
Are there beginner books or resources out there that I could use.
The majority of my information thus far has come from wikipedia.
I would strongly advise you to take significant effort to find an
in-person Japanese teacher, preferable a native speaker. Learning a
language without frequent in-person interaction with another speaker
of the language puts you at a great disadvantage.
As for resources, I've found the best course that takes one from
beginner to fluency is the "Minna no Nihongo" 『みんなの日本語』
<URL:http://www.3anet.co.jp/english/books/books_01.html> series by 3A
Corporation. Be sure to get the ones that use *no* romaji, and instead
use kanji-with-furigana throughout.
Most native-Japanese teachers of the language will be familiar with
that course; it's a standard text to use for teaching foreigners *in*
Japan. There are many supplementary resources available also that mesh
with the course.
--
\ "Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to |
`\ trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule--and both |
_o__) commonly succeed, and are right." -- Henry L. Mencken |
Ben Finney
.
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