How To Conquer the Intermediate Plateau of Japanese

At one point or another in learning anything, we will frequently reach a plateau in our ability. This intermediate plateau, or “okay plateau” is where many people tend to get the most discouraged with their studies and believe it to be too much work to conquer this level. This plateau is probably the most important time in the study of anything, language or otherwise, and conquering it really separates the dedicated from the casual.

Reaching the Intermediate Plateau

Reaching this plateau when learning Japanese occurs most frequently after you’ve learned most if not all things related to sentence structure, grammar, and conjugation rules. It is usually at this point where kanji and vocab become more of a focus than ever before. And who likes learning kanji? That stuff is complicated and difficult and gross. Ew.
At the beginning of learning the language, everything is new and fresh and you feel like you’re learning so much at such a rapid pace that you’re just tearing through the knowledge like some sort of Japanese genius. But eventually, you’ll probably find yourself feeling like you just aren’t learning as much anymore once you’ve covered all the basic stuff. When you feel like you just aren’t learning as much as you used to, it can become very discouraging.
This plateau level will usually creep up on you after a few years of self study or classroom education. For me it happened once I graduated from college and stopped getting classroom style Japanese lessons and had to take matters into my own hands more than I had in the past. I had to start teaching myself the language, deciding what to learn next, what to focus, and what to put off until later.
Undoubtedly, you too will reach a similar plateau somewhere in your Japanese studies where you will believe yourself to be “good enough” or “competent” in the language, but definitely not where you’d prefer to be ultimately. Here I hope to share with you some tips I’ve used (and still use) to get off this plateau and start climbing the mountain once again.

Focus on Vocab Now More Than Ever

Like I said before, once you cover the basic groundwork of the language, kanji and vocab become more important than ever. But where should you get all these crazy new words from? Find something you enjoy. Find something you know you’d already enjoy in English (or your native language) and take it on in Japanese. Even if you’re watching a Japanese dub of Star Trek, a healthy amount of the language used will be regular Japanese that you can make use of in everyday conversation. And if you want to learn how to babble on about space nonsense in Japanese, hey, that’s okay too.
So get your favorite Japanese book, manga, TV show, movie, drama, video game, or whatever, and take the time to experience it slowly, with a dictionary in hand so you can learn all the new words it has to offer. Once you learn all the new words from the material, you can go back through it again and understand everything. Can you imagine how rewarding that feels? Experiencing something you love in Japanese and totally understanding everything that’s going on? Believe me, it’s awesome.
Undoubtedly, the best way to go about learning and keeping up with vocabulary is to use spaced repitition system (SRS) programs such as Anki, and keep a schedule with them. You can (and should) check out Anki and our review of it here, and while you’re at it you should check out our posts on how to study and learn with Japanese dramas and Japanese video games.

Identify and Focus on Your Goal

Do you want to be better at the spoken language? The written language? Both? Ultimately you should be going for excellence in both, but there’s no harm in focusing on one a bit more than the other at first, but of course there’s nothing wrong with giving them both an equal amount of attention if that’s your bag. Remember, different people have different ideas on what fluency really is.
Some of you may be better speakers than writers, and some of you may be better writers than speakers. I’ve always felt about the same with each, but my immediate goals of using Japanese in the “real world” are to be able to read manga and play video games. Manga is all written language, but some video games have voice acting which helps out with focusing on the spoken language. It works for me, but you need to find out what works best for you.
If you want to get better at the written language first, read all the manga, short stories, and newspapers you can get your hands on. Children’s stories and younger age group manga are great places to start. If you want to get better at the spoken language, listen to Japanese whenever possible. Watch movies, TV, dramas, and yes, even anime can be beneficial. The more exposure you get, the better.
Most important, though, is sticking to it. Do you want to be able to play your favorite RPG all the way through in Japanese? Spend at least 30 minutes each day working on it. It doesn’t matter how slow you feel you’re going, eventually it will all pay off and you’ll be amazed what you’ve accomplished by the end of it. And 30 minutes a day is much better than no minutes a day, but feel free to study for longer if you have the time and are still enjoying yourself. Remember, studying should be fun. The more fun you have, the more you’ll learn and the more you’ll remember.

Be “Yourself” In Japanese

One thing that I’ve noticed through my Japanese learning adventures is that I used to have a really tough time expressing myself fully in Japanese. Having a limited working knowledge of the language, I felt like my personality was being limited as well. I felt like people weren’t getting to know the real me because of this. I feel this is true for most languages and not just Japanese because the less words you know, the less eloquently you can express thoughts and ideas.
The goal here should be achieving the ability to express anything you could in your native language, but in Japanese. If you feel like you could express your thoughts and ideas about a certain topic better in your native language, you know you have an area you need to work on.
Once you start to learn how to express yourself better in Japanese, you’ll no doubt start to feel closer to your Japanese acquaintances and friends and you’ll start to enjoy your time with them even more than ever before. Being able to talk naturally and without frustration for lack of phrasing eloquence is always a good thing. Be yourself. Become yourself in Japanese.

Hone Your Native Japanese Accent

I don’t know how many of you have had this experience before, but it is always much more impressive when a learner of English knows how to pronounce things correctly. Even if two foreign learners of the language have the exact same vocabulary and speaking ability, if one of them has a more natural English accent, they are instantly more impressive in the eye of an observer. We want to become this impressive.
At this point in our learning, we’ve most likely ironed out most of the common pronunciation mistakes that Japanese learners come across. Now, it is time to focus on the fine points and really become awesome at speaking the language. It’s always a good idea to study and imitate the speaking patterns and intonations of native speakers.
One thing you can focus on (if you haven’t already) is how to act and respond when be spoken to in Japanese. Hashi touches on it quite a bit in his post here, but the main thing is – there’s a lot more confirming sounds and nodding in Japanese than there is in English conversations. But once you master this skill, you’ll look much more awesome in the eyes of a Japanese native.

Don’t Give Up!

