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 Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 6:00 am
Okay... when I see books in Japanese.. They're mostly in Kanji!
What happened to the Hirigana??
Also... when you write in Japanese, when do you know how to use Hirigana or to use Kanji?
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Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2006 7:17 pm
What kind of books are you looking at? I think furigana, and no kanji books are for younger people. Sometimes if a book has lots of obscure terms (like history) then there will be furigana too.
I think learning kanji (and therefore where/when to write it) goes hand-in-hand with all your other aspects of learning Japanese (grammer, sentence structure, writing, reading, listening, etc.). So if you are at a level where not much is used at all, then don't worry, as you work your way up text books begin to slip in more and more kanji. After getting used to it you will just "know" what is what and where things go in sentences.
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 12:04 pm
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2006 6:06 pm
The little hiragana over kanji so one can read it.
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Posted: Tue Apr 18, 2006 11:55 am
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Posted: Sun Apr 23, 2006 2:09 am
I only know a few kanji, so I'm sure I'll be worse off when it comes to reading.. gonk
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Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 11:56 pm
Satsunami Okay... when I see books in Japanese.. They're mostly in Kanji! What happened to the Hirigana?? Also... when you write in Japanese, when do you know how to use Hirigana or to use Kanji? Here are Bakahito's Awesome Kanji Learning Tips: 1) Kanji are almost always used in two character Chinese-derived compound (basically any word that is made up of two onyomi readings) 2) Hiragana is reserved for particles, common words, and conjugations. In real academic readings or formal readings, common hiragana words (like arigatou will be written in kanji. Even Western words have kanjis) 3) Every kanji (well just about every kanji) is composed of smaller "sub kanji" called busho or radicals. Its handy to study kanji by the common radicals rather than just memorizing them here and there. If you know the meanings of your radicals well enough, some times you can guess the meaning of a kanji even if you can't read it) 4) Most kanji have multiple readings, the onyomi (chinese derived) and the kunyomi (Japanese derived). the Chinese derivitives are used when making compounds and the Japanese derivitives are generally used conjugating reguarly. If anyone is interested I can give some more pointers. Kanji is very very necessary but oh-so difficult gonk
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Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 11:56 pm
bakahito 2) Hiragana is reserved for particles, common words, and conjugations. In real academic readings or formal readings, common hiragana words (like arigatou will be written in kanji. Even Western words have kanjis) I noticed that some words commonly written in hiragana had kanji equivalents, but they aren't often used, for example 在る 有る 要る 出来る 美味しい 可愛い etc. Would these be considered 'common words'? And how do you determine which words should be written in kanji or not. Another question, some kanji have the same meaning, but they're written differently, example: 描く & 書く, 分かる & 解る. Is there a difference in meaning or usage?
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Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 5:55 am
roxybudgy bakahito 2) Hiragana is reserved for particles, common words, and conjugations. In real academic readings or formal readings, common hiragana words (like arigatou will be written in kanji. Even Western words have kanjis) I noticed that some words commonly written in hiragana had kanji equivalents, but they aren't often used, for example 在る 有る 要る 出来る 美味しい 可愛い etc. Would these be considered 'common words'? And how do you determine which words should be written in kanji or not. Another question, some kanji have the same meaning, but they're written differently, example: 描く & 書く, 分かる & 解る. Is there a difference in meaning or usage? When you enter the relm of higher education, you will often see words like iru (居る) and dekiru (出来る) written out in kanji. Business documents are also written in a similar manner. Even "semi-particles" have corresponding kanji such as ~ no you ni (の様に). So its important to know the little tricks once you get into real academic writing. I run into stuff like this all the time in my text books. To answer your second question, yes kanji often time have two or more forms and each for has a different neuance. The 描く & 書く that you mentioned above both mean to write or draw but the first one is only used when taking about paintings or drawing pictures. The latter is used when talking about generic write or kanji. sagasu (探す＆捜す）is another famous example. The first kanji refers to searching for an object while the second refers to searching for something like an escaped criminal. Japanese people often have a hard time making these distinctions so don't worry if you have trouble at first. Neuance is one of those things that can only be aquired through trial by fire, after all confused
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Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 4:43 pm
there's also fun words like "atsui" that have even more than two kanji
厚い thick
暑い hot (weather)
熱い hot (object)
篤い apparently means cordial, though I've never seen it
I've been thinking about the words that are commonly written in hiragana even though they have kanji counterparts, and I'm noticing the words are adjectives and verb roots that represent fairly abstract concepts. Verbs like iru (to animately exist), aru (to inanimately exist), suru (to do), dekiru (can do), and then adjective like kirei (pretty, clean), oishii (delicious), kawaii (cute), ii (good) and you which has a number of meanings. Also a number adjectives describing feelings are usually written in hiragana. I suspect a combination of these all being pretty abstract concepts and also being easily decernable in a sentance lead to these common words being written in hiragana.
