Study Japanese with Suzumiya Haruhi

[Smidge204]

English isn't a Latin language, which may be part of the problem. There's assloads Latin influence, but it's a Germanic language at heart.

I still don't agree that Japanese can be alphabetized without completely revamping the written language. Many words share the exact same syllabic spellings. Off the top of my head: 端 (Hashi; point, margin, end) 橋 (Hashi; bridge) 箸 (Hashi; chopsticks).

At best you'll end up with some arcane punctuation scheme to represent the subtle pronunciations that make each word unique (Vietnamese is a handy example), which isn't quite the same as a proper alphabet.
=Smidge=

[Guest]

English isn't a Latin language, which may be part of the problem. There's assloads Latin influence, but it's a Germanic language at heart.

I still don't agree that Japanese can be alphabetized without completely revamping the written language. Many words share the exact same syllabic spellings. Off the top of my head: 端 (Hashi; point, margin, end) 橋 (Hashi; bridge) 箸 (Hashi; chopsticks).

At best you'll end up with some arcane punctuation scheme to represent the subtle pronunciations that make each word unique (Vietnamese is a handy example), which isn't quite the same as a proper alphabet.
=Smidge=

It's not that English is germanic, though that's part of the problem, but that there are just too few letters in the latin alphabet, or was at the time when English orthography was born (and the language has changed after that a lot, so there are, iirc, at least some new phonemes - and the vowel system, egad, the humanity, the humanity). Of course people have done a lot of expand it, and we're inventive, but anyhoo.

Also, doesn't Japanese have a pitch accent system? That's not hard to write down, you'd need tops two diacritics. Possibly just one. Imho, it should be written down in romaji, too - but it's a tradition that most orthographies have to leave unwritten at least one or two things that are semi-important.

Finnish has a relatively ideal orthography (with a few regular irregularities, like that /ŋ/ ("ng") doesn't have a letter of it's own, but that's cause /ŋ/ is only found before /k/ and as a geminate, which can be written simply as <ng> because there is no native /g/ sound or <g> letter used in Finnish), but there is one thing that is completely left out: Finnish has many words that end with a (very variably named - I'm using my own word here) ending-remaint. This is basically a consonant sound (previous /k/s and /ʃ/ (lost in Finnish) that has become "silent". But it is still there, except it cause the gemination (doubling, it is phonemic in Finnish, like in Japanese) of the first consonant of a following word, or a long glottal stop (found only here phonemically in Finnish - a glottal stop is the sound you get when you say "uh oh) /(ʔ)a ʔow/ ). Finnish imperatives are written like <Anna!> or <Tule.> but they actually end with a ending-remaint, so the actual realisation of "Anna olla" (let be, let me be) is annaʔ ʔolla, possibly best transcribed as "Anna' 'olla".

Also, come to think of it, English has a similar situation as Japanese - homophone words that are only differentiated by spelling (as time has gone by, and sound-changes have taken place, the words have become homophonous but the spelling has remained half a dozen centuries behind). But in speech, no one ever gets these wrong - and I doubt the Japanese don't either.

--

Kristian Järventaus

[the_naming_game]

While this might have started from a misunderstanding (I actually didn't understand Smidge's original "phoneme" sentence either. The clarification he gave just now was quite helpful.), some rather interesting topics have been brought up.

The reason for the spelling mess in English, as I see it, is because it's borrowed from so many cultures, each with their own spelling systems, and then the pronunciation of words has changed over time. (I vaguely recall that maybe the "k" in "knight" used to be pronounced?) When pronunciation changed in Japanese, for the most part, the spelling changed. We just have a few outliers like "ha->wa" and "wo->o" and "he->e". I don't really know the reason for this difference, but it's definitely there. However, it's pretty likely that the vast majority of sound changes in Japanese have been hidden inside the kanji. Well, actually, if you compare on-readings (Chinese-derived) with the actual Chinese pronunciation (or the historical, as the case may be.) you can clearly see it.

