Japanese help?

Poststructural Pub
1

A student who lives a floor below me is from Japan and he learned English in school. His name is Ren and he is really nice.

The type of English he learned was the “Standard American English” type. Needless to say, the people here in Kentucky don’t speak standard American English or any other standard form of English…

So he has trouble understanding EVERYBODY. One of the people who runs the dorm is from Jamaica and Ren can’t understand a word he says. He always has to ask people he knows (like me) to tell him what is being said.

I’m wondering if anybody can help me learn some basic spoken Japanese? Is that too hard to do in a short amount of time?

I want to know some things like, “How are you?,” “Do you want to go eat?,” “I live in room 419.,” “Are you gay,?” (shh!) and other simple Japanese things. He can barely understand my English, even when I speak as clearly and slowly as I can, so yeah. I know he must feel lonely and so isolated, not really speaking the local language.

Advice, people?

2

How about doing a language exchange with Ren? An hour a day, or every couple days or something…for half an hour he teaches you Japanese, and for a half hour you teach him the local expressions and pronounciations he needs for communication in your area.

The more time you spend together talking the better he will be able to understand your English, and if there is a real block on a given word/pronounciation use pen and paper to clarify things.

3

Cran,
Have a look around here

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=english+-+japanese+dictionary&meta=

You might be able to write out some basic phrases on a sheet of paper and point to the ones you need.

It would be slow but you might just be able to get your message across

Slan,
D. :wink:

4

Beth, that’s a super idea…now if we can only find the time! lol

He pronounces my name “Rarord” (it’s supposed to be Harold, for those who don’t know). He messes up the H, the R, and the L and changes them all to Rs. :sniffle:

I have another question for anybody who is familiar with Japanese culture–is it common for Japanese guys to carry a purse thingy?

5

Make time for it - it’s a great opportunity for both of you. Maybe have lunch together twice a week or something.

Don’t take it personally :wink: The Japanese language doesn’t differentiate between the R and L sounds like English does. In my Linguistics courses we talked about babies and phonetics comprehension - apparently they’ve done research and babies who are only a few months old can differentiate amongst ALL sounds produced by all (tested) human languages, but by the age of one year they have homed in on the differentiations they will need for their mother tongue (the speech they hear around them) and do not differentiate between sounds that are not used in that language. So a 4 month old Japanese baby will hear the different in English ‘R’ and ‘L’, while a 4 month old English (language) baby will be able to differentiate between oh, I dunno, the very slight consonantal differences in Irish, for example. (Which I know from experience I have a great deal of trouble perceiving now!)

As for the H, perhaps Japanese (like French) does not have an H sound at the beginning of words? Maybe Ren will give you a Japanese nickname. :slight_smile:

6

He made me write my name down on paper so that he could see the letters (which I guess is because he couldn’t hear the difference) and he still can’t say it, but I let it go.

Luckily there is another Japanese student here (whose English is really good) but she lives on the other side of campus and from what I gather he never sees her.

I knew about the R and L in Japanese, but its the H that puzzled me.

There used to be Japanese classes given here but I am pretty sure the instructor is gone now.

7

Cran,

my sister-in-law is Japanese, and I have a half-Japanese niece.

A while ago I got her a children’s Japanese-English dictionary - English and Japanese words given, with a picture of the object or action.

Something like that might be useful. It was a big A4 book, so a bit big to carry around, but you could sit together to study stuff, and help each other with pronunciation. I hate to think what a mess we make of Japanese words, but Japanese people are far to polite to correct us.

I don’t know if most Japanese men carry purses these days, but as traditional Japanese dress does not have pockets, people carried things in a bag or small sack suspended from their belts, much like earlier Europeans.

8

I remember that book. I think it was this: http://tinyurl.com/brp8j - or something like that anyway. I don’t recognise the cover…

It won’t be perfect for pronounciation as no written resource ever is, but it could be fun to point at things and have Ren tell you the pronounciation.

9

Incredible, isn’t it? Additionally, our vocal mechanisms work much the same way. At a very early stage we are capable of making any sound found in any dialect in the world. Later, we tend to lose that ability. Which is why it’s so difficult to speak a foreign language like a native and not sound “foreign.” There are so many sublte intonations that, like Ava said, our ear can’t pick up, and if it does, our vocal mechanisms don’t want to cooperate.

Ava’s suggestions for communicating with your friend sound right-on to me. As most of her comments typically do, btw. :slight_smile:

Will O’Ban

10

Noah took conversational Japanese for 2 years - if you still need some help let me know and I’ll get you two in touch.

BTW - Noah had a woman teacher for Japanese, and evidently there are certain ways of saying words that people will know he had a woman for a teacher. I found that really interesting.

11

Most Japanese people study English, but until recently it was taught like Latin - grammar translation style to pass entrance exams for high school and university. Many people can read better than they can speak, so avanutria’s idea about a clarifying things on paper is sound advice.

The reason he is there is probably to improve his listening and speaking skills, so I expect he will be grateful for any conversations until he gets used to the local dialect.

