So I can speak Japanese.
This was by no means an easy task. Much like many other deer-in-the-headlights of my generation, it started off with a foolishly simple thought. "Hey, I like Dragonball and Sailor Moon. I know that "sentou ryoku wa ku-sen ijou!" means "his power level is OVER NINE-THOUSAAAAAAND!" and "inochi o kakete mo kurisutaru oukoku o mamoranakereba naranai!" means "I must protect the Crystal Kingdom, even at the cost of my own life!" How hard can it be?"
Eight years later, and the tears still haven't stopped.
I spent four years learning Japanese in university. Then I came to Japan and found that those four years were a nice starter. Like a solitary Ritz cracker before a viking buffet. It gets the party started but doesn't really prepare you for the real thing that much. Especially coming to the Kansai region, where everybody speaks with a heavy dialect. I found it was especially hard to understand the kids.
Me: Ah, konnichi wa!
Student: Oh, omae nan ya. Doko ikun?
Me: Anno...nani desu ka?
Student: ...Wakarahen?
Me: Etto...mou ichido itte kudasai?
Student: Mou kai yun? Nani yo?
Me: Umm...kyou wa atsui desu ne!
Student: Yappari gaijin wakarahen wa. Yameteoku.
Me: Anou...tokoro de, anata no sentou ryoku was ku-sen ijou desu ka?
Student: ...Omae, aho chau?
And, of course, for the Japanese-impaired...
Me: Oh, good afternoon!
Student: Oh, it's you. Where're you goin'?
Me: Um...what?
Student: You don't understand?
Me: Um...could you say that again please?
Student: Say what again?
Me: Ehh...today's pretty hot, isn't it!
Student: Yep, Gaijin don't understand Japanese. Eh, screw it.
Me: Um, by the way, would you happen to have a power lever OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND?
Student: ...What the fuck is wrong with you?
Living here for almost four years though has helped to round out my Japanese a lot better though, including the Kansai dialect. For those who want to measure their Japanese language abilities, or just have documented proof of their abilities, you can take the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which is held every December. There are four levels, with 4-kyuu being the basic, and 1-kyuu being the highest. I don't know why, but there seems to be a HUGE disparity in between all the levels, especially the leap from 3-kyuu to 2-kyuu. A sample 4-kyuu question might go something like this...
Gaijin: Hey, what's that in the sky?
Japanese: Ah, you mean this tori?
Gaijin: Tori?
Japanese: Yes, this thing flying in the sky, with wings and feathers.
Gaijin: Oh, you mean this bird.
Japanese: Yes, this tori.
Question: What is bird in Japanese?
Whereas 3-kyuu is...
(All in Japanese)
Man: Hey, let's do something today.
Woman: What will we do?
Man: How about baseball?
Woman: I don't like sports.
Man: Okay. How about shopping?
Woman: Ordinarily I'd love to, but today I have no money.
Man: Well then, I guess we could just have empty, meaningless sex.
Woman: Sure, why not.
Question: What will the man and woman do?
Then 2-kyuu becomes...
(All in Japanese)
Woman 1: So I had to break up with Taro.
Woman 2: What? Why?
Woman 1: He was cheating on me. But it's okay, I'm dating his best friend Shinichi now.
Woman 2: Oh? I dated him before. He was nice, but always seemed to forget important occasions.
Woman 1: I know what you mean! We had a date last Saturday, and he totally forgot! I called him up, and he was at home playing Nintendo DS!
Woman 2: That sounds just like Shinichi. Say, what would you like to do today?
Woman 1: How about we go re-calculate the GNP at a cafe somewhere, just for shits and giggles?
Woman 2: Sounds great, let's go!
Question: Which one of these women is pregnant?
And then a sample 1-kyuu question is...
(All in Japanese)
Woman 1: How is your project coming along?
Woman 2: Just terrible. I can't accelerate my tachyon particles any faster than 17 on the Cochran Scale.
Woman 3: Have you remembered to apply the quantum bias?
Woman 2: Ah, I totally forgot! That also explains why my neutrinos were all out of wack.