Conquering this intermediate plateau is likely one of the hardest things you’ll have to do in your quest to learn the Japanese language. In the beginning, the results were immediate and frequent, but now that you’ve learned all the easy basic stuff, your gains are much less noticeable and can seem sluggish and slow. But you must not become discouraged.
And if you haven’t quite reached this level or the intermediate plateau just yet, you can always improve your Japanese abilities in other ways like with these great tips from Koichi that can improve your Japanese skills in as little as two hours. You can always keep the tips from this post in mind and be confident that you can tackle the plateau once it arrives. Just don’t get discouraged and keep at it. Remember, you don’t have to be a genius to learn Japanese.

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/04/30/how-to-conquer-the-intermediate-plateau-of-japanese/

Why Do Japanese People Talk So Fast?

When you’re listening to Japanese, does it ever sound extremely fast to you? Perhaps around 21% faster? Well, you’ll be happy to know that a few smart people (Pellegrino, Coupé, and Marsico) did a study on this and more, showing that Japanese speech really is faster. It’s really quite interesting and it may even help you to gain some extra perspective on the Japanese language which will help you to get better at it overall. As Walter Sobchak is known to say: “THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS, LARRY! THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW YOUR JAPANESE SYLLABIC RATES!”

The Speedy Speech Of Japanese

In this study (A Cross-Language Perspective on Speech Information Rate) the authors spend a lot of time comparing and going over eight different languages (one of course is Japanese). They took a look at translations of the same text in all of the languages and compared their syllabic rate (number of syllables per second), their information density (how much information is packed into said syllables), and then the rate at which information is communicated. The Vietnamese language was used as the “outside” reference language, which is why it’s “1.00″ in the table below. You can use that to compare the speeds and rates of everything else.

Language	Information Density	Syllabic Rate	Information Rate
English	0.91	6.19	1.08
French	0.74	7.18	0.99
German	0.79	5.97	0.90
Italian	0.72	6.99	0.96
Japanese	0.49 (slowest!)	7.84 (fastest!)	0.74 (slowest!)
Mandarin	0.94	5.18	0.94
Spanish	0.63	7.82	0.98
Vietnamese	1.00	5.22	1.00

I’ll mostly be comparing English and Japanese, since those are the two languages being used on Tofugu, but you can do the same with any of the languages above, I’m sure.

Information Density: The Japanese language has the lowest information density (0.49). This means you have to say more in Japanese to say the same thing in English, which has a very high information density. In fact, English’s information density is nearly twice that of Japanese!

Syllabic Rate: This refers to the number of syllables per second. Japanese is the highest here, just beating out the fast-talking Spanish. The hypothesis of the study is that languages with a lower information density (like Japanese) will make up for it by speaking faster. Looks like that’s one of the things that Japanese does in fact do, though we’ll see that it doesn’t quite equal up to the rest.

Information Rate: Now let’s combine Information Density and Syllabic Rate to get the “Information Rate.” Compared to all the other languages in this study, the Japanese language actually communicates information more slowly than everyone else. It is four standard deviations away from the norm which is quite a bit considering that the second slowest, German, is only 1.5 standard deviations out.

So, basically we can see that even though the Japanese language is faster than everyone else, it still doesn’t get as much information across in the same amount of time. So why is this? Is the study missing some information? Are there other reasons for the lack of information in Japanese speech?

Is Japanese Really The Slowest Language?

Let’s start with possible reasons why the data could be inaccurate. For starters, one could say that it doesn’t go into the way spoken Japanese has a lot of omissions based on context. One example is the phrase 私は (わたしは). A lot of beginners constantly use わたしは because in English we usually do refer to ourselves when talking about ourselves. In Japanese, though, this can be omitted if it’s already apparent. There’s a lot of things like this in Japanese, and it’s possible the study didn’t take this into account.
Even if the study did run thousands and thousands more sentences, I don’t think it would make a huge difference. All languages have this sort of things, especially when you start talking about casual speech. Although running more sentences through would probably increase Japanese’s Information Rate, I don’t think it would make a huge difference. Whatever the case, it’d be hard to prove either way, especially considering how all languages lose syllables when becoming more casual.

What’s more interesting, I think, is looking at reasons why Japanese does have a low Information Rate. Possibly a slower one than the study itself presents. Here’s some things I came up with, though I’m sure there are more reasons.

• At least in neutral and formal Japanese, every verb has a lot of syllables, and most sentences have verbs in them. At minimum, each verb has three syllables (でます[3], みます[3]), though often times it has more (あそびます[5], はたらきます[6]). In English, most verbs are two syllables, and that’s including the “to” (to eat, to see, to work). That right there jacks up the syllable count quite a bit, especially over time.
• The Japanese language is very indirect. As you learn more Japanese, you’ll start seeing that the less direct you are the more polite you’re being. The less direct you are, the more words you have to use to get around the point (aka more syllables).
• The Japanese language also has fewer available syllables. In fact, on that list, it has by far the fewest with 416. The next lowest? That would be Mandarin, with 1,191 (nearly triple what’s available in Japanese). Guess what English has? A whopping 7,931 available syllables. No wonder English is considered one of the most complicated languages in the world (seriously, Japanese is easy). Fewer syllables means you run out of words. This is probably why Japanese has so many homonyms, but it’s also why Japanese words tend to be longer and have more syllables in them. When vocab words themselves have more syllables, no grammar in the world, no matter how casual, can increase your information rate enough to compete with other languages. Sorry Japan, you’re slow.

So, I for one think the findings of the study are probably correct. If anything, they’re giving the Japanese language a little too much credit in terms of its Information Rate. But overall I don’t have any problems with the findings. Everything there makes a lot of sense when you think about it.

So Should You Care?

Other than just being interesting information, I think it should also affect your studies as well. Although I suppose I’ve always noticed that Japanese tends to be faster than English, I never really thought much about it until reading this study. With this information in mind, it makes you realize that you should probably focus a little more on talking speed than you may have originally thought. You need to talk 21% faster than you talk in English if you want to sound fluent.
When you’re studying, spend a little extra time getting your speed up. If you’re reading a sentence, don’t stop when you’re able to read it at an adequate rate. Stop when you can read it faster than you think it should be. If you learn to speak faster… well… you can always slow down. It’s very hard to go from slow to fast, though.
So, to sum things up, the Japanese language is fast. But, in terms of information conveyed, it’s kinda slow. In those regards, Japanese is both easier and more difficult to learn than you probably thought before reading this article, which hopefully means it all evens out nicely (but you come away with some valuable information).
And don’t worry, Walter is fighting for you.

