日本語でお話しましょうよ！

[Archaic]

ここには日本語を勉強している人があるはずでしょう。一緒に練習しませんか？もし分からなかったら、もちろ ん、漢字を使えなくてもいいよ。

[The Doctor]

This probably says "I am spamming, watch me post spam. Watch me do it in a language most of you can't read or understand. I can do it. I can do it nine times." In Japanese.

*considers checking, lol*

[Alabaster.j.cat]

Just for Dr. Oaks sake.

Land of the Rising Sun (1 Viewing)
Not just an "other anime" forum. Talk about anything to do with Japan here, from anime & manga, to politics, sports, and music. Japanese language discussion both allowed and encouraged!

[Archaic]

それは違うよ！もう。

只今、俺はスパムしていて、スパムするこを見て下さい。大部分の皆さんの分からない言葉ではスパムすること を見てください。俺が出来るよ。九回出来るよ。

ビイイイイイダ。　＝ｐ

[The Doctor]

Touché Mr Kitten, Touché.

*considers replying in a Babelfished pile of rubbish*

[Zhen Lin]

このFirefoxで日本語を書くことは不便で...

[Archaic]

本当ですか？俺もFirefoxを使っているですけど、別に不便だと思わなかったぜ。

ああ。刘振霖君が、Linuxを使っているですよね。Linuxで日本語を書くことが困るかどか分からない けど、XPで、Language Barというのものがあるだから、日本語を書くことが簡単だぜ。

[tyger]

Most amusing topic ever +). OR at least at this hour

[Zhen Lin]

そうなのです。私はFirefoxで日本語IMEがつけられません。が、ワープロでつけられるので、ワープ ロで打って、Firefoxでペーストしています。

[Archaic]

そうゆうことするのかい？面倒臭いな．．．
何が出来ないのか？Firefoxで日本語IMEが使えるはずですよ。別のＩＭＥ使ってみたの ？

[Misty]

The Squares, Duke, The Squares!

[Kasumi]

Isn't it funny to read a bunch of characters you don't have the slightliest idea what they mean? ^^;

[Zhen Lin]

The point is that I cannot access the IME - it's fixed as the default. I know there's a key sequence that will allow me to switch IMEs without using the IME menu (which is inaccessible from Firefox since it doesn't use the standard right-click menu *grumble*) - but I haven't found it yet.

[Quagbert]

My pathetic attempt at translating Archaic and Zhen Lin's conversation:

ここには日本語を勉強している人があるはずでしょう。一生に練習しませんか？もし分からなかっ たら、もちろ ん、漢字を使えなくてもいいよ。
I expect people studying Japanese will be here. Won't you practice together? (should be 一緒 instead of 一生, unless you meant "Won't you practice for a lifetime?") If by chance you don't understand, certainly, you don't have to be able to use kanji.
それは違うよ！もう。

只今、俺はスパムしていて、スパムするこを見て下さい。大部分の皆さんの分からない言葉ではス パムすること を見てください。俺が出来るよ。九回出来るよ。

ビイイイイイダ。　＝ｐ
That's different! Already.

Right now I'm spamming, please look at my spamming. In the words that most everyone doesn't understand, please look at the spamming. I can, nine times!

Biiiiiida. =p
このFirefoxで日本語を書くことは不便で...
It's inconvenient to write Japanese in this copy of Firefox...
本当ですか？俺もFirefoxを使っているですけど、別に不便だと思わなかったぜ。

ああ。刘振霖君が、Linuxを使っているですよね。Linuxで日本語を書くことが困るかどか分からない けど、XPで、Language Barというのものがあるだから、日本語を書くことが簡単だぜ。
Is that true? I'm using Firefox too, but I didn't think there was anything inconvenient.

Ah, Zhen Lin-Kun, you're using Linux. In Linux, I can't understand the excessive bother of writing Japanese, but in Windows XP, writing Japanese is simple because of the Language Bar.
そうなのです。私はFirefoxで日本語IMEがつけられません。が、ワープロでつけられるので、ワープ ロで打って、Firefoxでペーストしています。
That's right. I can't use the Japanese IME in Firefox, but I can use it in a word processor, strike it there, and paste in in Firefox.
そうゆうことするのかい？面倒臭いな．．．
何が出来ないのか？Firefoxで日本語IMEが使えるはずですよ。別のＩＭＥ使ってみたの ？
That's what you do in that case? Seems tiresome...What can't you do? Firefox ought to handle the Japanese IME. Maybe try another IME?

[Virility]

Isn't it funny to read a bunch of characters you don't have the slightliest idea what they mean? ^^;

I agree, I went through quite the fight so they apear as those charecters and not boxes and now im confused as to what they mean.

Oh, and the language bar doesnt work with AOL. Anyone want to offer some assistance?

