Japanese Help Questions/Translations

[ryuurui]

Originally Posted by huhin574

Hello,

I need a translation (I think it's japanese)
Take a look at the picture below:

It reads: My boyfriend has mentioned that I should write to you.

[huhin574]

Thank you for translating. -Can You translate te 2nd sentence too (the sentence with the questionmark at the end) ?

[huhin574]

-Can you translate this sentence (with the question mark at the end) ?

[ryuurui]

It reads: What is that?

[Nameless]

Ok I have a sort of personal question, I've googled it several times, but I found no convincing words.

How bad is it to forget a few ( no more than 10) kanji in a given group? (e.g. of 400 or 500).

I sometimes forget a few characters... and I honestly hate this, my question is, how often does it happen to native speakers? how often does it happen to people that practice calligraphy?

My goal isn't to be perfect on writing the kanji, but I would like to compare my statistics with those more involved with the language.

Some people even claim that it's pointless to learn written kanji, Kanji Amnesia And Why It's Okay To Forget Your Kanji and that people should focus on reading and recognizing them....

However I would like to see more opinions on the subject...

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Nameless

Ok I have a sort of personal question, I've googled it several times, but I found no convincing words.

How bad is it to forget a few ( no more than 10) kanji in a given group? (e.g. of 400 or 500).

I sometimes forget a few characters... and I honestly hate this, my question is, how often does it happen to native speakers? how often does it happen to people that practice calligraphy?

My goal isn't to be perfect on writing the kanji, but I would like to compare my statistics with those more involved with the language.

Some people even claim that it's pointless to learn written kanji, Kanji Amnesia And Why It's Okay To Forget Your Kanji and that people should focus on reading and recognizing them....

However I would like to see more opinions on the subject...

It's not very important for someone not living in Japan remember how to write all the kanji IMO. And natives, especially young people, forget how to write a bunch by the end of college anyhow. Because they don't have to write them.

Hell, I think my professors (at least the TAs I had) would occasionally forget how to write a kanji mid-blackboard-writing and have to pause for a moment and try to remember.

[ryuurui]

Originally Posted by Nameless

Ok I have a sort of personal question, I've googled it several times, but I found no convincing words.

How bad is it to forget a few ( no more than 10) kanji in a given group? (e.g. of 400 or 500).

I sometimes forget a few characters... and I honestly hate this, my question is, how often does it happen to native speakers? how often does it happen to people that practice calligraphy?

My goal isn't to be perfect on writing the kanji, but I would like to compare my statistics with those more involved with the language.

Some people even claim that it's pointless to learn written kanji, Kanji Amnesia And Why It's Okay To Forget Your Kanji and that people should focus on reading and recognizing them....

However I would like to see more opinions on the subject...

I probably have the most experience out of all the foreigners on this forum in writing them by hand, as I do it everyday for few hours for past 10 years. Also, I use the correct written form and not the computer fornt that you have in the text books (which, by the way, are not always written in the same way by hand) It is simple, if you do not write them, you forget them.

Also, Kyle has a point, that if you do not need them as I do for calligrahy, there are not many instances that you will actually have to write them. Perhaps except for some documents in kuyakusho, or a bank, but that is usually your address and name.

How often do the people that study calligraphy forget them? My teacher has been studying it for 50-60 years, and I reckon he knows about 20-30k or even more kanji. Even he sometimes looks up the dictionary. You must also remember, that you guys use only one form of given character, where in calligraphy we use much more (to give one example, the kanji for a tiger (虎) has like 7 forms). One character may have 7 -8 diferent forms, and those are further multiplied by styles. So, lol, you can study all you want, you will forget some anyway.

I write approximately 3000-4000 characters a month by hand (brush), and this is not even close to how many more I would want to write, if i had the bloody time to do it.

[Nameless]

That is what worries me the most, since I am a foreigner, living in a country were the Japanese language holds little relevance, I ought to find a way to keep practicing them...
The only way I can think of is calligraphy and maybe writing a lot (e.g. books).

I will make even greater efforts not to forget them, your replies relieve me anyway, at least I am not the only one...

[Darnellrbts]

Quick question doing some review again. I'm trying to say. lee do you usually play tennis on saturday?? Is that right 
リーさんはたいてい土曜日にテニスをしますか。

[ryuurui]

I am jolly sleepy but I think it should be リーさんは土曜日にたいていテニスしてますか？, though it will have a slightly different meaning. (Lee, on sat. you do mostly tenins?)

you could use いつも instead of たいてい as it would sound better in this case.

リーさんはいつもの土曜日にテニスやってますか？

But wait for our forum's native speakers to confirm this.