I realized this morning that the problem (memorizing the compounds phonetically) is that there is often little or no correlation between sound and meaning. E.g., syou*ka*sen = fire hydrant but zen*syou = entirely destroyed by fire.
So in the first compound the "ka" means fire but in the second example the "syou" means fire (or bake). But "syou" can mean tons of other things too depending on the compound.

Here's an imaginary example (made up language) to illustrate how the Japanese compounds appear to my mind:

oo pah pah doo = egg salad sandwich

doo pah pah oo = urban renewal program

oo pah pah oo = summer vacation

That's the impression I get of the Sino-Japanese compounds as I flip through cards. No wonder I have so much trouble remembering how to pronounce the compounds (it's relatively easy to remember the kanji used to write the compounds).

Sigh. This isn't really a question, I'm just venting my frustrations...

One of the fundamental principles of linguistics is that with the exception of onomatopoeia, there is no relation between sound and meaning, in any language. This isn't unique to Japanese.

I think that to really get a good handle on the compounds you have to link them to some sort of oral/aural practice as well, not just studying flash cards with kanji readings.

In English, 'pod' is a key primitive sound meaning 'foot', derived from the latin, as in 'podiatrist'. Except when it turns to 'ped' as in 'bipedal' or 'pedestrian'. But what do pea pods or pedophiles have to do with feet... ?! The same sound has other meanings! The language is a mess!
(Actually our language -is- a mess it's true).

Seriously though, you do get used to it. 'ka' in compounds usually but not always is 'fire' or 'possible'. 'zen' is usually but not always 'all'. 'jyuku' is almost always either 'mature' or 'cram school'. 'ten' is usually either the heavens or rotating/transferring.
On the other hand, you can never rely on the sound of sou/sei/syou/kai/kei to convey anything at all, there are simply too many characters that share those sounds.

It's nearly impossible to 'reason out' the meaning of a word by sound alone (in any language, really, I expect), however knowing different compounds that use the same characters in Japanese, it's certainly becomes easier to remember. It is difficult at first when there's little repetition of characters, but as you build your vocabulary repetition is inevitable.

Also, what yudantaiteki said. It's quite essential to spend some time actually listening to material with the vocabulary you're studying. By which I don't mean just the wwwjdic sound sample, although that is a start. Without hearing the actual sound in context, it's quite difficult for it to be anything to you -other- than an enigmatic code.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:In English, 'pod' is a key primitive sound meaning 'foot', derived from the latin, as in 'podiatrist'. Except when it turns to 'ped' as in 'bipedal' or 'pedestrian'. But what do pea pods or pedophiles have to do with feet... ?! The same sound has other meanings! The language is a mess!

The 'pedophile' part is easily remedied by using the previous (and still widely used) spelling 'paedophile', where 'paedo' is the same as in 'paediatrics', which is usually spelled 'pediatrics' in the US. However, the pronunciation originally used for 'paedo' isn't used anymore.
EDIT: As for the plant structure:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pod
Apparently has nothing to do with feet, but who knows (I really can't see 'cod' turning into 'pod', but I'm not an etymologist)...

As for Japanese:
I always tend to remember the kanji when I hear a word I know. When I haven't heard a word many times, I scramble to remember the right kanji (so I can know what it means), but once I've heard it a few times, the kanji go to the background and the word itself comes first.
This is probably a product of studying primarily with written materials, but it's not a big problem for me. I definitely recommend studying with both written and audio materials, though, regardless of if this was a problem or not.

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:Also, what yudantaiteki said. It's quite essential to spend some time actually listening to material with the vocabulary you're studying. By which I don't mean just the wwwjdic sound sample, although that is a start. Without hearing the actual sound in context, it's quite difficult for it to be anything to you -other- than an enigmatic code.

Although, lets be honest using kango in speech is not all that different than talking in code. Like, what kind of word is 死期 (or 士気 or 四季 for that matter)!? Are you sure you couldn't use a bit more sounds to convey what you mean?

tetsueda Wrote:

SomeCallMeChris Wrote:Also, what yudantaiteki said. It's quite essential to spend some time actually listening to material with the vocabulary you're studying. By which I don't mean just the wwwjdic sound sample, although that is a start. Without hearing the actual sound in context, it's quite difficult for it to be anything to you -other- than an enigmatic code.

Although, lets be honest using kango in speech is not all that different than talking in code. Like, what kind of word is 死期 (or 士気 or 四季 for that matter)!? Are you sure you couldn't use a bit more sounds to convey what you mean?

