Current Events > I'm slowly getting better at Japanese

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ive been doing lessons on Duolingo for about 20 days now. Im still very early on in this effort, but Im starting to be able to read hiragana without the romanization being shown. Itll probably take me quite a while before Im comfortable doing that, but progress is being made.

Ive started noticing some small things in hiragana like ha being pronounced wa, which has prompted me to Google stuff and learn about the history behind the pronunciation change. Pretty cool, imo.

Good lad. It's great to have goals, man. Keep it up!

CableZL posted...

Ive been doing lessons on Duolingo for about 20 days now. Im still very early on in this effort, but Im starting to be able to read hiragana without the romanization being shown. Itll probably take me quite a while before Im comfortable doing that, but progress is being made.

Ive started noticing some small things in hiragana like ha being pronounced wa, which has prompted me to Google stuff and learn about the history behind the pronunciation change. Pretty cool, imo.

Something that really fucking kills me with pronunciation is the implied consonants. reading (hitori) is pronounced "shtori"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afxBS3YWel8

I don't understand why. Like the kana for is right there! Why isn't that in the reading!?

ocha desu

ironman2009 posted...

ocha desu

That was one thing that confused me because the spelling in hiragana is actually o chi ya, but its just pronounced ocha

Hiragana and katakana can be very easy and only take a week to remember. Just get a notebook or get a poster and write every day, and put the poster on your wall.

Kanji is the killer.

Duolingo also kind of sucks for Japanese. Not only is it not natural spoken Japanese, but the way it recognizes non-roman script is really off, oftentimes misusing kanji pronunciation or context.

DL in Japanese is good for upkeep, but not for learning the actual language. Being immersed is the best way.

Im also gonna say avoid anime Japanese unless you want to sound like an idiot to people. Its like a foreigners talking like a Spongebob, or GI Joe character.

CableZL posted...

That was one thing that confused me because the spelling in hiragana is actually o chi ya, but its just pronounced ocha. Ive spent about half of my time learning Japanese today on the small/silent characters in hiragana. The difference is rather subtle as it is written in the Duolingo app, so Im trying to pay more attention to it now.

It isnt o-chi-ya. Its o-chya. There are other weirdo blends that duolingo really sucks at teaching. The -ou sound being the main culprit.

I think the more you do Japanese, the more you actually love Kanji. At the start, it's intimidating as shit. Then when you look at Japanese more, it's like 'Wow, I cannot read what this sentence is saying because all the hiragana blend together and it looks like a run on sentence'. When you know what the kanjis mean, it's like kanji actually make reading Japanese a million times easier.

Coming from someone whose wife is Japanese and making him learn the language:

Don't use Duo until you know Hirigana and Katakana. Use Anki for those, THEN use Duo. The romanji is a huge crutch and should be skipped entirely, imo.

Watch TV Dramas and Movies please. It helps tons. Also listen to music, Jpop ect.

I can recommend hundreds if you want. Try Doctor X (Drama), Flying colors (Movie) or Konto Ga Hajimaru (Drama).

Even if your Japanese isn't enough to understand the spoken language, you pick up so many freaking nuances and slang that textbooks and apps can't teach you.

PoIkan posted...

I think the more you do Japanese, the more you actually love Kanji. At the start, it's intimidating as shit. Then when you look at Japanese more, it's like 'Wow, I cannot read what this sentence is saying because all the hiragana blend together and it looks like a run on sentence'. When you know what the kanjis mean, it's like kanji actually make reading Japanese a million times easier.

yeah, this

_____Cait posted...

It isnt o-chi-ya. Its o-chya. There are other weirdo blends that duolingo really sucks at teaching. The -ou sound being the main culprit.

There's a lot of contractions, especially in western words.

Actually if you are that poster who just moved to Japan, try watching the Asadorama. They are very simple, inly about 15 minutes long, and contain pretty good standard Japanese. When i first moved to Japan, it gave me a lot of context to things I would hear daily. Plus, they repet three times a day.

CableZL posted...

Ive been doing lessons on Duolingo for about 20 days now. Im still very early on in this effort, but Im starting to be able to read hiragana without the romanization being shown. Itll probably take me quite a while before Im comfortable doing that, but progress is being made.

Ive started noticing some small things in hiragana like ha being pronounced wa, which has prompted me to Google stuff and learn about the history behind the pronunciation change. Pretty cool, imo.

Ive been learning Vietnamese for significantly longer, have a 460 day streak on Duolingo and am living in Vietnam with my Vietnamese partner and the language is still kicking my arse.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Something that really fucking kills me with pronunciation is the implied consonants. reading (hitori) is pronounced "shtori"

(hi) and (shi) are not the same. To an untrained ear they may sound similar, but if you get accustomed to saying them properly and hear more native speakers talking the difference should become obvious.

action52 posted...