Woman 4: Good evening ladies.
Woman 1: Oh, hello Junko! How are you today?
Woman 4: Doing okay. I finally won the Nobel Price for my work in molecular bioengineering, but I'd only just gotten the grant when all of my bio-peptides fell apart! How embarrassing!
Woman 2: I know exactly how you feel. I can't tell you how many times my bio-peptides have failed me during a crucial moment.
Question: Which one of these women is pregnant?
I took the 2-kyuu last year and passed! I figured I'd skip out on the 1-kyuu this year as I still had a long way to go before I could talk about tachyon particles in Japanese. But a friend on mine (who goaded me into taking the 2-kyuu last year) was taking it, and he asked me to take it with him for support. Not to mention that, in my unemployed state, having 1-kyuu credentials would look GREAT on a job application. So I bit the bullet and submitted my application.
Back when I was teaching, I used my free periods between classes to try and study for the test. A note to current ALTs--there's NOTHING better you can do than study Japanese in the teacher's room. It shows the teachers and the students that you're making an effort to learn their language and better integrate yourself into their society. I found it was also a wonderful counter for any time any of my students tried to pull the old "English is too hard!" card.
Student: Man, English is difficult!
Me: No it's not! C'mere, check this out. (writes an "e" on my chalkboard) You see this? It's an "e". Took me, what, half a second to write that? Look how simple and sexy that is. "e". And it looks like what it sounds like too, you just look at it, and you think, "okay, that's 'e.'" Now, look at this (pulls out my 1-kyuu study book). Look at this -> 藍 What the fuck is this? You know what this is? "Indigo." How the fuck is any of that squiggly line shit "indigo"? What's going on here--you've got the number two, a dish, a retainer, and sagebrush all having sex with each other, and somehow this is supposed to represent "indigo"? And THEN I'm supposed to also remember that this can sound like "ai," OR "ran"? What the hell? I wanna write out all the colors in a rainbow, look how easy this shit is in English. ROYGBIV. See, I'm done! I wanna write it out in Japanese, I can't, cause it'll take me 20 fucking minutes just to write out "indigo"! Don't give me that "English is difficult!" shit.
Student: Um, I'm going over there now.
It also didn't help when I showed my study book to students, and they'd casually flip through the pages while saying "I don't know this...I don't know this...I don't know this...is this even Japanese?"
IF YOU DON'T KNOW, THEN HOW/WHY AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW?!
Ahem.
Anyway, December crept up on me, and before I knew it, I found myself at Kyoto University to take the 1-kyuu. My very first thought upon arriving with my friend was, "Man, why are there so many Japanese people taking the test?" I soon realized though that as it makes no sense for Japanese people to be taking the test (they'd probably fail it anyway), that it had to be Chinese/Korean nationals. I had no idea there were so many, the entire campus was packed with non-Japanese Asians. I'm usually pretty good at telling the races apart, but most of these people just looked like regular, everyday Japanese. Gaijin in Disguise I guess.
After registering, I headed to the classroom where I'd been assigned to take the test. Though I'd be in the same building as my friend, we would both be in separate rooms. I entered my room, and found it already full of Chinabots and Koreaticons. They all looked up at me, and the sentiment seemed to be universal--"This is the 1-kyuu room son, are you lost? What the FUCK are you doing here?" It was a new kind of weird. I mean, I've been the only Gaijin in a sea of Japanese people countless times, but this was the first time I was in a room of Gaijin, except they all looked Japanese, and I still stood out. Eventually, another western guy came into the room, a white guy, and I was relieved. "Finally! A brother!" I thought to myself. You see how special Japan is? This was probably the first and only time in human history a black dude sees a white dude and thinks, "Finally, someone like me!"
Before the test begins, the proctors (who actually are Japanese) explain the rules and the various different ways you can be disqualified from the test. For a minor offense, you get yellow-carded, which is simply a warning. Getting a red card means disqualification from the test, and insta-fail. Things that can get you red-carded is obvious cheating, if your cell phone goes off during the test (vibrate or otherwise), or headbutting an Italian mid-fielder.
