Learning Japanese.... Who is into it?

[ThreeStep]

English words come from about 5 different roots, Latin, Old English, Germanic (Norse, Dane, and German), Norman French, and everything else. None of them follow the same conjugation rules I believe, so yea.

Also, a lot of words I see with weird changes are of English roots, such as man becoming men.

Some of the weirdness comes from English dropping a lot of changes other languages put words through depending on case. Figuring if a word is the subject or direct object requires a look at context and word order and whatever else. I'll have to dig up my notes from a class I took on English; the professor went over the evolution from Old->Middle->Modern English, it was fascinating.

Tried learning Japanese a long time ago but didn't get too far. It wasn't anything about the language (though the alphabet makes my head spin today) but being a kid I got bored.

Anyone here speak the русский язык? There's a difficult language. Mostly. Having to use genitive endings with numbers made me switch to Spanish.

[ROFLWAFFLE!]

I'm still trying to learn Japanese and not sound like a weaboo at the same time, which is working out pretty fine since I'm half Cambodian/Japanese. What a strange combo... (.~.)
Sometimes I get thrown off at the Desu/Des-ka.

Desu = Stating "It is."
Des-ka = Asking a question.

[Warwick]

Too bad Linear B isn't around anymore. He was a linguistics expert; sounded very knowledgeable. Wouldn't be surprised if he did something in the field it for a living.

[toast]

Like I said in IRC, let's just all learn esperanto.

[The Commissar]

Like I said in IRC, let's just all learn esperanto.

Except Esperanto itself isn't as logical as the creator said it is.

[UNIT0918]

I'm planning on making Japanese my minor aside from my filming major. While I haven't been able to take any Japanese classes recently (The classes I need to get into are always so popular that they get taken the moment I try to get in myself.), I'm still immersing myself by playing Japanese video games. I played Persona 3 in English, so I know the story. Now I'm playing Persona 3 Portable in Japanese, so I review the story by reading and listening to the hints I hear in Japanese. I also play at the Japanese servers of Metal Gear Online. Since I'm playing with the Japanese folk, I'm forced to think as well as write in Japanese while at the same time trying to read what they type (Japanese Metal Gear Online players unfortunately don't like using the mic). Playing visual novels with the Japanese voices kinda help too. Not to mention that I try to speak Japanese with my dad now, who helps me along the way if I make some mistakes.

Also, I hear that foreign exchange programs are really valuable. Two of my teachers in high school lived in Japan for a couple of years and came back to America knowing a lot more than they would learn in a classroom. There's nothing better than totally immersing yourself in the language you're trying to learn since you're forced to learn it to get around.

[dragonloverx]

I'm planning on making Japanese my minor aside from my filming major. While I haven't been able to take any Japanese classes recently (The classes I need to get into are always so popular that they get taken the moment I try to get in myself.), I'm still immersing myself by playing Japanese video games. I played Persona 3 in English, so I know the story. Now I'm playing Persona 3 Portable in Japanese, so I review the story by reading and listening to the hints I hear in Japanese. I also play at the Japanese servers of Metal Gear Online. Since I'm playing with the Japanese folk, I'm forced to think as well as write in Japanese while at the same time trying to read what they type (Japanese Metal Gear Online players unfortunately don't like using the mic). Playing visual novels with the Japanese voices kinda help too. Not to mention that I try to speak Japanese with my dad now, who helps me along the way if I make some mistakes.

Also, I hear that foreign exchange programs are really valuable. Two of my teachers in high school lived in Japan for a couple of years and came back to America knowing a lot more than they would learn in a classroom. There's nothing better than totally immersing yourself in the language you're trying to learn since you're forced to learn it to get around.

[Gash]

English words come from about 5 different roots, Latin, Old English, Germanic (Norse, Dane, and German), Norman French, and everything else. None of them follow the same conjugation rules I believe, so yea.

Also, a lot of words I see with weird changes are of English roots, such as man becoming men.

Some of the weirdness comes from English dropping a lot of changes other languages put words through depending on case. Figuring if a word is the subject or direct object requires a look at context and word order and whatever else. I'll have to dig up my notes from a class I took on English; the professor went over the evolution from Old->Middle->Modern English, it was fascinating.

