I don’t think I have a specific example necessarily, but (atleast in my experience learning Hira/Kata) every resource I used eventually had me type or write out words as practice. It would give me the romaji equivalent and ask to write in Kana or vice versa. Ex;
“write inu in Hiragana” → いぬ
“write ありがとう in romaji” → arigatou
Usually a definition would be provided or just through consistent exposure/practice + curiosity you start recognizing some of these as real applicable words and not just character practice. Those two examples being “dog” and “thank you” respectively.
When it comes to Katakana specifically, since that writing system is largely predicated in adapting loanwords- just knowing English will automatically make it easy to determine what’s being said on many occasion. Ex;
“write バナナ in romaji” → banana
“write アメリカ in romaji” → amerika
The words being banana and America respectively, of course.
Even if you don’t realize in the moment, I’m sure by time you start practicing with some small sentences your memory will start recognizing things. Ex (without any Kanji);
いぬはバナナをたべます / the dog will eat a banana アメリカにいきましょう / let’s go to America
Like everything else it just takes time and practice, but so long as effort is being made it’ll click before you know it
Yes, I would say Renshuu is the same as the other apps, maybe also check out jpdb. I just prefer WaniKani’s ground up approach to learning kanji and vocab, but Renshuu or jpdb works as well, but you would have to do it regularly (preferably everyday).
As I’ve also found every resource has it as a requirement or a option to write out words. Unless you only plan on being able to speak and understand Japanese. it’s been pretty good with learning through writing how to do it.
I’m curious. Why do they put things at the end of a sentence, but it meant to be at the start. e.g. desu is at the end and other things that I can’t recall.
Lately been taking learning Japanese pretty seriously. and as of right now I got the new assassins creed shadow, and all of it is pretty much in Japanese with writings around the map and the main language spoken is Japanese. Hoping to pick stuff up and familiarise with different Hira/Kata and kanji for the future.
Pretty sick, this’ll make it easier instead of pestering you guys all the time with questions. unless you don’t mind that is. Got a Japanese dictionary book for definitions and to help with understanding Hiragana.
Different word order. English is in the category of SVO languages where the verb is always the second object in the sentence, whereas Japanese is mostly SOV. So as a result the verb always comes last in Japanese. The copula, or the “to be” verb, is special in Japanese (that’s why だ & です function a bit differently than most other verbs). However, unlike English, Japanese “marks” its words with particles. So technically you can your sentence in any order and it makes sense. 私は玉を叩いた could also be written 玉を私は叩いた (it sounds weird though) and it means the same thing, but if we’re in English “The ball kicked I” and “I kicked the ball” mean different things. This is OK because the particles tell us what every word is doing in the sentence.
So in terms of writing and speaking it doesn’t really matter? bit weird to wrap your head around, doesn’t make sense to have verb at the end of it. In Japanese would you say it at the end or the start. it would be like trying to follow what they are saying during a conversation, '‘Jumped high I” ??? “I jumped high” pretty confusion if you ask me.
Like they said, it’s SOV, verb (or です etc.) will come at the end. The other stuff before that is to some extent more interchangeable
In this example “jumped” will always come at the end which Japanese speakers are used to, it’s the bits like “I” which can be in slightly different positions. Like Shika said, they’re marked by particles telling the listener what function in the sentence the word plays, allowing them to be switched. E.g. the を marker after a word will tell you what the verb is acting on, が after a word will tell you who does the action, even if the pairs of word+particles are swapped.
It sounds wrong coming from an English/ SVO language, but when you get more used to Japanese, it’s not even something you think about. Just a difference in order of processing, which is naturally hard if you’re trying to process it through a very different framework. Hence why the goal is to get used to the Japanese framework and process it directly like that without converting it. Just look out for how Japanese structures sentences and you’ll get used to it with enough time
The others here have outlined it, but they’re correct- it’s just a matter of how sentences are constructed in the language, and it only sounds unnatural or unintuitive because we are used to English mechanics.
This is just a thing to get accustomed to in most any foreign language, really. If you were sitting down to learn Spanish instead of Japanese, for example, it would sound odd knowing that adjectives come after the applicable noun
English: red car
Japanese: 赤い車
Spanish: carro rojo
But to a native speaker (or someone who just has an appropriate amount of time practicing) you read these things in a vacuum with no relation to English and thus no reason to find it akward
Over time I’ll all seem pretty normal. But as of right now it doesn’t make much sense, just going with it and accepting that’s how it is. So it’s pretty much the same when they speak and write.
You have explained it very well. I’ll be coming back when I have the same problem later.
Why do some of the different syllable connect? (Ki) normally doesn’t connect but in different places it shows as it being connected. Seen this with a few others as well. Pretty sure it doesn’t matter thought.