The cell phone thing is pretty big. Last year during the 2-kyuu, one dumbass came into the test room talking on his phone, and had about three separate conversations with three different people on his phone before the test began. I knew this idiot's phone was going to go off at some point during the test--sure enough, it did, but luckily for him, it happened during the pre-test explanation and not the actual test, which only got him a yellow-card.
As you can be ringed up for the sound of your cell phone's vibration I not only turned off my phone, but took out the battery as well. Can't be too careful. Upon restoring my phone after the test, I found that my girlfriend had sent me a "good luck!" message during the test. Later, I explained the rules of the exam to her, and had I forgotten to turn off my phone, her well-wishes would have resulted in my disqualification. This year, I made sure to repeat the warning--if my phone goes off for whatever reason during the test, I fail. I'm going to turn the phone off, but still for whatever reason don't call or email me. Sure enough, she sent another "good luck!" message this year as well. While I appreciate her support and all, I had to ask about this when I met up with her after the test...
Me: So. You sent an email.
Her: Yeah. Is that bad?
Me: Well, if I'd forgotten to turn off the phone, it would have made me fail the test.
Her: But you turned off your phone, right?
Me: Yes, I did.
Her: See, I knew you'd turn off the phone, and therefore it was okay to send you an email. You'd see it when you were finished.
Me: Yes. If I turned off the phone. But what if, in my nervousness and anxiety before the test, I forgot to do so?
Her: ....Um....well....you would have been screwed?
Me: Thank you.
The test is divided into three parts. The first part is kanji/vocabulary. Now, occasionally the test will give us English speakers a freebie. They'll have something like, "What is the meaning of ? - 'kurejitto kaado'" written in katakana--so of course, us English speakers get to laugh, knowing that it's just English for "credit card." Meanwhile, the Asiaformers scratch their heads over what the what the funny looking scratch marks mean. Really though, we only get that one bone, while all the Chinabots breeze though this portion of the test. They get to look at 藍 and be like, "Oh snap, that's indigo!" while the rest of us are like, "Did a drunk hamster spill ink on his feet and then walk around on the test paper, or what?"
The second part is listening. Listening actually isn't all that bad. Especially for those who are living in Japan, because every waking minute of every day is sort of like a listening test. Although, the test does try to throw us curveballs...
Clerk: Hello, how may I help you?
Woman: Well, I'd like to buy a necklace. What's in fashion this season?
Clerk: Well, this leaf design is pretty popular. How about this one with a single leaf?
Woman: Oh, that's nice. But I like lots of leaves. How about this one with four leaves?
Clerk: Oh, that's a good choice. If you like leaves, how about this one with leaves in a circular pattern?
Woman: That's attractive...but I still like the other one better.
Clerk: Okay. Oh! But how about this necklace, that's completely different from the leaf bullshit we've been talking about so far?
Woman: Oh, I like that one! I'll take it!
Me: You bitch.
The final part is grammar. I don't even know English grammar, and I'm expected to be an ace at Japanese grammar? Not only that, but the 1-kyuu has us studying some archaic shit. Japanese people would look at my grammar books and be like, "Whoa, nobody says that anymore!" Great, so if I want to talk to 90 year-old grannies about how the downfall of the bubble economy is still being felt in present times, I can. Wonderful.
As we get a break before the grammar part for lunch, I met up with my friend. He pretty much summed up the grammar portion of the test perfectly--Hhere's where they're going to hurt us. It's like, everything up until now has been foreplay. The vocab was some light caressing...the listening was a few gentle kisses...and now the grammar is like a big, black, barbed-wired Cock of Destruction, right up our asses. Without lube."
And that's pretty much how it was, too.
I finished the exam, not at all expecting to pass. I went into the exam not expecting to pass. Neither did my friend, but his reasons for taking the test were to give us something to study for and to see in what areas we were weak in. In February, the test results came in, and as I expected, I didn't pass. I aced the listening, and I actually did pass the grammar part, but I bombed the kanji. Not too surprising. I called my friend to commiserate, only to found that he'd actually passed it! You complete piece of shit. No, no, what I mean to say is, I'm totally happy for him and he did a great job. That complete piece of shit.
