Study Group: Lesson 4

[am_bee]

Here's the thread for lesson 4.

Note to all those who have PMed me, but who have not recieved a confirmation PM in return:
Due to the large number of PMs I have gotten in such a short time, I'm a little behind, but you will be added to the member list by Thursday. You are, of course, welcome to sign up for the mailing list before you recieve your confirmation. Go to the Study Group site to do that:
http://geocities.com/thejapanesestudygroup/index.html

And to answer the question before it comes, practice exercises and quizzes will be posted on the site throughout the week. Right now, the lesson and the test are the only things posted.


further notices:

this is to let everyone know that pms have all been answered, study answers will be posted tomorrow morning (friday), and there will be a couple very important notices included with the answers post, so please make sure to check that out.

[GMK-kaijuu]

In the test for lesson 4 in the translate the following sentences on question 4:Mr Tanaka WAS not a company worker.
In the answer for it it was in the present negative tense.
Or im off on this.
I love the tests though, it makes it easier to study. Thank you so much

[tk101]

eeto, doushite boku no namea ni " member list" imasen ka
umm why isn't my name on the memeber list? So i can't do the lessons?



i dont understand the characters one lesson 4.

they dont look like hirgana, nor katakana. Can you put them in romaji?

doozo....


Arigatou gozaimasu

[am_bee]

as for your name not being on the list yet, it is being updated little by little. we have had a huge influx of people signing up, so we are a little behind at posting names. however, as soon as you sed me anotice requestimg to be added, you are a member.

as for your question about the japanese: if it is not showing up on your computer your encoding may be off. check out the faq on the site for instructions on how to fix that. after you have tried the instructions for settign your encoding, if it still doesn't work, pm me and i will try to help you with it further, but the faq should cover everything you need to know.

and no, i will not use romanji on any of the lessons. i feel that romanji hinders learning natural japanese.

[tk101]

thanks,

but if you don't mind me asking. how does it hinder the learning of japanese, someone else said the same thing.

[Daisuke]

Romaji makes it easier to learn to pronounce the different kana. At the end romaji isn't Japanese and romaji would probably be useless in any situation in Japan etc. I do always write everything japanese in kana, because i don't want to get used to romaji, and at the same way it helps remembering kana to.

[mrfusion]

Is there any trick to leaning katakana? Some of them
look like their hiragana counterpart, but others aren't even close.

Where did these shapes come from and why did they make a whole new
set of symbols instead of just adding to what was already there??


I suppose the answer is just memorize, memorize, memeorize......

[Daisuke]

Long ago katakana was used by men, and hiragana was used by women. Now, hiragana is the first alphabet the Japanese children learns. (Guess that answers your first question)

Katakana is used for foreign words and names.

I have not found katakana usefull yet, but i am glad i learned it, because i am sure i'll find it useful in the future.

[mrfusion]

It certainly seems to get mixed in a lot with the stuff
I've been looking at.

[Riley]

sorry about that post, it has nothing to do with the 4th lesson, but i just wanted to say that i wont be online till wednesday and i know there's the 5th lesson today so i might not see it and if you admins plan to make some practice thread like you said then i wont be writing and i ask you not to remove me from the members list because i'm inactive.
thanks in advance

p.s
let me just write something that i think you want us to write as a practice for lesson 5:
わたし　は　がくせい　です

[Daisuke]

That's okay.

[am_bee]

to add my opinion to the romanji issue, seeing the letters effects how your brain thinks of the word. for example, the particle, made. when you first look at it, everythinｇ you have been taught to this point in your life is saying, "oh, that's made." (pronounced with a long a and no e) then, you have to say, "nope, this is japanese. so that's not made, it's ma-dey." now, i'm sure most people don't actully think that out completely like that, but that is the process your brain goes through. it contributes to difficulty in reading, often pronouncing, and understanding the spoken language.
on the other hand, if you see まで, your brain knows that ま is pronounced ma, and that で is pronounced dey. so you read　and pronounce it riｇht the first time without your brain having to "translate" it twice.

oh, and thank you for pointing out that error on the test corrections. i'll triple check next time.

[Nameni]

it takes a bit more time to be reading in Kana than in Romaji but it's our goal to be reading completly in Japanese sooner or later ain't it?
but perhaps in the beginning we could do something like hard words get a Romaji next to it so people can easly see how to prennaunce it.

for example:
ごしょうかいします is this prennaunced as "Do-shou-kai-shi-mas(u)" or as "do-sho-u-kai-shi-mas(u)" well i think it's the first it makes the most sence to me. yet i might be completely wrong here ... perhaps someone knows a trick or a grammatic rule to it that tells you exactly how to read it. i'm not so much worried about this word as in later on we have to get used to reading lines without spaced, wich will make it very hard to read a sentence with words in it we don't understand or never had how will we be able to make an analyse about what is connected to eachtoehr or and what isn't. as not every word is ended with a Partical like "No" or "wa" or "(w)o" and the hiragana's are also used in words.

another question concering the Desu form:

です = Des(u)
ではありません = deha-arimasen or dewa-arimasen
でした = Deshite, how is this word prenaunced? i can give some examples about how i could prennaunce it but i think it's pretty clear what i mean. ではありませんでした same goes for this word at the end.

thanks in advance for the anwers to my questions
~Hommel~

[Daisuke]

When i am saying them, i think the one sounding most correct is 'do-shou-kai-shi-mas(u)'. I am not sure tho'.

And deshite is pronounced de-shi-te.

[am_bee]

desh'te
in many cases with し, the i is not pronounced very loudly.
with しょう, the う lengthens the o sound.
these are questions that should have been asked in the first few lessons...and the websites that were posted in the first three lessons have these answers, and sound files so you can hear how different hiragana combinations are suppose to sound.
and if we put the romanji with the kana, most people wouldn't bother reading the kana because they wouldn't have to. anything that i feel the pronounciation is not clear on, i will put romanji by. and if the pronounciation is not clear to you and i have not put anything by it, feel free to ask.