[Argy]

I know there's a key sequence that will allow me to switch IMEs without using the IME menu (which is inaccessible from Firefox since it doesn't use the standard right-click menu *grumble*) - but I haven't found it yet.

In Windows, this key sequence is Left Alt+Shift, but since you're using Linux...

[Kadabra]

Kadabraは日本語を話すかもしれません。この会話は面白い。:-D

[Zhen Lin]

Well, since the default IME is actually an IME-host, I installed a Japanese IME compatible with it and now switching is no problem.

では、喋り続けましょう。

[Kadabra]

あたかも人々があなたを待っているかのように行動します。:-D
私は、日本語が、私が学習した言語のうちの人ではないので、この記述が正確かどうか尋ねたい。
私は、自動翻訳ツールの助けを借りて有効に書こうとしています。これは容易なタスクではありま せん。

[Quagbert]

Kadabraは日本語を話すかもしれません。この会話は面白い。:-D
Kadabra might speak Japanese. This conversation is interesting. :-D

では、喋り続けましょう。
Then, let's continue chatting.

[Kasumi]

何述べたいと思うか。

I hope Babel Fish got this right. o_O;

[Quagbert]

あたかも人々があなたを待っているかのように行動します。:-D
私は、日本語が、私が学習した言語のうちの人ではないので、この記述が正確かどうか尋ねたい。
私は、自動翻訳ツールの助けを借りて有効に書こうとしています。これは容易なタスクではありせ ん。

I don't think my Japanese grammar's good enough to tackle this yet so here's an Excite translation:
It acts as if people were waiting for you. :-D
Because Japanese is not a person of the languages that I studied in me, I want to ask whether this description is accurate.
I try to write effectively by the help of the automatic translation tool. This is not an easy task.

何述べたいと思うか。

Babel Fish re-transation: What we would like to express?

[Kasumi]

XD It was actually "what do you want to talk about?". But well, it's almost the same I think. oO;

Oh well...

初期のkun は最もかわいく邪悪なgenious である。

*giggles and wonders how Babel Fish is going to re-translate this* ^^;;

[Ice Rabbit]

Too bad they just turn up as question marks to me.

[Alabaster.j.cat]

私はちょうど会話で得たいと思った。 :rolleyes:

[FabuVinny]

初期のkun は最もかわいく邪悪なgenious である。

Early kun to be loveliest is wicked genious.

Oooo....kay.

私はちょうど会話で得たいと思った。 :rolleyes:

I obtained exactly in conversation to be, with you thought.

If you say so...

My turn:
今私はジャクソンである。今私はない。今私は任意一流の人公正である。

[Kasumi]

Early kun to be loveliest is wicked genious.

Oooo....kay.



No! I said Archaic kun is the cutest evil genious. XD;;;

[FabuVinny]

火、氷、または電光のないハーモニーを妨げなさい。これらのtitans が衝突する世界に破壊を破壊する。戦いを鎮めるために水のすばらしい保護者が起こるけれども。だけ歌は失敗 する、従って地球は灰に回る。

[Alabaster.j.cat]

前の文は意味を成さなかった。私はこれでよりよくなることができる。

Ok lets hope i finally got a handle on this.

[Shiksa ♥]

You two are being quite polite with each other. XD
And wow...I really need to practice kanji... >.>

Zhen, I think left alt+shift is the shortcut you're looking for, unless I'm misunderstanding what you want.

[Kasumi]

こんにちは、私の名前はAlexandra である。Vader 会えてうれしい主。

[The Incarnation ポケモン]

私の日本語は一番下手ですよ…（恥）
でも何とか日本人と話す事が出来ました。　すなわちこのサイト (www.geocities.jp/bluegentlemen/)の管理人と話す事。　私はあまり日本語の文法を分かりませんので、みんなさん是非よく教えてく ださい！

[Girafarig_Magcargo]

Fucking Japanese and their syllable-based writing systems... I don't get how you can master so many symbols.

However, I would never want to learn Japanese ever.

[Zhen Lin]

What? Each syllabary only has 46 glyphs (48 if you count the obsolete ゑ and ゐ) - multiplied by two that is still a modest 92 (or 96). It's easy enough to master if you put in the effort.

Kanji, on the other hand, takes years to master. (And just months to forget, without constant use.) The average Japanese learns the 2000+ most common ones over the course of 18 years from birth to high school graduation. Foreign adult students seem to be able to achieve the same in one quarter the time, but with much more effort and initiative.

Naturally, it helps to be exposed young, but nothing is more damaging to learning ability than pessimism. Obviously, to the alphabet-addicted people, they are quite intimidating - but they are not that complex.

[MondoTR]

Too bad they just turn up as question marks to me.
Same here.

