edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards) (12/16/85)
I originally wrote : >> Best advice is quit while your ahead! I took the last 2 1/2 years >> [of Japanese] >> here. The work is equal to any of my senior level computer science >> classes ( Compilers, Operating Systems ....). [...] > In article <839@h-sc1.UUCP> breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel) writes: >No, that is not good advice. Learning any foreign language is a >rewarding experience, and it is likely to give you a new perspective on >your own language and culture. > >I also disagree that Japanese is in any sense more 'difficult' than, >say, French or German. Certainly, you can learn how to 'get by' in >Germanic or Romanic languages much more easily than in Japanese. >years, he could probably still be spotted easily as a foreigner in even >the simplest dialogue, You are spotted as a foreigner (if you are a caucasian) before you attempt to speak. On occassion, even if you are speaking Japanese to a native, the person will say "no speaking English", meaning that he thinks that because you are a foreigner you are speaking English !!! >The grammar of colloquial Japanese is certainly not responsible for its >reputation as a 'difficult' language. It is, in fact, simpler than the >grammar of most European languages. No disagreement here. >Likewise, there are, of course, features of the Japanese language with >which foreigners have considerable problems. Most of these problems >probably relate to the phonetic structure of the language. The number >of syllables used in spoken Japanese is very small. This has >(presumably) led to the introduction of a large number of multisyllabic >words and, on the other hand, to the presence of a large number of >homophones. Perhaps to make up for the length of the words, Japanese >is spoken very rapidly, and, in addition, a number of euphonic >changes are made. For the beginner, spoken Japanese is therefore >difficult to follow and difficult to pronounce at the 'correct' speed. I never had any problem with the phonetic structure. The speed is no greater than any other language, it just sounds faster because you don't understand it. Homophones are difficult but mostly when you read Japanese with out the Kanji (Chinese characters). If You are speaking it, usually there is some contextual clue that gives the correct interpretations of it. >The frequent complaint that the use of Chinese characters in the >Japanese written language makes it 'impossible' to learn is, on the >other hand, not correct in my opinion. Chinese characters (Kanji) are >composed from a relatively small number of constituents (radicals) with >semantic and phonetic content. From the radicals present in a Chinese >character, one can often not only derive its meaning, but also its >pronounciation. Admittedly, the formation of Chinese characters is >irregular, but probably not more so than the spelling and composition >from roots of English words. > This is the root of the problem in Japanese and why I say quit while you are ahead. KANJI is probably the reason that makes Japanese so hard to learn. In order to read the Japanese newspaper a Japanese native child must go as far as 9th grade to get the basic Kanji, into high school to get the rest of the 2000 general Kanji just to learn to read the langauge!!!!! This is not true with english or probably any other western langauge. ( It is often heard noted about the American with the 6th grade Education.) Kanji can not be seperated from Japanese. If one tried Japanese for the japanese would be equally impossible. The problem is the homonyms. Look in a Japanese - english dictionary under the k's for koo, kikan, kikai, ..... A single Chinese character in chinese has one phonetic reading. A single Chinese character in Japanese has usually at least two and the common (irregular or sort of) characters have multiple readings !!!! Some are often bizarre. Many of the Japanese versions of the characters have lost their original meanings. If you are into abuse, try learning peoples names, place names and historical names in Japanese. Many of these are no longer general kanji. >Altogether, I would say: YES, go ahead an learn Japanese. If you can, >enroll in a good language course taught by native speakers. If you >can't, then try to learn the pronounciation from tapes and records. >Get some good books on grammar and writing (there are some listed at >the end of this article). Make notes in Japanese, try to read Japanese >newspapers, &c. When you talk to people in English, think about how you >would have expressed yourself in Japanese. > Thomas admits to being a 1st year student (1st year first semester ??). Typically the first year is the confidence builder. Especially the 1st semester. The 3rd and the 4th year are what seperates the gung ho from the curious. Not many surive past the second year . Even fewer after the third year. Whats my execuse ? Two years in Japan (knew nothing before I went). (nihonjin no kanajo ga iru mo.)
breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel) (12/17/85)
||I also disagree that Japanese is in any sense more 'difficult' than, ||say, French or German. Certainly, you can learn how to 'get by' in ||Germanic or Romance languages much more easily than in Japanese. ||years, he could probably still be spotted easily as a foreigner in even ||the simplest dialogue, | |You are spotted as a foreigner (if you are a caucasian) before you |attempt to speak. On occassion, even if you are speaking Japanese to |a native, the person will say "no speaking English", meaning that he |thinks that because you are a foreigner you are speaking English !!! That's a social problem. Most Americans are easy to spot just by their appearance in almost any country of the world. Likewise, Americans are generally considered not to be very good at foreign languages (because they are not strictly required to learn them in school). It is therefore reasonable for any foreigner either to try to speak with you in English (since he is likely to speak English much better than you speak the foreign language), or to communicate to you that he doesn't speak English and that you should therefore ask someone else. From an American point of view, this behaviour must look strange, of course, since all tourists that Americans encounter in their country speak English, and it is therefore usually not necessary (or even possible) to try to communicate with a foreigner in his language. In addition to this, Americans tend to be more tolerant of different accents and different ethnic origins, simply because the American population itself is very inhomogenous. |I never had any problem with the phonetic structure. The speed is no |greater than any other language, it just sounds faster because you |don't understand it. I guess that's more a matter of opinion. When learning English or French, I had the impression that they were pronounced 'slowly' in some sense, as opposed to Italian, Spanish, or Japanese. |Homophones are difficult but mostly when you |read Japanese with out the Kanji (Chinese characters). If You are |speaking it, usually there is some contextual clue that gives the |correct interpretations of it. Of course you disambiguate by context. That is not the point. The point is that (I believe and feel that) homophones make it more difficult to learn a language. |This is the root of the problem in Japanese and why I say quit while |you are ahead. KANJI is probably the reason that makes Japanese so |hard to learn. This is the root of the problem in English and why I say quit while you are ahead. Spelling and pronounciation is probably the reason that makes English so hard to learn, even though its grammar is so simple. Seriously. The English language, which is considered one of the easiest languages in the world, has, in some sense, many of the same 'problems' that Japanese has: its writing system is not strictly phonetic, spelling is highly irregular, it is full of words borrowed from foreign languages, and its vocabulary is huge (something English speaking people always seem to be proud of). Nevertheless, you would not recommend me not to learn English just because it is difficult to acquire the same vocabulary that an educated native speaker of the language has. |Thomas admits to being a 1st year student (1st year first semester ??). |Typically the first year is the confidence builder. Especially the |1st semester. The 3rd and the 4th year are what seperates the gung ho |from the curious. Not many surive past the second year . Even fewer |after the third year. Yes, I just finished my first semester. Our teachers announced in the very first lecture that they did not plan on making the first semester any easier than the ones to come, simply because they don't want students to waste their time by just taking a single term or year of Japanese. Yes, my Japanese language course is intense when I compare it to other language courses that I have taken in the past. That doesn't mean that Japanese is more difficult, it just means that I'm spending more time on it to learn it faster. I cannot compare it personally to other college-level language courses, but from what I hear, the same is true for, say, German language courses. Altogether, I think that your expectations are simply too high. For any foreign language, 2 1/2 years of intensive study is a pretty short time if your goal is to become fluent, to speak without a major accent, and to be able to read every-day publications without a dictionary. To be able to write in a foreign language takes even longer. Why am I saying all this? Well, I don't think it is good to recommend someone not to learn a foreign language simply because you find it difficult. The reasons why people want to learn foreign languages are as diverse as the difficulties they encounter in doing so. Japanese is no different in this respect. The most that you can say is: 'if you want to learn Japanese to become a member of Japanese society, don't try, it will probably not work'. You can also say that: 'some Japanese don't understand that foreigners learn their language and have a rather limited view of people from outside their country: they think that all foreigners are Americans'. And, finally, you can point out your personal problems with learning the language (e.g. Kanji), but that doesn't mean that other people will have the same. Altogether: I maintain: if you have a good reason for learning Japanese (even if you are 'just' interested in the culture and would like to read books in the original), go ahead an do it. Like learning any foreign language, it will be a lot of work, but it will also be very rewarding. Thomas.
edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards) (12/17/85)
>|I never had any problem with the phonetic structure. The speed is no >|greater than any other language, it just sounds faster because you >|don't understand it. > >I guess that's more a matter of opinion. When learning English >or French, I had the impression that they were pronounced 'slowly' in >some sense, as opposed to Italian, Spanish, or Japanese. I guess that's also a matter of opinion. When I was learning French ,I had the impression that French was spoken fast. >|This is the root of the problem in Japanese and why I say quit while >|you are ahead. KANJI is probably the reason that makes Japanese so >|hard to learn. > >This is the root of the problem in English and why I say quit while >you are ahead. Spelling and pronounciation is probably the reason that >makes English so hard to learn, even though its grammar is so simple. English has only 26 upper case and 26 lower case letters. Japanese uses two alphabets with fifty or so characters a piece. These alphabets are used in conjunction with the KANJI. But that is a completely different topic. English's spelling problems are equivalent to where the kanji sounds stop and where the japanese alphabet starts. >Yes, I just finished my first semester. Our teachers announced in the >very first lecture that they did not plan on making the first semester >any easier than the ones to come, simply because they don't want students >to waste their time by just taking a single term or year of Japanese. > How many of the 2000 general kanji have you learned ? (I assume you can read and write both hiragana and katakana.) >For any foreign language, 2 1/2 years of intensive study is a >pretty short time if your goal is to become fluent, to speak without >a major accent, and to be able to read every-day publications without >a dictionary. To be able to write in a foreign language takes >even longer. I had 4 years of Japanese classes for the record and use the language practically everyday. To read a Japanese Newspaper I think I will always need a dictionary, but given equal experience in French or Spanish I think I could fake it better. (Any one out there have 4 years of Spanish ? What do you think ?) >And, finally, you can point >out your personal problems with learning the language (e.g. Kanji), >but that doesn't mean that other people will have the same. Well my personal problem was expressed by every one in my 3rd, and 4th year class. (Even more so in the lower levels.) Personally I don't find kanji difficult. What I find difficult is finding the time to memorize the 2000 + 5000 with all their meanings and readings as well as just increasing my vocabulary. ================================================================= Sorry to drag on a well done subject. mark.
breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel) (12/18/85)
Well, maybe we should continue the discussion by mail. Again, my basic point is that there is no need or reason to discourage someone from learning any foreign language, be it Japanese, French, or German. I am sure that whoever requested the references for introductory Japanese language texts in the first place had a good reason to do so, and it would probably have been more helpful had you answered his question rather than trying to scare him away with 'how difficult' Japanese is. A few other points. Officially, we learned Katakana, Hiragana, and roughly 150 Kanji during the first term (3 months). Personally, I probably know a few hundred Kanji more or less well (meaning that for some I only know either the Kun or On reading). I don't find learning Kanji any worse (and in many respects more entertaining) than learning English, Russian, Latin, or French words. Many characters have their own history or reveal particular aspects of Japanese and Chinese culture. Particularly helpful are for example Wieger's book on the etymology of Chinese characters, and Pye's book on phonetic relationships. Even if these books are not historically accurate, they do provide good mnemonic aids. As you said, you could probably 'fake' reading a French newspaper more easily after three years of study, but that is not the point, is it? In order to understand it, you must know the precise meaning of practically every word or idiomatic expression, and that just takes much more than three years to learn. Altogether, what foreign languages one learns is determined by one's interests and one's needs, not by how 'difficult' that language may be. In addition, I believe that the difference in 'difficulty' between Japanese and your average European language is probably much less than many people claim. In learning English, I found that the similarities between it and my native language became more and more of a burden the further I advanced, and I am therefore doubtful whether any initial advantage I had in learning English is paying in the long run. Thomas.
michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (michael b maxwell) (12/20/85)
In article <1814@uwmacc.UUCP> edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards) writes: > I had 4 years of Japanese classes for the record and use the language > practically everyday. To read a Japanese Newspaper I think I will > always need a dictionary, but given equal experience in French or > Spanish I think I could fake it better. (Any one out there have > 4 years of Spanish ? What do you think ?) From my experience in Spanish (part study, part living in Ecuador), I would say that one reason that Spanish is easier than languages unrelated to English is that lots of the vocabulary of Spanish is cognate. You can often figure what a word you don't know means, or pretty close, because it looks like an English word you know. I would doubt that this happens as much in unrelated languages like Japanese, except presumably in recent borrowings (such as technical terminology). -- Mike Maxwell Boeing Artificial Intelligence Center ...uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!michaelm
michaelm@bcsaic.UUCP (michael b maxwell) (12/20/85)
In article <842@h-sc1.UUCP> breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel) writes: >Seriously. The English language, which is considered one of the easiest >languages in the world... Says who??? Seriously, how can you quantify that? By making studies of lots of native speakers of languages X1, X2, X3... trying to learn languages Y1, Y2, Y3...English, where {X1, X2, X3...Y1, Y2, Y3...English} are all unrelated languages? I doubt whether anyone has ever done that. (Same comment for those who say, as I have often heard said, that English is a very hard language.) -- Mike Maxwell Boeing Artificial Intelligence Center ...uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!michaelm
tomi@boring.UUCP (Tetsuo Tomiyama) (12/21/85)
It is very intersting for me, as a native speaker of Japanese, to read articles about my language. Although many people are becoming to have correct information about the language (or about Japan, about its economy, about its politics, etc.), still there are a little bit funny things on the nets. I think sometimes we have to say something just not to be misunderstood. Followings are some examples. In article <1809@uwmacc.UUCP> edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards) writes: > > hard to learn. In order to read the Japanese newspaper a Japanese > native child must go as far as 9th grade to get the basic Kanji, > into high school to get the rest of the 2000 general Kanji just > to learn to read the langauge!!!!! This is not true with english > or probably any other western langauge. ( It is often heard noted > about the American with the 6th grade Education.) This is not correct. A Japanese child is supposed to learn about 900 Kanji until the 6th grade. To 'learn' means here to get an ability both to read and to write. Until the end of the 9th grade, he/she must read ALL the 'commonly used' Kanji which count about 2500; otherwise, you cannot read a newspaper. In high school, he/she is supposed to read and write all of them. Now, the problem is that he thinks this type of painful learning never happens in learning Hindo-European languages. But, how do you explain irregularity of English spellings? It is almost the same as learning Kanji, in my opinion. This type of just painful learning SURELY can occur western languages. How about Germans, for example? You have to learn by heart "der Buch", "das Kind", etc., don't you? How about English? You have to learn "foot-feet", "man-men", "woman-women", etc., don't you? > > A single Chinese character in Japanese has usually at least two > and the common (irregular or sort of) characters have multiple > readings !!!! Some are often bizarre. Many of the Japanese > This is not correct. A single Chinese character may have two ways of pronunciation (but absolutely has single meaning). One may be an approximation of the original Chinese pronunciation which is very regular; the other is derived from the meaning and expressed in a Japanese own way which might be irregular but this is what you have to remember. Now, the real problem is that there's no linkage between these two. So, they are not *bizarre* at all as you think! > If you are into abuse, try learning peoples names, place names > and historical names in Japanese. Many of these are no longer > general kanji. > Therefore, he is correct in this sense. But, in my opinion it also applies to English place names. I still remember my hard time in London. > (nihonjin no kanajo ga iru mo.) Finally, what is this? I am sorry, but I don't understand this Japanese-look-like sentence. So, please don't use funny things, if you are not sure at all. If he is sure of it, then he must change your teacher. --Tetsuo Tomiyama, Interactive Systems, Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science, Kruislaan 413, 1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Telex: 12571 mactr nl, Telephone: +31-20-592 9333, Usenet: tomi@mcvax.UUCP
