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tonyukohi
Joined: 24 Dec 2008
Posts: 22
Location: Tokyo
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 Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 4:48 pm Post subject: |
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whoa...since when can any one person deem another language obsolete? just because we may not understand it, doesn't mean that it is a senseless language or needlessly complicated. didn't they fight to keep gaelic translators at the u.n.?
also, english uses a lot of intonation to convey meaning. i did a whole lesson on different usages of "oh" and "yeah." (cue the porn music...kidding).
quote unquote: Lately they actually simplified their kanji. Wish Japan would do that
um...isn't that kind of what hiragana can be used for?
there are many excellent chinese writers today; unfortunately, they are under undue censorship, so i think it falls on the dissidents to carry on the torch, so to speak. |
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elkarlo
Joined: 08 Dec 2008
Posts: 240
Location: Maryland
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| Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 5:15 pm Post subject: |
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| tonyukohi wrote: |
quote unquote: Lately they actually simplified their kanji. Wish Japan would do that
um...isn't that kind of what hiragana can be used for?
there are many excellent chinese writers today; unfortunately, they are under undue censorship, so i think it falls on the dissidents to carry on the torch, so to speak. |
No Hiragan makes it so you can conjugate verbs+adjs mostly. I don't think that Hirgana makes reading Japanese any easier, as it is mixed into with the kanji. Persoanlly I think Japanese Kanji is a complicated mess. Too many readings, and some characters are really complicated to just read. I wish they'd sit down and simplify a good deal of the kanji.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_chinese |
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JL
Joined: 26 Oct 2008
Posts: 241
Location: Las Vegas, NV USA
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| Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 9:25 pm Post subject: |
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| elkarlo wrote: |
| It is my true belief that Japan only uses factory 2nd ACs in their country. In fact I have heard from a good source that the Japanese will turn off their ACs once they see the local Gaijin is gone. So in reality we see Japanese ACs at their best. The other times(when we're not around) they are turned off. |
Stop P.U.I.ing (the "P" standing for "posting"). |
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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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| Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 9:52 pm Post subject: |
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| elkarlo wrote: |
| No Hiragan makes it so you can conjugate verbs+adjs mostly. |
"Mostly"????? Uh, maybe, but it is used for a lot of other things, too.
What was this thread all about in the beginning...? |
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Sour Grape
Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 241
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| Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2009 10:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Apsara wrote: |
| I can also fridge or roast my apartment if I so choose, and plenty of offices and convenience stores are like ice boxes in summer. "Japanese A/Cs are weak" is just too sweeping a generalisation, and in my experience, not true. |
Yes. A better generalisation is that Japanese housing is rubbish, for the poorer people anyway. |
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tonyukohi
Joined: 24 Dec 2008
Posts: 22
Location: Tokyo
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 6:24 am Post subject: |
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he's just got a napoleon complex 
Hiragana are used for words for which there are no kanji, including particles such as kara から "from", and suffixes such as ~san さん "Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms." Hiragana are also used in words for which the kanji form is not known to the writer or readers, or is too formal for the writing purpose. Verb and adjective inflections, as, for example, be-ma-shi-ta (べました) in tabemashita (食べました ?, "ate"), are written in hiragana. In this case, part of the root is also written in hiragana. Hiragana are also used to give the pronunciation of kanji in a reading aid called furigana.
look, we all win! because wikipedia never lies.
ok, back to topic: we were helping the op, yeah?
also kind of interesting (sorry, language dork here): hiragana evolved from the old chinese characters (not japanese kanji). the new, "simplified" chinese is basically "Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters." (from the wiki link)
i haven't seen the simplified chinese forms but there must be more than a passing resemblance, no? |
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elkarlo
Joined: 08 Dec 2008
Posts: 240
Location: Maryland
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:13 pm Post subject: |
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| JL wrote: |
| elkarlo wrote: |
| It is my true belief that Japan only uses factory 2nd ACs in their country. In fact I have heard from a good source that the Japanese will turn off their ACs once they see the local Gaijin is gone. So in reality we see Japanese ACs at their best. The other times(when we're not around) they are turned off. |
Stop P.U.I.ing (the "P" standing for "posting"). |
Aye Aye  |
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elkarlo
Joined: 08 Dec 2008
Posts: 240
Location: Maryland
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Glenski wrote: |
| elkarlo wrote: |
| No Hiragan makes it so you can conjugate verbs+adjs mostly. |
"Mostly"????? Uh, maybe, but it is used for a lot of other things, too.
What was this thread all about in the beginning...? |
In a kanji sense they are. They are adverbs and some words. As for a kanji replacement or to simply them, they are used mainly for conjagation. So in my opinion, I don't think that hiragana really helped simply kanji, at all. As the kanji characters can still be rather complicated. |
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elkarlo
Joined: 08 Dec 2008
Posts: 240
Location: Maryland
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:29 pm Post subject: |
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| tonyukohi wrote: |
he's just got a napoleon complex
Hiragana are used for words for which there are no kanji, including particles such as kara から "from", and suffixes such as ~san さん "Mr., Mrs., Miss, Ms." Hiragana are also used in words for which the kanji form is not known to the writer or readers, or is too formal for the writing purpose. Verb and adjective inflections, as, for example, be-ma-shi-ta (べました) in tabemashita (食べました ?, "ate"), are written in hiragana. In this case, part of the root is also written in hiragana. Hiragana are also used to give the pronunciation of kanji in a reading aid called furigana.
look, we all win! because wikipedia never lies.
ok, back to topic: we were helping the op, yeah?
also kind of interesting (sorry, language dork here): hiragana evolved from the old chinese characters (not japanese kanji). the new, "simplified" chinese is basically "Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters." (from the wiki link)
i haven't seen the simplified chinese forms but there must be more than a passing resemblance, no? |
You don't need to point out the fact that I am short. What a jerk 
Indeed hiragana can be sued for some words, particles, and adverbs.
My Japanese hist prof, an Old skool Weeaboo himself said that for a while the Japanese tried to just use Hiragana. For a time they wanted to get away from Chinese influence. So they dabbled with hiragana. Some hiragana learning books show the kanji where the hiragana came from.
Have you looked at simplified Chinese? OMFG it is so so so much easier to read and to remember. There are many complicated kanji where many people can't write it. |
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tonyukohi
Joined: 24 Dec 2008
Posts: 22
Location: Tokyo
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 4:41 pm Post subject: |
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steve, i take it you're from the u.s.? (re: state department.) have you taken the foreign service exam yet? (i took it a few years ago, but then realized i had no interest in working for the government. oh and they failed me because i wrote an essay saying the gov. should stop subsidizing detroit and gas prices. whoops)  |
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Revenant
Mod Team
Joined: 28 Jul 2005
Posts: 1109
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 9:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Thread has run its course and has been derailed from the original topic far enough. |
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