[Kadabra]

You might need to set your browser character encoding setting to Shift_JIS. (Although I don't need to...)

[Zhen Lin]

No, it's not Shift-JIS here, just plain old HTML entities. Probably a font issue.

[Girafarig_Magcargo]

What? Each syllabary only has 46 glyphs (48 if you count the obsolete ゑ and ゐ) - multiplied by two that is still a modest 92 (or 96). It's easy enough to master if you put in the effort.

Kanji, on the other hand, takes years to master. (And just months to forget, without constant use.) The average Japanese learns the 2000+ most common ones over the course of 18 years from birth to high school graduation. Foreign adult students seem to be able to achieve the same in one quarter the time, but with much more effort and initiative.

Naturally, it helps to be exposed young, but nothing is more damaging to learning ability than pessimism. Obviously, to the alphabet-addicted people, they are quite intimidating - but they are not that complex.

You make alphabets sound like they're bad, when they're obviously superior to syllabary's and complex systems in most ways except the amount of characters used to express an idea. Of course, I've grown up seeing the alphabet and some of my mom's Hangul (Another superior Korean system).

[Zhen Lin]

Alphabets are in fact quite bad for languages with large Sinitic borrowings (such as Korean). The ambiguity created requires nothing less than Hanzi/Kanji/Hanja to disambiguate. (This problem could be solved by using the polysyllabic native words only.) (Admittedly, this problem isn't that common, context is very useful - still you see it in Korean newspapers once in a while.)

This line of thinking only leads to madness. The 漢字 have their place and they are there to stay. Since the kanji-fearing Allied taskforce only managed to convince the Japanese to establish a fixed list of kanji for common use, and since the Ministry of Education had tried to abolish kanji entirely and use an entirely phonetic system that was savagely opposed by the scientists, writers and the general public - you can see that people don't find kanji that great a problem.

Korea is a different story though. Nationalism (and probably anti-Chinese sentiment too) expedited the process of discarding hanja. Still, (South) Korean children are taught 1800 hanja over the course of secondary school, and Korean newspapers still write their headlines in hanja to avoid ambiguity.

[Girafarig_Magcargo]

Alphabets are in fact quite bad for languages with large Sinitic borrowings (such as Korean). The ambiguity created requires nothing less than Hanzi/Kanji/Hanja to disambiguate. (This problem could be solved by using the polysyllabic native words only.) (Admittedly, this problem isn't that common, context is very useful - still you see it in Korean newspapers once in a while.)

This line of thinking only leads to madness. The 漢字 have their place and they are there to stay. Since the kanji-fearing Allied taskforce only managed to convince the Japanese to establish a fixed list of kanji for common use, and since the Ministry of Education had tried to abolish kanji entirely and use an entirely phonetic system that was savagely opposed by the scientists, writers and the general public - you can see that people don't find kanji that great a problem.

Korea is a different story though. Nationalism (and probably anti-Chinese sentiment too) expedited the process of discarding hanja. Still, (South) Korean children are taught 1800 hanja over the course of secondary school, and Korean newspapers still write their headlines in hanja to avoid ambiguity.

I'm not really getting what you're saying, since firstly the Korean language is not descended from nor heavily influenced by the Chinese language. Secondly, I don't see how the words borrowed from Chines mess with the Hangul since the Chinese characters used to write that word has no bearing on the word itself nor the Hangul symbols.

Secondly, the Japanese are most likely more attached to kanji in a traditional sense rather than praticality.

Thirdly, you're right in the fact that Hanja is extremely uncommon now. Hell, my mother grew in Korea during the 60s and she rarely used Hanja.

Finally, it was pro-Japanese pressure that quickened the loss of Hanja, not anti-Chinese sentiments. China and Korea have historically been more friendly to each other. After all, they do have a common enemy in Japan, which probably cemented the friendship more than it normally would.

[Zhen Lin]

Excuse me, even though I'm no Chinese nationalist, I will readily admit that a good almost-half of Japanese and Korean vocabulary is borrowed from Chinese. That counts as (very) heavy infuence in my thinking. (Just as English is heavily influenced by French and Latin but still a Germanic language.)

Writing Mandarin in an alphabet wouldn't be as bad as writing Japanese or Korean in alphabet, since it still has tone. Although, having lost a good number of final consonants and tones, it may still ultimately come out as ambiguous as Japanese or Korean. On the other hand, Japanese and Korean have lost quite a few initial consonants and all tones when borrowing Chinese. Since then they have also lost certain phoneme sequences.

There are also other arguments for the case of semagrams, for example, it is faster to sight-read Japanese with kanji than without. (An interesting parallel is found in Braille: advanced Braille uses abbreviations for quite a number of words. Advanced Braille readers find themselves slowed down when reading less abbreviated text.)