dik@zuring.UUCP (Dik T. Winter) (12/21/85)
In article <1814@uwmacc.UUCP> edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards) writes: > I had 4 years of Japanese classes for the record and use the language > practically everyday. To read a Japanese Newspaper I think I will > always need a dictionary, but given equal experience in French or > Spanish I think I could fake it better. (Any one out there have > 4 years of Spanish ? What do you think ?) > No spanish. But I have had 5 years of English classes and I could read your article without a dictionary. To be serious. I think it helps when the script is familiar. So for you to learn to read spanish is simpler than to read japanese (or russian). Reminds me of the following, once I was in Bulgaria and on a sign I read "onmuka" (this was script, mind). It took me the whole of a day to realise that it read "optika". -- dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland UUCP: {seismo,decvax,philabs,okstate,garfield}!mcvax!dik
lambert@boring.UUCP (Lambert Meertens) (12/21/85)
Eight years ago I spent some time learning Japanese but soon (after one
year) gave up. Having neither the inclination nor the time to sit for
years in classes, I attempted some kind of do-it-yourself method. With
other languages, reading a lot once I had acquired enough knowledge to
decipher (with the aid of a dictionary) the meaning of what I read turned
out a good method. Initially, the effort is large (you have to look up a
*lot* and you still miss quite a few things), but if you take to it, you
catch on fast and the effort gets less and less. At least, that's the way
things worked out for me. Although it may be true that, in order to
acquire fluency in language X, nothing can replace living for some time in
an X-speaking country, I dare to venture that this comes close to it if one
has the knack of incorporating vocabulary and idiom in one's "active
knowledge" without being forced to actualize that knowledge.
Now why didn't this work for Japanese? In the first place, the effort of
looking up a kanji character in a character dictionary is sooo much larger
than looking up a word in an alphabetized dictionary. As an experiment, I
just looked something up:
ON reading: SAI SHIN KAN EI JI TEN
Kun*: Sai-shin Kan - Ei Ji-ten
time (sec): 64 23** 160 0*** 43 20**
English: Up-to-date Japanese - English Dictionary
*) The kun reading (Japanese pronounciation) is accidentally the same here
throughout the phrase. This is normally not the case.
**) The organization of my dictionary (Nelson) is such that subsequent
characters making up one word can be found more readily.
***) I managed to remember this one!
The time needed was more than the sum of these times, because I also have
to write everything down, or else I have forgotten the start when I come to
the end. All in all, it took something like ten minutes. Before I gave
up, I was much more proficient, but this would still have taken me several
minutes, for just four words. Imagine plodding through a novel at this
pace.
Now this wouldn't have been so bad, but the discouraging thing was that I
kept looking up the *same* characters over and over, like, I *know* that I
have looked this one up umpteen times before, and even just a few minutes
ago, but what was it again? Try what I might, I could not keep that
mapping from characters to readings in my long-term memory. I also tried
to do it with memorizing cards (character on one side, reading on the
reverse side), but after memorizing character #11 I would forget #1.
Different people have different abilities on this type of tasks, and it may
be the case that my performance on this score is exceptionally poor, but I
surmise that it helps a lot in its development if you start practicing it
at an early age, which is precisely what Japanese kids do, and that if you
start too late, it will never become what it might have been. (It may also
be the case, as some researchers suggest, that the Japanese are endowed
with a greater *innate* potential ability for the task.)
For Japanese school children it is also helpful that they can already speak
Japanese when they learn to read. So the "readings" fit in with a great
deal of knowledge they have already. They have, therefore, no need for the
mnemotechnics like (often false, but still helpful) explanations of the
"picture" hidden in the character. Unfortunately for me, these
mnemotechnics don't work too well either.
