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Testing my typing in Japanese!

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DF234
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Testing my typing in Japanese!

Postby DF234 » December 29th, 2006 5:52 pm

私 ワ アヴィン です クリヴランド スシイン です。


Would that be correct? Please help me out here...

JockZon
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Postby JockZon » January 14th, 2007 1:15 am

私 ワ アヴィン です クリヴランド スシイン です。

That's not entirely correct...

You wrote ワ which is the correct pronunciation but should be written with the hiragana letter 'ha' which is は.

I don't know but when you wrote スシイン, did you mean しゅうしん [shuushin]?

Japanese words are written with katakana and foreign words are written with hiragana.

クリヴランド; I don't know what you wanted to say with this but in romaji this would be [kurivrando]. The ヴ should be followed by a small vowel to give the pronunciation of v +vowel. ヴ can't stand alone.

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Belton
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Postby Belton » January 14th, 2007 9:02 pm

I'm guessing your name is Ivan アイバン or イバン
ヴィ would pronuce more as "vee" (like the ee sound in wheel)

クリーブランド would be Cleveland.

I can't guess at スシイン either. but if you're joining two nouns, grammatically it probably needs の.
And you need a stop 。 after the first desu.

Formatting wise.
Japanese if written with kanji doesn't have spaces between words. Nor does it use spaces with kana. But to make things easier for learners kana(only) is often broken into words. (But having seen Japanese do this, they have different ideas about where the breaks should go!) With katakana words are sometimes seperated by ・a little black dot.

It's worth giving the English of anything like this you try so people can help you say what you wanted to say. and/or give a romaji version.
You can't really rely on your computer to convert what you type 100% accurately. The thing with particles は、へ、を for instance, picking the right kanji, or the slightly weird way words get converted into katakana when they go into Japanese.

But don't get discouraged you'll get there eventually.

Psy
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Postby Psy » January 14th, 2007 10:09 pm

Belton wrote:I can't guess at スシイン either. but if you're joining two nouns, grammatically it probably needs の.


Usually this is the case, but regular suffixes do exist in Japanese. 出身 (しゅっしん) is one of them. Thus, クリーブランド出身 is a correct statement.

Keep it up, guys!

erok1999
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はじめまして

Postby erok1999 » January 23rd, 2007 7:11 am

はじめまして わたしわえりくです。おねがいします。あめりかじんです。
じゃまた!

Belton
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Postby Belton » January 23rd, 2007 12:00 pm

Ah, Japanese orthography takes a little getting to know.

particles.
o = を never お (type wo)
wa = は never わ (type ha)
e = へ never え (type he)

long vowels in hiragana
ee = えい 
oo = おう

loanwords
are usually in katakana
アメリカじん not あめりかじん although for some it's a stlyistic decision.
It makes a sentence easier to read.

じゃ、
はじめましてエリクさん! がんばってね〜

Bueller_007
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Postby Bueller_007 » January 24th, 2007 1:44 am

Belton wrote:long vowels in hiragana
ee = えい 
oo = おう

Those apply for on-yomi only. For kun-yomi it's ええ and おお.

Juju
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Postby Juju » January 25th, 2007 7:18 am

JockZon wrote:Japanese words are written with katakana and foreign words are written with hiragana.


Isn't it the other way around? Japanese words in hiragana, and foreign words in katakana?

Bueller_007
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Postby Bueller_007 » January 25th, 2007 7:48 am

Juju wrote:
JockZon wrote:Japanese words are written with katakana and foreign words are written with hiragana.


Isn't it the other way around? Japanese words in hiragana, and foreign words in katakana?

Yeah, he clearly made a little boob.

DF234
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Postby DF234 » February 5th, 2007 6:38 pm

I meant to say "I am Arvin and my hometown is Clevleand, USA.

How is "Ha" used in place of Wa?

Just wondering.

Belton
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Postby Belton » February 5th, 2007 7:00 pm

How is ha used in place of wa?

It's just one of those things when writing Japanese.

In romaji it's usually wa. (although I've had Japanese people use ha when writing romaji)

In kana the topic particle is written は but is pronounced wa.
This particle is never written わ。

Historically I don't know how this came to be. I just accept it as how it is and am used to it by now!

Tom
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Postby Tom » February 5th, 2007 7:26 pm

Belton wrote:How is ha used in place of wa?

As far as I know, the only reason that you have to type romaji "wa" as "ha" is because "wa" is another character. I don't know the history of why "ha" as a subject marker is pronounced "wa," but I don't think the story of typing "wa" is any more complex than this.
By the way, I made it to Japan

sarahg
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をろ?

Postby sarahg » February 6th, 2007 9:58 am

Ah, so THATS how you type "を”。 I was wondering!

As for particle wa, I don't know the reasons but I do know its the "wa" character if its part of a word and the "ha" character if its the particle "wa". Particles are just special :)

Does anyone know how you write konnichiwa? Is it:
1. こんにちわ because the "wa" is part of the word,
2. こんにちは because the "wa" is a particle, or
3. こんいちは because the rule about "wa" is for any old word ending in "wa" and not just for particles?
-- セイラ
Sarah

annie
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Re: をろ?

Postby annie » February 6th, 2007 10:36 am

sarahg wrote:
Does anyone know how you write konnichiwa? Is it:
1. こんにちわ because the "wa" is part of the word,
2. こんにちは because the "wa" is a particle, or
3. こんいちは because the rule about "wa" is for any old word ending in "wa" and not just for particles?


Number 2.
こんにちは... it can be written with kanji as well... 今日は

Though how you tell the difference between konnichiwa and kyou ha, i have no idea.
Maybe just the context, as I can't see how you'd ever mistake one for the other if you were reading a paragraph.

Belton
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Postby Belton » February 6th, 2007 11:01 am

Just to make things difficult I have Japanese friends who routinely write こんにちわ or こんちわ instead of the (more) correct こんにちは。 
But then no-one should use my English spelling as an example either.

The other one to be careful of is dewa as in dewa mata or dewa arimasen.
It's では not でわ
(では is often shortened to じゃ especially in speech)
Apparently young children make this sort of mistake.

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