stanwyck@ihuxr.UUCP (09/16/83)
The 'm' ending of a Japanese syllable is not really so - it really is a monified 'n' ending. EXAMPLE: sambon = san + pon = 3 bottles An 'n' immediately before a hard consenant (i.e. a 'p') softens to a 'm' in pronounciation. However, the hirogana - romaji character tables do not have an 'm' character, only the 'n'. don stanwyck : 312-979-6667 : ihnp4!ihuxr!stanwyck : btl @ naperville
stanwyck@ihuxr.UUCP (09/16/83)
The 'mas' ending you mentioned is short for 'masu' (with a silent 'u'). It is the standard verb ending. It is frequently the case in Japanese that the 'u' will be slurred over or just dropped. Some examples that are reasonably common are: sukiyaki - usually pronounced like ski-yaki imasu (to be) - usually pronounced imas Other words that dould be taken to have consonant endings are words that have a clipped syllable. Example - gakkoo (school) is (if you look at the syllables) ga-ku-tsu-ko-o. The tsu (usually written as a smaller subscript) is a clipping syllable. It makes the previous syllable hard (that is, the vowel is quiet) if the next syllable starts with the same consonant. Japanese is really a fun language, with very few of the things that make english so difficult to learn. While not as simple as Chinese, it does have some nice features: 1: almost no plurals (some experts say none, but there are some things that could be called plurals for a very few words). 2: No genders (like europeon languages have). 3. Verbs conjugate only one way - there are no irregular verbs. 4. Sentence structure does not change from statement to question. Just add the syllable 'ka' at the end of a statement and it becomes a question. There are many other advantages of Japanese, but better yet - if you want a simple language to learn, check out Chinese manderin. No verb conjugations at all! No gender, cases, plurals, or any of the things that made German so hard for me to study! don stanwyck : 312-979-667 : ihnp4!ihuxr!stanwyck : btl @ naperville