Another instance is when it goes ta, (chi, tsu?) te, to. Could I get an explanation why it’s like this, with multiple others as well. I’m guessing that with different one a part of it would be silent. As well in Yōon and in speaking it would be a part that’ll be silent. The highlighted ones below
A handful of the hiragana characters, notably き and さ, are sometimes depicted with an extra gap on the final stroke as you have indeed observed- and you are correct that it ultimately doesn’t mean anything. It is just a remnant of the many, many years of writing that doesn’t mechanically impact anything. Often times when handwritten (or in a more natural-appearing text font) it will contain the gap, but in some typeface it is closed as it can look more clear on screens or in print. Neither way is correct or incorrect. I used to write them with the closed gap but I naturally found myself opening it over time as I think it flows better
し , ち , つ are romanized slightly different (as shi, chi, tsu versus si, ti, tu) to reflect how they are more accurately pronounced. Something like し / shi is still considered to be the equivalent character in it’s respective s-sound grouping so it is placed among the others even if it looks wrong. Same goes for the others.
ぢ and づ still fit the rules of the t → d sound dakuon conversion, but like before are often romanized to ji and zu (or dzu) to better fit how they are actually pronounced. You’d type both as “di” and “du” respectively to avoid inputting じ / ji or ず / zu
を / wo is considered to be on the w-sound group (along with わ / wa)- however it is kind of an odd one. I’m unsure if there is a single vocab word that uses を (atleast in the thousands I have practiced with I haven’t seen it) and it is instead exclusively used as a structural sentence particle. Ex. すしを食べている (~I am eating sushi). You only see it in this context, and it is always pronounced effectively the same as お / o , but is romanized as wo to differentiate it.
ん is treated effectively as an extra vowel sound like あ or え. Describing the sound itself is difficult via text, but it’s kind of like if you isolated the n sound in a word like “in”. It’s the “n” in ramen, for a commonly known Japanese word. Sometimes the way words flow (I don’t know the exacts, but I have seen it after a ば / ba sound especially) makes it sound a little more like an equivalent “m” sound and is occasionally romanized as such. The notable example for me is (in Katakana) バンパイア for the word “vampire”. Literally romanized it would be “banpaia” but the flow of the word makes it sound more like an “m”. I don’t think you should worry about this at all in this stage of learning- I never formally learned this added nuance when I was learning, you’ll almost never see it practically romanized as “m”, and you cannot type ん with m (you do it via double-inputting n). It overcomplicates the process more than necessary for the time being and ultimately comes pretty naturally just with proper exposure.
More focused on the proper way to write each character and, seeing different ways the same character is written. Ultimately doesn’t matter really how you do it, as long as it’s correct. Comfortably able to decipher with the different strokes. Still doing hiragana, almost half way with remembering and writing with pronunciation. Still need to add grammar and vocab to my daily plan.
makes sense now. It would sound weird and incorrect saying ti alone, so chi sounds grammacly correct. Take a bit to get engraved and done pat but that’s okay.
Sounds confusing but we will come back to that.
so is the a,i,u,e,o used less. And wo is more preferred or easier to use. Wa, wo, n/m are all equally as confusing so not going to worry about it now. But would you advise to 100% learn this in the next couple of months along side hiragana and katakana. With all Goujūon, Dakuon & handakuon and Yōon.
I think something else largely overlooked by new learners is getting the pronunciation of the characters right too. Ar-ree-ga-toe is not how you say ありがとう.
Getting the characters and pronunciation down will pay off in dividends when you start your journey. Pitch accent is important but not necessary to learn directly so long as you have the basic pronunciation down.
Dakuon turn a character into a variant, but it’s consistent among sound groups. For example,
か , き , く , け , こ / ka ki ku ke ko - fit the K sound group. (K sound + vowel)
All of these have a dakuon variant that turns the K into a G sound.
が , ぎ , ぐ , げ , ご / ga gi gu ge go
For the T sound group, their dakuon variant is like a D sound.
た , ち , つ , て , と / ta chi tsu te to
turns to
だ , ぢ , づ , で , ど / da ji zu de do
The bold ones you have confusion with here are just written differently to be more like their actual pronounciations rather than being rigidly (hence the paragraph in my last post). If you are still learning the core 46 and haven’t dabbled with dakuon this will not make too much sense quite yet but it will very soon and actual practice will explain it better than I ever will.
Don’t worry too much about the を and ん confusion either since they’re ultimately just regular characters like anything else and the mechanics I mentioned only come into play as you practice beyond simply learning the basic character memorization. It will also make clear sense before you know it
Trying to immerse myself with as much content as possible, don’t want an Australian accent when speaking
currently working through Hiragana and only moving forward once I memorise the pronunciation and how to draw the characters. Refreshing daily with a bit of really basic vocab along the way. but haven’t gotten to being able to see some vocab and know what it is.
Haven’t yet gotten to this part yet. seems simple enough once you go through it. Not so much worried about Dakuon and Handakuon, more focused gojuon for Hiragana.
The K group got memorised, just thinking further on. when eventually I’ll have to learn Katakana, it will be hard and confusing. So I was thinking learn one group of katakana, then when I’m doing a quiz or something. Do both at the same time both characters for Hira & Kata. Unless you got a better way I’m all ears.
When adding two characters together such as yoon. would there be parts that are silent when speaking but are obviously written normally. or with other areas that I am currently unfamiliar with.
If you listen to how its pronounced I wouldn’t understand how you would even manage to do that. but I don’t notice it so got to wait when I go to Japan.
