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JonnyB61
Joined: 30 Oct 2006
Posts: 216
Location: Japan
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 Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 9:21 am Post subject: |
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| Sweeney Todd wrote: |
Looking at your Avatar, which one is you? The pig or the thing with 2 snouts? |
 Nice one, Sweeney T.
I see he pretty quickly changed his avatar after that!
I've come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with Canuck when he starts tilting at windmills is to treat him like the family parrot. That is to say, if you put a towel over his cage he'll go back to sleep!
You're right though, learning Hiragana doesn't prepare one for Kanji at all.
Last edited by JonnyB61 on Thu May 03, 2007 10:23 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Sweeney Todd
Joined: 29 Apr 2007
Posts: 71
Location: The Dosshouse Down the Mile End Road
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 10:16 am Post subject: |
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| JonnyB61 wrote: |
I've come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with Canuck when he starts tilting at windmills is to treat him like the family parrot. That is to say, if you put a towel over his cage he'll go back to sleep! |
Now, that sounds like good advice.
Yes, he certainly did get rid of that peculiar avatar suspiciously quickly.
I guess he's just one of those characters who can't accept that people have different points of view.
I'm bored with this, anyway, so I'm going to leave him to it. |
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 2:58 pm Post subject: |
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As it came up in the thread; katakana is derived from kanji but hiragana certainly isn't.
Learning hiragana is still useful even though it doesn't really prepare you for learning kanji.
Good luck with your studies! |
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nonsmoker
Joined: 20 Apr 2007
Posts: 352
Location: Exactly here and now.
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 3:09 pm Post subject: |
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| I honestly think that learning Hiragana will prepare me for learning the Kanji. Why? As a person familliar with only Roman letters throughout my whole life, Hiragana, being the easiest of the J scripts is an excellent introduction to the written language as a whole. Learning the Hiragana and subsequently the Katatana will give me a good foundation for learning the way the Japanese think of words and that will help me to learn the Kanji. |
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 3:15 pm Post subject: |
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| nonsmoker wrote: |
| I honestly think that learning Hiragana will prepare me for learning the Kanji. Why? As a person familliar with only Roman letters throughout my whole life, Hiragana, being the easiest of the J scripts is an excellent introduction to the written language as a whole. Learning the Hiragana and subsequently the Katatana will give me a good foundation for learning the way the Japanese think of words and that will help me to learn the Kanji. |
Hiragana is as different to kanji as Arabic is to kanji. Hiragana is essential to understanding written Japanese but that doesn't mean it has anything in common with kanji.
My advice is to learn the kana scripts as soon as you can but don't be too ashamed if it takes a long time to pick up on kanji. It will take a long time. |
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canuck
Joined: 11 May 2003
Posts: 1921
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 3:23 pm Post subject: |
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| furiousmilksheikali wrote: |
| Hiragana is as different to kanji as Arabic is to kanji. Hiragana is essential to understanding written Japanese but that doesn't mean it has anything in common with kanji. |
Stroke order is different with hiragana and kanji? 
| furiousmilksheikali wrote: |
| My advice is to learn the kana scripts as soon as you can but don't be too ashamed if it takes a long time to pick up on kanji. It will take a long time. |
Agreed. |
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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| canuck wrote: |
| furiousmilksheikali wrote: |
| Hiragana is as different to kanji as Arabic is to kanji. Hiragana is essential to understanding written Japanese but that doesn't mean it has anything in common with kanji. |
Stroke order is different with hiragana and kanji?
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There is a stroke order with both hiragana and kanji. That is where the resemblance ends. I don't really see how that alone helps someone to learn kanji. By the way, you have said that hiragana is derived from kanji. What is your evidence for such a blatantly counter-intuitive claim? |
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canuck
Joined: 11 May 2003
Posts: 1921
Location: Japan
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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First of all, I don't understand why you need to keep calling me Wayne. What does this name mean to you?
Second, have you looked at that link you sent me? It doesn't show any way in which an understanding of hiragana can help you learn kanji.
Please explain to me how "tsu" in hiragana resembles the kanji for "kawa".