I don’t understand why he is unable to pronounce the H sound. Japanese has a clear H sounds Ha Hi Hu(this one is between Fu and hu) he ho. Sometimes the students get hung up on R sounds, especially the syllable-final r sound in US English, and that affects the rest of the word.

If you need to know any Japanese drop me a PM, but then again, I think he will understand the local dialect sooner than you will pick up Japanese.

Although, Japanese with a Kentuckian twang could be quite interesting.:smiley:

Mukade

12

I speak Japanese pretty well, but not super fluent. I’ll try to answer the questions I’ve seen.

Very basic Japanese is not a complicated language. Verbs do not change tense for person like all European languages I’m aware of. There are levels of politeness, but that’s considerably beyone basic Japanese.

The language exchange / conversation partner thing is a great way to get to know somebody, and probably a much better way to learn to speak Japanese than via web sources. But google “Jim Breen Monash University” without the quotes, and you’ll find a whole bunch of links to Japanese language stuff on the web.

“Harold” would be a difficult name for many native Japanese speakers to pronounce. There is a “Ha” sound in Japanese, but they don’t make a huge distinction between R and L. Blended consanant sounds ‘LD’ ‘BL’ that are quite common in English are almost non-existant in Japanese. Syllables don’t typically end on consonants either. There are some exceptions, but the majority of the phonetic sounds in Japanese are a consonant followed by a vowell, or the vowell by itself. a i u e o, ka ki, ku, ke, ko, sa, shi, su, se, so are the first 15 sounds of the phonetic “alphabet”. If I were to approximate “Harold” in Japanese, it might be more like “Harodu”, drop that pesky L.

It is very common for Japanese men to carry a sort of zip up case/wallet/PDA holder type thingy. Doesn’t tell you a thing about his orientation.

How are you? O Genki Deska
Do you want to go eat? Tabe ni ikimashoka
I live in room 419. Yon hyaku Ju kyu goshitsu ni sunde imasu.
Are you gay? Do sei ai de arun deska

Consonants are pronounced pretty much like we expect. Vowels are pronounced like Spanish or Italian. Try not to emphasize any one syllable over any others in a word. I’ve twiddled spaces and letters slightly from standard to make them more pronouncible. The phrases are all rather formal, the last one maybe excessively so.

I’ll PM Cran with my E-mail address…

13

The H thing may just be a personal issue with him. The sound exists in Japanese the more or less the same as English.

14

Oh and a few things you might want to know:

Good morning: Ohayo (sounds kinda like Ohio but with slightly more emphasis on the second syllable)
Good morning (formal): Ohayo Gozaimas
Good afternoon: Konnichiwa
Good evening: Konbanwa

Yes: Hai (like “high”)
No: iie (sort of like “ee-ay”)

Me: watashi
You: anata (but it is inconsiderate to refer to someone as “you” to their face. Always use their name with the suffix -san [or -chan if you are speaking to a child] if you are speaking to them or about them within earshot)

And since you like animals:

Dog: Inu
Cat: Neko
Bird: Tori
Monkey: Saru
Horse: Uma
Cow: Ushi

A few colors (the ones I remember):

Red: akai
Blue: aoi (like “ah-oh-ee”)
Green: midori
White: shiroi
Black: Kuroi

Numbers:

1 ichi
2 ni
3 san
4 shi (or yon; “shi” also means death and some people are superstitious)
5 go
6 roku
7 nana (or shichi, I forget the difference in use)
8 hachi
9 kyuu
10 jyuu
11 jyuu-ichi
12 jyuu-ni
(etc)
20 ni-jyuu
21 ni-jyuu-ichi
(etc up to 99)
100 hyaku
1,000 sen
10,000 man (like “mahn”, not “hey man”)

Note on numbers: it’s fine to just count with these, but when describing quantities of things, the Japanese use a whole bunch of “counting words” that go on for miles and are specific to categories of objects and I’ve forgotten what few I ever learned. Ask your friend about them if you’re interested in learning them

Note on pronouncing all of this: Open your mouth when you speak. Smile if you have to. You can’t speak Japanese in the back of your throat without mashing it up. There are short and long vowels. Jyu and Jyuu are not the same thing. Keep your syllables clipped and short unless they are meant to be long syllables. Japanese isn’t really compatable with a US southern accent, I’m afraid.

Go to http://www.japanese-online.com/ if you’re really serious about wanting to pick up the language.

15

Although Cran was probably joking about asking that question up front, I just wanted to correct a couple of things.

“Do sei ai” means homosexuality. “Doseiaisha” means a gay person. Also, ‘de aru’ is very formal and very rarely used when speaking. The imported
word ‘gei’ = gay is more common, but asking ‘gei desu ka?’ = ‘Are you gay’ would probably frighten the poor lad back to Japan. :smiley:

You could introduce the subject by asking if he knows the comedian “Hard Gay.”

Hard Gay is very popular at the moment. He appears on a Saturday evening programme and helps unsuspecting members of the public. He spots someone needing assistance, runs up to them, thrusts his groin, then helps them with something while they are still in total shock.

A clip of him in action>>
http://media.putfile.com/wwwadotAfhakersadotnl_Hard-Gay

Mukade

16

What fun!

I think he would be very much appreciated along our Gulf Coast right now . . .