For some time I tried reading a children's book written in hiragana
(Sarukani, The Monkey and the Crabs). Boy, was that a mistake! Apart from
the completely minor problem that hiragana has been specially designed to
maximize confusion in my perceptual system (a/wa, e/n, ki/ma/ha/na/ta,
te/ko/to, ke/se, ne/re, nu/me, u/ri/ra/ro/ru), a problem that I didn't
encounter in the Greek, Hebrew and Cyrillic alphabets, it turned out that
about every other word had ten possible meanings, which kind of explodes
combinatorially. (At least the words had spaces in between, which is not
the normal practice; without spaces, the tree of possibilities spreads out
much faster.) Of course, if you already know Japanese, you would not find
this a problem at all for a children's tale. For serious writing, it is
unacceptable--too many ambiguities--which explains why the Japanese will
still stick to kanji after China has romanized (assuming they ever will).
I am not trying to discourage anyone from learning Japanese. The language
per se is not particularly hard. But it is impervious to the method of
learning it by reading it. (There are of course *some* difficult things in
Japanese, just as in any other natural language, such as counting and
politeness modes, and idiom is hard in *all* languages.)
To conclude, some data on the number of kanji characters learned in
subsequent grades (source: Nelson):
Grade Number Accumulated
1 46 46
2 105 151
3 187 338
4 205 543
5 194 737
6 144 881
> 969 1850
N 29 1879
There are 969 characters in general use in addition to the 881 learned in
grades 1-6. These 881 have, of course, been selected as the most important
ones and you can possibly manage without the other 969 in the same way many
English-speaking people manage without knowing the meaning of words like
"recondite" or "obsolescence". Together, these 1850 form the "To^yo^
kanji", as established by the Japanese government (except that for
practical purposes the press has made a few substitutions, bumping the 28
least frequent characters in favor of 28 more useful ones). The final 29
characters are "approved" characters for use in writing proper names.
--
Lambert Meertens
...!{seismo,okstate,garfield,decvax,philabs}!lambert@mcvax.UUCP
CWI (Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science), Amsterdambreuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel) (12/22/85)
> In article <842@h-sc1.UUCP> breuel@h-sc1.UUCP (thomas breuel) writes: > >Seriously. The English language, which is considered one of the easiest > >languages in the world... > Says who??? Seriously, how can you quantify that? By making studies of lots > of native speakers of languages X1, X2, X3... trying to learn languages Y1, I was not trying to make a quantitative statement. In talking to quite a number of foreigners, I frequently heard it said that English is one of the easier languages to learn. The reasons cited were numerous: opportunity for frequent use (active or passive) of the language, its lack of complicated grammatical constructs, the large number of non-native speakers and the tolerance of the native speakers, and the fact that it combines the Germanic and Romance vocabularies. If you followed my argument, you should have noticed that I was arguing against the validity of such assessments. I believe that English appears to be easier because a student familiar with another European language is likely to have some vague notion of the grammar and to be able to derive the approximate meanings of unfamiliar words. Ultimately, however, if you want to speak the language fluently and if you want to be able to express yourself clearly in writing, you must spend as much effort on studying English as you must on studying any other foreign language, since these abilities require speed and precision, not just a vague understanding. If all a foreign student is aiming for is some basic ability to communicate, then I would personally agree, though, that English is easier than, for example, Japanese or German. But 'basic ability to communicate' can hardly be called 'learning a laguage', can it. Thomas.
kay@warwick.UUCP (Kay Dekker) (01/05/86)
In article <266@zuring.UUCP> dik@zuring.UUCP (Dik T. Winter) writes: >To be serious. I think it helps when the script is familiar. >So for you to learn to read spanish is simpler than to read japanese >(or russian). Yes, but it's even easier to learn Dutch if you're English (as I know; my father's Dutch) and vice versa, as my cousins in the Netherlands tell me; both being descended from the same Low German. Frisian seems to be even closer to English. What did/do you find hardest about learning English? Having learnt (alas! all too briefly) a couple of languages with at least a reasonably regular grammatical structure (Latin & Greek), I'd imagine that English grammar (such as it is) would be quite hard to absorb. Kay. -- This .signature void where prohibited by law ...ukc!warwick!kay