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Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

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Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#111

Post by stratocumulus0 »

valzevul wrote: post #80

There are lots of people in the comments somehow offended by the author's genuine excitement over the method that worked well enough for them that they wanted to share it. As someone who's never tried learning Japanese, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the deep dive and am now less afraid to check out some more serious tutorials (though I wish everyone put as much effort into explaining the system behind something so oft…

This kind of content is usually shared by people who are learning a language out of genuine interest for the first time. Most of the time it's Japanese because of the popularity manga and anime enjoy, and the challenge of learning a language that's so different from one's mother tongue. There are countless blog posts written by people to whom it "clicks" for the first time, and they excitedly run to their computer to share their novel experience. I don't see anything wrong with this, let them enjoy the moment. But if they stick to their learning routine, they will inevitably learn the truth that is that the only way to learn a language is to interact with it a lot through all possible channels - speaking, listening, reading, writing. Mnemonics may work for some time, but in the end one won't be able to actually use the language if they don't learn it intuitively. And there is also the fact that most of those people live in places where Japanese is not in everyday use, limiting their opportunities to practice it.

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#112

Post by imtringued »

klodolph wrote: post #58
danabramov wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, we’re fighting over definitions here. There is no “si” in Hepburn romanization. I am intentionally using Hepburn romanization in the article. Therefore, in my article “si” is a compile error. You may argue with my choice, or maybe you can argue that referring to cells in Hiragana table solely by my chosen romanization is somehow bad, and I should instead be inconsistent and give the same mora two different roma…

First, As a basic part of Japanese language education, students are expected to be familiar with different romanization systems. If you ask a student where “si” is in the table, they should be able to find it. If a student says “it’s not in the table” then they’ve failed the lesson or there is something wrong with the teaching material. Second: am I arguing that the choice of using Hepburn here is somehow bad? Yes, t…

I've looked at over a dozen hiragana tables and they all use Hepburn romanization.

Obsessing over romanization, something that a student ought to outgrow, is a sure fire way for a student to get overwhelmed by irrelevant details that discourage learning. The hard part is putting in the work, not learning less than a dozen exceptions.

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#113

Post by lmm »

jaggederest wrote: post #107
lmm wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And, since the English equivalent of those sounds doesn't exist, there's no confusion the way there would be between "she" and "see" in english. Erm, wtf? The English "si" sound does exist and sounds different from し. There is a reason people don't want to write Sinzyuku, and while I think they're making the wrong tradeoff, it is a tradeoff and should be acknowledged as such.

"As a result, the sequences [ti si di (d)zi] do not occur in native or Sino-Japanese vocabulary."[1] Unless I'm missing something, Japanese phonology doesn't include the sound english has as "si", only "shi"? I'm not a native speaker though, it's entirely possible that I am missing something. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology

Ah, you mean those sounds don't exist in (standard) Japanese? I got confused by you talking about "the English equivalent".

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#114

Post by asutekku »

wzdd wrote: post #74
danabramov wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you’re going out of your way to misinterpret the article. As the article says below: > this is why it's important that you don't actually "think in" romaji. i'm using romaji as a convenient way to refer to phonetics in text. however, your "mental algebra" should match the hiragana table. Then the article includes an exercise that verifies the reader’s understanding. I also included a note: > (note i could…

"Factual mistake" is a bit harsh, but the missing piece is that there are multiple ways to romanise Japanese; all of them produce "valid Romaji" but only in the particular system being used. Si is how you write し in romaji using the kunrei-shiki romanisation. In the Hepburn romanisation it's shi. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Japanese#Diffe... .

Kunrei has been deprecated, Hepburn is the official one even the government of Japan recommends these days and matches better the pronunciation of the language.

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#115

Post by asutekku »

klodolph wrote: post #58
danabramov wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, we’re fighting over definitions here. There is no “si” in Hepburn romanization. I am intentionally using Hepburn romanization in the article. Therefore, in my article “si” is a compile error. You may argue with my choice, or maybe you can argue that referring to cells in Hiragana table solely by my chosen romanization is somehow bad, and I should instead be inconsistent and give the same mora two different roma…

First, As a basic part of Japanese language education, students are expected to be familiar with different romanization systems. If you ask a student where “si” is in the table, they should be able to find it. If a student says “it’s not in the table” then they’ve failed the lesson or there is something wrong with the teaching material. Second: am I arguing that the choice of using Hepburn here is somehow bad? Yes, t…

Hepburn is the official romanization chosen by the Japanese government (it's a relatively recent change), kunrei-shiki has been deprecated and all the signs etc are in the process of being converted to Hepburn.

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#116

Post by jacekm »

For me the biggest problem was never memorizing the suffixes but determining whether the verb belongs to group 1 or 2. While you can tell immediately that some verbs belong to group 1, the others (e.g. kaeru mentioned in the post) are not so easy (as far as I know there's no algorithm for that and you just need to memorize with every verb to which group it belongs).

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#117

Post by agnishom »

wren6991 wrote: post #4

> now let's try to apply the rules: > hanas* + (i)masu = hanasimasu (wrong!) I had to stare at this for a while to figure out why the author thought it was wrong. "si" is rendered as し on every IME keyboard I've ever used, but the author wants it to be written as "shi". I don't think this article is really simpler than just learning the table and letting your pattern recognition neural wetware kick in and do its thin…

Many Japanese English speaksers instinctively pronounce si as shi. They say shistem for system, bashic for basic, shix for six, etc

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#118

Post by agnishom »

famahar wrote: post #77

The comments to this article are another example of something I see so often in Japanese language learning dicussions I see online. It's always filled with debate, disagreement, arguements over incredible subtle things, and everyone trying to optimize the best method. It can be really discouraging space for early learners.

It's not discouraging at all. Japanese concepts do not have a 1-1 mapping with English concepts, so there is a lot of debate about how it can be taught. I find it fascinating.

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#119

Post by imtringued »

klodolph wrote: post #34
nemomarx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's different romanization systems and English learners usually use Hepburn

I think it’s probably a mistake to use Hepburn if you’re learning Japanese, it kinda gets in the way. Either learn kana (which takes what, a week?) or use one of the other romanization systems which maps more cleanly to Japanese orthography

I've never understood how people can claim that learning kana takes a week. It clearly takes more time than that, considering how similar some of the symbols are and a lot of them only differ by double dashes or a stroke (think nu vs me, ne vs re, ro vs ru, chi vs sa, and so on). Then there are the combinations and even if you managed to learn hiragana, you still have to learn katakana.

Oh and I forgot, you have to actually learn how to listen, pronounce and speak them, not just learn a useless romanization mapping. I've heard way too many English speakers just say the romanization with English pronunciation. At that point their learning efforts turn into self sabotage.

In total that's definitively a month of effort, albeit spread out over the first year of learning.

Re: Japanese verb conjugation the simple hard way

#120

Post by imtringued »

Larrikin wrote: post #35

I've found that any resource relying on any romaji after the first chapter or two is often a complete waste of time. It slows down beginners needing to make the hard jump, since romaji is never used except for signs in real life, and it just becomes a distraction to the material for anyone who is not a complete beginner. Furigana is helpful to the intermediate learner, romaji just becomes harder to read at that point…

This is true, the only practical place where romaji might be used daily is for IME input.

This is why I think all the commenters obsessing over romaji just add fuel to the fire by being elitist over something that should only matter to an absolute beginner.

It's especially vain if the primary reason to choose one romanization strategy over another is to save keystrokes on a keyboard.

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