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Post by seralt on Jan 13, 2014 5:21:56 GMT
Jembru: Hello! Yeah, I can see how 石 and 右 can be confused for each other. I sometimes wonder if people learning the alphabet encounter something similar (like confusing "e" with "c", for example). If you think that's bad though, there's a somewhat famous trio of kanji that differ minutely: 己 已 巳...Can you spot the difference? Demonhead: Cool video! It's too bad that the creators of the video weren't linguists (or consulted linguists). If they had, they might have been able to avoid dated words like "pictograph" and "ideograph", which are no longer used (and not even very accurate). Its comparison to Hieroglyphics is also unfortunate, since Hieroglyphics is (in some ways) more like Japanese -- there was a phonetic set of glyphs, and a logographic set of glyphs, and written documents used both simultaneously. The video also seemed to conveniently ignore the 80% or so characters that are phonetic-semantic compounds (instead claiming that they're entirely pictorial). There's nothing about a lake that relates to folly (湖), any more than "each" relates to the ocean (海). But maybe they address that in a later video...? General: Another favourite kanji of mine (and this one *is* pictorial): 麗and means "beautiful". It depicts a deer with antlers -- which I certain find the most elegant/beautiful of the ungulates. Here's a good site that shows the written evolution of the word from its legit pictorial roots: www.chineseetymology.org/CharacterEtymology.aspx?characterInput=%E9%BA%97
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Post by Underlig on Jan 13, 2014 20:04:44 GMT
The way I learn kanji seems to completely random. I can write 鬱 becuase of this thread. Thanks! That's not even funny, they're too alike! Anyway: 想 = Thought, idea (音読み:ソウ and ソ and 訓読み :おも.う)
Anyone know if there's a diference between 思う and 想う by the way? Would love to know. It is absolutely one of my favorites, I don't know why.. it's just so beautiful o.O
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Post by Jembru on Jan 14, 2014 3:11:20 GMT
Jembru: Hello! Yeah, I can see how 石 and 右 can be confused for each other. I sometimes wonder if people learning the alphabet encounter something similar (like confusing "e" with "c", for example). If you think that's bad though, there's a somewhat famous trio of kanji that differ minutely: 己 已 巳...Can you spot the difference? Enlarged that way, yes, the difference is visible, but I bet if they were in small print they'd be tough. I can usually tell the difference when kanji are in large print though. It's when they're small that I have problems. Then again, the same is true of English. The reason I can't watch anything with subtitles isn't anything to do with snobbery or thinking my language skills are better than they are, I just can't see well enough, even with my glasses, to read subtitles. ^^ Ideograph and pictograph are obsolete words? I didn't know that. Why? When? How? What?? They were both okay when I was at uni, but that was almost 10 years ago now. Maaaan I'm getting old. The video DID explain that a good number of characters have phonetic readings.. but maybe I've misunderstood you. I don't know the first thing about Chinese. The way I learn kanji seems to completely random. I can write 鬱 becuase of this thread. Thanks! That's not even funny, they're too alike! Anyway: 想 = Thought, idea (音読み:ソウ and ソ and 訓読み :おも.う)
Anyone know if there's a diference between 思う and 想う by the way? Would love to know. I've been studying grade 3 kanji on and off for a while (I'm all over the place with kanji, just like you said you are: I learn them as I meet them, kinda), and I wondered that too when I came across 想. Of course, being a learner myself, I don't know for sure, but it seems that 想う isn't considered a general use word. That kanji usually just appears in compounds. The difference, well, according to Japanese speakers who aren't linguists at least, seems to be that 思 is for the general act of thinking, while 想 is used when thinking or puzzling over more specific things. This at least works for the words I can read that use it 思想、理想 瞑想 想像 erm, I might know other words but I can't think of any just now. Still, from that short list, they seem to all mean 'thinking about something in particular'. So maybe...
