Learning program accuracy "101 Languages of the World"

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by protheus

I'm sorry for disturbing again, I am a bit confused about something. The 2 forms of writting (katakana, hiragana), can be or are they used in general in the same "sentence"?

Yes, and there are more than 2 types of writing. There's the two "kana" you mentioned, plus kanji. And then Japanese uses arabic numerals (0-9) sometimes, too. Hiragana and katakana are phonetic. Kanji is not. And then there's romaji, which means two things: (1) a system of writing Japanese using the roman alphabet; and (2) a group of characters used for certain things in Japan. For example, my name in Japanese, if you only use my first initial, would be Kゲッツ.

Here's a sample sentence using all three that you're not familiar with already as a Romanian speaker:
アメリカに英語が話せる人がいます。
アメリカ is katakana, 英語、話、人 are kanji, and に、が、せる、がいます are hiragana.
The sentence means "There are people in America who can speak English."

I suggest you read the Romanian wikipedia article on the Japanese writing system, since you apparently thought there are only two groups of graphs used in Japanese: Scrierea japoneză - Wikipedia

I can read enough Romanian to know the article explains hiragana, katakana, kanji, and romaji.

[protheus]

I know about the romanji meaning, the kanji (cuneiform writting adapted from chinese), I'm at page 30 in the Jappanesse grammar Guide, those were clear, but this wasn't, the use of both katakana and hiragana in the same one. They were explained separate, that confused me.
Kanji, I already understood that replaces words, meanings (and even more) in any written type, so that implies it is being used everywhere (except in romanji).

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by protheus

I know about the romanji meaning, the kanji (cuneiform writting adapted from chinese), I'm at page 30 in the Jappanesse grammar Guide, those were clear, but this wasn't, the use of both katakana and hiragana in the same one. They were explained separate, that confused me.
Kanji, I already understood that replaces words, meanings (and even more) in any written type, so that implies it is being used everywhere (except in romanji).

Romaji romaji romaji. There is no "n," and this is a big mistake nearly every noob seems to make. It is written romaji, and in Japanese ローマ字 (Rome characters).

[protheus]

I'm sorry, that was a typo mystake, not a intentional one. I know it is romaji, but kept writting that.

However, when it comes to something new, you're right, everybody is a noob, until it gets it. I am one of them, but evolving is one man's job.

I know I'm a pain in the.... like all the other begginers, but I thank you for all the advices.

My primary questions were answered, it helped me avoid already some bad choices, but now it's time to get to the learning.

See you in a few weeks, I hope, with a lot more in my head.

Best regards,

Catalin C.

[ColinHowell]

One more nit-pick, sorry.

Originally Posted by protheus

I know about ... the kanji (cuneiform writting adapted from chinese) ...

(emphasis added)

You really shouldn't use the word "cuneiform" either for kanji or for the Chinese writing system that kanji is derived from. Cuneiform only refers to the writing system used in ancient Mesopotamia, with its distinctive wedge-shaped marks; the very name "cuneiform" derives from the Latin for "wedge-shaped". (For similar reasons, "hieroglyphic" is also a bad choice; that term is normally used only for the ancient Egyptian writing system.)

A much better term for kanji and Chinese writing is "logographic".

In a logographic system, each character (or logogram) represents a word or word-element. Hence the use of the term "logogram", from the Greek for "word-character". The correspondence between logograms and words isn't simple; while some logograms may be pictograms or ideograms, others may be chosen for the sound of a word already associated with the character, and the characters can be combined in various ways. That's why the term "logographic" fits better than other terms.

End of pedantic lecture.

[protheus]

Thank you, new thing learned, alot more to come .

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by ColinHowell

One more nit-pick, sorry.



(emphasis added)

You really shouldn't use the word "cuneiform" either for kanji or for the Chinese writing system that kanji is derived from. Cuneiform only refers to the writing system used in ancient Mesopotamia, with its distinctive wedge-shaped marks; the very name "cuneiform" derives from the Latin for "wedge-shaped". (For similar reasons, "hieroglyphic" is also a bad choice; that term is normally used only for the ancient Egyptian writing system.)

A much better term for kanji and Chinese writing is "logographic".

In a logographic system, each character (or logogram) represents a word or word-element. Hence the use of the term "logogram", from the Greek for "word-character". The correspondence between logograms and words isn't simple; while some logograms may be pictograms or ideograms, others may be chosen for the sound of a word already associated with the character, and the characters can be combined in various ways. That's why the term "logographic" fits better than other terms.

End of pedantic lecture.

Well, if you want to get really pedantic, in Japanese, kanji do not always represent a word or specific sound, so "logogram" is not accurate, either. Further, since not all kanji represent an idea, "ideogram" is not correct, either.

"Morphograph" is better.

Now it's someone else's turn to out-pedant me!

[ColinHowell]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

Well, if you want to get really pedantic, in Japanese, kanji do not always represent a word or specific sound, so "logogram" is not accurate, either. Further, since not all kanji represent an idea, "ideogram" is not correct, either.

"Morphograph" is better.

Now it's someone else's turn to out-pedant me!

Heh, I actually saw that one while checking "logogram" in Wikipedia (specifically, the section covering Chinese writing and its use in Japanese and Korean). I started to mention it, but then thought it better to keep things simpler, since the distinction seems most relevant to linguists, and we're not talking to a linguist. I then wondered whether someone else might bring up the "morphographic, not logographic" point. And you willingly obliged.

Protheus, don't worry too much about these fine distinctions. If you're curious, it's related to the fact that Japanese kanji have multiple readings, so-called on and kun readings, on being the word borrowed from Chinese which the kanji originally stood for, and kun the native Japanese word or words with the same meaning. If you want a bit more detail, check the links I included above.

[steven]

The culture thing that MMM said is huge! I think there is no way of being fluent in Japanese without understanding the culture. Sometimes you run into Japanese people who don't seem to have a firm grasp on their own culture and they are pretty much grouped with hennagaijin.

I admit that I thought "romaji" was "romanji" for the first two or three years of studying Japanese. I feel like my first couple of teachers said it "romanji". Maybe it's referred to as "romanji" in a book somewhere?

"romanji" - Google Search
1,210,000 results for "romanji"

"romaji" - Google Search
5,970,000 results for "romaji"

Romaji is being mistaken for 1/5 of the time (at least according to google)!

Romanization of Japanese - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"romanji" also comes up on wikipedia (and the article says that "romanji" is indeed wrong)

[protheus]

Understood, history and culture lessons, between language lessons, but after katakana and hiragana tables memorized.

Maybe I seem easy to be understood just from some posts here, the logic conclusion would be something like : "an enthusiastic teenager that will calm down in a few months and go back to its usual and casual life", but I'm not "the logical conclusion". I always look for new "frontiers to cross".
Even though I don't have an University degree in language, I'm still interested about the real "name" given to the chinese writting and everything else related.