yudantaiteki Wrote:Unless it's a rare word, native speakers have no difficulty with long vs. short vowels or 促音. じょう and じょ are as different to a Japanese person as "l" and "r" are to a native English speaker.

I suspected as much.

Do they get caught up on 連濁？

I doubt it, unless it's a rare/obscure word or there's some regional difference. They would know which it is because they're used to hearing it. Kind of like stress in English. Natives know a gift is a PREsent and not a preSENT because they're used to hearing the word.

Edit: I shoud also add, after a while you kind of develop an intuition for when to do rendaku. There is kind of pattern too it. Same with little っ.

nadiatims Wrote:I doubt it, unless it's a rare/obscure word or there's some regional difference. They would know which it is because they're used to hearing it. Kind of like stress in English. Natives know a gift is a PREsent and not a preSENT because they're used to hearing the word.

Does anyone have a reference that presents the rules of 連濁?

I find I can guess correctly most of the time, but it would still be nice to have a set of rules that can be referred to.

Lyman's law seems like the most frequently-referenced guideline. This page has that, and a bit more:
http://hararie-japan-tokyo-tokyo.com/jap...ology.html

However, there are no rules to rendaku, just guidelines.

partner55083777 Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:I doubt it, unless it's a rare/obscure word or there's some regional difference. They would know which it is because they're used to hearing it. Kind of like stress in English. Natives know a gift is a PREsent and not a preSENT because they're used to hearing the word.

Does anyone have a reference that presents the rules of 連濁?

I find I can guess correctly most of the time, but it would still be nice to have a set of rules that can be referred to.

There are no rules. This is something that linguists have tried to figure out for a long, long time but they've made very little progress. Lyman's law is one of the few rules but I don't know how helpful it is for learners.

I've done some significant research in this. I found many of the same examples brought in the sources here too. However, I've found some other restraints. I think it's easier to figure out when rendaku doesn't occur versus when it does occur.

As for names, it is very random. This may very well be due a complicated history of voicing in of itself throughout Japan over the centuries. There are some theories that say voiced sounds used to never exist while some say that they indeed existed in ancient times.

I once found a page of many exceptions to the principles said to bind rendaku, but I don't know where it is now. Anyways, I have some more information about this in http://www.imabi.net/lesson116.htm

Hyperborea Wrote:I think I would agree with the assessment on the lack of English fluency of a large fraction of the American population.

This statement is silly. For one, to the extent that fluency is a technical term it refers only to spoken language. Fluency is also used colloquially to mean general proficiency in a foreign language. Neither the technical nor colloquial use of the term apply when describing the spelling abilitiy of a native speaker.

Hyperborea Wrote:For most of the population the major source reading material has been TV guide and even that has become less important with the even more simplified on-screen system. So being able to spell helps with that but not enough to matter.

No, the major source reading material these days is the internet, cell phones, written language used in the workplace, and the newspaper. I'm sure you're brilliant and read and everyone else is an idiot.

Hyperborea Wrote:

Tzadeck Wrote:I'm sure you're brilliant and read and everyone else is an idiot.

Hmmm, so is it a lack of reading comprehension on your part or a projection of your concerns on your own capabilities?

Actually, yeah, I'm not sure exactly what you were trying to say. I'm not sure if it's due to my reading comprehension though, haha.

So, I don't intend to start another flame war, but this is something I've been thinking about the past couple days.

(EDIT: Let me prefix this post with a warning. I am currently living in Japan and using Japanese everyday, so that has probably influenced my views. Take this with a grain of salt.)

Recently I've started doing two new things in my Japanese studies. One is learning how to write the kanji. I'm currently going through RTK and am on frame 600 or so. The other this is focusing on pitch, accent, and pronunciation.

After spending considerable time on both, I have to say that studying pitch/accent/pronunciation has helped me much, much more than studying kanji.

I want to learn to write the kanji, but realistically I never write kanji by hand. It's a skill that I want, but not a skill that I need.

On the other hand, focusing on pitch and pronunciation has greatly helped me with communicating with Japanese people. You often hear that as a foreigner don't need to worry about pitch because Japanese people will understand you even if you get it wrong. This is true to an extent, but I am occasionally asked to repeat myself if I don't hit the correct pitch. Speaking with the correct pitch seems to make Japanese people understand me much better. Conversations are much smoother when speaking with correct pitch.

