dev-cpp-users

[Dev-C++] WAAAY off topic - does anyone speak Japanese?

[Daniel G. <sp...@ho...>]

I was thinking about learning Japanese. I always enjoyed learning european 
languages (I'm not great at any of them, French I'm ok at, but I enjoy 
learning snippets) but I was wondering if anyone speaks Japanese, how 
different is it to european langues (I think the softer you speak the words 
mean different things, and there are many types of kanji but I don't know 
why!).

Any good websites that can help me (apart from babel fish on alta vista).

Thanks,
Daniel

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RE: [Dev-C++] WAAAY off topic - does anyone speak Japanese?

[P.D. v. Z. <pa...@my...>]

Hi,

I don't speak Japanese that well, but I'm trying to learn it myself too.
It's pretty easy in fact. Intonation doesn't have much to do with what the
words mean (that's in Chinese :P), it's more which sounds you use. You use
"ka" at the end of a sentence to make it a question, for example. You could
try having a look at the Pimsleur "Japanese 1" tapes/CDs/mp3s, they're a
great help to me as well. It does focus on speaking instead of writing, but
that should be ok (considering the extreme amount of characters they have
:|). If you want to learn the character sets, you're probably best off first
learning hiragana and katakana, both consisting of 46 characters. Hiragana
is the set of basic sounds (don't know a better word for it, English isn't
my native language either :P), with which you can compose a lot of words
(apparently that's what kids in Japan learn first as well). Katakana is a
set of characters used for "loan words"... when they use, for example,
English words, they write them with this character set (which often produces
funny sounding words as well).
These are the character sets (off some anime site I believe, hence the girls
next to the characters): http://mystgamedev.xs4all.nl/hiragana.jpg and
http://mystgamedev.xs4all.nl/katakana.jpg .
And anyone who knows I'm wrong or anything, please correct me :) I mostly
learn from what others tell me (a lot of my friends are big anime fans, and
one of them's even studying Japanese at a university, so I pick some things
up every now and then).

Regards,


Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: dev...@li...
[mailto:dev...@li...] On Behalf Of Daniel
Glenfield
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 11:28 AM
To: dev...@li...
Subject: [Dev-C++] WAAAY off topic - does anyone speak Japanese?

I was thinking about learning Japanese. I always enjoyed learning european
languages (I'm not great at any of them, French I'm ok at, but I enjoy
learning snippets) but I was wondering if anyone speaks Japanese, how
different is it to european langues (I think the softer you speak the words
mean different things, and there are many types of kanji but I don't know
why!).

Any good websites that can help me (apart from babel fish on alta vista).

Thanks,
Daniel

_________________________________________________________________
It's fast, it's easy and it's free. Get MSN Messenger today! 
http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger



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Re: [Dev-C++] WAAAY off topic - does anyone speak Japanese?

[w. y. <yok...@ve...>]

Daniel Glenfield wrote:
> 
> I was thinking about learning Japanese. I always enjoyed learning european
> languages (I'm not great at any of them, French I'm ok at, but I enjoy
> learning snippets)

I think Japanese is easier than european languages because unlike say
French, it does not have millions of verb conjugations, millions of
irregular verbs and noun gender. There is also a very small number of
possible sounds in Japanese. Sentence structure is different, but not
difficult. To learn how to read/write, start with hiragana and katakana
which are the phonetic symbols. Afterwards you can start with kanji.

Watching anime and reading manga in Japanese, which you find
interesting (<- very important), can be helpful.

Re: [Dev-C++] WAAAY off topic - does anyone speak Japanese?

[Alvin T. <al...@th...>]

<troll>
i dissagree. french is very easy; all you need to learn is the phrase 
'we surrender' and you're set!
</troll>


-alvin


w. y. wrote:

> Daniel Glenfield wrote:
> 
>>I was thinking about learning Japanese. I always enjoyed learning european
>>languages (I'm not great at any of them, French I'm ok at, but I enjoy
>>learning snippets)
> 
> 
> I think Japanese is easier than european languages because unlike say
> French, it does not have millions of verb conjugations, millions of
> irregular verbs and noun gender. There is also a very small number of
> possible sounds in Japanese. Sentence structure is different, but not
> difficult. To learn how to read/write, start with hiragana and katakana
> which are the phonetic symbols. Afterwards you can start with kanji.
> 
> Watching anime and reading manga in Japanese, which you find
> interesting (<- very important), can be helpful.
> 
> 
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