So did anyone else think that the Japanese language seemed a little too fast for its own good? Let me know in the comments.

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/05/01/why-do-japanese-people-talk-so-fast/

The Right And Wrong Way To Write Your Name In Japanese

If you’re learning Japanese, one of the first things you do is learn what your name is in Japanese. It’s great because it personalizes the language and gives you an identity in Japanese.
But sometimes there’s a little confusion about how to write your name in Japanese. Let’s look at the right and wrong way to write your name in Japanese.

Right: Katakana (カタカナ)

If you don’t know a lot about Japanese, katakana is one of the Japanese alphabets, and is used for writing foreign names in Japanese.
Foreign names are typically spelled out phonetically with katakana, so Chris becomes kurisu (クリス), Sarah becomes sēra (セーラ), and Michael becomes maikeru (マイケル). It’s usually very easy and straightforward.

Image sources 1, 2, 3, 4.

Writing your name in katakana is awesome! The reading is obvious and people automatically know that it’s supposed to be a foreign name. Plus, you’re probably not the first person with your name to transliterate it into Japanese, so chances are there’s a standard way of writing your name in katakana that people are familiar with.
You can even pretty easily look up these standardized names on sites like this.
But for some people, writing their names in katakana isn’t enough. They want to go further and write their names in kanji but, for a number of reasons, this is a bad idea.

Wrong: Kanji (漢字)

Kanji are Chinese characters that are frequently used in Japanese. Each character has its own, sometimes complex meaning.
After learning how to write their name in katakana, some people want to write their names in kanji. I know that we at Tofugu talk a lot about how useful and great kanji is, but when it comes to writing your name, avoid kanji like the plague.
You might think that writing your name in kanji is super cool and extra-Japanesey, but most of the time you’re really just making things harder for yourself and more importantly, other people.

Kanji By Sound

One way people recommend writing your name in kanji is by finding kanji with the same sounds as your name in katakana, but this is a bad idea for a couple of reasons.
If you’re picking kanji based on sound alone, then the meanings of these kanji will probably be really weird and completely unrelated to your name.
For example, if Chris decides to write his name like 躯里子, it will sound like kurisu, but the kanji mean “corpse foster child” which, in case you didn’t notice, is complete gibberish (or just really morbid).
The other problem is that pretty much every kanji has multiple readings, so somebody might look at your name and either have no idea how to pronounce it, or they’ll pronounce it differently than you intended.
In other words, writing your name by constructing kanji by sound will mostly just baffle other people and really not do you any good. And the other way of writing your name in kanji ain’t a whole lot better.

Kanji By Meaning

Another way people try to flip foreign names into kanji is by meaning. Every name, no matter what the language, has some sort of etymology, or story behind it. Some people think that by recreating that meaning or story with kanji, they can distill the essence of their names and transfer it over into Japanese.
This doesn’t work well either. If you’re constructing your kanji name based on meaning, then the reading probably won’t make any damn sense. Sure, you might have conveyed that Chris means “Christian martyr and patron saint of travelers,” but the Japanese probably won’t read all that as an actual name.

But Other People Have Kanji Names!

Some foreigners can have kanji names, but those are special cases. Since the Chinese and Korean both use kanji in their languages in some way or another, some Chinese and Korean names are able to use kanji.
And it is true that foreigners who become Japanese citizens typically have kanji names, but that’s kind of unrelated. They’re not using kanji for their foreign, given names; but rather, they’re adopting a wholly Japanese name and just using the kanji for that.

Be Proud Of Your Name

Writing your name in kanji is trying to make your name into something it isn’t. Instead of spending time trying to find the perfect kanji to create a name that nobody will understand, instead spend some time looking into your own name.
What’s its etymology? Why did your parents pick that particular name? The answers to these questions are a lot more rewarding than writing your name in kanji could ever be.
[Header image sources: 1, 2.]

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/05/02/the-right-and-wrong-way-to-write-your-name-in-japanese/

What Starcraft Can Teach You About Learning Japanese

All three of us in the Tofugu office are moderately dangerously addicted to Starcraft 2. We tend to eat our lunches quickly so that we have time for a game or two during the day. Little did we know that we were in fact honing our non-Starcraft skills as well. In fact, we’ve been training ourselves to become better Japanese learners. Let me share with you how, below.

Mechanics Come First

If shortcut keys don’t come natural and clicking on those teensy tiny zerglings gives you trouble, then more advanced things like splitting marines to avoid banelings probably won’t be very effective. What I’m saying is, you have to start with the basics, get those extremely solid, and then move on to the harder stuff. When you do that, advanced concepts aren’t so hard anymore and you’ll be able to do them better in a pinch.
In Japanese, this means doing basic things like learning to read hiragana. It also means learning kanji radicals before learning kanji.  Basically, you have to put the time in if you want to do the fancier stuff; you can’t just skip straight up. If you don’t, the fancier things will just end up screwing you over (aka all your marines become a florescent green soup).

Picking The Counter

While I still adamantly believe that infestors are the counter to everything, those of you unlucky enough to not make lots of infestors have to actually think about what units to build. For example, you don’t want to build banshees when your opponent is going void rays. Instead, you should build marines (which also counter everything) or vikings or something more effective. If you don’t pick decent counters to what your enemy is throwing at you you’re going to have a much harder time winning the game. Sometimes this requires you to make a tech switch. Sometimes this requires you to build different units. Whatever it is, you need to be flexible.
In Japanese you have to do this as well. To counter the huge stack of vocab you need to learn, consider countering it with Anki. Need to counter imba kanji? Perhaps you should sign up for the WaniKani beta (wink wink nudge nudge). Everything in Japanese has at least one counter. Be smart about which counters you choose, though. If you pick incorrectly your mass void rays of Japanese learning will go down in flames.