Also, it seems to me that just paying attention to pitch makes it easier to understand dramas. Pitch (along with context) helps you figure out sentences that have been spoken too fast and slurred.

I still think it's a good idea to study kanji, but I might say it's more important to study pitch/accent/pronunciation. Of course, it's hard to practice output with pitch and pronunciation without native speakers around you.

I'm not exactly sure what kind of writing we're talking about here and why people say it takes so much time to learn... If people want to write really beautiful kanjis or learn calligraphy or something like that, I could imagine it would take a lot of time and effort, but if people are satisfied with writing legible kanjis, I don't get why it should take a lot of effort. One just has to remember the primitives that constitutes each character (which is what Remembering the Kanji is all about) and be able to write all the primitives (and in my opinion learning to write the primitives doesn't take much more effort than learning the kanas). So unless I missed something what is all this about?

Of course for those who hasn't used RtK it might take a little more effort, but then again, I'd assume one could make one's way through RtK fairly rapidly if one could already recognize most of the kanjis?

Isbilenper Wrote:I don't get why it should take a lot of effort.

Are you speaking from personal experience, having learned to write a large number of kanji by hand (in context)?

The hardest thing in handwriting kanji is remembering which kanji go with which word, and I don't know how much RTK helps with that.

I meant out of context, which is what I thought this thread was primarily about. I found that learning to write them out in a keyword --> kanji fashion wasn't much extra work compared to just learning to recognize them while making my way through RtK1.

I can write most of the few words I currently know out by hand with kanjis and so far learning that hasn't been very taxing, but then again I am currently at a sub-JLPT5 level, so most of the words I know are sole kanjis or easy/common two-kanji compounds. I have no experience to say if learning to write out the words by hand will become significantly harder as one moves on to intermediate/advanced vocabulary, so I'll refrain from saying anything about that for now.

Anyway, thanks for clarifying that we were talking about kanjis in context and not out of context, that one slipped past me for some reason.

erlog Wrote:Actually, the kind of paperwork he's talking about is exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about essays. I'm talking about all the random life stuff that people take for granted that they can do. Jotting things down and filling out paperwork are two of these things. They don't happen often, but when they do it's nice to be able to do them without it being a hassle.

Agreed that being able to fill out paperwork and surveys, jot things down, and address your own envelopes is really important.

I would also add another reason that seems to have been overlooked so far in this thread (though I confess that I haven't read every post): taking notes. If you plan to live in Japan long-term, you will doubtless find yourself in meetings, interviews, and lectures of some kind. You will need to be able to do more than jot things down in these situations: you will need to be able to transcribe what is being said.

For example, you may need to conduct an interview for research purposes. You may think that you can converse in Japanese and take notes in English, but believe me: it's massively difficult to switch back and forth like that. If you can't write in Japanese, you will probably find yourself scribbling desperately in romaji during the conversation, and you may have a hard time deciphering your notes later. If you insist on taking notes in English, you will probably slow down the flow of the conversation, and your counterpart may get annoyed.

Most people don't need to conduct interviews every day, but the skill of transcription actually comes up a lot in our daily lives. We just don't notice because it's not hard for us to take notes in English.

skellyfish Wrote:I would also add another reason that seems to have been overlooked so far in this thread (though I confess that I haven't read every post): taking notes. If you plan to live in Japan long-term, you will doubtless find yourself in meetings, interviews, and lectures of some kind. You will need to be able to do more than jot things down in these situations: you will need to be able to transcribe what is being said.

For example, you may need to conduct an interview for research purposes. You may think that you can converse in Japanese and take notes in English, but believe me: it's massively difficult to switch back and forth like that. If you can't write in Japanese, you will probably find yourself scribbling desperately in romaji during the conversation, and you may have a hard time deciphering your notes later. If you insist on taking notes in English, you will probably slow down the flow of the conversation, and your counterpart may get annoyed.