Järventaus:
I'm interested ... what do you mean by "proper 21st century english" vs "17th century mode"? Would you happen to mean something like the "new phonics" that I think was proposed once? Perhaps it's because I'm already locked into tradition, but that kind of thing makes me shiver. It's probably too late. There's too much etymology and word-letter-thought assocation contained in the current spelling system. I do believe that any new scientific words have rational spelling though, right? So we aren't adding any new spelling headaches...

Smidge:
I'm not sure you can really say one spoken language is clearly more complex than another, if the same complex daily interactions can be carried out in both languages. I'm pretty certain that Japanese culture and society is easily as rich and complex as any English-speaking culture+society.

The only thing I might add here is that, while I can't really speak for Japanese, I will say that I notice many mistakes in people's English, so perhaps if the error rate for Japanese is less, then that would indicate that Japanese is a less complex language. (or at least less needlessly complex...)

(This last is for any Japanese who may be here. Apologies if my Japanese is hard to understand...)
日本人がいますか？
Are there any Japanese here?
この質問はあなたへ聞きます。日本人には、日本語の間違いがたくさんありますか？　英語を母国語とする人には、英語の間違いは多いですすからそれを知りたかったです。（この文章は分かりにくければ、済みません。僕の日本語まだ上手じゃありません）
This question is for you. Do Japanese people make many mistakes in the Japanese language? Native English speakers make many English mistakes, so I was wondering about that. (Apologies if these sentences were hard to understand. My Japanese is still not good.)

Smidge: (again)
The "hashi-hashi" thing isn't all that bad if you don't limit yourself to the roman alphabet, as with Vietnamese, as you said (and isn't that a proper alphabet, just with more letters?), or adding some diacritics to Japanese, as Järventaus said.

I personally hope an alphabetic system never comes to pass, though, or if it does, that a system similar to Hangul is chosen. This is for a rather frivolous reason, but I like the look of Japanese novels. I like the way the letters line up perfectly in blocks, and the paragraphs have nice flush left AND right edges -- without any need for the evil of full justification. Once you require spaces between words, then things start getting much more messy. Is that line break a word break as well?

Actually in English, it'd be kind of nice if fixed width fonts were the standard, or at least one of the accepted standards, and you could use a back\
slash as a word continuation character...

[Guest]

The reason for the spelling mess in English, as I see it, is because it's borrowed from so many cultures, each with their own spelling systems, and then the pronunciation of words has changed over time. (I vaguely recall that maybe the "k" in "knight" used to be pronounced?) When pronunciation changed in Japanese, for the most part, the spelling changed. We just have a few outliers like "ha->wa" and "wo->o" and "he->e". I don't really know the reason for this difference, but it's definitely there. However, it's pretty likely that the vast majority of sound changes in Japanese have been hidden inside the kanji. Well, actually, if you compare on-readings (Chinese-derived) with the actual Chinese pronunciation (or the historical, as the case may be.) you can clearly see it.

English spelling is a mess because English is spelt like when it was spoken five centuries back. At the time, spelling and orthography had a much closer relationship now, etc. Of course, latin loans don't help either, that's true, but most of the mess English spelling is native in origin.

Japanese has also gone through sound changes, but you don't notice them like in English because of all the insane kanjistry going on. For example, Japanese had a sound changed where /p/ turned into /h/, except in geminates - which is why you don't really have native words starting with /p/. Nihon - Nippon also shows this sound-change (prolly "Nippon" was the older form, which in some dialects changed into Nipon, which later changed into Nihon, I'm not a japanologist.)

Järventaus:
I'm interested ... what do you mean by "proper 21st century english" vs "17th century mode"? Would you happen to mean something like the "new phonics" that I think was proposed once? Perhaps it's because I'm already locked into tradition, but that kind of thing makes me shiver. It's probably too late. There's too much etymology and word-letter-thought assocation contained in the current spelling system. I do believe that any new scientific words have rational spelling though, right? So we aren't adding any new spelling headaches...

Proper 21st spelling would be to have an orthography reform. Unfortunately, humans are humans, and Englishmen are Englishmen, and things being as they are, we'll prolly have to wait quite a long time for some sensible spelling to pop up. A fun possibility would be for English to gain two spelling varieties - Classical English and modern (in the future) spellings, like in Arabic (except due to modern technology and communications, there won't be different English daughter-languages )

The only thing I might add here is that, while I can't really speak for Japanese, I will say that I notice many mistakes in people's English, so perhaps if the error rate for Japanese is less, then that would indicate that Japanese is a less complex language. (or at least less needlessly complex...)