Anyone who thinks that hiragana gives you an understanding of kanji is an idiot. The link you provided is interesting if only because it shows you have no idea what you are talking about. The kanji that are desperately put forward as examples of where hiragana come from are clearly not very similar at all. |
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canuck
Joined: 11 May 2003
Posts: 1921
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 4:29 pm Post subject: |
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When learning kanji, do you believe it's helpful to also know hiragana? Yes, of course. +1 canuck.
| furiousmilksheikali wrote: |
| By the way, you have said that hiragana is derived from kanji. What is your evidence for such a blatantly counter-intuitive claim? |
As per the link:
| Quote: |
Origin
Hiragana syllables developed from Chinese characters, as shown below. Hiragana were originally called onnade or 'women's hand' as were used mainly by women - men wrote in kanji and katakana. By the 10th century, hiragana were used by everybody. The word hiragana means "oridinary syllabic script".
In early versions of hiragana there were often many different characters to represent the same syllable, however the system was eventually simplified so that there was a one-to-one relationship between spoken and written syllables. The present orthography of hiragana was codified by the Japanese government in 1946.
The hiragana syllabary
In each column the rōmaji appears on the left, the hiragana symbols in the middle and the kanji from which they developed on the right. There is some dispute about which kanji the hiragana developed from. |
+2 canuck
Do children of Japanese learn hiragana before they learn kanji? Yes, of course. Why? Because it is the elementary building blocks to the Japanese writing system. Kanji often appear with hiragana, and many words do not have a kanji equivalent. Furthermore, while learning kanji, if you can understand the rest of the sentence, you can guess at the meanings of the kanji, even if you haven't previously studied the specific kanji. As a Japanese learner, I'm sure you understand this. +3 canuck
Furigana is found in many books. By being able to read the hiragana above the kanji, you are able to learn the sounds of the kanji and hopefully remember it in the future. Helpful? Yes. +4 canuck.
Do you think they are different as chalk and cheese? LOL I didn't think so. |
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 4:36 pm Post subject: |
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Canuck,
I thought it would be worth responding to you until I realized that you have no idea about Japanese at all, do you?
Have you ever studied it?
Do you think that Japanese students sit down in their elementary schools to learn hiragana because it will help them understand kanji later on?
No.
They learn it because it happens to be a Japanese script. The hiragana often let you understand the grammatical connectives and the verb endings of certain words but they don't by any means help you understand kanji.
What is your point? Go back to that link that you clearly think gives you all the understanding that you need. Read the various hiragana and explain to us how they help people read and write kanji. Most of them look so different that I can't understand how someone from another culture can think they look the same.
Don't be silly; stop believing everything you read on the Internet. |
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canuck
Joined: 11 May 2003
Posts: 1921
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 4:47 pm Post subject: |
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Many books for children are written in hiragana. Then, many books start introducing kanji. Small steps...hiragana is the first step.
Does furigana help to understand kanji? What are the elements of furigana again?
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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| canuck wrote: |
Many books for children are written in hiragana. Then, many books start introducing kanji. Small steps...hiragana is the first step.
Does furigana help to understand kanji? What are the elements of furigana again?
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Don't assume we're all children. Children and adults find different ways of learning languages. |
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canuck
Joined: 11 May 2003
Posts: 1921
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 4:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Beginner books for learning Japanese often start out with hiragana or they go on the assumption that you have already mastered hiragana. Then they start to introduce some kanji. Small steps. That is what the OP is doing...and should be doing. |
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furiousmilksheikali
Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1660
Location: In a coffee shop, splitting a 30,000 yen tab with Sekiguchi.
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| Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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Canuck,
This is tiresome.
The point made originally was that learning hiragana is not the basis for learning kanji. I think this is quite correct yet the point that you want to dispute. Sweeny Todd wrote that he/she had come from China knowing how to understand and probably read and write a lot of kanji and yet never needed any hiragana to do that. Now, by your argument Sweeny Todd could not possibly have understood this kanji as he/she had never learnt hiragana. Is this what you think?
Well... er... Wayne. What say you? |
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