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Post by seralt on Jan 14, 2014 19:09:13 GMT
Anyone know if there's a diference between 思う and 想う by the way? Would love to know. As Jembru mentioned, 思う is the general case. It's the "think" in "I think it's gonna rain" or "I thought it'd be a good idea". 想う is more specialized, and is used in the specific situation where you're thinking about someone/somewhere. (Syntactically, they're also slightly different.) ~と思う "I think that ..." (opinion) 「彼が賢いと思います」 "I think he's smart" 「間に合えるかなと思った」 "I thought I could make it in time" ~を想う "I think of ..." (imagining) 「寂しい時、故郷を想います」 "I think of my hometown when I'm lonely" 「君だけを想っています」 "I'm only thinking of you" (I have only you on my mind) Ideograph and pictograph are obsolete words? I didn't know that. Why? When? How? What?? They were both okay when I was at uni, but that was almost 10 years ago now. Maaaan I'm getting old. The video DID explain that a good number of characters have phonetic readings.. but maybe I've misunderstood you. I don't know the first thing about Chinese. Pictograph is okay, but it only accounts for like, 8% of all kanji. The issue with "pictograph" is that it's not representative of most kanji/Chinese characters, but I'll concede that in the proper context, it's an acceptable word to use. As for ideographs, the problem is, an idea has no specific linguistic representation. "I ate an apple"(A) means the same as "the apple was eaten by me"(B), but with obvious structural and functional differences. But they would have the same ideograph. Put another way, there's no way that any formal writing system can represent A and B the same way (even Chinese, which has no true passive voice, has structures that force the focus on "apple" instead of "I/me"). But the alleged ideograms in Chinese are monosyllabic, and have only one pronunciation (in context), and can only function in a sentence, instead of representing a sentence. In other words, Chinese "ideographs" are as ideographic as the words "felicitous" and "schadenfreude". Ideographs *do* exist, but only outside of formal writing systems; they could only exist in things like cave painting narratives, where you'd get the same basic interpretation, but different utterances every time you asked the reader. -- The washroom sign is another good example, actually. You can read it as "wo/mens" or "ladies/gentlemen", "washroom", "toilet", "bathroom", "watercloset", "lavatory", "the bog", etc... And they'd all be perfectly acceptable. But we can agree that 🚻 is not a word, because even if I had written "I have to go to the 🚻 !!" there'd be multiple ways of "reading" that sentence. Yeah, so the video basically showed 1. simplex pictographs (words that are only one pictorial element, like 馬、水、木); 2. complex pictographs (words with two or more pictographs, like 森、明、東); and then 3. all Chinese words are built up from these *pictorial* blocks to form more complex characters, with one of these pictorial elements hinting to the pronunciation. The issue I have is, in this last case, it's almost never pictorial at all. The characters in question aren't built up from a combination of pictorial elements that somehow add up to the target meaning. You have a semantic element (which, fine, was originally pictorial, but isn't functioning as such now), and a phonetic element (which more often than not is another complex character, and certainly not pictorial). If you're using something that's originally pictorial for non-pictorial purposes, it's no longer a pictorial element. It'd be like saying that English is written with consonants only, because our vowels (a,e,i,o,u,(y)) are all originally Greek/Etruscan/etc. consonants (which obviously isn't true. We use them as vowels, so they're vowels). Likewise, the 「氵」 in 「海」 is not pictorial; it's semantic.
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Post by Underlig on Jan 14, 2014 19:33:11 GMT
Thank you for the explantion!! It was really helpful!
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Post by MidoriAbby on Jan 14, 2014 22:22:45 GMT
seralt thanks for the explanation of 思う and 想う, I'd heard of that but I hadn't really known for sure. Jembru also thank you for the vocabulary with 想, I'm going to put those in Anki now. I love kanji...