Language and spelling are two different things. No one makes mistakes in their own language (except when they make REAL mistakes) - ending sentences with a preposition is natural and wholesome. Prescriptivist thinking is the bane of all humanity, and english teachers world wide should have their head examined pre-emptively - those kinds of jobs invite a lot of cranks and cooks.

I'm sure the Japanese do a lot of kanji mistakes and suchlike. But what do you expect? Kanji are insane anyhow.

I personally hope an alphabetic system never comes to pass, though, or if it does, that a system similar to Hangul is chosen. This is for a rather frivolous reason, but I like the look of Japanese novels. I like the way the letters line up perfectly in blocks, and the paragraphs have nice flush left AND right edges -- without any need for the evil of full justification. Once you require spaces between words, then things start getting much more messy. Is that line break a word break as well?

Kana is good enough, so you prolly won't see Japanese written with the latin alphabet anytime soon. Of course, you prolly won't see the end of kanji either. Hm

Though possibly if Japanese goes through more sound changes that make the kana syllabaries inadequate. There's already a lot of devoicing of vowels in Japanese, and it's shifting away from pure (C)(y)V(n) syllable structure (/des/ written as <desu>, you know the drill). But then again, I guess they would just come up with some way to mark devoiced vowels in kana, instead of shifting straight to latin. Hm.

--

Kristian Järventaus

Knows All - Tells All

[ainsoph9]

Some interesting dialogue was brought up here, so I thought I might take a crack at it. Mind you, I have no real experience with speech pathology or lexicography for the most part, but I do know a few things that might be of interest. Also, in advance, none of the comments I make about Japan or any other country are meant to be offensive in anyway, just as a disclaimer.

First off, I definitely agree that English has more than its fair share of problems phonetically and in writing. Anyone who will argue otherwise must be much smarter than I am, (which wouldn't take too much.) According to the CIA World Factbook, in 2002, the Japanese population had an overall 99% literacy rate while the United States, an English-speaking country, had a 97% literacy rate overall. The United Kingdom, however, shared Japan's fluency rate. Ignoring the flaws within the education systems of each country (a big thing to ignore), one can see that not much difference can be found overall in literacy. However, given that English speakers often have a hard time with spelling, obviously English is not perfect, as stated before. Today, really the only difference between how English speakers in the United States learn and how they learn in Japan is the time and effort put forth. My Japanese professor here at my school will often say that the Japanese work ethic demands perfection while Americans will often say, "Close enough." Please take that statment with a grain of salt. Also, on average, Japanese students go about 60 more days per year than American students, which is why Japanese students have about another few years worth of schooling when they graduate from high school (about the equivalent of a Bachelor's Degree in the U.S.) This explains why the Japanese will usually know their kanji like the back of their hand. (There are kanji tests and the like, somewhat similar to getting a different belts in martial arts.) Also, the Japanese strive to have almost everything as uniform as possible, which is why, in general, you never hear of a Japanese person having bad handwriting compared to the "hieroglyphics" or "chicken scratch" you hear of in many English speakers handwriting.