Don’t Forget To Scout

Scouting is everything. If you don’t know what units the enemy is building, then you don’t know what to build to counter them. Also, if you see that they’re expanding, perhaps you can put on some early pressure or expand yourself. Basically, it allows you to react to various situations effectively. You know what’s coming and can therefore prepare for it.
In Japanese, it’s also good to scout. Take a look at the things that you’ll be learning in the near future so you can start thinking about how you want to tackle them. By staying ahead like this you can plan ahead. When you know a set of kanji is coming, you can set everything up beforehand so that the actual studying of it is EZPZ.

Rushing And All-Ins

Although I enjoy a 14-drone-in-base-hatch rush just as much as the next guy, rushing is an all in. If you pull it off, well, that’s great. You win. But if you screw it up there’s a lot of catching up to do (and usually you just end up losing in the end at the higher levels).
There are all-ins in Japanese as well. When done right, you can plow through a lot of material very quickly and come out on top. When done incorrectly, you can burn yourself out on Japanese and possibly lose the entire game. Just like an a rush in Starcraft, you might be able to get back into the game, but it will certainly be painful and slow going.
So, be smart about your rushes and all-ins. They can be effective, but they’re risky. Make sure your chances are good before attempting.

Upgrades = Advantage

In Starcraft I’m an upgrade fanatic. I’ll hit 3-3 cracklings before most people are at 2-2. I have to give up a little bit to get there, and it takes a bit of time, but once you’re ahead on upgrades everything seems nice and easy. Even siege tanks don’t stand a chance.
Starcraft upgrades, when very simplified, come down to attack, defense, and other. The attack and defense upgrades in Japanese are probably kanji and vocab. Other is, well, “other.” If you can get your kanji up to a high level, everything else will be easier. You’ll be able to read more Japanese which will help you with your grammar. It’s like engaging 1-1 marines with 3-3 cracklings.
The “other” category of upgrades are more specific. They’re more like learning a new grammar point. You’ll be able to use them throughout the rest of the game, and you’ll never lose them. They will only help in specific situations (depending on the upgrade), but they will certainly help if you pick and choose the right ones.
Spend some extra time upgrading your kanji and vocab. It may seem like wasted time right now, but it will keep you way ahead in the mid and late game.

Macro

While micro skills can be important, it’s your macro skills that wins a game of Starcraft, I think. Even if you lose a battle, if you’re pumping out more units than your opponent you’ll always at least have a chance to win.
In Japanese, it’s about the steady, daily progress. Studying Japanese consistently rather than building one big Protoss death ball then giving up after getting crushed by an infestor only army isn’t something that will sustain you to the late game. Sure, build the death ball, but make sure you’re also continually building new units as you move forward. You want to study every single day in order to get fluent, not just once in a while. So, macro your Japanese just like you macro those imba marines out of your reactor barracks.
As a marine would say: “By the numbers, boys!”

Expand Only When Appropriate

Expanding before a barracks / spawning pool / gateway can be risky, but it can be done. As long as you’re scouting, you can usually figure out when it’s appropriate to expand in a game. If you just guess and go for it, there can be dire results (if your opponent takes advantage of it, at least). Expanding takes extra minerals and time, which takes away from your army. Balancing the two is important so that you don’t lose the game due to your expansion.
In Japanese, expanding to another mineral patch is like starting a new chapter or new set of vocab. You’re going to have to expand at some point, that’s a given, but when you expand is up to you. You want to balance it out, though. If you expand too early, you’re risking an attack that could take you out completely (i.e. you’re juggling too many things and just can’t handle everything at once, causing you to quit learning Japanese). If you expand too late, then you’ve just wasted a bunch of time, slowing down your Japanese learning (possibly demotivating as well). You have to expand to new concepts and ideas somewhere in between… sometime when you’re just getting midway into your current items and need something fresh to keep moving forward. Play with this to figure out what works best for you.

Economy

When you run out of minerals, you’re screwed. You have to keep up a strong economy to defeat your opponent. Everyone knows this. That’s why you have to expand in order to stay in the game (unless you’re going for the all-in, of course).
In Japanese, your economy isn’t so much about minerals or gas, it’s more about will power and motivation. Think of it this way. Every time you study, you’re using up some will power and motivation. Different people have different ways to replenish their supply. Some people take a break. Some people do something completely different. Whatever it is, you have to make sure you keep replenishing it. More importantly, if you see that one source of minerals (motivation / will power) is running out, you must start expanding and find a new source. No single source will last you forever, so it’s important to always be looking for that next mineral patch.
Oh, and if you so happen to find a gold mineral patch of motivation and will power… well… ride that out as long as you can.

Choose Your Race

Obviously there are three distinct races to play in Starcraft 2. While it’s obvious that Zerg is the best, to each their own, I suppose. All three races play very differently, and they all can reach the end goal of winning. That being said, even though it’s good to learn about all three of them, it’s best to stick with one race and learn that one race really, really well. If you do that, you’ll get much better than if you try to learn all three to mediocrity.
In Japanese, there are several different “ways” or “methods” you can use to learn Japanese. They are also pretty distinct, but they will all get you to the end goal of fluency if you put enough effort into any of them. You have your TextFugu style or your Genki style. You have a number of other “races” for learning Japanese as well. If you’re going to learn Japanese, spend a little time playing with each of them. Then, when you figure out which one suits your playing learning style best, stick with that one and dive in deep. Learn the ins and outs and get great at it. While all styles have the possibility of making your Japanese better, you’ll eventually have to focus on one in order to become a pro.

Spawn More Overlords Comments

Are you a Japanese learning Starcraft nut as well? Please add a comment reactor to my article barracks and let me know about any other lose Starcraft-Japanese learning ties that I may have missed.
And, if you’ve never played Starcraft… I’m sorry. You should try it someday. It will help you learn Japanese… er… well… maybe not. Butter my biscuit?

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/05/10/what-starcraft-can-teach-you-about-learning-japanese/

The Kanji That Look Like Their Meanings

When you’re studying your kanji, have you ever thought that some kanji look suspiciously like the thing they’re supposed to be representing? In terms of the big kanji picture, this actually happens quite rarely. Most kanji don’t look anything like their meanings. I mean, sure. 顔 looks like this one guy’s face I’ve seen this one time, but I think that was just a coincidence. So why do some kanji look like the things their supposed to represent? Why isn’t everything like this? It has to do with turtles.