Also, like bakahito said, the more academic the writing the more you see these kanji. Less formal writing that you would see in a manga is full of hiragana and katakana while an academicaly written document takes advantage of using kanji and the jukugo (chinese compound) counter part of japanese words.
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Posted: Sat May 27, 2006 6:28 pm
Freakezette there's also fun words like "atsui" that have even more than two kanji 厚い thick 暑い hot (weather) 熱い hot (object) 篤い apparently means cordial, though I've never seen it I've been thinking about the words that are commonly written in hiragana even though they have kanji counterparts, and I'm noticing the words are adjectives and verb roots that represent fairly abstract concepts. Verbs like iru (to animately exist), aru (to inanimately exist), suru (to do), dekiru (can do), and then adjective like kirei (pretty, clean), oishii (delicious), kawaii (cute), ii (good) and you which has a number of meanings. Also a number adjectives describing feelings are usually written in hiragana. I suspect a combination of these all being pretty abstract concepts and also being easily decernable in a sentance lead to these common words being written in hiragana. Also, like bakahito said, the more academic the writing the more you see these kanji. Less formal writing that you would see in a manga is full of hiragana and katakana while an academicaly written document takes advantage of using kanji and the jukugo (chinese compound) counter part of japanese words. Another good kanji rule of thumb is "don't use an excessive about of kanji in one small sentence". Although Academic writing is full of kanji, many authors use hiragana works simple to space out kanjis that might otherwise run together and be confusing. Its mainly determined by the author's personal preferance, but its generally considered good writing if you occational but a kana work in place of a kanji one in order to ensure that the sentence reads smoothly. Also, some modern taboo words are often writen in kana eventhough they are generally a compound. kodomo is one word that is a good example. The ko part is often written in kanji but the latter domo is often writen in kana. The reason for this is mainly because of the negative conotation of the second kanji. 供(tomo) oringally meant a "servant" so its generally considered poor taste to write this kanji in the compound.
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 9:57 am
The great thing about kanji is once you have learned all the joyo kanji (1945 of them) and most of the important compounds... it makes Japanese one of the easiest to skim/speed-read languages ever.
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 3:47 pm
bakahito Satsunami Okay... when I see books in Japanese.. They're mostly in Kanji! What happened to the Hirigana?? Also... when you write in Japanese, when do you know how to use Hirigana or to use Kanji? Here are Bakahito's Awesome Kanji Learning Tips: 1) Kanji are almost always used in two character Chinese-derived compound (basically any word that is made up of two onyomi readings) ....: oh my gosh, you made so much clear >.<' I only know around... 100 kanji but it makes things easier witht he info you have given me. especially the reading of it in class... arigatiou!
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Posted: Sun May 28, 2006 6:24 pm
linlinchan The great thing about kanji is once you have learned all the joyo kanji (1945 of them) and most of the important compounds... it makes Japanese one of the easiest to skim/speed-read languages ever. Indeed it is. I think there was a Columbia University professor who published a study saying that when we read, we only read the first and last parts of a word. Although I have no scientific evidence to back this up, I would say that this is true with kanji as well. If you can read the first kanji radical and the last kanji radical quickly, you can just skim over most parts. Thats why I always tell my students to study the kanji radicals as well as the kanji as a whole. Plus, if by some crazy whim you want to take the National Kanji Exam, you`ll be one step ahead whee
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Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2006 8:56 am
bakahito linlinchan The great thing about kanji is once you have learned all the joyo kanji (1945 of them) and most of the important compounds... it makes Japanese one of the easiest to skim/speed-read languages ever. Indeed it is. I think there was a Columbia University professor who published a study saying that when we read, we only read the first and last parts of a word. Although I have no scientific evidence to back this up, I would say that this is true with kanji as well. If you can read the first kanji radical and the last kanji radical quickly, you can just skim over most parts. Thats why I always tell my students to study the kanji radicals as well as the kanji as a whole. Plus, if by some crazy whim you want to take the National Kanji Exam, you`ll be one step ahead whee I'm actually going to take 3kyuu next year. Blargh, it's hard. Way harder than anything I ever had to do back in the day for 1kkyuu of the JLPT.
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