Seriously thoughtful Learning a new language

[busy91]

I can't say I speak anything fluently aside from English.
I am attempting to Learn Latin.
Why?
Because I want to, no other reason. I have no life after all.

[Daithi]

Originally Posted by nekokami

In an alphabet, each symbol stands for one sound, either a vowel or a consonant. In a syllabary, each symbol stands for a whole syllable, usually a consonant-vowel pair. So, in Japanese, there is no separate letter for "M." There are 5 symbols, ma, mi, mu, me, mo. (in Hiragana,　まみむめも。) Korean also uses a syllabary, Hangul, but the Korean syllabary was designed to be remarkably consistent and logical, based on phonetic sub-symbols known as Jamo.

Thanks Nekokami,

It sounds like a syllabary would be lot easier to read than words written with an alphabet. Does the Japanese syllabary cover the full range of sounds within Japanese words or is the syllabary just an approximation of how words sound? In other words are their sounds that aren't covered with these syllables?

[GraceKrispy]

In learning Hawaiian, children are first taught the Hakalama-- which seems to me to be similar to a syllabary?

It takes all the consonants and puts them together with each vowel to make a system. The vowels are a, e, i, o, u and the consonants are h, k, l, m, n, p, w, ' . So the first line of hakalama is :

ha ka la ma na pa wa 'a

then goes to: he ke le me ne pe we 'e

and so forth. Then it is sung again, this time with the accent marking (kahako) on top of each vowel. Once you can recognize and read the hakalama and have some fluency (ha, he, hi, ho, hu, etc), you are able to read all Hawaiian words.

I guess it wouldn't be a true syllabary, as you can look at the letters separately, and each does have a sound, however, you would never see a consonant standing alone, or two consonants together, or a consonant at the end of a word. It all revolves around the 5 vowel sounds (and you can put those together in as long a string as you like).

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Daithi

Does the Japanese syllabary cover the full range of sounds within Japanese words or is the syllabary just an approximation of how words sound? In other words are their sounds that aren't covered with these syllables?

Well, both, sort of. In practice, modern Japanese pronounces "ti" as "chi," for example. Japanese speakers are not always aware of this themselves. The symbol which sounds like "chi" to English speakers appears in the position in the syllabary chart where one would expect to see "ti."

Originally Posted by GraceKrispy

In learning Hawaiian, children are first taught the Hakalama-- which seems to me to be similar to a syllabary?

A syllabary is specifically a writing system composed of symbols for syllables, and based on the Wikipedia article about the Hawaiian language, the Latin alphabet is being used. But it sounds like a language that could have been written with a syllabary instead (which would be quite difficult with English, due to consonant combinations).

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Apparently the neutral tone is less common in the Taiwanese dialect of Mandarin (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standar...n#Neutral_tone for more info). The mainland speakers I know do, in fact, use it for the question symbol at the end of sentences. Note that many Chinese dictionaries (including the one at http://mandarintools.com/ ) explicitly list the question symbol as neutral tone.


Hiragana and katakana are syllabaries, not alphabets, which often take alphabet users some getting used to. But while one could write a message using only the syllabaries, it would be rare (outside of texts for very young children) to read such a message written by a native speaker. One needs reading fluency of about 3000 characters to handle a newspaper.


Different meanings (especially when being defined in another language) are common for words in all languages. Different pronunciations for the same written word are more unusual. Yes, Chinese has some, but Japanese has more-- nearly every character has multiple pronunciations for the same meaning depending on whether the "On" or "Kun" reading is being used.

Of course Hiragana and Katakana are syllabaries, since the smallest building blocks of East Asian languages, including Korean, Japanese, all Chinese dialects, and Vietnamese (though they now use an adapted Latin alphabet) are syllables. There is only a very small number of syllables available and other sounds cannot exist within the language. The two syllabaries are thus like alphabets for Japanese. My point is that they are phonetic and thus easy to learn. Using a syllabary is easier than using an alphabet, since misspellings are impossible.