Japanese people have no problem using kango in speech. How would you ever confuse 四季 and 士気?

tetsueda Wrote:Like, what kind of word is run(1) (or run(2) or run(3) for that matter)!? Are you sure you couldn't use a bit more sounds to convey what you mean?

1) Run down the street.
2) The boat ran aground.
3) He's running for office.

vix86 Wrote:

tetsueda Wrote:Like, what kind of word is run(1) (or run(2) or run(3) for that matter)!? Are you sure you couldn't use a bit more sounds to convey what you mean?

1) Run down the street.
2) The boat ran aground.
3) He's running for office.

What a great example. You don't think a Japanese child has more trouble understanding 死期 the first time he hears than English child has understanding "time of death"? That's how it's more like speaking in code, the code words have to be agreed upon beforehand. Sure, all languages are like that, but there's a difference between a verb being used in different contexts and a "this horrendously pronounced Chinese means this, this and this". Compound words are generally easy to coin and to understand, but wouldn't you say that kango in speech somewhat lack in the latter aspect? Sorry, I like Japanese, but loaning thousands of homophonous morphemes (or rather making them homophonous) is a bit on the silly side. (imho)

I read something in Wikipedia that gives me some hope:

"It is estimated that approximately 60% of the words contained in a modern Japanese dictionary are kango,[1] and they comprise about 18% of words used in speech.[a]"

So if the above statement is accurate, then most of the time (82%) the Japanese don't use these difficult to remember (for me) Sino Japanese compounds in everyday conversation.

So I feel better now!

tetsueda Wrote:You don't think a Japanese child has more trouble understanding 死期 the first time he hears than English child has understanding "time of death"?

A few observations spring to mind.

- Presumably this is a Japanese kid who doesn't know 会期, 学期, 今期, 思春期, 時期, 次期, 周期, 初期, 新学期, 前期, 短期, 定期, 当期, 同期, 任期, 花期, 夏期, 幼少期 or even just 期 on its own or any of the couple of hundred similar words ending き referring to time, 58ish of which are marked common in JMdict, and anyway the kid probably knew 死期 before any of these.

- Presumably this Japanese kid also thinks someone's し is a poem they wrote.

- Nobody except a newsreader says "time of death" in English. They are more likely to say something like tymadeth, which may well require clarification on first hearing esp out of context.

- No Japanese would say しき in a way that was plausibly ambiguous. People automatically work around ambiguities in speech, so the first time that Japanese kid hears しき meaning 死期 it would be in a context in which it couldn't plausibly mean anything else, and anyway 死 / 死期 constitutes a *disambiguation* absent from English. The Japanese equivalent of "time of death" would be 死ぬ時.

- There may also be pronunciation differences (which I don't know anything about).

- etc

tetsueda Wrote:What a great example. You don't think a Japanese child has more trouble understanding 死期 the first time he hears than English child has understanding "time of death"? That's how it's more like speaking in code, the code words have to be agreed upon beforehand. Sure, all languages are like that, but there's a difference between a verb being used in different contexts and a "this horrendously pronounced Chinese means this, this and this". Compound words are generally easy to coin and to understand, but wouldn't you say that kango in speech somewhat lack in the latter aspect? Sorry, I like Japanese, but loaning thousands of homophonous morphemes (or rather making them homophonous) is a bit on the silly side. (imho)

Language is not a code. You don't have to pre-arrange the meaning of things to another speaker of your language.

Some written Japanese does use rare kango that native speakers probably wouldn't understand without the kanji (although even then context is sometimes enough to figure out the word), but this isn't a feature of the entire language. It's not like native speakers are walking around every day constantly confused by the Sino-Japanese words coming out of the mouths of their friends and colleagues.

One that baffled me at the time was 帰還.

There was an episode of Log Horizon called ゴブリン王の帰還. I thought, how the hell do we know this isn't about the ゴブリン王's 器官 or (more plausibly) his 旗艦?

I later realised that in the absence of context the only きかん a ゴブリン王 can have is a 帰還.

A 器官 is part of his 体, and a 旗艦 is part of his 艦隊, neither of which can be assumed without context.

Edit: wrote 器官 twice in the last sentence

tetsueda Wrote:Sure, all languages are like that, but there's a difference between a verb being used in different contexts and a "this horrendously pronounced Chinese means this, this and this".