I don't transcribe things even in English. I go to lectures all the time and take notes in half English half Japanese, of course writing kanji is useful but I can fall back on kana as well.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I don't transcribe things even in English. I go to lectures all the time and take notes in half English half Japanese, of course writing kanji is useful but I can fall back on kana as well.

Likewise. When I take notes in English, I tend to summarize without even writing complete sentences. I just write down enough keywords and phrases to jog my memory when I revisit my notes. Paradoxically, people who take notes excessively tend to not fully grasp whatever prompted them to take notes in the first place. They're too busy perfecting their notes to actually listen to what is being discussed or presented.

yudantaiteki Wrote:The hardest thing in handwriting kanji is remembering which kanji go with which word, and I don't know how much RTK helps with that.

I think it depends on the person (how they learned and their level) and the word (frequency and kanji properties.) I'm finding I'm more likely to falter on a part of a kanji than on which kanji.

Here's an admittedly exaggerated example just to help explain: Say a learner memorized the on-readings of individual kanji without paying attention to their range of meaning. To remember which kanji to use in a compound, they could rely on accurate whole word visual memory (which is far better for recognition than production) and/or hope that very few kanji have that reading.

RTK, on the other other hand, can help someone produce the correct kanji in a compound in a few different ways.

* Having a semantic sense of kanji can often either identify the correct kanji or at least rule out obvious non-candidates. I also think it's a common vocabulary learning strategy to incorporate meanings of the individual kanji. It doesn't really matter if this is etymologically correct or not; it creates an association that can be relied on to produce the correct kanji. (This is an argument for avoiding outlandish RTK keywords for kanji and components. If they're closer to plausible meanings, you never need to discard them. They'll help, not hinder.)

* RTK can help us choose the correct kanji b/c it fine tunes discernment of the components. As reading skills advance, people rely more and more on visual word recognition in the case of familiar words (in Japanese and English). When writing those words, they can almost see it in their minds, but there's often just one portion of the kanji that's fuzzy. The dreaded "blob". RTK is very effective at blob replacement. The early focused effort to distinguish similar kanji seems to really pay off [whether it's conscious reliance on a quick mnemonic or unconscious retrieval.]

* This isn't unique to RTK, but writing kanji apparently creates another form of kanji memory (kinetic or motoric memory). Self-studiers who do all their writing on the computer (the norm?) won't develop it. For them, the RTK process might be the only opportunity to create such mental links. These links are so developed in Japanese and Chinese people that "air writing" is commonly used to recall kanji. In studies, the recall accuracy is lower when they don't engage [in "air writing"]. Interestingly, the area of the brain involved in writing kanji is activated even when just reading. (I found this other factoid fascinating too: Japanese patients who lost the ability to read kanji were still able to write them.)

Some people here have probably experienced something similar when they forget how to write a kanji: by clearing the mind completely and just starting to write, our autopilot will often complete the forgotten part. [This never ceases to amaze me. The musicians here are also probably familiar with an ability to play 'mindlessly'.]

* I've personally become fairly convinced (not based on any science, just personal experience and the opinions of [former classmates] who've been involved in language teaching for a while) that strong familiarity with individual kanji results in longer kanji word retention. This could be achieved in a number of ways, but RTK seems to be a particularly effective way. (There's a bunch of information on the benefits of component analysis and kanji knowledge, but I'm not aware of anything relating it specifically to retention.)

To tie this back to the original question, I agree with others that the benefits of handwriting kanji when learning Japanese are probably significant (for initial learning, subsequent handwriting and knowing which kanji to use.)
Edits in [ ] and fixed mangled wording.

As important as it is writing is in English. I have heard that a person could get away with pure Hiragana and even Romaji in rewriting Japanese. I would equate that to using very simple words in writing English. That is the difference between "got" and "purchased" or even "invested."

As important as being able to express one's ideas in English. Simple sentences in Japanese are find for practicing, but compositions are important in for professionals. It is Kanji with Hiragana and Katakana that are used to present oneself as professional.

A little pocket dictionary many be the best aid. That means that remembering words are the most important. Writing with the aid of a dictionary when words can be remembered is the best strategy.

Are people seriously suggesting that not being to spell in English as a native speaker is OK?