Because Westerners that have no special interest in linguistics probably have never even heard the term "syllabary" I used the term alphabet. This also answers the question of an other member -- if a sound doesn't naturally occur in a syllabary you can't reproduce it. All foreign words used in Chinese or Japanese can only be approximated with the syllables that already exist in the script. So if a Westerner goes to HK and pays 100 HKD to have your name written in Chinese he/she must be aware that this is no accurate version. Only something that sounds similar. If you go to 10 different people to write your Western name in Chinese characters then you will most likely get 10 different versions.

And my point was: you can write a letter in Japanese using only Hiragana and possible Katakana (if you have any non-native words in it). Every Kanji can be expressed in Hiragana. That gives you a maximum of 100 "signs" with which you can fully communicate with any Japanese. Yes, you need to learn Kanji to read books and newspapers. But a lot less than in Chinese and in Chinese you have no other way to communicate in a written form (PinYing would be hopelessly inadequate for that). 3000 characters in Chinese is only enough for the most basic needs. An educated person knows at least 5-8000 characters, many know 10,000. On a keyboard you can produce more than 13000 characters.

Which brings me to our ma 嗎 argument. Download a Chinese traditional character input method. (Simplified input methods PinYing and WuBi do not let you input tones). I am using the Eten phonetic keyboard. Enter MA 3 -- 3, of course, representing the third tone --- and the word in question will appear as number 6. Yes, it also appears in the list under MA 1 (flat tone), which would indicate that we are both right. But if you approach it from a logical perspective for the spoken language, how could a question end in a flat note? Besides, do not forget that people in China through the ravages of the cultural revolution and the butchering of the beautiful traditional characters in the 50s (which at that time made sense to reduce rampant illiteracy but is outdated now since you are equally fast with both systems on a computer) have not been as closely in touch with classical Chinese as Chinese speakers in Taiwan, for example. And after the communists took over in 1949 there was also a great exodus of scholars to Hong Kong and Taiwan, since intellectuals were not held in very high regard during Mao's times. So mainland Chinese were kind of "rediscovering" their roots only starting in the early 90s and are not necessarily the real authorities on these subjects.

I was not talking about the Taiwanese dialect (called Hoklo), which is very similar to Southern Fujianese. That dialect has 8 tones and is completely unintelligible for Mandarin speakers unless they have studied it. I was talking about standard Mandarin.

And finally, you are missing my main point. Japanese is not difficult if you just want to learn to communicate, it is difficult to achieve perfection. I never said everything about Japanese is easy.

[Daithi]

This language thread has inspired me to look at all kinds of linguistic related things on the internet. In particular, I've been reading about an invented language called Toki Pona. It only has 120 words, but it is a pretty functional language. The science behind linguistics really interesting.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by busy91

I can't say I speak anything fluently aside from English.
I am attempting to Learn Latin.
Why?
Because I want to, no other reason. I have no life after all.

Latin is fun. Let me know if you need any help - Latin is my "thing".

[nekokami]

HansTWN, I'm not going to get into a discussion with you about Taiwan vs. PRC use of language (or anything else related to that division). I have too many friends on both sides of that issue. All I'll say is that as a linguist, I'm more interested in how people actually use language to communicate, and I report what I've actually heard while visiting Beijing, Chengdu, Shenyang, etc. and what I hear from my mainland friends at the Chinese school where I've worked (and my kids, of course).

For the rest, feel free to have the final word. I won't respond again. It's not that I disagree with you, but we seem to be having trouble expressing any agreement.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

...If you go to 10 different people to write your Western name in Chinese characters then you will most likely get 10 different versions.
...

The Loved One once went holidaying in mainland China, and went to a place that made seal-stones. As you allude to, he asked for the seal to be made, with his astrological animal on top and with his name written on the bottom, thinking that would be a nice souvenir.

The next day he went to collect it, and the seal was carved perfectly: engraved in the bottom, the word, "Peter".

Perhaps if he'd learnt some of the relevant language beforehand...?



