Lol. I think English has Japanese beat when it comes to difficulty in reading. The words knight and weird are evidence of this alone.

LoL
How about "queue"!
I never knew how I was supposed to read that one until I heard it somewhere!

Yeah, queue is a really odd one. I also have problems with always (Isn't it supposed to be short of all ways? allways!!) and stuff like that.

Tobberoth Wrote:Yeah, queue is a really odd one. I also have problems with always (Isn't it supposed to be short of all ways? allways!!) and stuff like that.

Nah, it's like "often" but with more certainty or absoluteness.

I often fall. --- I fall (when doing this action) many times.
I always fall. --- I fall (when doing this action) every time.

In America queue is rarely used. Queue is French in origin, for this reason it's so impossible to pronounce .

Japanese has compounds based on Chinese pronunciation. English has entire countries of origin combined with years of butchery.

In the same vein as Queue (pronounced "Q" and means "a line-up of people" but i guess you know that!), I love "quay" pronounced "key" meaning "wharf."
How about "alright"? Can you write "all right"? I'm a native English speaker and i have no clue.

Ji_suss Wrote:How about "alright"? Can you write "all right"? I'm a native English speaker and i have no clue.

"All right" is actually the correct usage. "Alright" is a colloquialism (or a neologism or some -ism), frequently used but not considered perfectly correct by the authorities. Not as egregious as writing "should of" for "should've," though.

I love the weirdness of "quay," which is also a French word if I'm not mistaken. In the Caribbean, you find "cays," also pronounced "keys," only they are small islands rather than piers.

kazelee Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Yeah, queue is a really odd one. I also have problems with always (Isn't it supposed to be short of all ways? allways!!) and stuff like that.

Nah, it's like "often" but with more certainty or absoluteness.

Look, i've been fluent in English for over 5 years, I know what "always" means ^^

My point was that the etymology of the word "always" is: All ways. Just like in Swedish where Alltid (always) is short for all tid (all time). Unlike in English, we keep the spelling the same in the connected word.

Tobberoth Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:

Tobberoth Wrote:Yeah, queue is a really odd one. I also have problems with always (Isn't it supposed to be short of all ways? allways!!) and stuff like that.

Nah, it's like "often" but with more certainty or absoluteness.

Look, i've been fluent in English for over 5 years, I know what "always" means ^^

My point was that the etymology of the word "always" is: All ways. Just like in Swedish where Alltid (always) is short for all tid (all time). Unlike in English, we keep the spelling the same in the connected word.

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Cool

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Anyone know where I can get some good cheese?

kazelee Wrote:Lol. I think English has Japanese beat when it comes to difficulty in reading. The words knight and weird are evidence of this alone.

Yeah - just off the top of my head:

colonel
licorice
charisma

...impossible to pronounce right on first sight.

In Japanese, the readings for some place names are hard to guess correctly on first sight.

Hmm.. "Colonel" might be the trickiest I have encountered so far.
It took me a looooooong time to connect "colonel" to how it was pronounced in tv..
I thought they were different ranks!

The Japanese themselves don't know how to read the place names when they are off their own neighborhood!

I was in "枚方" and heard that people frequently read it as "まいかた". (Well.. Logic isn't it!)
The real one is "ひらかた".

I just looked up "colonel" using dictionary.com, and I was a bit surprised at how it's actually supposed to be pronounced. I understand that word perfectly when I hear it on TV and I have probably heard it thousands of times already but apparently I would have pronounced it slightly wrong.

Some subtleties of correct English pronunciation never cease to amaze me.

My biggest pet peeve is when people get cavalry and Calvary confused. Jesus isn't leading a charge of armed troops on horseback.

And the last 8 year of having "nucular" arms. It's nu-cle-ar.

rich_f Wrote:My biggest pet peeve is when people get cavalry and Calvary confused. Jesus isn't leading a charge of armed troops on horseback.

And the last 8 year of having "nucular" arms. It's nu-cle-ar.

cavalry and Calvary

There's a difference?

Regarding nuclear. It could also be said, "it's not knite it, ku-nigkt," regarding the word knight. Its a (un)natural evolution. Words are constantly changing depending on the region you go to and the standards of education.

cavalry-- armed troops on horseback.

Calvary-- the hill where Jesus was crucified.

Big difference.

rich_f Wrote:cavalry-- armed troops on horseback.

Calvary-- the hill where Jesus was crucified.

Big difference.

That was a joke silly. Most people pronounce them exactly the same.

And this goes to show you how easily people are set off topic haha :lol:

Well guys THANKS!!
I'm gonna use all those links and do some drills...so you gotta do them daily?
Yeah...well,after a while, i'll start to know them without doing it every day..but i guess a fun hiragama game isn't really a drill

About the pronunciation...well, i'm from Romania and romanian *should* be my mother language..though i know a lot more words in english LOL and since i read heisig i know a few more...like...i don't know tree,plants,land types in romanian but in english...it's ok
But enough from that...i learned romanian and the "a" is totally different from the english "a"...but it's exactly the japanese "a" YAY! ^__^ that goes for most of the kana...but the problem is fluency i guess...

About the practicing...do any of you know where to find some japanese children's books?

You don't need to keep drilling them, at least not with a drilling program. Reading is itself drilling. Once you've learned them (couple days), there's no reason to keep using flashcards.

kazelee Wrote:That was a joke silly. Most people pronounce them exactly the same.

Which is precisely what drives me nuts. They're not pronounced the same, yet the same people who can't pronounce "nuclear" correctly can't say "cavalry" correctly. Calling in the Calvary isn't really very useful. >_>a

alantin Wrote:I was in "枚方" and heard that people frequently read it as "まいかた". (Well.. Logic isn't it!)
The real one is "ひらかた".

関西外大 right? I was there 2006-2007.

rich_f Wrote:My biggest pet peeve is when people get cavalry and Calvary confused. Jesus isn't leading a charge of armed troops on horseback.

And the last 8 year of having "nucular" arms. It's nu-cle-ar.

He is not??? Soon and very soon!!! Us Godless Buddhists are going to feel the sabre.

I want English overhauled using Chinese characters :-)

何's 君r 名前? 僕好映画s. What's your name? I like movies

bodhisamaya Wrote:I want English overhauled using Chinese characters :-)

何's 君r 名前? 僕好映画s. What's your name? I like movies

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

僕 was 歩ing　down the 丁 one 日 when all of a sudden, a 鬼 grabbed 僕 by the 頭 and threw me into a 壁. I wasn't 幸 to say the least..

That's fun^^ the firefox addon kinda does the same thing though.

The addon uses Heisig's bad keywords though so it would lead to bad habits if you learned word usage using it. For example 丁 never means street or anything remotely like a street, ever.

"I was walking down the slice (of bread/cake) one day".

I wish English was phonetic at least. Wouldn't it be fun if it incorported Chinese Characters though! America is too lazy to convert to the metric system so logic is not a priority here anyways.

I taught English in Kyoto last year and there were two Scottish teachers at the school. Not sure what language they were speaking. Hope it was English in the classroom. >_<

Jarvik7 Wrote:The addon uses Heisig's bad keywords though so it would lead to bad habits if you learned word usage using it. For example 丁 never means street or anything remotely like a street, ever.

True enough, the closest thing I could find related to street was 丁目. Strange.