Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

[Hoho]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

This was back before there was hiragana/katana, called manyougana. Kanji could either be used for their sound, or for their meaning. Eventually, certain norms took place and certain kanji were used for the same sounds which then got simplified in writing to become hiragana and katana (iirc) there's something else I'm missing about the development of katakana but I can't remember it.

[Jembru]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Thanks, it's maybe something I should try to pick up when (read 'if ever') I'm back in Japan. It's just a shame because the Japanese forum I frequent is pretty slow besides one off visitors posting photos and asking, 'what does this say?'. Sometimes the font is really simple and we can answer easily, but often, it's in caligraphy style and few of us can read it. I can read 'plum' because it's on a teapot I have. Too bad it's usually written in kana in Japanese!

I don't know anything about the evolution of the Japanese writing system. I do understand hiragana as meaning 'rounded characters', because they are a stylised form of kanji with the same reading. That's as far as my knowledge goes. So before hiragana was established, was there a specific set of kanji used to represent the phonetics? I mean, I assume from the shape and reading that 'ka' came from the kanji for power/strength. So would this kanji have always been used for 'ka'. If so, I'm confused about 'baka' again, but if not, how ever did anyone read anything? I mean, how would you know when a kanji depicted a word, from when it was just there for its sound?

The more I study of the writing system, the more gratitude I feel towards the Romans!

[Hoho]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Thanks! Glad you knew what I meant! My coursebook always uses the 'ear to the gate' version, even when the meaning is 'ask'. Sometime the example sentences are identical too.

Oh I wonder if you could help me with something else. You know when kanji are written in rounded calligraphy, like on vases and lanterns? Is there a standard way of writing in this style, and do you know of any books or sites that teach this? I can recognise 'rice field' in this style, and 'sun', then I run out.. it would just be nice to be able to recognise these unique moon runes! ^^

Well there is a calligraphy writing style (styles actually!) the basic (chinese terminology, dunno if japanese uses the same terminology) is 書法， book style, the only other i'm familiar with is 草法 which is grass style (a much faster and simpler stroke style). I, myself, don't have much calligraphy training (I've none, lol) but you just kind of run the strokes together. There are actual specific calligraphy forms for every character, like in 草法 that merge strokes entirely together. Reading it just takes a lot of practice :< I can't read a lot of calligraphy.

Best thing to do imo is find a calligraphy compilation. It'll have a chart with the different styles and examples on how to write each style. You would have to get them in actual chinese or japanese, and I don't think they make english books of them, so I'm not sure how you would search for the actual book. They're big though

I can give you an easy example. I assume you know the 安 kanji. Written, it's 6 strokes, starting at the top with the dot, then the "roof" part for strokes 2 and 3, then the woman part for strokes for strokes 4 5 and 6. In basic calligraphy, you write it in 4 or 5 strokes, 1 and/or 2 beings the roof part (you skip the top dot) then the last ones being the woman part, where you make the first stroke extra long through the roof for the very first original dot itself.

[Jembru]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Thanks! Glad you knew what I meant! My coursebook always uses the 'ear to the gate' version, even when the meaning is 'ask'. Sometime the example sentences are identical too.

Oh I wonder if you could help me with something else. You know when kanji are written in rounded calligraphy, like on vases and lanterns? Is there a standard way of writing in this style, and do you know of any books or sites that teach this? I can recognise 'rice field' in this style, and 'sun', then I run out.. it would just be nice to be able to recognise these unique moon runes! ^^

[Hoho]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Okay, I'll do ONE for now, only because I genuinely believe you think it would be fun, and because I admire your enthusiasm and am very grateful to have someone so willing to help this struggling learner. I've never tried this before so please forgive me if I get the radicals wrong..

Lets use 'kiku' to hear, listen or ask. Usually, the Japanese right this with a gate around a ear. I'm sure this is familiar enough to you to require no more detail. The dictionaries however, also list a second kanji, this has 'ear' on the left and the right is.. oh man, how do I describe this? The bottom right is 'heart' the top right.. erm, 'ten' standing on a sideways 'eye' maybe? like the eye looking at the shell in 'buy'.

Told you I'm not very good at kanji! ^^

Ya, I know what you're talking about, 聞 and 聽. There's a specific nuance in the usage between them, tbh most japanese don't even know many of the nuances. (I don't know the nuance offhand, I'd have to research it.) In chinese though, 聽 is a more modern character and 聞 is a more classical word. Both mean to hear, but 聽 is used as the verb to hear modernly (though this doesn't really pertain to you! so I'll leave it at that.) Japanese likes to use the classical kanji in words since that's when they were implemented.

This is another example of when modern Japanese people sometimes just use hiragana instead of kanji, when there's a nuance. The same kiku also has another meaning meaning "to ask", so it's not uncommon for a lot of japanese to just use hiragana, the nuances are becoming outdated in day-to-day life. I'll look up the specific nuance for you.