Nonetheless, Japanese is not without its inherent flaws. Outside of the usual complaints you hear from Westerners who are just learning the language, Japanese and kanji are not a perfect match with each other. If anyone has ever wondered why so many kanji have it where one kanji has several different pronounciations (i.e. 本 can be said as "hon" or "moto" depending on its placement) or why the number of syllables used for the kanji does not match up all the time, then here is the reason. When the Japanese started using kanji over a hundreds of years ago, most of the kanji were matched for their sound not their idea as they are for both in the original Chinese. Therefore, you find some kanji that make perfect sense in Japanese and some that do not. Also, if you ever wondered why sometimes you have kanji with some hiragana stuck in the middle like in "kaimono" I believe, the above is also the reason why. The Chinese still have a hard time understanding why so many strange characters fit into the Japanese language, which they see as unnecessary. Interestingly enough, though same strange characters, kana, are just horrible distortions of kanji, which became sort of like the Japanese alphabet. To compound the problem here is that Japanese is, like English, still stuck in feudal mode. All of the kanji used are from the time they picked kanji up from the Chinese and have only been "updated" with the simplification after World War II due to fluency and literacy problems. Simply put, the kanji do not entirely fit the Japanese language. Quickly, like English, another problem with kanji is arising in Japan. Some of the names of people in Japanese are starting to take some weird pronounciations, such that hurigana are needed on almost every meishi (namecard) nowadays. Another small point to illustrate the problem with using the current Japanese writing system is that most Japanese have one heck of a time reading classical Japanese texts. Japanese has changed so much that it is almost like reading a different language for ancient texts. If you look on wikipedia, you can find that Japanese also used to use at least two more kana.

My point is that no language is exactly perfect, despite each language's appeal and beauty.

[the_naming_game]

Okay, this is probably getting even more off topic, but
Järventaus:
The "Classical English and modern (in the future) spellings" thing sounds quite close to what happened with Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Of course, undoubtedly, it's several orders of magnitude easier to have a clean and logical alphabet, compared with a clean and logical 4000+ symbol set. (And needless to say, they didn't succeed) But the MAIN thing I was getting at there is that it took a totalitarian government to bring about that change. But then again, Americans have been rather successful at creating their own (and I'd argue, more logical) spelling system... but that was due to geographic isolation.

One possibility that might be quite ironic and interesting is if English borrowed the idea of furigana from the Japanese... we already have the IPA or whatever it is that dictionaries use. I'm willing to bet there are some teaching books that already do this. The cons would be everyone needs new word processors, and some people would feel insulted by having pronunciation hovering over all those words.

Speaking of writing system mash-ups ... I think it'd be interesting to try creating an English syllabary in a Hangul style. Then I'd be able to get my nice clean paragraphs (in either vertical or horizontal format) in English as well.

----

In terms of mistakes, I was thinking mostly along the lines of grammatical mistakes, as I've heard a lot of Japanese these days need to look up how to write certain words, even though they can quite easily recognize them. (I've experienced that myself actually, but luckily, the only Japanese I ever really write is at the computer) So in terms of just the "speech transcription" part of the process, English would be easier, hands-down.

In terms of grammatical structure, I have a feeling, but no clear conviction that Japanese grammatical rules are, taken as a whole, more ... meaning-oriented. By that, I mean that the grammar rules are geared almost exclusively towards the primary function of a language -- to communicate. There are no cases, genders, few grammatical tenses, subject-verb agreement -- all these things that really have little informative value, simply aren't there in Japanese.

• Though in English, bad grammar HAS become an expressive device. Me use it too, sometimes. Me like ungrammar! And on a less un-serious note, there are quite a few examples of "bad grammar" in English that have gained common currency among the masses. So one wonders if usage will eventually force the scholars to acknowledge it? Your note about dangling prepositions is cogent here. (It's interesting how similar it is to the dangling sentence fragments in Japanese, though Japanese takes it to a whole new level...) I myself find certain wrong spellings, and wrong uses of "I/me" more natural, or equally natural-sounding at times.

I will illustrate this with an interesting quote from here

I noticed that as my Japanese improved, the native speaker I was communicating with didn't say, "How nice that you can express more complex ideas now," or "Gosh, your usage is becoming more and more natural." Oh, no. He said, "Gee, Kim, I am really starting to be able to understand you now!"

While obviously kind of funny, it does kind of drive home the point that if you make a mistake in Japanese, often you end up saying something different from what you intended. (though context probably helps Japanese understand what bad speakers are saying) Thus, while English speakers aren't really required to speak perfect English in order to communicate, Japanese speakers ARE required to speak a higher level of Japanese in order to do the same. So my theory is that necessity is the mother of skill.

If you compare that to the multitude of rules in English that to my mind, seem to be there simply for the sake of having something else to get correct, then it's no wonder why English grammar attracts a certain kind of perfectionist. Due to it being unnecessary for just communication, English grammar isn't something that most people really care about. They just care about

• not sounding stupid. In other words, no mistakes that most other people will catch.
• communicating.

