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+--- Thread: Remembering the Kana (/thread-2152.html)
Remembering the Kana - Walden - 2008-11-22
I recently bought Remembering the Kana from Amazon and was excited to get to work. But I soon realized it was for people with American accents. I am English so it's not much help.
For example:
さ Sa:
The sounds for SAmurai and SOck
Which the SA and SO sound completely different.
Can someone please recommend me an alternative for an English person?
Remembering the Kana - phauna - 2008-11-22
Yes it's a travesty, just google for a kana website and you'll usually find some flashcard type sites to use. It works just as well, there aren't that many letters.
Remembering the Kana - QuackingShoe - 2008-11-22
The best replacement, no matter where you're from, is to just hear the actual sounds associated with the letters instead of some association to some other sound set in some other accent of some other language. I think http://www.thejapanesepage.com/beginners/hiragana/sounds was linked recently, but there's a lot of stuff out there.
Remembering the Kana - wccrawford - 2008-11-22
Actually, pronounced the 'American' way, Samurai and Sock sound different in America, too. That's a really bad example, since it depends on you saying Samurai the Japanese way. 'Saw' would probably have been a better example.
But as others said, there is -no- substitute for hearing it with your own ears. No matter how well they describe the sounds, too many of them don't -really- sound like sounds in English. They're a mix of sounds, or a unique sound that we don't really have. (Depending on how you look at them.)
iKnow.co.jp has hiragana and katakana courses with sounds... I'm really loving that site now.
Remembering the Kana - QuackingShoe - 2008-11-22
Does it now? That's interesting.
The best I've actually ever seen, as far as convenience, was http://www.humanjapanese.com/home.html , however long ago when the kana were still foreign to me. There's one part in the lessons where (I think) it has all of the kana (including きゃ etc) in a chart, and you can simply click on any of them to hear the sound. I was always surprised that I couldn't find such an obviously useful feature anywhere else. Most have them all in a single straight soundfile, or in a song, or in a chart but requiring you to download each sound file instead of just playing it in the browser. And then, even this one is buried somewhere inside the lessons. Mmm.
Remembering the Kana - Nukemarine - 2008-11-22
It did not occur to me that accents were going to play a role in how you internalized the pronunciations of the kana. To me, the English words Heisig picked worked great as a pronunciation example.
However, as you all are pointing out that British, Australian and likely regional US accents will alter how the word is said, then I'll add that caution in my future recommendations.
Granted, it was how he broke down the kana into parts that helped me write better. The dagger, boomerang, two, dog tail, no sign, etc. were just little tidbits that helped where Kana Pict-O-Graphix failed.
Remembering the Kana - Katsuo - 2008-11-22
Walden Wrote:Can someone please recommend me an alternative for an English person?The "sa" sound at the start of "Sergeant" is fairly close to Japanese "さ".
The above presumes a "standard" (in the sense of non-regional) British RP accent.
To link it to the character shape, picture in profile a sergeant with a baton tucked under his arm: The near-horizontal stroke is the baton; The near-vertical part is his upper body (leaning forward), and the rounded part is his pot-belly.
In case it's useful, here is a link to a thread on pronunciation.
Remembering the Kana - annabel398 - 2008-11-23
I second http://www.humanjapanese.com for kana learning. It's a very nicely done site for entry-level Japanese. I wish I had known it was out there when I was learning the kana.
Remembering the Kana - phauna - 2008-11-23
I'll dump my links:
Stroke order
http://www.a-chi.jp/htj_hirakana.html
http://www.umich.edu/~umichjlp/kana.html
Flash cards
http://www.realkana.com/hiragana/
http://genkienglish.net/genkijapan/hiragana1.htm
http://genki.japantimes.co.jp/self/self.html (plus listening)
Games
http://www.geocities.com/takasugishinji/japanese/javagame1.html
https://www.msu.edu/~lakejess/kanjigame.html
Searching for freeware programs will give you a few kana trainers as well.
Remembering the Kana - stoked - 2009-01-27
I'm reading this book and I must say...well...sometimes I'm confused.
Heisig claims that た sounds the same as top...hmm? on iKnow it sounds like ta!
I feel like I would be lost without double-checking the sound on iKnow... o.O
Remembering the Kana - QuackingShoe - 2009-01-27
た sounds more like the 'to' in 'top' than it does the 'ta' in 'tan,' basically. Actually, た never sounds like any application of 'ta' in American English. At least, not by itself. You could make a case for things like 'tawdry' or whatever, but that's from the 'aw' phonogram.
It's really better to just listen to the sounds and not let the romanizations or English comparisons influence you at all, though.