I'm not a linguist myself or anything like that but a friend of mine once described the English language in two ways that I think are fairly accurate.
It's a language made of bits of the language used by whoever has conquered us at some point or has been conquered by us or both and it expressed hate very well.

[Bara]

I'm not a linguist myself or anything like that but a friend of mine once described the English language in two ways that I think are fairly accurate. It's a language made of bits of the language used by whoever has conquered us at some point or has been conquered by us or both and it expressed hate very well.

Hah, yes I heard that descripion as "Norman men-at-arms trying to pick up Saxon bar maids." I can't say it is too much a suprise that a language whos expansion and growth was left in the hands of GI's and hookers is maybe lacking a little in planning, cohesion and logic.
I once read someone who described Russian as "a good language for thinking paranoid thoughts in."; wether this is true or not I have no idea...

[The Commissar]

I'm not a linguist myself or anything like that but a friend of mine once described the English language in two ways that I think are fairly accurate. It's a language made of bits of the language used by whoever has conquered us at some point or has been conquered by us or both and it expressed hate very well.

Hah, yes I heard that descripion as "Norman men-at-arms trying to pick up Saxon bar maids." I can't say it is too much a suprise that a language whos expansion and growth was left in the hands of GI's and hookers is maybe lacking a little in planning, cohesion and logic.
I once read someone who described Russian as "a good language for thinking paranoid thoughts in."; wether this is true or not I have no idea...

I actually heard Russian is balls crazy hard to learn.

[ThreeStep]

My favorite take on the English language is James Nicoll's:

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

I actually heard Russian is balls crazy hard to learn.

Hahaha oh yes. I took it for a year before giving up.There's two alphabets (print and cursive Cyrillic have a few different letters), some weird sounds (two ways to say "sh" for instance), the grammar is bit different from English and other screwy things (talking about numbers of objects, e.g. "two cats," "five cars" using case endings that don't make sense). I'd give specific examples, but that involves digging through a year's worth of notes from two years ago. We'll see.

Latin's crazy hard too, in a way. There's a structure and only 5 or so irregular verbs which is nice, but the endings. So many endings to learn. So many.

[The Commissar]

My favorite take on the English language is James Nicoll's:

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

I actually heard Russian is balls crazy hard to learn.

Hahaha oh yes. I took it for a year before giving up.There's two alphabets (print and cursive Cyrillic have a few different letters), some weird sounds (two ways to say "sh" for instance), the grammar is bit different from English and other screwy things (talking about numbers of objects, e.g. "two cats," "five cars" using case endings that don't make sense). I'd give specific examples, but that involves digging through a year's worth of notes from two years ago. We'll see.

Latin's crazy hard too, in a way. There's a structure and only 5 or so irregular verbs which is nice, but the endings. So many endings to learn. So many.

Sounds like Arabic a bit with its multiple sounds and endings. Arabic has verb endings which are random, and noun endings based on gender and number (male, female, dual, single, or multiple ownership), as well as 2 "h" sounds, 2 "d" sounds, 2 "t" sounds, 3 "th" sounds, 2 "s" sounds, 2 "k" sounds, 2 "r" sounds (one which is hard), ahyn which is just annoying as hell to pronounce as an English speaker, the infamous "kh" sound, and 28 letters each connecting in a different way. Oh and no written vowels.

It's actually easier than I thought.

[Gash]

Hah, yes I heard that descripion as "Norman men-at-arms trying to pick up Saxon bar maids." I can't say it is too much a suprise that a language whos expansion and growth was left in the hands of GI's and hookers is maybe lacking a little in planning, cohesion and logic.
I once read someone who described Russian as "a good language for thinking paranoid thoughts in."; wether this is true or not I have no idea...

GI's are yanks. Yanks generally butcher the language.

So nah its more like the language was left to a combination of nobility who spent a disturbing amount of time planning very violent things and killing each other and people who spend a very large amount of time engaging in violence. And the wenches of course.

[Caesius]

the infamous "kh" sound

You mean [x] as in Scottish "loch" or German "Ich"?

That one's easy. All you do is pronounce [k] without your tongue touching the roof (or rather, back) of your mouth.


...Unless that's not what it is, and is actually a "k" followed by "h," in which case that is hard.

[The Commissar]

It is like that, it's infamous because it's in so many Arab words. It's simple compared to the others I listed.