Thursday, 15 May 2014

Reading in Japanese

There are 4 systems of writing in Japanese that are used on a daily basis; Kanji, hiragana, katakana, romaji.

Romaji is the use of the alphanumeric characters used in English to represent Japanese sounds. These can often be seen in places where there will be lots of foreigners so that they can also read the signs ect.
This can be seen on the signs in the train station signs:

Here you can see the kanji at the top followed by the hiragana reading and under the green like the romaji.
It is also sometimes used for emphasis to make things look 'cool' and 'edgy' for example in magazines.

Katakana is used mainly for foreign loan words. These are words that come from other languages but have been adopted into the Japanese language for example chicken in Japanese is チキン (chikin). You see these a lot on non-japanese food menus like McDonalds.

Hiragana is probably the most used written system in Japanese. It can be used for as part of a word, in a mix with kanji to make a new word, to show the reading of a kanji and also as the particles that make up a sentence. Hiragana came into use because when the Japanese started to develop a written system using the Chinese Kanji they found that a lot of things would not fit with the Japanese speech patterns such as the lack of particles in Chinese and so hiragana was created.

Kanji is a system of writing borrowed from the Chinese. It is estimated that there are around 50 000 kanji in the Japanese language however it is not necessary to learn them all in order to be classed as fluent. Each kanji has a meaning and different readings dependent on the context is is being used in.
For example あのはきれいです。(ano hito wa kirei desu.) That person is pretty.
あの人形はきれいです。(ano ningyou wa kirei desu.) That doll is pretty.
They both still mean person but adding the second kanji turns the reading from hito to nin and the meaning to more of a feeling of the form of a person or a doll.

Japanese Pronouns

In Japanese there are a multitude of ways to address yourself and the people around you based on gender representation, your status, the status of the person you are talking to and social situations.

If in doubt it is always safest to use 私 (watashi). Watashi is gender neutral and can be used in both formal and informal situations by people of any status.

The pronouns that most males use are either おれ (ore) or 僕 (boku). Boku tends to be used by small children and young men where as ore has more manly undertones and will be used by men who consider themselves as adults.

Most women will tend to use watashi in most situations however there is also a lot of times when あたし (atashi) is also used by women and in some cases men in more informal situations. This is seen as a more girly and effeminate pronoun and often perceived as very cute.

The most formal way of addressing yourself is to use わたくし (watakushi). Watakushi is used in very formal situations and is gender neutral.

Children and women will also sometimes address themselves in the 3rd person and use their own name as this is seen as a cute and childish thing to do.

Mostly when speaking it is polite to address a person by their name. If the person you are addressing is a close friend then just their name is enough however if you are just meeting this person and they have roughly the same social standing as you then the polite way to address them would be [name]san. If they are young children then girls are normally addressed as [name]chan and boys are [name]kun. If the person is of a higher social standing then it is polite to use [name]sama or if they have a profession such as teacher or doctor then [name]sensei is often used.

Another way of addressing someone else is to use あなた (anata) which is a formal and gender neutral term. There are other terms like おまえ (omae) which is normally used between men and as an insult but when used between friends can be seen as more of a term of endearment.

When talking about they there are two gender specific friends 彼女(kanojo) 彼 (kare) which relate to female and male respectively. These translate roughly to 'my female friend' and 'my male friend'.

Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu

よろしくお願いします (yoroshiku onegaishimasu) is one of the many Japanese set phrases that don't really have a direct translation or meaning in English. 

The first time most people learning Japanese learn this phrase is when they are learning to introduce themselves. In this circumstance it is loosely translated as 'Please take care of me' or 'I look forward to working with you'. 
私はケーティです。よろしくお願いします
My name is Katie. Please take care of me.

There are however other times when it can be used for example the phrase can be used to encourage other people. In this case it's translation would be closer to 'Please try your best' or 'Let's do our best'.
じゃ、始めましょう。よろしくお願いします
Well then, let's start. Please try your best.

There is also another set phrase containing Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu. This one is said to people when you see them for the first time after the new year has begun. 今年もよろしくお願いします。(kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu) which can be translated into 'Please look after me as well this year.'