And so that ends up coming to a sort of equilibrium where the easiest grammar rules are followed by just about everyone, but the more esoteric or weird (whatever that means is decided by consensus) rules are forgotten. So only the few people who are appalled by the inability to follow what is clearly a rule of English, are the ones who get into English grammar. In other words, only the few people who think about rules themselves as abstract entities that bring comfort -- things that must be adjusted into perfection in order to be able to say something truly is complete. (in other words ... editors!)

I will say one more thing about grammar rules involving meaning, vs grammar rules involving only correctness. Native English speakers hardly ever make mistakes related to meaning. The most common one I can think of is the "dangling modifier" mistake. And English tends to shorter sentences, so this mistake is rarely encountered outside of student essays.

ainsoph9:
Well, if you've ever looked through the afterwords of some manga, you'll find plenty of messy, but admittedly, still legible handwriting.

On the subject of perfectionism, I actually think both cultures can learn from each other, but then again, it seems like it would be tricky to reach a happy medium. Perfectionism, by nature, seems to be an all-consuming idea. And I would say practicality as well. Any perfectionist would balk at being told "perfectionism, sure, but only when it's convenient."

Thus, you end up with Americans having to learn the practicality of perfectionism, and perhaps you end up with Japanese learning the practicality of "good enough." (I can only speculate here.)

----

On the idea of a perfect language, I begin to wonder if we even want a perfect language. Language is probably the most enduring part of a culture. (not "enduring" in that it is stable, but in that every culture will maintain a language as a matter of necessity, even though its art and history may be lost.)

I'm kind of of the "language affects how you look at the world" school of thought, but not in the sense that we only interact with the world through language. My point of view is that, we spend a large part of our lives involved with language, so of course it will affect our minds, and thus how we act, and how we look at the world. So each of these languages helps to hone minds in a certain direction. Yes, even all these inconsistencies and imperfections.

• As an example with the complexity of kanji; I have a sneaking suspicion that all that kanji training gives the Japanese a head start in drawing ability. (Or maybe it's just sour grapes!) I mean, think about it. You spend years of school basically learning to stroke things in a nice and proportional way. How is that NOT going to help if you ever decide to draw something? Not to mention, it takes a high amount of perfectionism to really know your kanji, as in both reading AND writing. So there is a very high standard built into the language.
  
  And an example with the needless rules of English: I wonder if being forced to remember a bunch of mostly meaningless declarative rules causes many people to feel rebellious, and thus not be perfectionists, but instead practicalists. (Perfectionism in English isn't as viscerally satisfying as writing a nice, balanced kanji. Visual perfection simply has more immediate impact.) On the other hand, meaningless declarative rules likely stimulate a subset of the population in an exact opposite manner, causing them to look for even more meaningless declarative rules to sate their minds... leading to, well, law and politics? I haven't really thought that far in the argument. I was going to add "math and science" as well, but I can't bring myself to say that the rules there are meaningless. The grass always makes more sense on your side of the fence.

So anyway, since language also

• shapes communication,
• in addition to simply making it possible,
• as well as (possibly) shaping thought itself,

perhaps, under this multiple criteria, natural languages have in fact, ended up nearly perfect for the cultures they have co-evolved with. (Much later afterthought: Though that may be kind of facetious. Because a language that facilitates a certain kind of culture, naturally, is perfect for facilitating that kind of culture...)

(all caveats apply... I'm mostly brainstorming here.)

----

As an after-note, the words I ended up having to confirm the spelling of order to write this were: "viscerally", "necessity", and "inconsistencies." The only one I was wrong on was "viscerally"; I used "visceraly" at first, but got suspicious upon review. No, I don't write this in one of those pieces of software that underline things in red...

[onizuka-gto]

are you two trying to break the forum or something?

please try and break your post up, or at leased put spoiler tags on them.

i get vaguely nauseas seeing all that mass of text....