I'm not too surprised though, I mean, I would have passed if not for the kanji, and seeing how he's a total kanji freak (I think he studies kanji for fun, the masochist), it makes sense. He tells me that ever since getting 1-kyuu, the attitudes of Japanese people around him have completely changed. Now, they treat him like a human. Other teachers at his school, not just English, are now willing to engage him in real, actual conversations now. He says that his VP once introduced him to a guest, and the first thing out of her mouth was, "Oh, and this is our ALT. He has 1-kyuu. Incidentally, his name is..."
Since I failed, I guess I'll be back at Kyoto Univ. come December, giving it another shot. Would be nice if I could pass this time around. It'd be kinda cool to be a human again.
Wow. Those tests seem well above my skill level. However I am not in Japan and don't plan to be for quite some time. I'll just hit the books hard and early. Thanks for the heads up.
Yes, kanji ruin lives. Honestly. Everytime I see one that`s more than 14 strokes I want to run and hide in a corner and cry.
Ouch....I'm going to attempt the 3-kyuu in December....I've only been here a year....I KNOW I'm not ready for the 2-kyuu or 1-kyuu (if ever for the 1-kyuu*shudders*) At least my friends are helping me study....
kudos to you for even TRYING the 1-kyuu. Wow...human again...what's that like?
Your sample 1-kyuu question is a trick question. None of those four women is pregnant. You can tell this because they're all at work.
Sounds like fun!
Nice Az, I'm jealous of your skillz.
So, with 5 hours of studying a week, starting with just books and eventually moving on to private lessons where I can actually speak with someone....how long do you think it's going to take me to learn Japanese to the point of being able to converse decently with non-English speaking Japanese? I'm pretty smart and I learn fast. I'm just wondering how long has it taken people you've all known.
Aw, I have faith in you. The extent of my Japanese is just random words from Dragonball Z sites back when I was a freak. And the only time I actually took a foreign language class was in Middle School and that was an utter disaster.
But...I don't think learning how to say "the sky is blue" in Spanish would've been a "real life situation anyways.
I very much doubt you don't know it, but what the hell...
If you've never tried it, do take a look at "Remembering the Kanjis" and its follow up from James Heisig.
http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp//SHUBUNKEN/contact/ordering_books_special.htm
Don't worry Az, I'm confident that you will pass next time around. In the meantime, enjoy being treated as something less than a human without a power level of OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAND. :P
Hallo!
Kudos for trying, as everyone else has said. I did 2kyuu in 2005 when I was on exchange and passed from luck (lots of the grammar was "hmm, I haven't chosen option 'C' in a while...") - I want to do 1kyuu but think I'd probably need another 4 years in Japan to make up for the 2 years "off" (finishing the non-language part of the degree).
And yes, Kanji SUCKS.
Thanks for the great editorials, I think you have saved me from signing up for JET :)
Kris (in Australia)
Second that, the book is awesome. It makes the process much easier than just memorizing scribbles. Try it with 'Reviewing the kanji' http://kanji.koohii.com for a combo strike blaster.
HAHAHA, your rant about the "indigo" kanji is exactly what I've been wanting to scream to the entire nation of Japan for years!! I have the 3-kyuu under my belt, but after having attempted the 2-kyuu (before the 3-kyuu, incidentally, because of pressure from my deranged professor who thought I would "definitely pass"... needless to say I didn't and took 3-kyuu the following year) I realize I have a lot of studying yet before 2-kyuu, probably 15 years away from 1-kyuu. Congrats nonetheless!
I thought the Kansai dialect conversation, Japanese version, was pretty funny, but I had the luxury of being able to read it and still didn't recognize all of the dialectic expressions. I only took two years of Japanese in college, and have been relying on anime for all my listening practice needs ever since. Kanji would be my Achilles' heel as well, but I don't expect to have the opportunity to take these tests anyway... I might make 3-kyuu.
So, is it a red card offense or just a yellow card to respond "Douitashimashite" when someone says "3-kyuu"?