Cheers,
Marc

[Daithi]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

The next day he went to collect it, and the seal was carved perfectly: engraved in the bottom, the word, "Peter".

[Verencat]

Originally Posted by ficbot

I think I would post on-line more and such if the whole accent thing weren't so much of an issue. Also, I get nervous when I read because I panic a little when I see a word I don't know (an ebook which supported instant lookup on non-English dictionaries would be a huge help!) I prefer speaking because I can choose to use only words I know

Just don't worry about the accents. My dad uses mainly a netbook that has no accent, and everyone can read fine! I agree about speaking and choosing the words you want! I do that when I write too. It's possible to see if I'm in an English day or not just by reading my posts, because my vocabulary and propension to compose well structured sentences in English depend mostly on a totally arbitrary factor I call "language days". Some days I speak English with a terrible accent (bad language day), some days with no accents at all (good language day), but most days i have a slight accent, and it's the same when I write. Good and bad language days vary from one language to another - some days I can be almost fluent in Spanish but put "h" at all the wrong places in English. When I was in college, I had Spanich and German classes almost everyday (language specialty) and somedays I was litterally speaking both languages with the other's accent, I couldn't help it. It did crack everyone up, teachers included!

I should have been born a European. It just seems like a much better environment for learning languages 'naturally' and have opportunities to actually keep them in use!

Definetly what I think too!

ETA: All right, I delurked in the French forum Hope I did okay...

You did marvelously. Now you need to come to the Montréal meetup so we can talk!

Originally Posted by Daithi

Side note: I grew up in California, which has a lot of Spanish speakers, so now I can say "kiss my arse" in three languages.

Embrasse mon cul!

Now you've got four!

Originally Posted by GraceKrispy

In learning Hawaiian, children are first taught the Hakalama-- which seems to me to be similar to a syllabary?

It takes all the consonants and puts them together with each vowel to make a system. The vowels are a, e, i, o, u and the consonants are h, k, l, m, n, p, w, ' . So the first line of hakalama is :

ha ka la ma na pa wa 'a

then goes to: he ke le me ne pe we 'e

and so forth. Then it is sung again, this time with the accent marking (kahako) on top of each vowel. Once you can recognize and read the hakalama and have some fluency (ha, he, hi, ho, hu, etc), you are able to read all Hawaiian words.

I'll try that, thank you!

[nekokami]

My first Chinese teacher (at a local community Chinese school) gave me the name 莉思 pronounced lìsī and meaning (more or less) "Jasmine of Thought." That's what I've used for my Chinese name ever since, and that's what asked for on my chop.

[busy91]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Latin is fun. Let me know if you need any help - Latin is my "thing".

I will, thanks for the offer, so far so good.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by nekokami

HansTWN, I'm not going to get into a discussion with you about Taiwan vs. PRC use of language (or anything else related to that division). I have too many friends on both sides of that issue. All I'll say is that as a linguist, I'm more interested in how people actually use language to communicate, and I report what I've actually heard while visiting Beijing, Chengdu, Shenyang, etc. and what I hear from my mainland friends at the Chinese school where I've worked (and my kids, of course).

For the rest, feel free to have the final word. I won't respond again. It's not that I disagree with you, but we seem to be having trouble expressing any agreement.

We can always agree to disagree! Issues are rarely black and white, for me a discussion does not always have to be to convince others I am "right". No need to be offended if I don't agree with you. I am just expressing an opinion, which was also substantiated by a number of facts, but I never claimed to be the one with all the answers. I speak Chinese since 1979, and my wife of 25 years is a Chinese linguist. I have traveled to China every month for 20 years, have been to over 20 provinces from North to South and definitely had no intention to start a Taiwan/China argument here.

[Lo Zeno]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Latin is fun. Let me know if you need any help - Latin is my "thing".

It's even funnier if your native language derives from latin (see Spanish, French, Italian and so on) : when you are struck by the revelation that "frigorifero" (italian for "freezer") means "what brings the cold" (frigor = cold, fero, -ers = to bring or to carry) instead of "what keeps the food fresh" you just go "ooooh!"