I love English

[Jorden]

Close Wulfmann..

And I didn't even write it, so I let dZeus explain it to you!

But on the other hand... ß isn't that one out of the German spelling since their new spelling? Wouldn't that mean that only Switzerland and Austria still have that ß in their written language?

And btw, is it now pronounced as sz or ss?

Jord.



------------------
- When you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do" -Despair.com-

[dZeus]

Ringel S is pronounced as ss

I don't think the ringel S has been 'thrown out of' the new German spelling, but that you are now allowed to write ss instead, if you want to. Wulfman should know the details on this....

For the translation:
Gisteren begroette ik een Groninger in Scheveningen, vlak voordat hij in een kuil op het Scheveningse strand viel, gegraven door ene inwoner van 's Hertogenbosch

means:
Yesterday I saluted a Groninger (a inhabitant of Groningen) in Scheveningen, just before he fell into a pit on the Scheveningse Beach, digged by some inhabitant of 's Hertogenbosch

[Sasq]

I'm only a humble conversational English teacher in Japan, And from personal experience, I'd say the bigest problem my students have is word order, English has Subject, Verb, Object. In Japanese its Subject, Object, Verb.
This in real terms = (English) I like beer. (Japanese) I beer like.

I'm also studying Japanese here, however I'm only starting so I can't validate how many cases Nihongo has or not, I can say Nihongo doesn't have sexs for objects, even to the point of names XXXsan being used to address both male and females, (English having Mr, Miss, Ms, Mrs and the archaic Master for young boys) However there is male and female paterns of speach as well as casual, polite and honorific patterns of speach, this affects word choice and verb conjigation.

In terms of which language is harder to learn, Japanese has more structure then english but its harder to learn the social rules for when to use what patters and what language is socialy required. Japanese is also largely fenetic in its pronunciation. English on the other hand is much more direct then japanese but has too many exceptions to the rules, and pronuciation is somewhat more difficult.

This has been my two cents worth

[Wulfman]

ß has not been thrown out, not in germany, switzerland or austria -> same language (at least parts of switzerland)

daß = dass (always)
Fuß is still Fuß, but Fluß --> Fluss...
(Fuß=feet; Fluss=river)

mfg
wulfman

[paulcs]

Hiragana and Katakana are phonetic. Kanji (the Japanese pictographic alphabet) is not. I find the idea of having to learn a unphonetic alphabet, comprised of over 6,000 characters, pretty daunting. I know you don't have to learn all of them. From what I understand, you have to learn several hundred just to read a newspaper.

Good luck, Sasq. It appears you have quite a task before you. An extended stay in Japan, however, sounds like a lot of fun.

Are you in Tokyo?

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 13 January 2001).]

[Liquid Snake]

I've been told that you have to learn a thousand characters of Chinese to read a newspaper.

[paulcs]

I intentionally understated what I heard about the number of Kanji characters you need to know to read a newspaper. I'm not sure if what I'd heard was true, and I didn't want to make a total ass of myself. I heard you need between 1000-2000 Kanji to read one of the national papers.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 14 January 2001).]

[Sasq]

In answer to the kanji question the education ministry has a set list of 1945 kanji for use in schools, newspapers and books. The original list I’ve been told was between 30,000 to 50,000. Its possible to read a newspaper with about 1200 kanji, as I know only about 200 I’m stuck to pokemon comics

The Japanese borrowed kanji from the Sino Chinese character set (I believe, this is a different set to mandarin kanji) so each kanji has at least two readings, the original Chinese, which becomes the reading used in compound words and the Japanese assigned to the character, in some cases there are up to 8 or so readings for each character, of course the Japanese have trouble remembering all of these too so on unusual kanji (both the character and reading) the printer places hiragana next to the kanji to aid in reading.

In answer to where I am etc
I live in Yokohama, which is a satellite city to Tokyo with about 4 million people I believe it’s the second or third largest city in Japan, it also has the worlds largest port (last I checked anyway).

And I love every minute here, from the technology all the way to the social perspective ‘reality check’. Here I’m the foreigner (gaijin) I’m the strange one, I’m the one that can’t communicate, I’m the one that has to bend to their rules and its and excellent experience I’d recommend it to anyone

Danny

[spoogenet]

I thought hiragana and katakana were different styles of the kanji? I thought one was more script-like?

That aside, this whole discussion has been rather amusing. Obviously not many people in this thread have studied much linguistics. First off, there is not "correct" or "incorrect" way of saying or writing anything. There are no real "rules" of any language. There are structures within the language, often referred to as rules. However these may be violated as seen fit.

There is no one English. There are many Englishes in the world that are spoken. Not only that, every language has dialects, and every language has idiolects. The boundaries of dialect and langauge can often be gray.

If you want to sit and argue about how the Queen's English is the "correct" form of English, go ahead, I encourage you. However all languages change with time. The "rules" (structures) change, the words change, spellings and pronunciations change. The spoken language always changes faster than the written language.

Buy 50 grammar books, and you will get 50 different "correct" ways of speaking or writing a language.

It just amuses me how so many people like to argue about what's right and wrong in a language. The only REAL constraint on a language is that the audience understands what you mean. This constraint has given birth to the aforementioned structures. Language is simply a mechanism to exchange thoughts and ideas, or more generally to exchange information. The only restriction is that the audience understands the information in the manner you intended it. This often leads to confusion with language, which is where lawyers make lots of money.

It all depends on what your definition of "is" is.

Word up gee funk. Me and billy bob be goin to tha sto, junto? Aight.

