Ah yes, I guess the letters themselves are not English. Should have phrased that better

I always had a problem reading katakana, but never had any difficulties with hiragana. Also, never understood why Japanese people say that katakana is much easier. I always had to sound out menu options or signs written in katakana. Perhaps it was the order in which I learned them: hiragana > katakana. Anyways, after RtK1+3 I'll see what Heisig has to say about remembering kana.

alantin Wrote:

Mighty_Matt Wrote:You mean this image...

Thats the one! ^_^

JimmySeal

Yeah. I know the problem but I think when one's Japanese ability gets closer to the English, that problem will disappear..
God knows, I have still have problems with some characters too! (probably more than you do..)

Text can be quite screwed up and still you can read it. I saw a great link on another forum the other day.

Spelling Is Not Important

What do you say about that? ^^
The same must go for japanese kana too..

You should be careful with that one. Even though the words are shuffled all letters that make up the word are present.

kazelee Wrote:

alantin Wrote:Spelling Is Not Important

You should be careful with that one. Even though the words are shuffled all letters that make up the word are present.

In addition, that study was doubtful. You can rearrange the letters in such a way that it's very, very hard to read, or other apparently random ways that it's easy to read.

http://designorati.com/articles/t1/typog...thesis.php

wccrawford Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:

alantin Wrote:Spelling Is Not Important

You should be careful with that one. Even though the words are shuffled all letters that make up the word are present.

In addition, that study was doubtful. You can rearrange the letters in such a way that it's very, very hard to read, or other apparently random ways that it's easy to read.

http://designorati.com/articles/t1/typog...thesis.php

I figured the way the words were scrambled mattered but I didn't know it had such an effect.

oregum Wrote:I always had a problem reading katakana, but never had any difficulties with hiragana. Also, never understood why Japanese people say that katakana is much easier.

I do agree with whoever said that myself, because the characters are more angular and distinguished. Hiragana has a lot of chars that look very similar. I don't see why people would think hiragana is any easier. [あ　お]　[ぬ,め] [れ,わ,ね] [る,　ろ]　[け　は　ほ]

oregum Wrote:Anyways, after RtK1+3 I'll see what Heisig has to say about remembering the kana

RTK uses katakana for onyomi and hiragana for the compounds. So you're going to learn it quite fast whether you like it or not!

I read kana about as fast as I read english... how? well I one of the useful aspects of iknow is by hearing all of those sentences first with the audio and then reading behind it so many times, it helps you identify the correct sound to the kana (and kanji) all that reading aloud every sentence that I am covering has REALLY increased both the speed I both read and speak japanese... also, just like english, the words that you already know are going to be able to be read a lot faster... the bigger your vocab. the faster you can read...

Has anyone ever met a Japanese person that thought all foreigners knew katakana regardless of whether they knew any Japanese or not? I have met a few who thought this.

Hashiriya Wrote:I read kana about as fast as I read english... how? well I one of the useful aspects of iknow is by hearing all of those sentences first with the audio and then reading behind it so many times, it helps you identify the correct sound to the kana (and kanji) all that reading aloud every sentence that I am covering has REALLY increased both the speed I both read and speak japanese... also, just like english, the words that you already know are going to be able to be read a lot faster... the bigger your vocab. the faster you can read...

I've noticed that I can reach higher speeds while playing Brainspeed, now, if I just look at entire words instead of trying to sound them out (as opposed to when I was just starting and all I could do was sound them out). It's given me a more clear idea of what words I truly do and do not know.

{quote=PrettyKitty}Has anyone ever met a Japanese person that thought all foreigners knew katakana regardless of whether they knew any Japanese or not? I have met a few who thought this.{quote/}

Could you explain this in further detail? It sounds weird.
I sometimes look at Japanese writing and smile or laugh. The other person will ask me to show them what I am reading. I forget people can't read kanji\kana. They have to ask me what it says. weird O_o

I don't think 'this is Japanese' any more and just read it, but I've forgotten that it's something I had to learn and other people haven't sometimes. Mostly with computer stuff (which I tend to set to Japanese), I've told people to click something without realising they can't read them.

Hm...Interesting topic. I always wondered why there is a ヲ in katakana. I have never seen it. For me it took 2 weeks to be able to read and write in kana but it took a month before I could do it smoothly. In my High-school course the students spend an enitire year JUST learning kana then they review it next year and learn 100 kanji. (I left the class because it was too easy~)

gyuujuice Wrote:Hm...Interesting topic. I always wondered why there is a ヲ in katakana. I have never seen it. For me it took 2 weeks to be able to read and write in kana but it took a month before I could do it smoothly. In my High-school course the students spend an enitire year JUST learning kana then they review it next year and learn 100 kanji. (I left the class because it was too easy~)

ヲタク is the only usage I know and has seen myself.

In classical Japanese many o are written with wo.

男 をとこ
女　をんな
etc

I don't know how the ヲ developed, but I do know that there have been times and instances where Japanese texts, for one reason or another, were written in katakana. For example, Japanese telegrams were written entirely in katakana, and used all of the necessary particles, including ヲ.

Tobberoth Wrote:ヲタク is the only usage I know and has seen myself.

I've got another one! ヱヴァンゲリヲン

http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000081/fil...23908.html

Also robots in fiction.

KMarkP Wrote:I don't know how the ヲ developed,

What are you saying? It developed exactly like the rest of the katakana.

Anyone who wants to see a lot of ヲs in action, just take a look at the original text of the Meiji Constitution:

朕国家ノ隆昌ト臣民ノ慶福トヲ以テ中心ノ欣栄トシ朕カ祖宗ニ承クルノ大権ニ依リ現在 及将来ノ臣民ニ対シ此ノ不磨ノ大典ヲ宣布ス
惟フニ我カ祖我カ宗ハ我カ臣民祖先ノ協力輔翼ニ倚リ我カ帝国ヲ肇造シ以テ無窮ニ垂レタリ此レ我カ神聖ナル祖宗ノ威徳ト並ニ臣民ノ忠実勇武ニシテ国ヲ愛シ公ニ殉ヒ以テ此ノ光輝アル国史ノ成跡ヲ貽シタルナリ 朕我カ臣民ハ即チ祖宗ノ忠良ナル臣民ノ子孫ナルヲ回想シ其ノ朕カ意ヲ奉体シ朕カ事ヲ奨順シ相与ニ和衷協同シ益々我カ帝国ノ光栄ヲ中外ニ宣揚シ祖宗ノ遺業ヲ永久ニ鞏固ナラシムルノ希望ヲ同クシ此ノ負担ヲ分ツニ堪フルコトヲ疑ハサルナリ

Why is it written with katakana instead of hiragana?

That's the way official documents were written for about six or seven hundred years, until the time of the language reform around 1950.

Note also the complete lack of diacritical marks, eg 我カ神聖 not 我が神聖 . I assume it also has the old pre-kana-reform spellings, but I don't propose to wade through it looking for an example :-)

Very interesting, JimmySeal, thanks! The use of kana was evidently very different from the way it is now. I also like the abundance of the infamous 朕 kanji

Well, guess who would have the authority to create such a document?

~J

Beats me. A golden calf?

JimmySeal Wrote:That's the way official documents were written for about six or seven hundred years, until the time of the language reform around 1950.

It might help to know WHY they were like that. I believe Katakana was used only for men back then.