There are other examples of useful set phrases in Japanese. In Japan it is polite to say いただきます(itadakimasu) before a mean and ごちそうさまでした (gochisousamadeshita) when finished eating. The direct translations of these are 'I recieve' in keigo form and 'It was quite a feast'. These phrases are applicable but there is really no English equivalent and they will often be translated into 'Bon Appetite' and 'Thank you for the meal' as they are the closest possible phrases. 

Verb Forms

There are a lot of different forms for verbs in Japanese implying lots of different things about the verb.

The first thing to note about this is that there are 3 different groups of verbs and each will conjugate in a different manner. Type 2, the -ru verbs are often the easiest to conjugate as they will often just involve replacing the ending with the desired new verb ending form. Type 1 are slightly more complicated as the are often dependent on changing the final vowel as well as conjugating the verb. Type 3 are irregular but only consist of 2 words; 来る (kuru) and する (suru).

The dictionary form
This is the most basic form of all Japanese verbs. It is called the dictionary form because it is the form that is used in the dictionary. This form is used in informal conversation to represent a verb in the present positive form.

The distinguishing feature of this form is that all of the verbs end in a -u in the form.
As stated before Type 2 verbs are very uniform and all end in -ru in this form.
Examples of Type 2 verbs are 食べる(tabeRU), 見る (miRU) and 起きる (okiRU).
In order to change Type 1 verbs into dictionary form the last letter has to be -u.
For example to change a Type 1 verb from the -masu form to dictionary form:
飲みます (nomIMASU) - IMASU + U = 飲む (nomU).
The Type 3 words in dictionary form are 来る(kuru) and する (suru)

-Te form
The -te form is used for a lot of different things. When a verb is in the -te imasu form it means that the verb is present continuous. Then the verb is in the -te (kudasai) form it is an order.
So for example 薬を飲んでください (kusuri o nonde kudasai) means please drink the medicine but 薬を飲んでいます (kusuri o nonde imasu) means drinking the medicine.
To make Type 2 verbs into -te form the -ru is replaced by -te.

  • 食べる becomes 食べて
  • 見る becomes 見て
  • 起きるbecomes 起きて 
Type 1 has 5 different ways that they can become -te form:
  • Verbs that end in i, chi or ri when in the masu form become tte. Eg 待ちます(machimasu) becomes 待って (matte)
  • Verbs that end in ni, bi or mi become nde so 死にます(shinimasu) becomes 死んで (shinde)
  • Verbs that end in ki have the ki replaced with ite such as 歩きます(arukimasu) would be 歩いて (aruite) in -te form
  • Verbs that end in gi are replaced with ide so 泳ぎます (oyogimasu) becomes 泳いで (oyoide)
  • Verbs that end in shi become shite which means  かします (kashimasu) becomes かして (kashite)
Type 3 would take 来る(kuru) and it becomes 来て (kite) and する (suru) become して (shite)

Levels of Politeness

There are different levels of politeness in Japanese and each has it's own set of circumstances of when they can be used.

The most polite is keigo. 

Keigo is used in circumstances where the speaker believes they are of a lower standing to the listener. This will normally occur in a work space when a subordinate is talking to their boss or in terms of a student teacher relationship.

An example of this is the different words used in the neutral -masu form compared to the keigo version of the verbs.

This can be seen in the 2 verbs もらいます (moraimasu) and くれます(kuremasu) which mean to receive and to give respectively. However, in keigo form these would be replaced with いただいます (itadakimasu) and くださいます (kudasaimasu). There is also another keigo word for to give やります (yarimasu) which is used when talking about giving things to someone the speaker judges below them for example a younger person or an animal.

One of the least polite of Japanese is to use a more casual plain form.

This is normally used in very informal settings and between people who are close friends or have met a few times.

One aspect that effects the plain form is the conjugation of the verb.

For example the verb 食べます (tabemasu) to eat:


-Masu Form Plain Form
Present Positive 食べます (tabemasu) 食べ (taberu)
Past Positive 食べました (tabemashita) 食べ (tabeta)
Present Negative 食べません (tabemasen) 食べない (tabenai)
Past Negative 食べませんでした (tabemasen deshita) 食べなかった (tabenakatta)

Also with the plain form a lot of the particles will be omitted for example the copula です (desu) which means to be. 