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Hokay, well 聞く is the general kanji for the verb, 聴く is used in things like listening to music, listening to the circumstances, and the formal kanji for to ask (never knew this one). But like I said, you can use 聞く pretty much all of the time and it's ok, or else just use きく.

[Jembru]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Okay, I'll do ONE for now, only because I genuinely believe you think it would be fun, and because I admire your enthusiasm and am very grateful to have someone so willing to help this struggling learner. I've never tried this before so please forgive me if I get the radicals wrong..

Lets use 'kiku' to hear, listen or ask. Usually, the Japanese wright this with a gate around a ear. I'm sure this is familiar enough to you to require no more detail. The dictionaries however, also list a second kanji, this has 'ear' on the left and the right is.. oh man, how do I describe this? The bottom right is 'heart' the top right.. erm, 'ten' standing on a sideways 'eye' maybe? like the eye looking at the shell in 'buy'.

Told you I'm not very good at kanji! ^^

[Hoho]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Indeed I can, but how about we wait until Friday when I have internet so can include the Kanji in my examples. It will be much easier that way. I know you'd understand if I gave a description of the radicals they contain, but it would be much nicer just to type them.

True, but you could give descriptions lol, whatevers easier for you!

[Jembru]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Indeed I can, but how about we wait until Friday when I have internet so can include the Kanji in my examples. It will be much easier that way. I know you'd understand if I gave a description of the radicals they contain, but it would be much nicer just to type them.

[Hoho]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Oh thanks for that! Although I must say I was hoping for some cool story about the intellectually challenged offspring of a mr deer and mrs horse. I guess with the whopping 310 kanji I know, I've only met those that mean what the kanji is meant to represent. I can't think of any word I've met so far (besides baka), that is using kanji only for their sounds.

So, do you know if this is quite common in modern Japanese? Is it something I'll see a lot if I decide to take the script more seriously? Or is the trend mostly to stick to kana when only the phonetics matter?

Oh, and, please forgive my questioning (you may have noticed I bored the OP away forever), but, do you also happen to know why some words can be written with different kanji? I notice this frequently when I look things up on denshi jisho, and it has me baffled.

It's not too common, baka is a common word so you sometimes might see it written in those kanji, but a recognition of it is all thats important; you don't need to know how to write it. It has become more trendy to write weird things like that in hiragana. One thing about linguistics, is languages tend to always become (or try to become) more simplified. Kanji wasn't made for japanese at all, and it functions mediocre at best. Korean has almost abolished kanji from use (near 100% in daily use).

I do know why some words can be written with different kanji, but theres different circumstances, can you give me an example?

Thanks!

[Jembru]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Oh thanks for that! Although I must say I was hoping for some cool story about the intellectually challenged offspring of a mr deer and mrs horse. I guess with the whopping 310 kanji I know, I've only met those that mean what the kanji is meant to represent. I can't think of any word I've met so far (besides baka), that is using kanji only for their sounds.

So, do you know if this is quite common in modern Japanese? Is it something I'll see a lot if I decide to take the script more seriously? Or is the trend mostly to stick to kana when only the phonetics matter?

Oh, and, please forgive my questioning (you may have noticed I bored the OP away forever), but, do you also happen to know why some words can be written with different kanji? I notice this frequently when I look things up on denshi jisho, and it has me baffled.

[Hoho]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Can't edit the old posts anymore, so this could get a lil' untidy until some one floats onto pagan forum and rescues me with their superior Japanese wisdom. I have a question for those who have studied the written language.

Why is the word 'baka', written with the kanji for horse and deer? Is there some interesting back story or mythology going on here? I never saw this in kanji until moments ago (is it usually written in kana?), but now I have, I'm fascinated. If I know the kanji, I can usually at least guess at the reasoning behind the way words are constructed, but this one has me baffled.

It's characters simply borrowed for their pronunciation, there is no logic to it. That's why in modern times, you see it written more and more in hiragana.

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Manyougana, that's what I was trying to think of, it stems from that. It's the ancient system where Chinese characters would be used for japanese pronunciation (as well as for meaning sometimes, making reading manyougana a pain.

[Jembru]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Can't edit the old posts anymore, so this could get a lil' untidy until some one floats onto pagan forum and rescues me with their superior Japanese wisdom. I have a question for those who have studied the written language.

Why is the word 'baka', written with the kanji for horse and deer? Is there some interesting back story or mythology going on here? I never saw this in kanji until moments ago (is it usually written in kana?), but now I have, I'm fascinated. If I know the kanji, I can usually at least guess at the reasoning behind the way words are constructed, but this one has me baffled.

[Jembru]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Well, it looks like it's just me now, so I'll answer my own question for anyone reading this wondering 'yeah, how DO you express that in Japanese?'.

I asked my Japanese friend yesterday. The reason I was struggling to think of a way to express 'trying to' in the sense of 'trying to remember' etc, is because Japanese doesn't express this idea the way we do. So to take the example of 'I'm trying to remember his name'. In Japanese they would say, 'namae ga omoidasenai' [名前が思い出せない。] (or in 'proper' textbook Japanese; 'Kare no namae ga omoidasemasen' [彼の名前が思い出せません。]). So the emphasis is on not currently being able to do the action, 'I can't remember his name', rather than the attempt at achieving the desired outcome.

