Japanese Language

superdavid   Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:41 pm GMT
1. Is Japanese language classified as an isolate language?

2. What is the closest language to Japanese language?

3. Is Japanese language worth learning? (It's only spoken in Japan.)
furrykef   Sun Aug 05, 2007 4:57 pm GMT
1. Generally, yes. If you want to be strictly accurate, there are other Japonic languages spoken in Japan, such as Okinawan, but these languages are generally mutually unintelligible with standard Japanese as well as each other. It hasn't been proven that Japanese is related to any language spoken outside Japan.

2. Korean. The two are similar grammatically, and I believe they have some shared vocabulary (although I have no idea how much). Phonologically they are very different, though.

3. That depends entirely on why you would want to learn it what you would use it for. For me, it's worth it, but only because I'm passionately in love with the language. It's a very hard language to learn if that love isn't there, especially if you intend to learn its writing system, which is the most complicated writing system on the planet -- and that's not an exaggeration.

- Kef
furrykef   Sun Aug 05, 2007 5:00 pm GMT
I feel the need to clarify this statement:

<< It's a very hard language to learn if that love isn't there, especially if you intend to learn its writing system, which is the most complicated writing system on the planet -- and that's not an exaggeration. >>

Although I did say "most complicated", it isn't necessarily the hardest to learn. Chinese writing might be harder, although my semi-educated guess is that it's around the same level of difficulty.

- Kef
mac   Sun Aug 05, 2007 5:28 pm GMT
Very common questions.

It is disputed, but Japanese is either an isolate or an Altaic language.

I hear that Korean may be the closest language. Although Japanese uses Chinese characters (kanji) in writing, the actual language is very different from Chinese.

Is it worth learning? It's not a big international language but it does have importance as Japan has one of the largest economies in the world and a population of about 127 million. Other than that it comes down to your personal interest in Japan.

My primary second language is Spanish but I'm living in Japan now, so of course I'm learning the language.
mac   Sun Aug 05, 2007 5:45 pm GMT
Yes, as furrykef said the writing system requires a lot of extra effort compared to many other languages.
vox   Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:07 am GMT
Kef:

"It's a very hard language to learn..."

If you're talking about the writing system, yes. But what about if you want to concentrate on just the spoken language? (At least to start with.) My impression is that in some ways it is LESS difficult than a lot of European languages. The pronunciation is very straightforward--if you can read romaji or kana, you're pretty close. The grammar is not as simple as Chinese, but it is not terrible, and you don't have the tones you see in Chinese--easier to understand and to produce.

What's you're experience?
Ken   Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:13 am GMT
Korean and Japanese have crapload of cognates. Seriously, all words that are derived from Chinese (Sino-Korean words and Sino-Japanese words) are very similar - and there's a lot of them. Grammar is pretty much identicle. Although, I think Korean might be more complicated. I'm not sure about that.
K. T.   Mon Aug 06, 2007 7:10 am GMT
Since we are all one human species, every language in the world is related either directly or indirectly to some other language.-Brennus

I suspect this is true.
furrykef   Mon Aug 06, 2007 9:10 am GMT
<< Kef:

"It's a very hard language to learn..."

If you're talking about the writing system, yes. But what about if you want to concentrate on just the spoken language? (At least to start with.) My impression is that in some ways it is LESS difficult than a lot of European languages. The pronunciation is very straightforward--if you can read romaji or kana, you're pretty close. The grammar is not as simple as Chinese, but it is not terrible, and you don't have the tones you see in Chinese--easier to understand and to produce. >>

These are valid points, of course. I don't think the spoken language is so bad, but you do have to be careful. A lot of Japanese words sound alike to English speakers, but not to Japanese speakers, so there are plenty of opportunities for unfortunate confusion. Some words differ on only whether the vowel is long, and even words that have vowels may be confusingly similar.

You also don't have any of the cognates that are so handy when learning a Romance language. Japanese does borrow from English, but not nearly as much as we've borrowed from Latin.

The whole politeness system is also completely alien to speakers of English, and figuring out which form to use isn't always trivial.

<< What's you're experience? >>

The problem is I don't have any experience there yet. I'm learning the writing system before learning the spoken language.

- Kef
Guest   Mon Aug 06, 2007 10:15 am GMT
<<You also don't have any of the cognates that are so handy when learning a Romance language. Japanese does borrow from English, but not nearly as much as we've borrowed from Latin. >>

Hasn't Japanese borrowed heavily from Chinese in a similar way that English has borrowed heavily from Latin and Romance.
furrykef   Mon Aug 06, 2007 11:35 am GMT
It has, but that won't help you unless you speak Chinese. :)

Not to mention that the Chinese words have been borrowed from several dialects, most of these centuries ago (or longer!), and the words had their phonology simplified (including the complete loss of tones), so even then, it would only help you so much.

- Kef
K. T.   Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:04 pm GMT
I don't think Japanese is difficult as much as it is time-consuming. Japanese people will forgive many mistakes a beginner makes, but you may not get the imput you need to be corrected unless you ask for help.

Are you detail-oriented? 入 and 人 look alike to some people (enter and man) and these Kanji 大, 太, and 犬 have minor differences (big, fat, dog), but it's important to remember what those differences are.

Do you like Japanese culture? Some people start Japanese because of the fun of Anime, then they find that they don't enjoy the cultural differences.

Consider the time investment before you plunge.
furrykef   Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:52 pm GMT
<< Are you detail-oriented? 入 and 人 look alike to some people (enter and man) and these Kanji 大, 太, and 犬 have minor differences (big, fat, dog), but it's important to remember what those differences are. >>

Well, I never had much trouble with those kanji, myself. Even worse than those are 土 and 士, differing only by the length of the stroke, although very few kanji are THAT similar, thank goodness. Still, I have little trouble keeping them separate in my head.

More troublesome are things like the difference between 持 and 特... cases like that happen a lot. Trying to memorize the kanji visually will likely lead to failure due to cases like these. But if you call the left part of the first one a "hand" and the first part of the second one a "cow" -- assuming you make the same distinction for all the other characters that have these components -- then it's easy to keep them separate in your head if you can make connections with these kanji involving a hand or a cow, respectively. That's basically what the Heisig system of learning kanji does: it gives a meaning to each part of every kanji in a way that's fairly easy to remember. (K. T. doesn't like the Heisig system, though...)

- Kef
furrykef   Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:56 pm GMT
Oh, forgot to comment on this:

<< Consider the time investment before you plunge. >>

Yes, DEFINITELY consider the time investment if you're going to learn the writing system. The amount of time I'm investing into the writing system alone is almost absurd compared to the amount of time I invest into Spanish.

- Kef
mac   Tue Aug 07, 2007 5:45 am GMT
<< Yes, DEFINITELY consider the time investment if you're going to learn the writing system. The amount of time I'm investing into the writing system alone is almost absurd compared to the amount of time I invest into Spanish. >>

I know what you mean. To be honest, I've pretty much put learning kanji aside and focus mainly on the spoken language which I find is much more useful and practical for me anyway. I try to learn kanji casually as I go but I really don't care if I'll ever be able to read Japanese well or not, but that's me. I find that I can get by alright knowing some important kanji and kana. Some of my friends are really good at reading kanji but they are mostly Japanese majors or people that lived in Japan for a while.

I'm also trying to improve my spanish too and I find I have much more time to do that if I'm not memorizing hundreds of kanji. So in short, if you want to learn Japanese entirely be prepared to put in some extra time.