How do Japanese know what new words sound like?

Factual Questions
21

I took a few years of Japanese in college recently. Try to look at it like this. The Japanese are one of the most determined people around, and they do not like to dilute their culture much.

Hiragana- Japanese symobls for Japanese words.
sensei - teacher, hon - book, hai - yes, ii - no, ect…Spelling is involved, each symbol stands for a sound, not a letter. There is really only one consonant “n”, and most sound end in a vowel.

Katakana - Japanese symbols for anyone else’s words.
chocolate - chocoreto ga, desk - desku, speaker - supika, television - terebi, ect… Not just english, any word can be sounded out in this alphabet, which is used specifically to show that it is not a native to Japan word.
Spelling is involved, each symbol stands for a sound, not a letter.

Kangi - Japanese symbols for words or expressions. One symbols means date, one symbol for time, one for tree, one for book, ect…so no spelling, only shape the character/symbol.
Hope this helps a bit.

22

THis is what i’ve always heard. I’ve also heard theories that Japanese may have some Austronesian influences, but like the Japanese/Korean theory, this is up in the air.

Also, from hearing the Koreans here speak, it sounds quite different from japanese. I dont think the two sound all that similar. As for Hangul, the shapes of the characters represent the articulations of the organs of the mouth. It’s quite a smart system, fairly easy to learn.Although all i know how to write is “hankuk” :wink:

23

Boy, I’ve rarely heard such a large amount of misinformation and speculation as these “answers.” I have a degree in Japanese & Linguistics, so I’ll give the real answer (or several of them)…

How do Japanese know what new words sound like? They look them up in a dictionary, just like you would if you encountered an unfamiliar English word. In fact, NHK (the Japanese national TV network) publishes a “shingo jiten” (new words dictionary) with a new volume every year.

Most new words tend to be “gairaigo” (loan words from other languages) and are usually written in katakana, which is a phonetic alphabet, so the prononciation is obvious.

24

Dictionaries are cheating! :smiley:

Of course, a Chinese student who encountered an unfamiliar character could look it up in a dictionary using the four corners method and find out the pronounciation from the pinyin. I assume that a Japanese student would use a similar method for an unknown kanji/kangi (sp?) character.

However, I understood the question as “absent teachers or dictionaries, how do a Japanese or Chinese person know what new words sound like?”. Are you confirming that a Japanese speaking person, absent any aids, has no way of figuring out the pronounciation of an unknown Chinese or kanji character?

25

Geezo, I come back the next day and 20+ responses?! Thanks! I was thinking about a “new word” ie laser, or Internet (or a word a youngster had not encountered). Seeing as how reading unknown words would be the only way to not know how it’s pronounced, I’m pretty sure that’s what I meant with my original question. (I don’t think that last sentance made any sense.) Facsinating how complicated some languages are. Even with our largely inaplicable rules (“I” before “E” except after “C”, unless you’re spelling society, science, yadda…), I am grateful I speak the language I do.

26

Well, if you don’t like dictionaries, you can always ask someone in person.

Yes, you can look up kanji in a dictionary, but a single kanji character usually doesn’t carry much meaning, compounds of two or more are more common. And yes, in most cases, there is no clear way to guess a prononciation (we call them “readings” or “yomikata”) just from the word. You can make an educated guess, the guess will usually be right, but you can never be 100% certain. This is particularly difficult with proper names, a pair of kanji used for names may have dozens of readings. Most business cards have “furigana” (phonetic prononciation) above the kanji for the names.

I know that Japanese native-speakers have problems with readings. I was at a meeting where a young woman was reading a newspaper article, and an older, more educated lady was sitting behind her, correcting her misreadings (which were fairly frequent).

