Whitey Learns Japanese Pt. 2

2010.06.15 / Japan / posted by idrawgood

Space Case

InstandardwrittenJapanesetherearenospacestoseparatewords. CanyouimaginelearningtoreadthisEnglishthisway?

That, of course, makes it quite difficult to pick out which words you understand and which you don't, as the sounds all run together, especially for a first year learner like me. Dictionaries aren't totally helpful if you can't even separate the words you're looking up.

Save the punctuation: write in Japanese

In English, we not only take spaces between words for granted, but also punctuation to help us determine the flow and intonation in a sentence. Heck, Spanish is even more glorious because it includes punctuation at the beginning of sentences to help its readers determine how to read sentences. Except for periods and an occasional comma, standard written Japanese lacks these cues. The most punctuation you're likely to find is " 。" or " 、". Yep, the hollow period (kuten) and straight comma (touten) are really the only things to help you separate long strings of syllables comprising words. Best of luck.



Thinking Backwards

In western eyes, Japanese grammar (like many little oddities here) seems a bit backwards.

Take this simple sentence in Japanese. わたしはえいがをみるまえに７じにえきのまえでともだちにあいました。And in romaji: Watashi ha eiga wo miru mae ni sichi-ji ni eki no mae de tomodachi ni aimashita.

Literally: I movie see before seven o'clock at station's in front of at friend met.
Properly translated: Before seeing the movie, I met my friend in front of the station at seven o'clock.

In English, we have the luxury of having the subject normally followed by the verb, then followed by objects. Perhaps my brain is too set in western language mode, but it seems that a lot of the unimportant details precede the verb (and usually the main action in the sentence). So, when listening to Japanese, you often have to collect information on disconnected details first, then at the very end of the sentence be able to figure out how they relate to the main action.

San

One of the many ways Japanese people use the sound '-san' is as an honorific title. The most common use is when it's appended to a last name when referring to someone in conversation, like Yamamoto-san. It's kinda like saying "Mr." or "Mrs.", but can be employed for people of all ages. After that, the use of -san becomes a little more amusing. You can tack it on the end of on a variety of other things, like local shops or dead fish. So, the bread shop (panya) becomes panya-san and the fish you're frying (sakana) earns the right to be called sakana-san. In essence, you're calling the bakery around the corner "Mr. Bread Shop" and the fish you're about to eat "Mr. Fish." -San also appears on the tail end of mountain names, like Fuji-san, which seems like another funny form of honorific personification, but is actually just one of a few different pronunciations of the kanji for mountain, 山. Read more on Japanese honorifics on Wikipedia.

Tongue Twisters

One fun thing about the lack of sounds in Japanese (see my previous blog) is that there are some stellar tongue twisters. Unlike English tongue twisters, which usually rely on juxtaposition of different sounds to create difficulty, Japanese tongue twisters often involve repeating similar sounds in rapid succession.

Sumomo no momo mo momo no uchi. Translation: "A 'sumomo' is also a kind of peach."

Niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru. Translation: "There are two chickens in the yard."

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