But there really isn't any difference between the two. All of those different 'run's have distinctly different definitions, they may seem semantically related to you but that's only because you've probably linked them together through some vague semantic mnemonic that you aren't even aware of. To most ESL learners though, these multiple uses of the same word, with the same pronunciation, and different meanings, is frustrating in pretty much the same way you are describing kango. As you yourself said though, we manage these different meanings through context, which is basically how the Japanese manage most of these kango, but they can also be managed by recalling the kanji which provides some encoding of what word is meant, a benefit you don't have in English.

If you know English, then you know a language that is even worse than Japanese when it comes to this. (Then there are words that sound the same but are spelt differently: to, too, two. There, their, they're. Ladder, latter. Where, wear.)

vix86 Wrote:To most ESL learners though, these multiple uses of the same word, with the same pronunciation, and different meanings, is frustrating in pretty much the same way you are describing kango.

That is so true – for example, bank, bow, fix, set, fluke and ball are words that have multiple meanings in English using the same word, but in my native language they are often different words; without context, you can't really tell them apart. If English used kanji, I guess these words would probably be written using different characters just like Japanese.

Wikipedia has a few examples of this in the article about homonyms:

Quote:A further example of a homonym, which is both a homophone and a homograph, is fluke. Fluke can mean:

• A fish, and a flatworm.
• The end parts of an anchor.
• The fins on a whale's tail.
• A stroke of luck.

These meanings represent at least three etymologically separate lexemes, but share the one form, fluke.*

Similarly, a river bank, a savings bank, a bank of switches, and a bank shot in pool share a common spelling and pronunciation, but differ in meaning.
...
Even according to the most restrictive definitions, various pairs of sounds and meanings of bow, Bow and bough are homonyms, homographs, homophones, heteronyms, heterographs, capitonyms and are polysemous.

• bow – a long wooden stick with horse hair that is used to play certain string instruments such as the violin
• bow – to bend forward at the waist in respect (e.g. "bow down")
• bow – the front of the ship (e.g. "bow and stern")
• bow – a kind of tied ribbon (e.g. bow on a present, a bowtie)
• bow – to bend outward at the sides (e.g. a "bow-legged" cowboy)
• Bow – a district in London
• bow – a weapon to shoot projectiles with (e.g. a bow and arrow)
...

gdaxeman Wrote:

vix86 Wrote:To most ESL learners though, these multiple uses of the same word, with the same pronunciation, and different meanings, is frustrating in pretty much the same way you are describing kango.

That is so true – for example, bank, bow, fix, set, fluke and ball are words that have multiple meanings in English using the same word, but in my native language they are often different words; without context, you can't really tell them apart. If English used kanji, I guess these words would probably be written using different characters just like Japanese.

Wikipedia has a few examples of this in the article about homonyms:

Quote:A further example of a homonym, which is both a homophone and a homograph, is fluke. Fluke can mean:

• A fish, and a flatworm.
• The end parts of an anchor.
• The fins on a whale's tail.
• A stroke of luck.

These meanings represent at least three etymologically separate lexemes, but share the one form, fluke.*

Similarly, a river bank, a savings bank, a bank of switches, and a bank shot in pool share a common spelling and pronunciation, but differ in meaning.
...
Even according to the most restrictive definitions, various pairs of sounds and meanings of bow, Bow and bough are homonyms, homographs, homophones, heteronyms, heterographs, capitonyms and are polysemous.

• bow – a long wooden stick with horse hair that is used to play certain string instruments such as the violin
• bow – to bend forward at the waist in respect (e.g. "bow down")
• bow – the front of the ship (e.g. "bow and stern")
• bow – a kind of tied ribbon (e.g. bow on a present, a bowtie)
• bow – to bend outward at the sides (e.g. a "bow-legged" cowboy)
• Bow – a district in London
• bow – a weapon to shoot projectiles with (e.g. a bow and arrow)
...

What you're overlooking here though is that to native English speakers (in North America anyway) some meanings of these homonyms are much more common than others, so that without context, one particular meaning is usually ascribed to the homonym over the others. Let me illustrate with two examples:

-if you walk up to someone on the street and say "what is a fluke"? they'll immediately think of the fourth meaning in your example and say "fluke? that's means a stroke of luck".

-if you walk up to someone on the street and say "what is a bank"? they'll immediately think of a "savings bank" i.e., a financial institution. I can assure you that the first thing will NOT be "a river bank" or a "bank [row] of telephones".

john555 Wrote:What you're overlooking here though is that to native English speakers (in North America anyway) some meanings of these homonyms are much more common than others, so that without context, one particular meaning is usually ascribed to the homonym over the others. Let me illustrate with two examples:

-if you walk up to someone on the street and say "what is a fluke"? they'll immediately think of the fourth meaning in your example and say "fluke? that's means a stroke of luck".