Friday, 2 May 2014

Joshi

Joshi are a class of Japanese words that carry no lexical meaning in a sentence.
They make up the grammatical part of the Japanese language.

は / が
"wa/ ga"
These particles are used to mark the subject and object, respectively.
eg.大学生です。
I am a university student.
The words highlighted in blue show the words that carry meaning in the sentence.
は marks 私 (meaning I) as the part of the sentence that is marked at the university student.


"ga"
The question particle.
This particle is added to the end of a sentence to mark it as a question.
eg. 猫はねっています
The cat is sleeping
猫はねっていますか。
Is the cat sleeping?
The use of か is however dropped during more informal interactions and in speech will be marked by a rising intonation and written marked by a question mark.


"no"
This particle is used to indicate possession.
eg. をわすれました。
I forgot My umbrella.
Using no indicates the the object following the particle belongs the the subject before it.
As opposed to saying
私は傘をわすれました。
I forgot an umbrella.


"o"
This particle shows that the object relates to the verb.
eg. おすし食べました
I ate sushi

で/ に/ 
"de/ ni/ e"
I have grouped de, ni and e together because they have to do with location and direction but in slightly different ways.
で is more associated with the method of doing something
おすしおはし食べました
I ate the sushi using chopsticks
Although one could also use it in terms of
公園あるきました
I walked around the park
Which would be different from
公園あるきました
I walked to the park
Because ni and e are both used in this way as they are more concerned with getting toward the location that what is actually done once the person gets to the location.

Friday, 14 March 2014

Classifying Words in Japanese.

Japanese word break down into 2 main categories (jiritsugo and fuzokugo) which then both break down into smaller subcategories.

Jiritsugo (自立語) means words (語) that stand (立) by themselves (自); these words carry the meanings in a sentences and in that respect could be compared to the open word class in the English language as at their base forms both contain their language equivalent of nouns, verbs , adjectives, adverbs ect. 

However jiritsugo words are then broken down further into katsuyōgo and mukatsuyōgo. These are respectively, words that can be inflected and words that cannot be inflected. The katsuyōgo category has 3 types of words in it; verbs, '-i' adjectives and '-na' adjectives. 

Verbs in Japanese have a very simple inflectional pattern as they are all either a group 1 '-u' verb, a group 2 '-ru' verb or a group 3 which contains the two irregular verbs 'kuru' and 'suru'. All of these groups then have rules which allow the verb to be changed from the original jisho (dictionary) form into it's other forms, i.e. the -masu form which is the present tense of Japanese verbs. 

 There are also two kinds of adjectives in Japanese. Adjectives ending in '-i' that are known as keiyōshi and adjectives that end in '-na', keiyōdōshi. The keiyōshi are heavily related to verb phrases in English languages, for example the word 'akai' meaning 'red' would then be inflected to akakatta which changes the tense to past and the meaning to 'was red'. Keiyōdōshi are more closely related to adjectival nouns and more comparable to the adjectives of the English language, words like hansamuna (handsome), kireina (pretty or clean). 

Japanese adverbs (fukushi) cannot in inflected and fall under the second category in jiritsugo words, mukatsuyōgo. These adjectives are made by changing the ending of an adjective to create the adverb, in the same manner as adding the morpheme -ly to end of a word creates an adverb. This can be seen in Japanese by adding '-ku' to the end of '-i' adjectives. For example hayai hito means 'fast person' but hayaku kitte means come quickly.

Mukatsuyōgo also contains Japanese nouns (meishi) which means the naming part of speech which is the same as English nouns. As well as setsuzokushi (conjunctions) and rentaishi (prenominals). 

Fuzokugo (付属語) are words with no meaning and only serve to add the the grammatical set up of a sentence. Joshi (particals) are words like wa and ka which serve as subject and topic markers. These aren't really seen in English language and often are very confusing for speakers of English to grasp when learning Japanese.