As a native french speaker, I've always pronounced the pe as ぺ which is natural to me. Now I realize this was incorrect. I'm often surprised by the way native english speakers tend to pronounce things.

Also, katakana transliterations are skewed toward British English pronunciations. So, they might not accurately represent how an American speaker might think of them.

ディ is pronounced /di/.  /dei/ would be デイ.

I think they just kept the "written style" in order to avoid confusion when entering the address ("damn, what's wrong with wikipidia.org??")

N'ah, that's just an experience thing. You're fine. As you see more katakana, read more, write more, you'll understand how to do combinations like that.

ディ is actually a fairly recent invention. Japanese speakers from 100 years ago would have a lot of trouble pronouncing that syllable, hence we have ラジオ as opposed to ラディオ. I wouldn't be surprised if even the current older generation would have trouble pronouncing or understanding ディ.

erlog wrote:

I wouldn't be surprised if even the current older generation would have trouble pronouncing or understanding ディ.

Yeah, one of my teachers mentioned that her grandma always used either ジ or デ instead of ディ.

On-topic, I stopped trying to make sense of katakana words a long time ago.

Last edited by Megaqwerty (2007 December 31, 1:46 pm)

Yes, I noticed that too. This isn't just specific to wikipedia, pictures are often used more sparsely on Japanese websites.

wrightak wrote:

Studying katakana words is probably the part of my Japanese studies that I enjoy the least.

Boy howdy, I can agree with that!  When I was just barely starting out, I remembered looking at katakana words with something like relief ... "Ah," I'd say to myself, "Here we have something that's probably Enlish-based, and easy to understand!"

Now, I see katakana, and dread it.  It's a lot more difficult to read than Hiragana is ... at least, for me.  I don't know why, because it's also as easy, or even simpler, to write.  What's more, the fact that I know that a lot of the katakana words are an English approximation make it more of an issue of "sounding something out," and praying that I'll actually be able to recognize what it's "supposed" to be.

Then, there are the katakana words that you're trying to make sense of that end up being German/French/Chinese/Italian/whatever in origin, that you've just spent five minutes trying to think of what it "might be."


Reading hiragana is a far more direct process of realizing whether or not I'm familiar with a word.  In fact, since I've started Heisig (and put pretty much everything else on hold), kanji is a far less mystified sight in a text than is katakana.  An unfamiliar katakana word can end up being anything, and you have to begin at square one with each you encounter.  There's no familiar patterns to develop (like Hiragana ーます, です、よ、ね、の, and　な endings) to help you decide what "kind" of word it is.

You just have to sweat it out, syllable-to-syllable.

Last edited by dukelexon (2008 January 02, 4:26 am)

wrightak wrote:

It's pretty galling that it seems as though I have to learn my own language again. It's just not interesting at all.

Once you accept them as Japanese words just like any other, it' really not much of a problem.

Having said that, it's not just the English who have their language imported and mutilated. The word 手紙 apparently means toilet paper in Chinese.

てがみ is an entirely Japanese word.  If they had imported and mutilated 手紙 from Chinese, it would be pronounced しゅし, or something like it.

JimmySeal wrote:

Once you accept them as Japanese words just like any other, it' really not much of a problem.

I'm not trying to be critical (but perhaps came across as such), I just find it quite funny that I have to play this guessing game with each English word that's imported. The toilet paper thing was also meant to amuse rather than criticise.

I do think that it could be a problem though. The adoption of foreign words into the Japanese language happens at such a rate that it's difficult to keep up, as was mentioned in a previous post. It's also a bit different from other vocabulary learning because the words have been part of the language for such a short amount of time. I'd imagine that many of them will fade out after a few more years and new ones will take their place.

I think there's been some discussion in Japanese society about whether measures should be taken to try and limit the adoption of foreign words into Japanese. I read an article about it, which I can't find right now. Ordinarily, I'd say that it's natural for any language especially for younger generations. However, in Japan it does seem to be quite severe and it's quite an interesting topic.

Like it or not, 外来語 are a big part of modern Japanese. Saying "it's difficult to keep up" is like an English learner saying it's difficult to keep up with all the latest slang. Indeed it may be difficult, but it's an important part of understanding native Japanese, and there are times when the use of a particular loanword would yield a more natural sentence than using a "traditional" Japanese word.

I guess part of the frustration stems from not being able to understand words that are so close to your native language, but think about it: if it was an arbitrary "traditional" word, you'd have had no chance of guessing what the meaning is, whereas some loanwords can be guessed. I think it's silly to be frustrated because you can't guess them all.

resolve wrote:

Like it or not, 外来語 are a big part of modern Japanese. Saying "it's difficult to keep up" is like an English learner saying it's difficult to keep up with all the latest slang.

I see what you mean but I don't think that the analogy holds particularly strongly for a couple of reasons. Firstly, (I'm not sure about this but) I think the sheer volume of imported words in Japanese is higher than the amount of slang in English.

Secondly, usage of slang in English tends to be concentrated around the younger generations and in casual situations. However, katakana words are used extensively in business, sport, and popular culture to name a few. As a little aside, I once went with my Japanese class to the offices of the crisp manufacturer Calbee. One of their representatives told us all about their business and peppered his speech with so many imported words that I suddenly found myself to be the only one in my class who understood everything he was saying. Even the teacher had a few mystified moments.

I think that these imported words are used in much more wide ranging and varied situations than English slang. What's more, their usage is encouraged by a great deal of English language education. If you look like you might speak English then Japanese people will often insert more imported words into their conversations with you - it's very considerate of them. I would tend not to speak slang to an English learner.

I agree that like it or not, you've just got to learn them.