Four leaves huh.
I like it.
I like it a lot.
Gah! My sensei did that to me for our final exam in April. It was three days long, one for speaking, one for listening and essay writing, and one more grammar. On the listening day, it went something like this:
TA1: I like organges!
TA2: Me too, but I also like apples
TA1: Which one do you like best?
TA2: Well, oranges are pretty and apples are delicious, so I think I like strawberries the best.
Me: WTF?
"So, is it a red card offense or just a yellow card to respond "Douitashimashite" when someone says "3-kyuu"?"
...booo~
But seriously, I love you description of kanji, Az. Alas, they're my bane as well. I feel like I'm almost qualified for the 3-kyuu if it weren't for those blasted kanji.
daga... ware no sentouryoku wa juuman ijou da zo!
HAHAHAHA. This is probably one of your better spiels to date - as a fellow studier of Asian language, I appreciate your pains and your forewarnings of the 1-kyuu test. Given a bit more kanji and vocabulary practice, I think I can tackle the 3-kyuu, and I look forward to the day where I can be so proficient as to pass 2/3 of the 1-kyuu like you.
By the way: Why do KOREANS have to be the Decepticons?
(Az's Note: Chinaticons didn't sound as good.
Hey, the Decepticons were cooler anyway.)
Maybe you should have gone to Germany instead. Much easier language to learn for English speakers than any Asian tongue. What baffles me about Japanese is the sentence structure. Its all jumbled and backwards compared to English. How do they get their point across quickly enough?
Just thought I'd send you a little trick that's making kanji a breeze.
Look up a software called Mnemosyne, download that mother-fucker like God himself will come down and slap you silly if you don't, and then join the Remembering the Kanji Yahoo group.
When you get in, they'll have a file available for everyone in the group that you can just upload into your new program, and boom, just like that, 2,043 kanji to review.
Not only that, this shit actually forces you to review the old stuff based on how well you said you remember it. Stuff that's hard gets reviewed often, stuff that's easy rarely.
I kid you not, I'm on vacation, of course, which explains this, but I'm learning 50 kanji a day and have just hit 800 kanji. I expect to be done somewhere in the next 25 days with all 2,043 kanji. After that, it's just review every day. Poof, kanji problem solved.
God, then I can finally be literate in my other language.
Is there any logic in the Japanese characters? At least the Korean characters (not that I read at all) make sense with different pieces representing different sounds, but Japanese just looks outright chaotic no matter what people say.
I think I'm just going to stay with my comfy little European languages like Gaelic, Finnish, Russian, and the Germanic and Romance languages...
Was waiting for the cunning Transformers parody to emerge heh... good luck for taking it again this December Az. And this is a perfect indication of why I decided I would never be able to understand more Japanese than just katakana and a few well chosen words and phrases...
Stick to it, Mr. Azrael!
But, what do you want to get good at Japanese for?
Who do you think can won the 1st grade among TV entertainers of foreigner in Japan?
By the way, I cited a few posts from JAPANPROBE in 'A Straw Most Final: Not Another Teen Postscript - June 15, 2007'.
Are you frustrated with current situation?
Nice rant about the indigo thing. Too bad about the test, well better luck next time.
December huh? That's a long ways away, also with your luck I'd bet that they'd create some level above 1-kyuu just to dehumanize you some more...
Incidentally, one of my favorite bloggers did pass the JLPT.
http://www.darkmirage.com/2007/02/27/no-more-jlpt/
He's a Chinese English speaking otaku living in Singapore who's been studying Japanese for four years. I suspect it's because of the tremendous amount of eroge he plays.
Any tips for studying for the test? I'm planning on taking the 4-kyuu this year (watakushi wa yon-kyuu shiken wo suru tsumori desu yo).
I took 2-kyuu at the end of my last semester of college before graduating. Didn't pass. Most of those kanji we never even WENT over in my classes!! I think Az is on the mark when he says four years of it in university is just a warm-up. Gag.
Of course, I must be a sucker for stupidly hard tests, as I'm taking the GRE next month. At least I'll understand what's going on there! ...I think.