-if you walk up to someone on the street and say "what is a bank"? they'll immediately think of a "savings bank" i.e., a financial institution. I can assure you that the first thing will NOT be "a river bank" or a "bank [row] of telephones".

Do you think this is not true in Japanese?

Also what's the point of talking about language without context? It never occurs without context. Why would you walk up to someone on the street and say "what is a bank"?

john555 Wrote:I can assure you that the first thing will NOT be "a river bank" or a "bank [row] of telephones".

Will be for some. Gives me an idea for a TV show ... oh wait

I think that the problem is not just homonyms. For me, all the kyou / gyou / kou / gou or ken / gen / gan / kan sound so similar to each other, and the fact that a single kanji can change between those pronunciations in compounds means that I find it very difficult to internalize those syllables as separate concepts in my mind. That doesn't only confuse like homonyms, it also makes it difficult to actually remember a word correctly.

[Zgarbas]

Quote:What you're overlooking here though is that to native English speakers (in North America anyway) some meanings of these homonyms are much more common than others, so that without context, one particular meaning is usually ascribed to the homonym over the others.

Exact same thing goes for Japanese. It's not something natives have a problem with, it's just something learners have trouble with =).

Meh. There's probably some way to make a mneumonical system out of readings. Like relating readings for more "complicated" words with ones for simple ones like 長い for 流れる and 流す. I can also remember 服、複雑、拭く by thinking of the ふく in 複雑. 騒ぐ and 叫ぶ rhyme and have similar meanings so that helps as well.

What does get really confusing is きょう、きゅう、しょう、しゅう, because I usually don't use audio when learning new words (do it during lectures...) so I often confuse them because of the similar kana, because I read too fast assuming I know what it said, and then read too fast on the next go and think "yup, got it right" and then a week later realize it was きゅう the whole time. I'm kind of pissed that Japanese doesn't have special kana for stuff like sha shu kya kyu because I can't help that in my thinking きょう feels longer than すう when it's still two mora.

Zgarbas Wrote:

Quote:What you're overlooking here though is that to native English speakers (in North America anyway) some meanings of these homonyms are much more common than others, so that without context, one particular meaning is usually ascribed to the homonym over the others.

Exact same thing goes for Japanese. It's not something natives have a problem with, it's just something learners have trouble with =).

I was thinking over the weekend that I'd love to do an experiment where I ask native Japanese speakers "what is the first concept that pops into your head when I say, without giving you any context, the syllable ____" where the ____ is a common syllable like shou or kou etc.

Probably the last word they heard/spoke that used that syllable. Its called priming. Though I'm not sure what that's going to tell you really.

[Zgarbas]

I'm sure they will be just mostly confused because you're taking an intuitive thing and asking them about it in a non-intuitive manner.

john555 Wrote:

Zgarbas Wrote:

Quote:What you're overlooking here though is that to native English speakers (in North America anyway) some meanings of these homonyms are much more common than others, so that without context, one particular meaning is usually ascribed to the homonym over the others.

Exact same thing goes for Japanese. It's not something natives have a problem with, it's just something learners have trouble with =).

I was thinking over the weekend that I'd love to do an experiment where I ask native Japanese speakers "what is the first concept that pops into your head when I say, without giving you any context, the syllable ____" where the ____ is a common syllable like shou or kou etc.

my bet is that you'd get random answers, so it'd be like an aural Rorschach test

gdaxeman Wrote:without context, you can't really tell them apart

john555 Wrote:What you're overlooking here though is that to native English speakers (in North America anyway) some meanings of these homonyms are much more common than others, so that without context, one particular meaning is usually ascribed to the homonym over the others. Let me illustrate with two examples:

-if you walk up to someone on the street and say "what is a fluke"? they'll immediately think of the fourth meaning in your example and say "fluke? that's means a stroke of luck".

-if you walk up to someone on the street and say "what is a bank"? they'll immediately think of a "savings bank" i.e., a financial institution. I can assure you that the first thing will NOT be "a river bank" or a "bank [row] of telephones".

Very well, but my point is a different one: what would you, as a native speaker (of English, Japanese, etc.), have to do to understand what's being said if the meaning for the homophone word in use is not the most common one?