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Post by Jembru on Jan 16, 2014 0:02:13 GMT
seralt. Thanks for explaining that. I knew I'd be misunderstanding.. I thought the words themselves had been replaced (it happens.. remember brontosaurus ^^). So it's more that they're not generally used to describe kanji? That makes sense. MidoriAbby: well, I know I've heard you use at least one of those words.. souzou, yourself, but I'm glad there was something useful to amongst them. When I learn a new kanji, I always add a handful of compounds using kanji I already know, to both anki and my kanji notebook. It helps me to remember the readings of the new kanji, but also the readings I didn't know, or often forget, for the other kanji. I really recommend this tip, for you in particular, as your study style has been closest to mine of just about anyone else I know. So like me, you will already know a good many of the words you are learning to write, rather than learning compounds as brand new vocabulary pieces (although of course, I add plenty new words too, especially if their reading and meaning are obvious). At least my experience hs been that adding kanji compounds in this way, is building my reading ability at quite a surprising speed. I think it would have taken much longer if I didn't already know many of the words. I'm feeling a lot more optimistic in my progress these days. I've come a very long way since my confidence dip in early September. It's hard to believe I could hardly speak at all back then, and as recently as November couldn't read even simple texts without rikaikun or my dictionary by my side. I know I still have a long way to go, and it won't take much for my confidence to waver again, but for the time being, I actually feel as though I'm not a complete lost cause!
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Post by Jembru on Jan 23, 2014 8:08:27 GMT
I'm curious about something. I'm guessing the reading at least, is ateji again, but I'm wondering if anyone knows why the rainy season (梅雨)is written with the kanji for plumb? I once asked a non-native speaker about the kanji for baka(馬鹿)and was just told it was an ateji reading, but then half a year later or more, I came across an explanation from a native speaker, that it was because an idiot can't tell the difference between a horse and a deer. Not sure which is true actually, but I thought maybe tsuyu could have a story too. The Chinese really care about plum blossom don't they? So is it maybe the season when plum blossom blooms?
I'm just curious, because I have a Japanese (possibly Chinese, although in the store they had it with the sake flasks) tea set that has the kanji for plumb on the kettle and cups, so I have a soft spot for this character.
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漢字 Kanji
Jan 23, 2014 17:39:49 GMT
via mobile
Post by Bokusenou on Jan 23, 2014 17:39:49 GMT
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Post by Jembru on Jan 23, 2014 18:32:13 GMT
I actually do find that fun! In English too! English has been influenced by so many other languages, and gone through different trends, that it can be fascinating to see how words came about.
That baka link actually reminded me of something else. This isn't the first time I've heard Sanskrit named as the origin of a term or phrase in Japanese (or should I say Chinese). I was really surprised to find out that this language has had such an influence over the languages of the world. See, now I want to research Sanskrit! It's a never ending spiral once the linguistics bug bites. Itchy itchy...
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Post by Bokusenou on Jan 23, 2014 22:45:20 GMT
Oh yeah, I think my interest in Japanese word origins started with interest in English ones, as well as all the different variations of English! It's just fun to see where everyday words I usually take for granted come from, and what people from different places call things.
Good luck! The Sanskrit probably came with the spread of Buddhism from India. Most Sanskrit loanwords you see will be ateji-fied, like they still do in China, because they were adopted before katakana was used for loanwords, which is why they had words like 亜米利加 (アメリカ) and 加奈陀(カナダ), but a lot of those were switched to katakana in modern-day Japanese. It makes it hard to tell if older loanwords were loanwords or not though...
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Post by MidoriAbby on Jan 26, 2014 23:42:31 GMT
BokusenouI love word origins as well, recently since one of my new friends at school is from Greece, I've been studying some Greek and even though I only wanted to learn a few phrases, I've been sucked in by the nerdiness and general excitement of learning such an uncommon language (at least it's uncommon to hear of high school students studying it); I've also been self-studying Latin since a couple years ago but not really focusing on it since I can't speak it. And since I've studied those languages, also being a lover of creative writing, word origins have been fascinating to me. Also, knowing some Greek and Latin really makes memorizing vocab for standardized tests much easier. Also sine I study Chinese in school and Korean on my own, I'm becoming more and more interested in how the three languages have taken words from each other and how Chinese has influenced both, and how Korean and Japanese have influenced each other, etcetera. In Chinese since they don't have anything like Katakana, just like in 亜米利加 (アメリカ) the meanings of the characters have nothing to do with America at all really, the same goes for some Chinese loan words like 加拿大 (Jia na da; Canada) have nothing to do with Canada in meaning, they just are pronounced similarly to the English.