Anyways, that's enough for me for now....enjoy your language.

b

(edit for...errrr...grammar? or rather missing words, typos, etc.)

[This message has been edited by spoogenet (edited 14 January 2001).]

[paulcs]

I respectfully disagree. I think you're looking at language through the narrow microscope of what you know about linguistics and missing entirely the sociological and anthropological aspects of language.

You wrote:

"First off, there is not "correct" or "incorrect" way of saying or writing anything. There are no real "rules" of any language."

I believe language, when we get down to the brass tacks, is *wholly and entirely* about rules. With the exception of onomatopoeia, language is a series of arbitrary sounds and symbols which populations assign meaning to. There must be some agreement within the population as to both meaning and structure. Those are the rules.

Language, as I understand it, is all about rules. It ceases to function without rules. If they are violated too severely, people wouldn't understand each other. Consider the biblical myth of the Tower of Babel.

As a less extreme example, Italian is often cited as a language spoken in forty different ways. The dialects were often very distinct and this caused problems, particularly after Italy was unified. It took a while, but an "official" dialect was adopted. I would assume the other dialects are spoken at home and in informal situations, but in formal situations, (I believe) the Florentine dialect is used. This was done intentionally and for pragmatic reasons.

There might not be a "language police" enforcing the rules, and language certainly isn't static, but how well an individual masters these rules can have profound a effect on his or her social and economic status. People judge you by the way you speak and write. I have seen people from Boston and the South, who moved to New York, lose their accents and avoid regional vernacular. I have seen New Yorkers do the same *in New York.*

You wrote:

"Buy 50 grammar books, and you will get 50 different "correct" ways of speaking or writing a language."

I think this is largely incorrect. Firstly, some nations do have an official way of speaking their native languages, and their grammar books are probably entirely in agreement.

"American English" style manuals are in agreement in the vast majority of cases. I have some experience with several (Chicago, New York Time, AP, etc.) They tend to disagree only on the most extreme niceties of punctuation. English English is, of course, different, but there are still local rules and there can be consequences for breaking them.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 14 January 2001).]

[paulcs]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by spoogenet:
I thought hiragana and katakana were different styles of the kanji? I thought one was more script-like?</font>

Kanji is the pictographic alphabet. Hiragana and Katakana are the phonetic alphabets. I believe their characters are rooted in Kanji.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Sasq]

Hiragana and katakana are derived from Kanji and are used to represent phonetic sounds, hiragana is the English equivalent to cursive and katakana is more angular and is normally used to represent 'borrowed' or foreign words, I believe the usage was reversed prior to WWII.

I agree with paulcs in terms of yes language has rules, and the use of language will differ between countries and socio-economic sectors within a country. Any given group of people who share a common interest will develop their own language and use it to make communicating necessary ideas.
Its interesting to see the English words adopted here for describing computer terms, because the Japanese lexicon didn't have the ability to describe or assign labels to the various technologies. Its also interesting to point out that due to the Japanese language structure and politeness required until this century Japanese didn't have the pronouns he and she, they were 'created' by Japanese scholars early this century to make it easier to translate foreign books into Japanese.

Its also interesting to note - and I don't know the number - how many words Shakespeare supplied for our 'modern' lexicon.

English like all other languages evolves and changes, and society as a whole dictates what the rules for communication are. Keep in mind that you need not only grammatical correctness to use English but you also need to know the function and appropriate use of the language as well. A good example would be walking into a 'biker' bar walking up to the nearest biggest guy and asking 'Excuse me sir, would you have a match' if you happen to be wearing a pinstripe suit I give your life expectancy to be about 45 seconds
Whereas the better way to ask would be 'gotta light?'

Yes there is a right and wrong way to use the English language, but please keep in mind the function and appropriate use

Danny

sorry just felt like the rant

[paulcs]

Danny, I envy you. I would love to be in your position. Unfortunately, I can count the number of Japanese words I know with my fingers and maybe the toes on one foot. What's worse, when presented with a word-for-word Japanese-English translation, I remain completely in the dark. They may as well leave it in Japanese. I am familar with the basic differences in syntax, but it makes absolutely no sense to me.

I think language conventions (or *rules*) become hardwired into one's brain. As you get older, this stuff gets harder and harder.

A few years ago, I was following a subtitled Japanese comedy-soap opera. One of the lead characters was a chef: Japanese, but trained in Paris. In one episode she claimed, "only Japanese (speakers) understand my French."

Again, I envy you. You're doing something I've always wanted to do.

Do school children still giggle at the odd gaijin walking down the street?

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 14 January 2001).]

[Sasq]

Paulcs

yeah they still giggle, although not as much as they used to. It's more the 'cool girls' that do it now. cool girls being the 14-20 bracket with the really high platform shoes etc.

I've been pretty lucky, I used to work for a government department in Australia and when they downsized I was able to take a redundancy package which at least financed me getting here.

The current theory on hardwiring and language is if you learn a language before you turn 12 or so you will become a 'native speaker' of course you can still learn at any age the wiring is harder to reorder though.

Just so you know where I'm at in the age stakes the numbers 26 are stareing down the barrels of a shotgun at me

[Buuri]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Liquid Snake:
I've been told that you have to learn a thousand characters of Chinese to read a newspaper.</font>

Yes, but there is a system to those characters so that they can be identified from specific details. You don't actually have to know them, because you can guess what they mean by seeing them, and also construct new ones.

Anyway, I stated this topic a year ago! I was away for months, and just how surprising it is to see this one alive.

:
B