Turtle Burning

Guess how kanji was made. Guess! Did you choose C) By burning turtles? If so, you win the jackpot (and you also have a sick, sick mind). Well, okay, the turtles were scraped from their shells first, so technically they were just throwing turtle shells into the fire, but either way the experience can’t be good for turtles.

Illustration by Aya Fransisco

A long, long time ago (we’re talking around 4,000+ years ago), Chinese monks, shamans, or something inbetween were burning turtle shells and other animal bones. It’s thought that they’d look at the cracks that would form in these items in order to interpret messages from the Gods. This means that the earliest kanji were just cracks in turtle shells that kind of looked like something.
After a bit of this, people started seeing patterns in the bone and shell cracks. This became what is thought to be the first kanji. Using these patterns, people started writing back to the gods, asking them more specific questions like “when should I plant my crops?” or “what should I wear today?” Thus, kanji was born.
Now, this story is just a hypothesis on the origins of kanji, but it’s the one that I happen like the best. All this happened a really, really long time ago, and it was before the advent of writing, obviously. It certainly beats out the idea of legendary figure Cangjie, who had four eyes and four pupils and caused the deities and ghosts to cry millet from the sky. Anyways, I’ll let you choose the one you like best.

Kanji That Looks Like Something

Because (at least in the hypothesis we’re using) kanji came from cracked turtle shells, you can assume that these cracks must have looked quite a bit like something  from real life. In fact, if you look at some of the earliest kanji records you can sort of see that. Of course, finding and interpreting the cracked turtle shells is most likely impossible now, but there are records of people writing back to the gods. This is probably as close as we’ll ever get.
Take this chart by ancientscripts.com for example.

Some things aren’t very obvious, but others you can kind of say “okay, yeah, I see it.” If you want to go into imagining turtle shell cracks, you can probably take an extra few shifts back in time and see that as well. This is where kanji came from, and you still see a lot of these basic shapes in kanji today!

Modern Kanji Lookalikes

Because kanji has evolved so much over time, there are very few “pictogram” kanji in use anymore and only the simplest of kanji still look like the items they represent. In 100AD it was thought that only 4% of all Chinese characters could be considered pictograms. That seems like a lot to me, but I guess a lot has happened in the last 1900 years.
I’m sure this is not all of them, but here’s the kanji I could think of that look like pictograms. Just by looking at these you take a stab at what they mean, even with no prior kanji knowledge.

一, 二, 三 (One, Two, Three)

Obviously the first three numbers look like one thing, two things, and three things. After the first three they don’t continue, but it was a nice ride while it lasted.

串 Skewer, Shish Kebab

Um, this kanji looks delicious, ammiright?

入 Enter

Reminds me of some kind of entrance covered with cloth, draped aside.

門 Gate

You shall not pass!

亡 Deceased

To me, it looks like either a pot for holding ashes or a crevice you might see in crypt.

口 Mouth

Does the shape of Domo’s mouth seem familiar? Coincidence? I think not.

夕 Evening

Looks like the moon streaking across the sky.

山 Mountain

Still looks like a few mountains, though not as much as in the ancient Chinese characters example.

川 River

See that river flowing by?

日 Sun

Kind of square, but that’s how we roll in kanjiland. The line in the middle is like the equator.

旦 Daybreak

Now the sun is going over the ground to break that day.

月 Moon

Kind of like the sun, but longer. I imagine this represents when the moon isn’t full as well, so you kinda have to mix the two ideas into one pictogram.

木 Tree, and 森 Forest

Sort of looks like a tree. The forest is just three trees (aka more than one tree).

凹 Concave

This kanji always makes me laugh.

凸 Convex

Same with this one.

田 Rice Paddy

See the four rice fields with irrigation going between them? So, apparently modern rice farming was around before kanji… or was it? Might be something to look into.

目 Eye

There’s a big eye with a pupil in the center. Lookin’ good!

I bet there are other pictogram-style kanji out there too. Can you think of any to add to the comments?

The Making Of Modern Kanji

Photo by Changhai Travis

Now if you think about ancient kanji and its overall need to look like something (pictogram), you can start to see how kanji creation might progress over time.
First you have to think about combining the pictograms. When an ancient Chinese scholar saw 木 cracked into a shell multiple times, he probably interpreted it as a “forest.” Or when someone saw 日 and 一 together, and came up with 旦 (daybreak). Because it was all interpretations of messages from the gods, these people could just come up with whatever they wanted, as long as the combined meanings made sense.
Also you should think about the agendas going on. I’m sure someone would see a crazy looking crack and be like “hey, this totally means you need to get rid of all your gold, otherwise you’ll have bad luck. Sorry, it says it right here.” Whatever it is, there’s a lot of room for making up new kanji on the fly and passing it off as a divine message. I’m pretty sure that’s what my mechanic does when he looks at my car, too.
Once the important “look-a-like” kanji were established, though, I imagine things got more and more complicated. The more kanji you see, the more you realize that complicated kanji is just several uncomplicated kanji put together, like puzzle pieces. Oftentimes the meanings of these kanji are represented by the meanings of the smaller kanji as well. For example, 男 (man) consists of a rice paddy (田) and the kanji for power (力). All man is good for is the power in your rice field, it seems. Other times it doesn’t make as much sense. It all comes down to the interpretation of the person coming up with the new kanji.
Then, finally, I imagine a time when kanji creation is totally out of control. Things stop making sense, because every new kanji is less like the pictograms they came from. By using the meanings of the newly established kanji people are able to come up with even newer kanji that make even less sense than before.
Thus, modern kanji was born. Sure, it went through several other changes, simplifications, and standardizations between then and now (making it even less like pictograms), but at least you can rest easy now knowing a probably reason why kanji makes almost no sense at all in the modern era. But, that’s all to be expected. You can’t draw more and more complicated pictograms to represent the thousands of things you need to represent. That would make writing nearly impossible. They had to simplify and get away from the whole pictogram idea eventually, and I’m glad they did.