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Post by 魔 on Jan 30, 2014 16:48:50 GMT
Knowing the meaning of kanji can be useful sometimes. I just saw 手袋(hand sack), and guessed it meant gloves. Although It could have also meant a sack for keeping hands in.
Although it's not so good when you forget the word and don't know the reading to type the write characters....
手サックの名かな。手相...サックは何処。 手装...ちくしょサックじ ゃない。手のサックは名ですか?
グラブの名
手製...いいえ、忘れた。
て...何か
知りませんか?
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Post by Jembru on Feb 3, 2014 11:31:03 GMT
Haha Demonhead! I hope you remembered in the end (it's hand owls!^^). I've probably never mentioned this, but 袋 is my least favourite Japanese word. It's a long story.. supermarket trauma at the Odakyu Ox in Ikuta...
You know, the kanji used to write words throw me as often as they help me. Of course as Rin and I already discussed, sometimes kanji were chosen for their phonemes rather than meaning, but other times, I just don't get why they were used. I can't think of an example, so I'll quickly go through anki until I find one..
So there's stuff like: 意表 and 着実, that I can read phonetically without hesitation, but I often can't remember the meaning within the time limit, because I just can't make the connection between the kanji and meaning. Then there are the likes of 残高 that I can both read AND remember the meaning of, but I just don't see why one or both kanji is used, (in this case, it's 高 I don't get. I know this is used with cost, but for me, it's just too large a leap to get to 'bank balance' from these kanji). Then there are words that make perfect sense from their kanji, but I persistently read them wrong. Like, 仰天 It doesn't matter how many times I remind myself, I will insist on saying 'aoten' every time I get this card. Oh and I can't forget to mention expressions like 古い顔 that take me by surprise. When I first heard someone use this word while looking at a photo, I thought they were saying the person in the image looked old. I was like, 'what a cheek'. Or what about 残りが多い, out of context, it's easy to think this means, 'there's a lot left over'. I could go on, but I'm sure you hope I won't ^^.
Anyway, what I really came over for, was to share this. For the longest time I have thought that 面倒's 倒 was the same kanji as 例え. I only realised the difference a few moments ago. They look nothing alike now I see them together, but I'd never seen them side by side and I'd been learning to read by sight rather than actually breaking kanji down into their components. My brain must have just picked up the general shape. This isn't the first such realisation, and I bet there'll be plenty more as I keep studying. ^^
You know.. I used to hate kanji. I used to get angry when people said you can't master Japanese without learning to read. I used to think, 'but we can learn languages that use the roman alphabet without much trouble, so why not learn Japanese that way?'. I've realised though, that the difference is the sheer volume of vocabulary in Japanese. I still believe it's possible to master Japanese and never learn to read it, but I can't deny that your vocabulary builds much, much faster, once you start reading. I don't like admitting I'm wrong, but I was so wrong. From refusing to study kanji, to being too shy to open my damned mouth and speak.. I really feel I've been inadvertently sabotaging my Japanese. No more though!! I'm a new Jem now (THANK YOU GAIWA!!).
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Post by Jembru on Mar 26, 2015 20:16:22 GMT
I'm dusting off this thread to share an image I'm really fond of. It's on my kanji usage manual and is drawings of the kanji as glyphs. You sometimes see similar attempts to recreate the original glyphs in kanji books aimed at school kids to illustrate where the shape came from. I love looking at it and trying to guess which kanji each glyph is meant to be. ^^ Some are very obvious; 門、鳥、魚, and some (most of those drawn as black lines as far as I can tell), are radicals, but there are some I just can't work out. This is the back page, because the title covers much of the image on the front. It's pretty cool... I think I've definitely got the kanji bug now. Better late than never I guess.
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