Hey, sometimes the Japanese get screwed up on Kanji, too. Don't know if it's popped up on your radar, but they're changing the (spoken) name of Iwo Jima, to Iwo Tou. See http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,284834,00.html for the news article.
Apparently, "Jima" or "Shima" is the kunyomi for that particular kanji, and "Tou" or "Dou" is the onyomi. Both of 'em mean "Island", so no biggie-da. It's gotten a bunch of Americans' knickers in a bunch, though.
Well is there any good textbook or dictionary whatever for learning kanji?
You DO know that you have equivalent tests for foreign national about English speaking, right?
The TOEFL (Test of English as Foreign Language) in the US and the Cambridge levels in England. Those are somewhat similar to what you describe (especially the Cambridge, as you pass a certain level and get it for life. TOEFL is giving you a grade and is valid for 3 years only).
If you are surprised that native speakers cannot follow the level you are studying (and I bet that even some of the faculty, excepting the teachers of japanese proper, would not know either), you should be shocked to see the level of english displayed on the internet.
Same situation everywhere: litteracy is not for the faint of heart ;)
Its a good thing Zinedine Zidane wasnt taking the test...
i want to wish you luck on passing the 1-kyuu. living safely in california, i'm lucky enough to understand a good chunk of spanish, i can't even begin to think how mind boggling it would be to learn japanese. my friend is trying to teach himself and is doing a fairly good job of it so far, but i'll stick to speaking english for the most part :)
a star trek, transformers, AND a chan referrance in one post... Az you astound me XD
^_^
[After registering, I headed to the classroom where I'd been assigned to take the test. Though I'd be in the same building as my friend, we would both be in separate rooms. I entered my room, and found it already full of Chinabots and Koreaticons. They all looked up at me, and the sentiment seemed to be universal - "this is the 1-kyuu room son, are you lost? What the FUCK are you doing here?" It was a new kind of weird. I mean, I've been the only Gaijin in a sea of Japanese people countless times, but this was the first time I was in a room of Gaijin, except they all looked Japanese and I still stood out. Eventually, another western guy came into the room, a white guy, and I was relieved. "Finally! A brother!" I thought to myself. ...You see how special Japan is? This was probably the first and only time in human history an black dude sees a white dude and thinks "finally, someone like me!"]
*dies laughing*
I wouldn't mind learning to speak Japanese, but if I had to deal with learning Kanji at the same time, the only strokes I'd really have to worry about would be the ones putting my ass in the hospital trying to memorize all of it xD .
Having 1-kyuu means you're human? Hmmmm...
Take care, Az. I'll be over there playing fling-the-poo with the other primates ;) .
having trouble telling between chinese, korean, and japanese RACES? az, they're oriental. you just confused their nationalities with ethnicity. it's like calling anyone that's white AMERICAN... (filipinos tend to do this all the time - it annoys me!)
or how hispanics (puerto ricans, dominicans, etc.) in america all say they're spanish, when that is supposed to mean they actually came from spain, right?
yup, english is definitely a hard language to master...
I like the little rant about English not being hard. After being stressed at speaking Japanese for a few weeks straight with no English I once lashed out on a poor high school student who said to me "eigo ha totemo muzukashii ne" I completely lost it. and he was close to tears after I had finished!
Wow... Maybe I'll never pick up Japanese. I didn't do so well in my one semester class in college, and that was years ago. Perhaps I shall give up my fevered dream of teaching sexy Japanese college co-eds conversational English..
Not that I could afford it anyway....
AZ- This is in no way related to you article but I just went to another very interesting site when I mistyped your sitename with a .com. Nice pics hahahaah
Hope ur well been reading your stuff for a long assed time. I have my japanese gf cracking up with retelling her some of the stuff I read here.
Take care
Liam
Reminds me of taking the GRE...and that was in English...
I've been a longterm reader but this is the first time I ever really felt like commenting.