My friend also agreed that had I used -te miru [〜て見る], I'd have sounded as though I've never attempted to think before, so I'm giving it a go. She wished me luck with that ^^

If anyone is wondering why I've suddenly started writing in Japanese, it's because I've decided (actually, I've been persuaded) to sit the JLPT, so I have a sudden interest in reading. As a result of this, I'm going to take every chance going to practise using kanji. Sorry if I typed anything wrong in the examples. I recently discovered that I struggle even to type in romaji without oodles of mistakes, so I'm probably worse when typing in script.

Also, I'm currently putting together a table of common Japanese contractions that you're likely to hear in everyday spoken Japanese. Things like -kke, -chatta, etc. to show how they relate to the structures taught in books. Of course, I'll get it checked by native speakers for accuracy before I go posting it about online. I might also add features that characterise feminine and masculine speech. I've looked around and can't find anything like this online or in the books I own. So if anyone would be interested in this table, let me know.


Added 20 May 2012:

I'm editting my last post, because I don't want to keep bumping, but I really want to keep this going. Hopefully, my fellow students of Japanese will return and help me out, so I'd like to keep asking my questions anyway. I keep a list of things I need to find out and often, I stumble on the answer anyway, but sometimes I have to ask my Japanese friends. The thing is, my former teacher is now pregnant so I don't see her that often, and my other friends aren't so aware of Japanese grammar, so often can't explain things to me (or know the answer, but can't express it in English).

So I'll just keep editting this post with questions and if anyone does read this and can answer any of them, I'd be extremely grateful. Of course, if I find the answer myself, I'll just delete the question. Lets go...

1) This is a weird one. I've no idea why, but my Japanese friend was unable to answer this: when you shake up a can or bottle and then when you open it, it explodes, how to you describe that in Japanese? It is in Japanese for busy people II, so I flipped to that page, and actually, it is just a picture of a guy opening a beer with the caption "..."

2) In what situation would one use 'mirareru' (on phone so can't write the Jap, will edit when I get a chance). Again, Miyo couldn't think of an example. I kept offering suggestions, like if someone were short sighted for example, but in every case, she said 'mieru' would still be better. I concluded that I just won't ever use mirareru, but she said she would sometimes use it, she just cann't think of an example of when. Of course, I'm similarly confused between kikeru and kikoeru but I assume answering one, will explain the other.

3) A simple one now: why do so many words have alternative kanji? Am I expected to learn all the alternatives, or would texts use furigana for clarity if a word has alternate forms?

Thanks in advance. I'm open to 'educated guesses' if you're not 100% sure. If even natives aren't sure, then I hardly expect perfect answers from fellow students of the language! Any little helps and is welcome.

[Jembru]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Sorry to keep posting, I swear I won't again until I get a reply, but I dunno if maybe my question was a bit confusing. It was written on my phone while I had JP over, and reading back over it, it does seem a bit rushed.

Basically, all I am confused about is how to express the idea of 'try to'. It's amazing how often the need for this crops up. The soy sauce example was maybe a bad one though. We tend to use the '-te miru' construction I mentioned in the original question, but sometimes this sounds plain wrong. Having thought a little more, I'm assuming that if we could express it in English with the word 'see', 'I'll see if I can reach the soy sauce', then '-te miru' is probably going to work.

The problem with that particular sentence was probably my wording. I often circumarticulate due to limited vocabulary and this sentence came out as..

'Shouyuu o torou to shite te o nobashite miru.'

This just sounds clumsy or maybe plain wrong, and there is surely an easier way to express the same idea, but I really can't think of anything.

Anyway, when I really draw a blank, is when I want to say something like.. 'I'm trying to remember his name.' or, 'I'm trying not to think about it.'

In these cases, '-te miru' surely isn't right? I can't 'do and see' when I am talking about something abstract like that, right?

The only other way I know of to express 'try' in Japanese is, as I've mentioned, '-(y)ou to suru' and can you believe, only one of my books even mentions this construction? (Well, Japanese for Busy People III mentions it in the form '-(y)ou to shita toki', as in 'I was about to' which isn't the use I'm looking for). It seems that this construction implies a failed attempt at something, so probably still doesn't apply to my needs.

I hope my question is a little clearer now. I really have tried (lol) to find the answer for myself but it seems like there is a huge blank in my knowledge, and the resources I've taught myself from, around this area.

Also, I don't mind if anyone else wants to answer btw. I know there are a few Japanese language enthusiasts here so please, by all means support Zazaru and pipe in! Besides, sometimes hearing a few different explanations is useful. I generally need a lot of repetition to learn anything.

[Jembru]

Re: Weird / Complicated / Tough Japanese Grammar Questions

Scratch that weird question. Curiousity/impatience got the better of me so I plucked up the courage to ask my friend. She knew right away what I meant and explained it to me. It wasn't a bed pan after all ^^