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/05/29/the-kanji-that-look-like-their-meanings/

Kanji Hates The Ladies

Sorry ladies. I have bad news. Kanji isn’t a fan of your gender. Now, you can’t go blaming the Japanese for this. They got these kanji, along with their meanings, from China. That being said, no matter where you’re talking about, I wouldn’t say that equal opportunities between genders was a very big thing 3000-4000 years ago. Not to mention that the people coming up with all the kanji were dudes.
So, kanji hates women. Sure. But, perhaps the kanji-creators of old were victims of their very misogynistic time. I can’t say that sexism and misogyny in kanji is “right,” but I can see how it ended up happening. Want to see for yourself?

Kanji Made By Men, For Men

Photo by Arenamontanus

Nowadays a lot of these kanji are just words. It’s kind of like how the English word “Woman” has the word “Man” in it. Most people don’t actually care about it that much. That being said, I went through a lot of kanji today in order to bring you this ultimate list of misogynistic kanji. They will surely be a bit controversial, so please don’t get angry (aka “woman slave heart”), noisy (aka “woman woman woman”) or hateful (aka “woman concurrently”) at me. I didn’t create these kanji, and the people who did are long dead, probably because of their recklessness (aka “dead woman”).

女: Woman

This kanji isn’t particularly interesting on its own, but it’s important to look at first, because it always plays a role in the misogynistic kanji to come, appearing over and over again. Although I’m not putting every 女 kanji in this list (there’s a lot of them), I would like to tell you about a pattern I noticed: Kanji that have 女 in them tend to be about something negative, about getting married, about being a female of some kind (daughter, niece, etc) or about looking pretty. Already a bad start, I’d say. Let’s see what those sexist Chinese monks came up with.

奴: Manservant, Slave

This kanji consists of a woman (女) and the “again” radical (又). I suppose when you’re a woman again, you’re a slave (man or lady). It’s like a demotion to a slave level, aka the level of women. Strangely, this kanji’s meaning also extends to the words “dude” or “guy.” Now we know why it has a slight derogatory meaning.

妄: Reckless, Delusion

This kanji is made of “dying” (亡) and woman (女). So, when women who die are being reckless and delusional. They need to be safe and calm so that they can take care of the children. Much better to keep them safe in the house, right? Right? *segue!!*

安: Cheap, Contented, Relax, Safe

This is a woman inside of a roof. A woman safe inside the house. When a woman is safe within a house, she costs a lot less and you (the man) can go out and do your manly things while feeling relaxed and contented that there’ll always be a meal ready for you when you get home.

好: Pleasing, Like

While she’s at home being safe, it’s good if the woman (女) has a child (子). Us men like (好) this. It helps us to feel 安 that you won’t go out and do anything 妄.

奸: Mischief, Rudeness

I’m not sure I can bring myself to believe that the parts of this kanji mean what I think they might mean… but I guess I can’t put it past a couple of horny old monks whose job it is to come up with new kanji. This is a “dry woman” … I’ll let you come up with your own interpretation on why a “dry woman” would cause mischief and/or be rude.

妓: Geisha, Prostitute

This kanji is woman (女) plus support (支). A “support woman” is, apparently, a prostitute. So, thank you prostitutes. Thank you for all your support, support women.

妬: Envy, Jealous

The kanji for woman (女) and stone (石) combined into one. Perhaps this means a “strong woman?” Ha! No, of course not. “Stone woman” instead means “envy” or “jealousy.” Stay away from them stone women.

姓: Surname

Woman (女) and life (生) combine together to mean “surname.” Since women don’t get to carry on their surname (that’s the family name), it becomes apparent that this kanji is suggesting that a woman’s life is to the surname of her husband. She’s kind of a lifelong 奴 (servant) to the surname, if you will, whether it’s her father’s or her husband’s.

孥: Slave, Servant, Wife And Children

You remember slave right? Now it’s a slave (奴) to the child (子). This still means “slave” or “servant,” but a third meaning has been added in to this kanjis as well: “Wife and Children.” So, a woman is a slave to her child. When you think about the relationship between Asian moms and their children, this kanji actually starts to make sense…

帑: Money Repository

Your lady slave (奴) now has a cloth (巾). This is your money repository. At best, this could mean a safe place to store your money (Japanese wives traditionally take care of all the money stuff at home). At worst this could mean your lady is super expensive, and she’s like a black hole where your yen never sees the light of day again once it gets past the event horizon of her money bag. I’ll let you decide this one.

姑: Mother-In-Law

In Asian dramas, the mother-in-law is almost always an evil hag (don’t worry, sometimes they come around after the protagonist good-for-nothing son-in-law does something right). In this kanji, it’s not quite that bad, though. This is a woman (女) plus “old” (古). Just an “old woman”… though you’d think they could have come up with something a little nicer. I don’t think mother-in-laws like being called “old women.” I’m pretty sure the creator of this kanji had a mother-in-law he didn’t really like…

怒: Angry

A slave lady (奴) plus a heart (心). Obviously the men weren’t totally clueless. They could tell the ladies get pretty angry when you treat them like slaves.

姻: Marry, Matrimony

Speaking of slavery, when you combine the kanji for woman (女) and “be associated with” (因) you get a word that means marriage. My theory is that someone wanted to use 囚 (captured) instead 因, but then the wife saw so he got in trouble and then had to switch it to 因. Anyways, marriage is “being associated with a woman.”

姦: Noisy, Wicked, Rape

Not one woman. Not two women. No. There are three women. What happens when you have three women together? They get really noisy. C’mon ladies.
Secondly, this kanji means “wicked” too. I guess when a few women get together, it’s time to get suspicious of their actions?
Lastly, this kanji also means rape too… which is absolutely terrible and probably makes this the worst kanji of all time. Seriously, though. There were some sick kanji-creators out there.

倭: Yamato People (Submissive People)

I wrote about the naming of the Yamato People (Japanese people) a while back. Basically, China used this kanji to name the Japanese a long time ago. It pretty much means “submissive ladylike dwarf people,” though you’ll have to read the whole history to find out why.