Remembering the Kana - stoked - 2009-01-27
QuackingShoe, thanks for your advice. That helps. I'm still a bit confused though. The second word that Heisig suggests is 'tatami' and it sounds like on iKnow. So that makes sense. But what do you mean when you say "at least, not by itself"? Can the sound change? Like, く and う do not sound like cooing and Udine on iKnow but I guess that's because they stand alone, right? Dang, I feel like throwing Heisig's book away and just focussing on iKnow...
Remembering the Kana - QuackingShoe - 2009-01-27
What I meant was the English 'a' sound followed by 't,' when not part of another phonogram like 'aw,' 'au,' 'augh,' or etc. Japanese sounds don't change, except to be whispered and etc, which isn't the same as actual pronunciation changes. As for your examples, く and う do sound like cooing and Udine to me. I mean, vaguely. REALLY vaguely (I make the 'k' sound in a different area of my throat). None of them are really the same, but it's a decent approximation when compared to the other possible sounds a 'u' could make in English. Like 'ugly.' Or 'cut'. And I imagine that's all Heisig is attempting to do (steer away from the blatantly wrong sounds), since the real sounds can only be learned through exposure. Perfect pronunciation is desirable, but there are so many people that say "air-ih-gat-oh" that it's much more vital to just land the dart somewhere in the general vicinity of the board.
http://www.thejapanesepage.com/beginners/hiragana/sounds is.. potentially educational, if boring.
Remembering the Kana - stoked - 2009-01-27
QuackingShoe Wrote:As for your examples, く and う do sound like cooing and Udine to me. I mean, vaguely.I agree, yes.
My point is that for example in くん the く sounds like cooing but here it doesn't. So it sounds different when it stands alone, no? We'd spell it like 'kü' in German and not like 'ku' at least...
Quote:http://www.thejapanesepage.com/beginners/hiragana/sounds is.. potentially educational, if boring.I'll check that out, thanks!
Remembering the Kana - QuackingShoe - 2009-01-27
I suppose that may be, but since you seem to be using the English book, it only has English examples to work with. If kü seems more accurate to you, then you're better fit to judge than I am as I don't know German. But as for it changing slightly based on what's around it, I don't notice anything. But maybe it does. I'm in the camp that says this sort of thing doesn't need so much analyzing.
Remembering the Kana - liosama - 2009-01-27
stoked Wrote:I'm reading this book and I must say...well...sometimes I'm confused.That is because americans stuffed up english pronounciation.
Heisig claims that た sounds the same as top...hmm? on iKnow it sounds like ta!
I feel like I would be lost without double-checking the sound on iKnow... o.O
If i pronounce top in an american accent, then yes た does sound like an american top
Just listen to a japanese native, ignore heisig, ignore iKnow(i dont even know what it is), ignore romaji.
Just try youtubing 'hiragana' maybe you will hear some native spell out each letter.
Remembering the Kana - stoked - 2009-01-27
Guys, thanks for the advice!
Youtube? My first hit:
Hahaha....uhh, wow.
Remembering the Kana - Ryuujin27 - 2009-01-27
I say don't give up on Remembering the Kana. It's an excellent book for remember the writing of the kana. All you have to do is ignore the pronunciation help. Most of them aren't pronounced much differently than you would think, anyway. Plus, there are countless places on the internet to hear natives pronounce the kana. So just use Remembering the Kana as a way to remember how to write them. Because it helped me do that in about 6 hours for both sets (ひらがな and カタカナ)
Remembering the Kana - stoked - 2009-01-28
QuackingShoe Wrote:Does it now? That's interesting.Hey, thanks for the mention. I'm rushing through this in record speed. It's great for beginners! I will only do the free content though. Well, I should be done in like half an hour actually, hehe...
The best I've actually ever seen, as far as convenience, was http://www.humanjapanese.com/home.html , however long ago when the kana were still foreign to me.
Superb introduction and fun to start with...yay!
@Ryuujin27: Good idea to stick to Heisig for the stroke orders at least. Yep...way to go!
Remembering the Kana - Ryuujin27 - 2009-01-28
stoked Wrote:@Ryuujin27: Good idea to stick to Heisig for the stroke orders at least. Yep...way to go!Yep, I definitely think so. Hell, I still remember that あ is an otter throwing a knife at a stop sign, haha.
Remembering the Kana - Nukemarine - 2010-04-07
Sorry for the necropost, however:
Here's a link to a partially completed spreadsheet for Remembering the Kana.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AscWM0WNU3s4dEY4dzhZaVdUSFFyS1pQNmFzVXlWWWc&hl=en
If you'd like to help complete it, just message me and I'll give you edit privileges. Main reason I'm doing this is for that beginner's guide thread I put together.