[the_naming_game]

Aw, come on, I did nice indentation and section markers and my usual colored parentheses! Now I have to use spoiler tags? Next thing you know, I'll have to make a Powerpoint-style Flash presentation with an anime soundtrack...

[HolyCow]

I kinda enjoy seeing these long discussions though. We haven't had anything so long and sophisticated since Nutcase!

This should be renamed the "Learning Language with Smidge and Järventaus" thread

[ainsoph9]

I think it that it would be interesting to see English try a different spelling system as a whole. I do believe that a famous university (Oxford maybe) developed a simplified spelling system back in the early 1900s that President Theodore Roosevelt used in his personal letters and memos. However, for English to use hurigana is not going to happen anytime soon. In fact, I have joked with a friend about Japanese pretty much within the next 50 years just becoming another severely stilted English dialect, given how many words in Japanese are borrowed from English. I'm sure you can think of a few, although some are false cognates.

the_naming_game: Language affects your worldview, and writing kanji may improve your drawing skills.

This is just a really dumbed down version of what the_naming_game said, and I am sorry if I botch this up, but here goes. On the first part of the sentence, I agree wholeheartedly. Say, for instance, if you are learning a language, it is impossible to completely learn that language without its culture. It is somewhat similar to being told to go act out on a stage without being told what to act out and what to say. You can still speak so that the audience understands you, but you cannot relate to the audience very well if you deliver something that they do not expect or desire. I have found that in learning Spanish and Japanese that if I do not try to immerse myself in the culture fully, I have a harder time in learning the language as well. Also, in learning the language and the culture, I started to pick up some habits apparent in that culture. (No, I do not bow when hanging up the telephone...yet.)

On the note of kanji, I actually have heard that studies have been done on the relation between writing kanji and drawing. I do believe that the correlation turned out to be positive as well. I am not quite so sure about this though, so you do not have to take my word for it.

Overall though, I agree with what the_naming_game said. My props!

[onizuka-gto]

Next thing you know, I'll have to make a Powerpoint-style Flash presentation with an anime soundtrack...

you know that doesn't sound so bad...

*is getting good at making powerpoint presentation for the his Boss*

[the_naming_game]

I think it's because I haven't had a chance to talk about something like this in awhile, so I went a little overboard last post. I will (attempt to) go in the opposite direction today. Following Oni's suggestion (it just eventually started sounding good the longer I thought about it.), I'll put the more random reply stuff into spoiler tags.

----

I've never really been immersed in the culture of, nor interacted much with the native speakers of any language I've studied, so I wasn't really able to understand your point about culture and language in anything but a very abstract manner. Do you mind giving a more concrete example? It doesn't have to be anything very complicated, just something where just knowing how to say and understand things in the language isn't enough.

However, I think I may understand simply from my experiences with people who speak perfect English, but aren't from the US. Say people from Britain or Australia. When editing, we tend to feel that different things seem "right." In terms of direct communication, I haven't really noticed much, though sometimes slang has to be explained. I think perhaps it's because to a large extent, we already share the same "culture" -- that is, anime, manga, light novels, games.

Because I tend to overthink things, here is my current overthinking:

• A language, having co-evolved (that word again!) with native speakers, for the purpose of
  • evoking thoughts and
  • feelings
  in other native speakers, will naturally, need one to have knowledge of that, in order to be able to
  • evoke the intended thoughts and
  • feelings
  in the native speaker, and also to be able to
  • evoke in oneSELF the intended thoughts and
  • feelings
  that a native speaker is trying to get across.

Basically, if I see certain word patterns used for certain characters, certain emotions, certain situations, etc. -- then over time I start forming emotional associations with that. (though having limited myself to Japanese entertainment media, it's doubtless a distorted set of associations.) If you were actually being immersed in a culture, most likely you'd have this, but to a much greater degree, and you'd also be forced into interactivity, thus having those emotional associations directly wired into your own personality. (when I feel a certain emotion, I begin speaking in a certain way, evoking this in others. I have such-and-such a relationship with these people, and they speak to me in such-and-such a way.)