For shits and giggles, my sensei in my 4th semester Japanese class had us take part of an old.. I think it was 3-kyuu test. Yeah. I think I got 1/5 of the questions right, and I'm in the top part of the class. (You know, one of the people that does pretty well but not SUPERICHIBAN because I don't study all the time?) It was just as bad taking the placement test for going to Senshu this fall. It went from easy, easy, easy to wait hold on, I've never even seen this before. I must've left half of it blank. Why can't the tests have some semblance of a graduating degree of difficulty? I hope my exams aren't this way.
Is there a reason why Japan can't... er... drop all them squiggly line thingies... in favor of some sort of romanization? Hey. If you have to dream, dream big. =P
I say "is there" but I'm sure there are reasons why they can't just drop a well-established system at the drop of a hat.
(Az's Note: Though I may gripe about it, Japanese would be really hard to read without kanji.)
I totally took the TOEFL and it went pretty well. I booched the speaking part because I don't really have anyone to talk to, so I just can't do the higher level speech needed for academics. (I kept repeating "like" every 4 to 6 words)
I wish I could take the Cambridge one though, that'd be pretty swell.
I'm taking the 3-kyuu this year. I just finished an a Intensive 6 week Kanji class. 250 Kanji + a bajillion compounds and new vocab to go along with them all in 6 weeks. Had the final exam tonight. I got an A but my head is about to explode.
If you were so concerned about your cell phone going off, why didn't you just leave it at hhome?
(Az's Note: That's what my friend did. However, as any good Japanese, my cell has now become an extension of my own soul.)
Forgive me if this seems an obvious question, but I've only been taking Japanese for four weeks now...why are the tests named "3-Nine" or "2-Nine?" Unless I'm far more retarded than I had thought, doesn't "kyuu" mean "nine?"
Also, related to my last post: in the Kansai area, "Wakarimasen" becomes "Wakarahen?" What the fuck?
(Az's Note: Yep. Or, "wakaran". Japanese is fun, whee!
And the "kyuu" for the tests is a completely different kyuu. 級)
Boy, this makes me thankful that my interest in Japan is purely from a spectator point of view. I'll stick with English, thanks.
Posted by: Ryan Layman at June 28, 2007 12:14
Is there any logic in the Japanese characters? At least the Korean characters (not that I read at all) make sense with different pieces representing different sounds, but Japanese just looks outright chaotic no matter what people say.
Yes, but not for the Kanji script like his squiggly "indigo" example. Since most kanji are borrowed Chinese characters, some of which are slightly modified but retaining the same semantics, representing whole or root words, you just have to use rote memorization.
Native Japanese script, hiragana and katana (which you can easily recognize among the kanji as they contain much less strokes with hiragana being more cursive in style) on the other hand are purely pheonetic with each character representing a single syllable. The nice thing about the kanas is that there's a 1:1 mapping between how something sounds and how it's spelled.
Given that you can write everything in kana, I think the Japanese should've just dropped kanji after the development of kana (about 800 A.D.). I assume it was retained for elitist reasons--the more educated you were, the more kanji you use.
That's what you get for dissing "blue"... or "indigo" as you put it, though I'm pretty sure the Chinese is only used to mean blue when used alone, but we're talking about Kanji... Damn Japanese have to borrow Chinese and then add complexity upon the complexity.
Good luck next time, Az.
(Az's Note:
Blue in Japanese: 青
Indigo in Japanese: 藍)
Today I went to Taco Bell for my lunchbreak, and made the unfortunate error of reading this website in public. When I got the the "NINE THOUSAAAAAND" part, I found it so funny that I made the wierdest fucking laughing noise I'd ever heard. It was so rapid and high pitched, I sounded like a damn teletubby or something. Being a fairly deep-voiced, 21-year-old male, this was not natural. A young-looking skinny guy next to me says "funny stuff huh?" Figuring he was just making fun of me (as he should), I just smiled and turned away. Then he looks at me and says again, in a most serious tone, "I like your laugh," giving me a googly-eyed gaze that lasted a lot longer than made me comfortable.
Damn you, Az.
And here I read the title expecting some sort of joke by Ernie and Bert involving counting up to 10-kyuu with the punchline of "You're welcome!"