The Japanese Language: Some Interesting Facts for the Uninformed Автор темы: LingoTrust
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| | MariyaN (X) 
США
японский => русский
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| "Well, for starters..." | May 1, 2013 |
...kanji is not an alphabet.
(The author of the original article at KT70, by the way, uses the words "methods of writing", and does so for reason.)
Neither is the word order free.
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In addition to Mariya's notes,
"the existence of several levels of polite language" is not due to the fact that "the Japanese people also don’t like to be blunt or rude". The levels of politeness stems from the relationship between the people participating in the conversation, based on their social status. Social status is deeply rooted in the culture, and that manifests in the language as well.
"Not hard to learn to pronounce as there are only 48 sounds consisting of... See more In addition to Mariya's notes,
"the existence of several levels of polite language" is not due to the fact that "the Japanese people also don’t like to be blunt or rude". The levels of politeness stems from the relationship between the people participating in the conversation, based on their social status. Social status is deeply rooted in the culture, and that manifests in the language as well.
"Not hard to learn to pronounce as there are only 48 sounds consisting of 5 vowels and 11 consonants!" - Sounds? 5+11 is not 48. You meant 48 syllables, right?
"No verb conjugation!" - well, yes, sort of, but you do change the verb endings for past tense, imperative, conditional, etc. and based on whether the speaker female or male and whether honorific use is required.
A few examples:
Verb (dictionary form):
to go - iku
Declarative:
I (you, he, she, we) go - ikimasu (polite, and female use), iku (informal and more male use)
Past tense:
went - ikimashita (polite), itta (informal)
Imperative:
go! - itte (kudasai), ike (informal)
let's go! - ikimashoo (polite), ikoo (informal)
Conditional:
if I (you, he, she, we) go - ikimashitara (polite), ittara, ikunonara (informal)
As to the language being "fuzzy" - well, it is a high-context language, because it belongs to a high-context culture. See more at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_and_low_context_cultures
"Syntax or the word order of a sentence, excepting the final verb, is totally free!" - now this is funny.
[Edited at 2013-05-01 00:59 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | esperantisto
Local time: 19:23
Член ProZ.com c 2006
английский => русский
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ЛОКАЛИЗАТОР САЙТА
Not hard to learn to pronounce as there are only 48 sounds in the language, and only 5 vowels and 11 consonants!
Is it really? Assuming that this article expresses a POV of an English speaker and is targeted to such speakers primarily, I wonder, do they really find nothing hard in tones? I do.
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Petr Jan Vins
Чехия
Local time: 17:23
английский => чешский
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| Japanese Pronunciation | May 2, 2013 |
For a Czech speaker the Japanese pronunciation is fairly easy. The two languages - although otherwise far apart - are phoneticaly very similar.
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