�??�??�?ä¸ï¿½??. 幹�??�??? (I speak it. Why did you ask this?)
Reply to Cortes:
while I might be a bit optimistic, I don’t think I’m too far off 
I went straight to my uni’s Japanese 3 course after a summer (8 weeks) of intense study. A month ago, I did my final exam and got 2% below a first (top grade): not too bad, considering the rest of the class had a 2 year head start over me. My intent here isn’t to sound cocky or rude, especially as I have a great deal of respect for you (not least because of how humble and well-informed your appear from your posts). Instead, what I’m trying to say is, one CAN advance more quickly in Japanese - or any language - than is generally accepted.
(TBC)
[quote]Cortes wrote:
eremesu wrote:
i learned a bit of japanese too. it really is a great language, ordered and predictable so it is easy to learn, but also gives alot of room for self expression.
i heard chinese was easy to learn too since there is so little grammar in it
It is very clear that you have only learned “a bit” of Japanese.[/quote]
what is your problem? i know what i know. or i knew at least. unless they have a secret higher level of grammar. you can disagree with the points i made if you want, or continue being a snob
Eremesu, in some ways you’re right. It’s more logical than English, because if you can read a word, you can pronounce it: no irregular pronounciations, e.g. knight. There’s also less than a handful of irregular verbs; no noun genders; etc, etc etc. For these reasons, spoken colloquial Japanese is generally viewed as a pretty easy language.
However, written Japanese, together with various degrees of polite speech (keigo), makes full mastery of the language hard-ish. On the other hand, Korean (from what I know of it - only a modest amount) is considerably more difficult to master, though the core alphabet is perhaps the easiest in modern languages.
I think if you want to understand how a word can mean different things based on sound… You have to think of all the possible positive, neutral, and negative meanings FUCK can take on. I can use fuck, fucking, or fucker.
- Can be used as greeting, act, good sex, bad sex, bad person, good person, expression of outrage, joy, describe an occupation etc… If you know how to use the F Word in all social situations and settings then you can now grasp how asian languages can take different meanings based on tone and variation.
I speak some mandarin took it in college.
edit : fuckette, fuckton, fuckface, fuckerina, fuckshit, boobfuck, fuckyou, fuckthis, fuckthat, fuck that noise, fuck this shit, fucking yah!, fuck no, fuck yes, fuckin shit!, no fuckin way? , no fucking way!, dood what the fuck ~ there is some advanced fucking listed in the edit.
[quote]dg401 wrote:
I’ve never been myself, but a friend went and showed me pictures of Shanghai, you literally couldn’t see 15 feet in front of you.
[/quote]
I do not speak mandarin but have spent time in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai. Shanghai’s pop. is over 14 million. What makes it seem dirty is the extreme air and water pollution. The streets are very clean. From the air the Huangpu River looks like chocolate milk.
[quote]eremesu wrote:
Cortes wrote:
eremesu wrote:
i learned a bit of japanese too. it really is a great language, ordered and predictable so it is easy to learn, but also gives alot of room for self expression.
i heard chinese was easy to learn too since there is so little grammar in it
It is very clear that you have only learned “a bit” of Japanese.
what is your problem? i know what i know. or i knew at least. unless they have a secret higher level of grammar. you can disagree with the points i made if you want, or continue being a snob[/quote]
I just realized I never replied to these posts. You guys probably are not even reading them anymore, but…
What I am talking about was the fact that “knowledge” of Japanese never equates to real-world mastery. You can think you have a word or phrase down, and when you go to use it in actual conversation with an actual Japanese person (which is the reason we learn Japanese, right?),
they have no idea what you are saying, and you can repeat the word ad nauseum and they still don’t get you because you missed some tiny little inflection or you didn’t quite nail the phrasing.
In my experience, until you are pretty much fluent in Japanese, no one here will take you seriously (and some people never will, because of racism and nationalism), and a lot of people really will not be able to understand you and will not even engage you in conversation, choosing to use their own VERY limited English, even if it happens to be far worse than your own Japanese.
This was the source of the deepest frustration for me for my first 3 years here. It is no longer a problem, thank God, but my point was, no matter how well you think you know it, don’t count on anything until you go to Japan and try it on the local population. Especially on those people who are not used to speaking with foreigners.
Yes, I speak mandarin. I work and have lived in Shanghai for the last 13 years.