231–240 of 416 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
what's cool is that regional dialects have different vowel/consonant pronunciation but the differences are almost completely consistent internally and between the dialects. Like, Peruvians pronounce anything with "y" or "ll" like an English "j" and Argentines like "sh", always. Everything maps 1 to 1.
> Argentines like "sh", always Porteños do. Not everyone does in Argentina!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's why it's called a zero-が if there's no "が", because every valid Japanese sentence needs a subject. It may sound like nitpicking, but it's important to clarify that it is not correct to say that "the subject can be expressed by any of は、が, or the context". Thinking about it that way only makes it difficult to understand where the particles should be used, and indeed the difference between は and が. Either the su…
> It may sound like nitpicking... [snip] You're entirely right, what I said there was incorrect (or sloppy at best.) Thank you for the correction. > That's why it's called a zero-が if there's no "が", because every valid Japanese sentence needs a subject. This is the part which I find unhelpful. You could say "every valid English sentence needs a subject and a verb", and you'd be having a hard time finding a sentence…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_(linguistics)
Perhaps the easiest example in English is the imperative form.
"Turn off the light."
"Close the door."
"Please speak louder."
These all have an implicit noun of 'you' which isn't said. Adding it in even sounds wrong.
"You turn off the light."
Instead we would modify it with a different form. "Could you turn off the light?" or "You must turn off the light."
This means that either there is no good way to track this, or barely anybody gets to a level in Japanese where they would end up in the statistics.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_num...
For a moment the title got my hopes up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My mother tongue is English. I studied Japanese to degree level so I feel at least moderately qualified to comment on it. English is grammatically fairly simple, having dispensed with much of the (redundant) complexity found in its European brethren (gender, case, almost all inflection). I would argue that that makes it fairly easy for beginners to develop a basic command of it. Its main problems are its unpredictabl…
I learned both English and Japanese as third/fourth languages and English grammar does _not_ make sense compared to Asian languages that has comparatively very logical forms, usually with minimal modifiers that doesn't change the entire sentence structure. I frankly gave up with English grammar and just did whatever feels right.
I think that's what most people do, including native speakers.
Besides, there ain't no One True Correct™ English grammar in the first place. This is both what makes it a fun language but also vexing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel that this is a common misconception by many language learners, and it is not their fault. Usually when we learn about a language in a non-organic setting, such as a classroom, we learn mostly about the "rules". But the rules are usually just generalizations that cover a large portion of usage, while the irregularities are often learned later or are segregated as "special" cases even though they are often the m…
The best way to teach: start teaching ireggularities first; then teach patterns that cover the whole.
Honestly this feels like "programmer circle jerk" material. I love Japanese. I love it so much that I (accidentally?) moved to Japan. But it really has nothing to do with programming. It's a natural langauge with all the idiosyncrasies of natural languages. In fact I'd say that English in comparison feels like a man-made language purpose built for math and technology.
I feel that this is a common misconception by many language learners, and it is not their fault. Usually when we learn about a language in a non-organic setting, such as a classroom, we learn mostly about the "rules". But the rules are usually just generalizations that cover a large portion of usage, while the irregularities are often learned later or are segregated as "special" cases even though they are often the m…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel that this is a common misconception by many language learners, and it is not their fault. Usually when we learn about a language in a non-organic setting, such as a classroom, we learn mostly about the "rules". But the rules are usually just generalizations that cover a large portion of usage, while the irregularities are often learned later or are segregated as "special" cases even though they are often the m…
That is what turned my off grammar for me from a very young age. As a child I decided to ignore all rules and just read books. The end result is that I can write whole essays flawlessly in my native tongue with no mistakes – but I can't tell you why. I'll just "know" that a comma needs to be added, for example.
Honestly this feels like "programmer circle jerk" material. I love Japanese. I love it so much that I (accidentally?) moved to Japan. But it really has nothing to do with programming. It's a natural langauge with all the idiosyncrasies of natural languages. In fact I'd say that English in comparison feels like a man-made language purpose built for math and technology.
Yeah. Putting the hat of a product manager, I have to ask: what value does this programming analogy offer? Japanese is a pretty structured language that is quite easy to understand. You use particles to "glue" phrases to sentences, and you use conjugations of verbs, for lack of better words, to modify the meaning of a sentence. Of course, there are exceptions and nuances and advanced concepts in Japanese, but it's da…
"Being born in France, I was immersed in Japanese culture from a very young age." I fail to see how these two things are connected?
sorry it's almost a meme at this point that France has a thing for Japan and vice versa. The 90s in particular were ripe with animes on the main French channel, lots of collaboration between France and Japan. We got Japanese movies in the cinema much prior the rest of the world and even today you can find gigantic sections for mangas and anime in bookshops, cinemas...