Even knowing the reading may not lead to a definitive meaning. I’ll give an example of “shingo” (new slang words) from a few years ago, when I was taking Japanese classes in Japan. BTW, even my professor admitted that when he talked to young Japanese kids, he could never figure out what they were talking about because they used so much new slang, and the slang goes in and out of fashion in mere weeks or months. But anyway, there was a new slang term “ashi-kun.” Ashi just means “leg.” “-kun” is a personal diminutive, like the name Carl might become Carlito (little carl, literally). So it loosely translates as “Mr. Legs.” What the hell does it mean? You’d have to ask around. It was a slang term for a guy who owns a car, someone that women call up when they want someone to drive them around town. This term lost favor within a year, and a couple of years later, I asked if people knew this term and nobody knew what it meant. It became “shi-go” (a dead word).

27

How about when the Japanese encounter words in english??

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Phouchg

“Ball, get out of my nachos!” - Biff Henderson

28

I know this is an old thread but I just wanted to add something here. I served a mission in Korea (and am “sort-of-fluent”) and I know a little bit about Japanese. I’d say they are related but they don’t like to admit it!

The grammar structure is similar (they do the same thing with noun markers and verb structure and politeness-levels) and some words are similar as well. Someone told me the word for “family” in Japanese (which of course I don’t remember) and it sounded a lot like the Korean word. That doesn’t mean I would be able to understand a Japanese speaker!

29

Thank you for clearing up my ignorance on the topic of Japanese-Korean relatedness, Helena. It’s always good to have someone with actual experience share their knowledge. By the way, you wouldn’t happen to be from Montana, would you? :smiley:

30

Aaaagh! I can’t tell you how many people have asked me that! LOL! I have NEVER been to Montana. Actually I’m from Ohio. :slight_smile:

31

I realize this is a really old but newly re-opened thread, so maybe no one is paying attention…but I can’t resist.

I’m really shocked at how unimportant Flodnak makes hiragana sound. Actually, most of the characters in a Japanese newspaper are hiragana, because you can’t conjugate verbs or connect ideas withouth them. Kanji is more fascinating, but hiragana is indespensible.

As one poster pointed out, for Chinese pronunciations it is completely possible to “sound out” a new character (“new”=“one you have never seen before”), because many characters sharing elements (other, smaller characters making up the new character) have similar if not identical pronunciations. For example, among characters containing the more basic character for “direction” (which has the “chinese” reading of “hou”), there are very few that are not pronounced “hou” or “bou” (there being a conceptual overlap in Japanese between “h,” “b,” and “p.”)

However, this only goes for Chinese readings (“chinese” denotes no connection at all with current readings in modern Chinese…these are pronunciations that developed from the original pronunciation at the time the character in question was first taken from Chinese…quite some time ago…). If a character is to be read with the Japanese pronunciation and you don’t know it, the above rule does not apply. You are left with no other choice but to look it up.

Furthermore, there are “ateji,” which are used either exclusively for their pronunciation but not their meaning, or vice-versa. For example, the character for “Buddha,” with the reading “fu,” is also used to represent France, because “France” is pronounced “fu-ra-n-su.” But the meaning of “Buddha” is irrelevant in that case. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the word for “tobacco” or “cigarette,” read “tabako.” However, the characters for it are written “smoke” and “grass,” and would normally be read “ensou.” However, it has been agreed that when coming upon these characters together in a book, they will be read “tobacco.”

So I guess I started out writing this planning to say “it’s not as hard as you think…words can be sounded out.” But I take it back. Without lots of study, you’re fucked.:slight_smile:

By the way…the method used by most Japanese folks I know when they come across a word they son’t now how to read is to simply not read it. Especially if you are a native speaker, unless you are reading out loud for class there is no need to know how to pronounce every word, because chances are you at least know the MEANING by looking at the characters. At the very least, you can tell from the context, like any other language.

As for the connections between Korean and Japanese…I am no expert on Korean, but I know they both share lots of Chinese loan-words. So it is not surprising that a word like “family” (which is read with the Chinese pronunciations) would be similar in both languages. This is not the same as sharing a historical source, though. The realtionship between Chinese and Japanese has been compared to the relationship between English and Latin.