恕: Excuse

What’s in a woman’s (女) mouth’s (口) heart (心)? It’s to make excuses. The true words that come from a woman’s heart are just excuses. “So that’s why dinner isn’t ready, Natsumi??? What a terrible ‘woman’s mouth heart!’” Really kanji? C’mon.

案: Expectation, Suggestion, Worry

You have a woman in her house (安) standing on top of a tree (木) looking down on everyone telling them their suggestions and worries. Sounds familiar? This is basically the kanji for “helicopter mother,” if you ask me. They just didn’t have helicopters back then, so she’s standing on a tree instead.

娶: Arrange A Marriage

You’re taking (取) a woman (女). Could be worse, I suppose. Still, you don’t see anyone “taking a man” instead. It’s always the ladies that get the short end of the stick when it comes to kanji.

婬: Lewdness

The woman (女) is clawing (爪) the king (王). Perhaps this is talking about all those misbehaving queens that you hear about in stories. No good comes from nasty queens in folklore stories, Japanese or Chinese. I suppose this is why this kanji means “lewdness.”

嫌: Hate

When you have a woman (女) concurrently (兼) with anything (apparently), you get hate. It’s a mystery as to what you can have at the same time as a woman that will make this hate, but I’m sure someone had something in mind way back in the day.

嫉: Envy, Jealous

Wow, another kanji that means “envy” or “jealous.” Instead of being a stone lady (妬), this time it’s just a “rapid lady” (女=woman, 疾=rapidly). I’m guessing this is suggesting that women get envious or jealous very quickly… sounds like every jdrama / kdrama / cdrama I’ve ever seen.

楼: Watchtower

This kanji has a woman (女) carrying rice (米) on her back. There’s a tree (木) there too, which I’m guessing is the watchtower. I’m thinking you can guess who is in the watchtower by now, right?

媼: Grandma

This woman (女) has captured (囚) someone with a plate (皿). Perhaps this is a relatively nice kanji, actually. Maybe grandma’s cooking is so good that she’s captured you. Good ol’ grandma’s cooking! All she’s good for is cooking now, though. Too old to carry rice around the fields under the watchful watchtower eye of the man.

嫐: Flirt

Two ladies (女), one dude between them (男). Why not add three or four more ladies while you’re at it, wishful-thinking-monk?

嬲: Ridicule, Tease

So, when there are two guys (男) around one lady (女) it’s no longer flirting. Now it’s ridiculing and teasing… at least they got the “apparently most guys were jerks during the kanji-creation period” thing down right in this kanji.

餒: Hunger, Spoil

When a woman (女) has clawed (爪) at the food (食), everyone hungers and/or the food spoils. Sure, blame the food problems on the ladies.

孀: Widow

The women (女) who rain (雨) on each other (相) are the widows. I suppose they’re just crying so much that their really nice husbands have died in battle… or, perhaps they’re crying buckets of joy because apparently every man alive during this time was a complete jerk. I’ll let you decide.

男: Man

Now it’s high time to look at “man” (because, men are #1 in the kanji world, duh!). This kanji consists of a rice paddy (田) and power (力). Who’s the power on the rice field? That’s the dudes, of course. Look at our big muscles. *flex flex*

勇: Courage

Courage consists of the kanji for man (男) and the マ radical, which is an obsolete radical that means “person.” Basically, the kanji for “courage” is “person that is a man.” Because, uh, we’re not afraid of anything… that’s right. We’re MAN PEOPLE.

金玉: Testicles

Golden (金) balls (玉). That’s what testicles are made out of. GOLD. I guess a dude’s reproductive organs are so valuable that they’re being compared to a very expensive metal. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a “Cash For Balls” program going on during the Meiji Era. As everyone’s favorite super villain loved to say: “I like… teeeesticles gooooolllld.”
There’s not as many interesting kanji that have to do with dudes (especially when you compare it with 女), but even with just these two you can see the difference in how they’re treated. Generally, men-related kanji are awesome (or neutral), and women get the shaft. It’s obvious who was coming up with these kanji, though you’d think they’d actually try a little bit more… then again, maybe not.

What Dogs We Were!

Photo by Andrew-Hyde

I imagine that almost every language has plenty of examples of sexism (prolly against the ladies… sorry ladies!) in them, just because things weren’t particularly fair thousands of years ago when languages and writing were developing. Japanese / Chinese just so happens to have an extremely easy way to look up the etymology of the kanji, making it easy to pick all these out and lay them out for you, probably making it seem worse than it actually is (at least when comparing with other languages out there).

But, like most languages, these words have been around a long time. Now they’re just words, and their original misogynistic meaning is very diluted and unimportant, meaning you’re not a horrible person if you use the word 安い (cheap) in your day-to-day life.

Besides how terrible some of the meanings of these kanji are, I’m also hoping you can take away something else. See how easy it is to figure out the meanings of kanji by breaking them up into radicals? I just looked up one radical (女), and was able to find out so much about how ancient China / Japan thought about women. You could do similar research on other radicals/kanji, for example 田 (rice paddy), 中 (middle) or 力 (power). There’s a lot that can be learned about via kanji radicals – they’re not only a tool for remembering and learning kanji (which is what we’re doing with our work on WaniKani). They give you a peek into the culture and history of China / Japanese as well.

So, I hope you learned something other than “getting three women together means ‘noisy’ in Japanese.” Are any of these your particular favorite? Does something make you “a slave woman’s heart”? No “woman mouth hearts” not to speak up and get “triple woman” if there’s something you want to say in the comments. Oh, but please be nice and don’t “two guys around one girl” anyone. That’s just “a woman clawing at a king” if you ask me. I “woman with a child” nice comments.

article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/06/05/misogynistic-kanji/

Where To Experience Japanese Culture Even Outside Of Japan

If you’re going to learn the Japanese language,  it’s always going to be a better experience if you can have some interaction with Japanese people. Language just isn’t the same without culture, and culture just isn’t the same without language. When you’re not living in Japan, it becomes difficult to get both of these things. This article focuses on the different clubs and organizations that may be in your area that offer a Japanese culture experience (and maybe some language too).