You'll probably survive, but it's an embarrassment unless you're in grade school. It's one of those things that instantly make me question the intelligence of a person.

It depends on what you mean by "not being [able] to spell". Spelling isn't a direct reflection of intelligence (or education for that matter -- I've seen some pretty bad spelling from some highly educated people.)

My view on spelling ability is similar to weirdo's – you can't write, there is something wrong with you (and you can show me whatever paper you want...).

Are we directly comparing English spelling to Japanese spelling ability?

I'd go as far as to claim that one is much more taxing than the other, and takes significantly more work to upkeep, even as a native.

I've heard a good 川柳 about this (concerning Japanese people).
最近は
ケータイ無いと
字が書けず

However while it's true that some Japanese people are forgetting how to write.. it's also true that all adults are expected to be able to. It's an invaluable skill for living and working in Japan. As a foreigner- do what you want? :d
(However it certainly adds depth to understanding.)

Also we all know that English spelling makes absolutely no sense. English doesn't have enough letters to express itself but it stopped caring about that long ago when it stole this writing system from languages with different sounds from its own.

weirdo Wrote:Are people seriously suggesting that not being to spell in English as a native speaker is OK?

You'll probably survive, but it's an embarrassment unless you're in grade school. It's one of those things that instantly make me question the intelligence of a person.

Depends on your lifestyle. Most adults I've met who are not working in a professional field which involved multiple years of university training seem to have generally mediocre, if not even poor, written grammar and spelling ability. If you go on Facebook, it is pretty clear that those whom are able to spell and write "correctly" are in the minority, and -generally again- if spelling and/or grammatical errors made by others are pointed out, people tend to get aggressive and/or start to personally insult you for your observations.

Not that it's what I would consider "OK"- but there are a lot of things in society which happens on a daily basis which also falls into this category.

Grammar perhaps has a stronger casual relation to comparative intelligence than that of the spelling ability of an individual. Grammar is the ability to understand semantic patterns and linguistic phenomena within a language, whereas at least in English, there are a vast amount of spelling "rules" which have not outlying contradictions but enough exceptions to create an entire subset of rules from one key spelling convention. Exposure, repetition and memorizing seem to be the stronger points of English language spelling and writing ability than intelligence would suggest.

日本語 could probably be argued to be utilizing a different sense of cognition, with the strong phonetic ties, in relation to spelling, which may be closer to the neocortex in involvement than the often sheer memorizing which English written language often demands.

Has an anecdotal, my spelling is rather atrocious (doesn't help when a lot of it comes to laziness and relying on spell-check) though my intelligence is at least above which said spelling lack-thereof ability may, from some perspectives, insinuate.

But this is just small talk on a study break, lol.
（＾＿＾）ー自”自ー（＾＿＾）

uisukii Wrote:Grammar perhaps has a stronger casual relation to comparative intelligence than that of the spelling ability of an individual.

Grammar has nothing to do with intelligence, since everyone's speech conforms to some grammar (as long as it's their native language). If you're talking about conforming your speech or writing to an "educated" dialect, that has much more to do with education than intelligence.

[Zgarbas]

Intelligence has little to do with the fine details of language learning in general. Of course, intelligence itself is hard to define. If you go by IQ=intelligence then sure, the fact that you're able to find patterns in an abstract environment could be a factor which makes it easier to find common language patterns between the native language and the studied one, but of course there's only so far you can get with instinct alone*. Education and hard work are what teach you a language, not intelligence. The reason why so many people have bad spelling/writing skills is because it's almost 100% a hard work thing, and the average Joe is usually satisfied with gaining basic communication skills and/or relies too heavily on his native language abilities to bother working hard on the fine details.

*though from personal experience with Japanese it definitely helps with linking kanjis to words. I've actually found that to be an impediment as I end up relying too heavily on my instinctual links and make basic mistakes when it comes to the details. e.g. I easily recognized 一生懸命 after only seeing it once due to its rather special shape, but it did little to help me learn 一生、懸命 and link the 命 to 命ずる and related words, as I could only recognize them in the pattern. It was also troublesome when i learned 四字熟語 with a similar shape as 一生懸命 is always the first one to come to mind. So yeah, good for a head start but a disadvantage in the long run.