• One possible culture-language thing is something I learned off of japanesepod101, that "itadakimasu" is almost hardwired into the Japanese when they eat, to the extent that some even say it to themselves when eating alone. (this isn't something I could have found out from anime; it'd have to be an anime with a LOT of meals, including normal everyday meals, meals with others, meals you make yourself, and eat by yourself, etc.) So knowing certain sayings are almost automatic, we can give those sayings a different weight. Just like in English if a guard greets you with "Hello, sir. How are you doing today, sir? Have a good day, sir." -- then we can filter that out as automatic patter, as far as guards go. And when we hear that same automatic patter at a birthday party, one starts to wonder "just what kind of birthday party is this?" -- as opposed to if you hear "Hey there, how've you been? Anyway, have fun!" -- now imagine a guard saying that!

(random replies)

Spoiler! :

The unlikeliness of English furigana is of course, probably due to the "good enough" phenomenon. Oddly enough, it may be similar for the extreme perfectionism in Japanese society. Even though it probably introduces inefficiencies, the detrimental effects are not egregious, and thus, it's "good enough." A weird fusing of pragmaticism and perfectionism...

Luckily Japanese grammar is so different from English grammar, that any attempt to invoke Engrish as a national language would simply be too difficult. Otherwise I shudder to think what Japanese would be like in 50 years... but then again, in English we have "Asta la vista", "garage", and well, not to mention all those Latin borrowings. It's kind of reassuring to know that grammar is pretty stable. Though the particular function words, e.g. "doth", etc, have changed...

----

I will only cover this briefly, but I wish I wish I wish I could draw. And my kanji is legible, but it hardly ever looks right. I'll probably do a few googles on kanji + drawing sometime, because studies like that interest me. I should really restart writing (and drawing) practice sometime...

Okay, I really didn't cover that point at all, but if I really wanted to cover it, I'd have to make graphics, which would bring me dangerously close to the Powerpoint presentations I joked (hopefully) about before. Perhaps I will, later!

Oni:
Um, just curious... how are the office ladies? And where's that blog! You can even make it a Powerpoint blog if you want.

[ainsoph9]

The_naming_game, you stated that you wanted an example of how important it is to tie the language and the culture together, right? Here is one: An English-speaking Japanese student was invited to a party. He goes to the house that he thinks the party is at. After he rings the doorbell, a man opens the door. Upon seeing this, the student starts to walk in without explaining himself, thinking it is the house where the party is at. Unfortunately, he, of course, is at the wrong house. The owner of the house is startled by the student's sudden entry and grabs his gun. The owner shouts, "Freeze!" but the student does not stop. He shouts, "Freeze!" again, but the student continues to enter. The owner of the house then shoots the student on the spot, killing him. This was an incident that occurred in the early 1990s I believe; it caused an uproar in Japan, making many think that all Americans were gun-toting nut cases. In any event, the student, because he was unfamiliar was English slang (an inherent part of a culture), lost his life. This is despite the fact that the student knew academic English perfectly well. Unfortunately, things such as slang are not taught normally at an academic level. Ergo, the language became removed from the culture, especially since the student unwittingly trespassed on private property. However, in Japan, what the student did would have been more acceptable to my knowledge.

[onizuka-gto]

Oni:
Um, just curious... how are the office ladies? And where's that blog! You can even make it a Powerpoint blog if you want.

Don't ask me about O.L. *shudder at the memories*

plus blogs are specificially not allowed.

its company policy that you get the katana if they find out....

As for powerpoint. im officially sick of it.

I rather they let me do it in AUTCAD 2000i then to touch powerpoint again...

[the_naming_game]

ainsoph9:
The appalling situation aside, that actually gives me hope that one can learn quite a bit about culture through media. (Hope for those of us who aren't likely to get the chance to live in Japan, or may not even want to.) I don't know about back then, but if that person had watched a few current TV shows, he would have known what was up. Say, "COPS" and a few reality TV shows, plus some action shows.

I suppose the main thing though, is the the sheer amount of information you have to know in order to know a culture. Natives speakers simply have more than a decade's headstart on others.

Oni:
Sorry to hear about the OLs ... they didn't use lube? If it's any consolation, at least they didn't use the katana!

Sounds like a strict company; stay out of trouble... what are their views on forums and wikis?