(hi) and (shi) are not the same. To an untrained ear they may sound similar, but if you get accustomed to saying them properly and hear more native speakers talking the difference should become obvious.

I'm gonna need some more explanation than this because the in () / (ashita) sounds exactly the same as the in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2Cd_KNm67E

I kind of wish there was a minor difference in the kana to let me know which one I was supposed to use like /

Tyranthraxus posted...

I'm gonna need some more explanation than this because the in () / (as***a) sounds exactly the same as the in

From what it sounds like in Duolingo, I've understood to be pronounced almost like a hissing snake while is what I understood as shi. Kinda like how is fu, but you don't let your teeth touch your lips

ha jay me mosh tay

Tyranthraxus posted...

I'm gonna need some more explanation than this because the in () / (ashita) sounds exactly the same as the in

It's really hard to explain how to move your mouth during pronunciation just by explaining it. But I'll try.

Japanese and English h (as in "he") are identical.

One difference between English sh and Japanese that in English, when you say sh you slightly purse your lips, but you don't with .

Another difference is that when you say your tongue should be closer to the front of your mouth than sh. When you say s in English, your tongue is right behind your teeth right? Try putting your tongue slightly behind where you put it for s and that should make it sound more like Japanese .

To practice, try saying words that use the characters into Google translate or some other voice recognition software. Like maybe try saying... () meaning "scalp" and () meaning "investment."

I kind of wish there was a minor difference in the kana to let me know which one I was supposed to use like /

I really don't get what you're saying here, shi and hi are completely different kana.

action52 posted...

I really don't get what you're saying here, shi and hi are completely different kana.

The kana is completely different. The words themselves use the same pronunciation.

Check the videos to see what I mean:

pronounced "sh"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2Cd_KNm67E

pronounced "sh"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afxBS3YWel8

Then in the latter video when they break down the individual kana, you can clearly hear pronounced as "he" but in the full word it's "sh"

Tyranthraxus posted...

The kana is completely different. The words themselves use the same pronunciation.

Check the videos to see what I mean:

pronounced "sh"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2Cd_KNm67E

pronounced "sh"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afxBS3YWel8

Then in the latter video when they break down the individual kana, you can clearly hear pronounced as "he" but in the full word it's "sh"

I don't hear in that, but sometimes I do with other words, like .

watch anime in japanese with japanese subtitles. maybe start with romanji subtitles even.

Tyranthraxus posted...

The kana is completely different. The words themselves use the same pronunciation.

Check the videos to see what I mean:

pronounced "sh"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2Cd_KNm67E

pronounced "sh"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afxBS3YWel8

Then in the latter video when they break down the individual kana, you can clearly hear pronounced as "he" but in the full word it's "sh"

They're not the same. Your ears (or technically the language structures in your brain) just aren't trained to hear the difference. To a native Japanese speaker, and sound very different.

It's just one of those things that will come naturally with practice. Especially if you make an effort to pronounce them properly yourself.

to an english speaker the in is just silent when you say the word.

thing is, every language has stuff like this.

take the "hobbit" "po-tay-toes"

in speech youre gonna use a schwa for the "po" or even a gutteral stop so that it sounds like "p'tay-tuhs" or "p'tay-toes" when you use the word in a sentence.

also the sounds before and after a sound can have an effect on the sound in a sentence.

things like "whadyou want"

and then there's stuff they WONT teach you in a textbook that's still essential for sounding like a native speaker. words like "gonna" in English you really need to know mean "going to" but it could be hard to figure that out if you only had a webster's dictionary and didn't know wtf that word meant.

anyway, you are focusing on minor stuff. think about japanese speakers learning english: they might be fluent and still confuse "L" and "R" and it wouldnt really matter all that much. you can do the same.

action52 posted...

They're not the same. Your ears (or technically the language structures in your brain) just aren't trained to hear the difference. To a native Japanese speaker, and sound very different.

It's just one of those things that will come naturally with practice. Especially if you make an effort to pronounce them properly yourself.

I'm like 20 days into Duolingo lessons and they sound different to me in those videos he posted. One pronounced shi and the other pronounced hi

Nice! Day 674 on Duolingo!

Yondiyo????

CableZL posted...

I'm like 20 days into Duolingo lessons and they sound different to me in those videos he posted. One pronounced shi and the other pronounced hi

is gonna be fine.

a native french speaker says "ze" instead of "the" sometimes. doesn't really matter all that much.

Robot2600 posted...

to an english speaker the in is just silent when you say the word.

thing is, every language has stuff like this.

Yeah I understand this. I just wish there was some kind of easily explainable rule. Like in English you can just say "ph" sounds like "f"

Take the word Garage for example, (which contains the proper "g" to use in gif). That shit is insanity. No rhyme or reason. I mean I'm sure there's an explanation if you dig into the etymology but as a word itself, no one ever said why garage has two different Gs in the same word.

A similar thing in Japanese would be where the first sounds like "shi" and the second sounds like "sh"