No Language Clubs?

Photo by net_efekt

There are plenty of Japanese language clubs probably run by Japanese people out there, but when it comes to culture I don’t think language clubs are the best option. Sure, go to these and learn… but I’d recommend something else for the culture part.
My theory is this: When you’re learning a language in a language club (or class) the culture aspect becomes kind of watered down. It’s more about teaching the culture (if it’s taught at all), rather than experiencing it. You’re there to learn the language, after all. The goal of this article is to give you opportunities to live the culture, so I’m going to steer clear of things that directly involve the Japanese language.
Instead, we’ll take a look at groups and clubs that don’t actually think about the culture. In fact, the clubs are culture. These clubs are generally pretty packed with Japanese people. That means they probably speak a decent amount of Japanese, too (if that’s also your goal). The main thing, though, is that they don’t notice their Japanese culture seeping out of every pore. It’s just natural, and that means it can rub off on you more easily as well.

Japanese-Related Clubs For Japanese Culture

These are the Japanese-related clubs that I think give you the best opportunity to live and breathe Japanese culture. This means they’re run by Japanese people, their membership is largely Japanese, and they haven’t been “Americanized” (or “Europeanized,” or whatever). Of course, I can’t guarantee these things about each and every club in your area, so you’ll have to do some investigating on your end. That being said, I’m sure all of these clubs will provide you with Japanese culture to some extent. Doing things you enjoy is pretty important as well.
Let’s go over the clubs / groups that I think are good. Maybe you have more suggestions for the comments, below?

Taiko

In most of the taiko groups I’ve seen, there have been a lot of Japanese members. Not only that, but taiko drumming feels so Japanese. Lots of yelling. Lots of loin cloths. Lots of spending a lot of time as a new member doing the same thing over and over and over again (hit that drum, kohai!). I think taiko’s great, and it’s an incredible workout, too. Have you seen the muscles on taiko drummers?
Most medium to large cities have a taiko group, though it’s not something that most people realize exists. If I wasn’t focusing so much on kendō this is what I’d probably be starting. The group mentality is great, the music is awesome, and the Japanese culture is top notch.

Kyūdō

Kyūdō is the Japanese version of archery. Generally it tends to be too “slow” for Western people, who are more used to noticeable advancement and feedback in something they’re doing. In my mind, that right there makes kyūdō pretty Japanese in nature. You’ll spend many many months practicing even before you shoot an arrow. Kyūdō isn’t for everyone, but it’s definitely one of many opportunities to experience Japanese people and culture even when you’re not in Japan.
Kyūdō can be found in most big cities, though clubs tend to be pretty small. If you happen to have a dojo in your area, you’re probably pretty lucky, though I think it’s definitely worth looking into. In terms of the martial arts from Japan, only kyūdō and kendō have retained their Japanese feel outside of Japan. I’m not saying other martial art dojos aren’t Japanese or traditional… but in general these are the two that have the most Japanese people participating (and therefore feel the most Japanese to me). Of course, there are always exceptions.

Kendō

I wrote about kendō quite a few weeks ago, and I’m totally biased towards it being awesome. It depends on the club you go to, but in kendō the sensei tend to be Japanese, a lot of the membership tends to be Japanese, and the culture of the clubs and dojos tend to be quite Japanese as well. The philosophy behind what you’re doing is more focused on making yourself better through training (once again, depends on the dojo) rather than defending yourself or anything like that, making it feel much more Japanese to me.
Kendō tends to be a little more popular than most of the other clubs you’ll find on this list. You’ll usually find several kendō dojos in large cities and even some in medium cities as well. Growing up we had to drive around a half hour to the nearest kendō dojo, but I think it’s totally worth it, if you can. The people tend to be really helpful and the culture you’ll gain, especially over time, is very helpful to your Japanese and outlook on life.

Tea Ceremony

I was lucky enough to get one tea ceremony private lesson with a family friend who does this. Afterwards, she told me that the single cup I had was worth $150. If I still had that $150 tea in my mouth I’d probably have had to do a $150 spit take.
Jokes aside, I don’t know if there’s anything more Japanese than tea ceremony. It’s certainly not something that’s going to be for everyone, but think of all the great tea you’ll get to drink (may hurt the wallet a bit, though).
Tea ceremony classes can generally be found in larger cities. At the very least, I hope you’re able to experience it on the receiving end. Everything is so beautiful and tastes really, really good.

Shodo

Shodo, aka Japanese Calligraphy, is something you always see at Japanese culture fairs. But, did you ever stop to think that you can join groups or take classes on it? This is a great way to combine both the language and the culture. You’ll be around Japanese people and you’ll be learning to write in Japanese. Sure, nobody will be able to read what you write, but that’s not the point. It still gives you a deeper understanding of kanji and Japanese.
I’m not entirely sure how popular shodo clubs outside of Japan are, but I keep running across them so they must not be entirely rare.

Ikebana – Flower Arranging

Definitely more something the gals do, but don’t let that stop you if you’re a dude who likes arranging flowers. It’s hard to deny how incredible the arrangements are. Like many of the other groups or clubs, flower arranging has a very zen feeling to it. While you do the task of arranging the flowers, you’re looking into yourself – it’s quite a spectacular art, I think.
I’ve seen ikebana groups quite often showing their creations. I imagine that they can be found mainly in larger cities, though you never know, perhaps you’ll get lucky. Although this article is mainly focused on groups (culture, people!), I know there are also a lot of 1 on 1 tutors out there as well doing ikebana, should that be your only option.

And Don’t Forget The Potlucks!

The potlucks are probably one of the best parts of joining a Japanese-related club. At the potlucks you get entire families out. Also, everyone “lets their hair down” so to speak and you can get to know people better. Food and drinks bring people together, no matter what culture, and this is a great way to share that culture as well.
Oh, and did I mention the food yet? Oh so good. Anyone who hasn’t been to a Japanese potluck (or just Asian, for that matter) is really missing out. If you’re going to join one of these clubs for anything, do it for the potluck (and the culture, and the learning).

 article source:www.tofugu.com/2012/06/12/where-to-live-japanese-culture-even-outside-of-japan/