Spoken Japanese and Romaji

[sodapple]

Konnichiwa! o genki desu ka?

Watching some Japanese dramas I noticed something: when they are talking they understand perfectly what the other one is saying ( obviously, ha, ha, ha…) and I know my question could be strange but if I write something in Romaji then you should understand what I want to say too, am I right?

What I mean is that when you’re talking with someone else, you don’t watch the kanjis coming out from the mouths and you perfectly understand. So I think that it could happen the same with Romanji.

hontou ni arigatou gozaimasu. mata ne!

[fnaaar]

Well.......

Isn't it all to do with context? Although kanji is difficult, once you have a basic grasp of it, suddenly reading it becomes even more meaningful. Especially when you consider that in Japanese there are so many words that would be written the same way in hiragana or romaji. Without context this can get very confusing. Kanji helps you to understand passages without necessarily needing to understand the context. Also reading Japanese in just hiragana or romaji is VERY tiring, especially longer passages. Kanji somehow condenses everything.

[fnaaar]

Sorry - to sum up what I meant: when you are watching dramas you get the context due to the storyline/acting so of course you don't need the kanji to clarify things.

[Belton]

Well yes, romaji is an adequate way to represent spoken Japanese. And should have about the same amount of chance of confusion. You do lose information whenever any speech is written down.
However it's a method that isn't in widespread use, and one which Japanese would find difficult to read in large amounts.

Oddly kanji are easier and quicker once you know them. (very catch 22)

One of my favourite Japanese books (Autobiography of a Geisha) was written entirely in hiragana because the author wasn't literate and couldn't use kanji. I think it's wonderful that someone can write their language just as they speak it with a simple set of characters (unlike English for instance). But even then her editors had a hard time putting it into kanji according to the translators notes.

For what it's worth I wrote a short piece about romaji before.

[watermen]

Well yes, romaji is an adequate way to represent spoken Japanese. And should have about the same amount of chance of confusion. You do lose information whenever any speech is written down.
However it's a method that isn't in widespread use, and one which Japanese would find difficult to read in large amounts.

Oddly kanji are easier and quicker once you know them. (very catch 22)

One of my favourite Japanese books (Autobiography of a Geisha) was written entirely in hiragana because the author wasn't literate and couldn't use kanji. I think it's wonderful that someone can write their language just as they speak it with a simple set of characters (unlike English for instance). But even then her editors had a hard time putting it into kanji according to the translators notes.

For what it's worth I wrote a short piece about romaji before.

I can't imagine reading Japanese without Kanji, it is torturing. I guess that is the reason why I didn't want to learn Korean, I find reading those Hangul time consuming.

The good thing about Kanji is you don't really have to read it, but you see it and the meaning comes to you immediately. It is just like the moment you spot the word, you know everything around it, you don't even need to finish reading the whole sentence.

[fnaaar]

I've just thought of an example for English speakers!


Which is easier to read?:

1) twenty-two million, seven hundred and forty-seven thousand, two hundred and seventy-two

2) 22, 747, 272


When we're using arabic number symbols, they're a bit like a miniature version of kanji.

Take the number 1 for instance.... We think when we see "1" we always say "one"----- but what about when we see "1st"? We say "first"!!!

Obviously this is a simplification, but it just goes to show that these symbols/characters convey concepts (in this case, the number 1) rather than spelling out the word.[/b]

[QuackingShoe]

The numbers things is actually a pretty good example, in my reckoning.

In addition, people do sometimes get confused when speaking (in English as well) - but there are a lot of things that help. Japanese words contain different pitch patterns to distinguish them, which are observable spoken but not represented in the written language. Further uses of intonation also allow for similar things - the way you emphasize certain words, or parts of words, or pause after words and separate clauses, all help to clarify meaning.

As a convenient example, you have no idea if 'separate' in my last sentence is a verb or an adjective because of the way English is written. This distinction would be clear if I were speaking out loud, because the accent shifts syllables. In many instances, these sorts of vague elements in Japanese are cleared up by way of kanji.

[Belton]

In the end it doesn't especially matter.

Romaji is capable of representing Japanese speech (the original question, not which method is better or more efficient).
It is easier for those who use the Roman alphabet already; beginners or tourists or those who don't need or want to go into the language in depth, but In the longer term in order to access authentic written texts you need to be able to use kanji. Once you learn and become accustomed to the system it does make things easier by all accounts.

Japanese is written in kanji, and that's not going to change. I'm afraid we all have to deal with it/embrace it/enjoy it.

Headline you won't see soon: Japanese Department of Education decides to abandon kanji in favour of Roman script in response to threads on English BBSes.
But there were discussions about whether to abandon kanji in the past, notably after 1945. The Japanese themselves have mulled over the issue.

I was reminded of this link given to me by gerald_ford
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/po ... lauded_for

[Belton]

I've just thought of an example for English speakers!
Which is easier to read?:

1) twenty-two million, seven hundred and forty-seven thousand, two hundred and seventy-two

2) 22, 747, 272

But which is easier for non-English speakers to decode back into the sounds of English?
The first version I'd say as the second contains the concept but no representation of the sounds.
Look I can write French -- 22, 101, or Greek -- 23, 103 but I'd be hard pressed to pronounce them in those respective languages.
but
Vingt deux mille cent un gives me a chance at saying them in French

The beauty of kanji, hanzi, is that the Chinese developed something that could be used throughout the Empire despite multiple dialects and still be understood.
(When used in Japan it had to be bodged to accommodate local grammar and represent specific sounds as well)
The beauty of the Greek invention is that it is capable of containing the sounds of many languages with a very small set of symbols.
I'm pretty sure the Dutch dictionaries compiled by the Tokugawas didn't, couldn't, use Japanese to represent the sounds of Dutch. Indeed the use of katakana in schools today to represent English is notoriously bad or unproductive.

(Ideally if you're going down this route of representing sounds in writing the most precise method would be the International phonetic script... once you've mastered it!)

If the Japanese had encountered Roman civilisation instead of Chinese civilization as a dominant civilisation, had Christianity rather than Chinese Buddhism come into the country, they may well have adopted Roman script instead.

[fnaaar]

But which is easier for non-English speakers to decode back into the sounds of English?
The first version I'd say as the second contains the concept but no representation of the sounds.
Look I can write French -- 22, 101, or Greek -- 23, 103 but I'd be hard pressed to pronounce them in those respective languages.
but
Vingt deux mille cent un gives me a chance at saying them in French

Of course when we are learning a new language, we need things familiar to our own language to help us learn how to speak and pronounce things properly - in this case romaji is useful as a study aid. But this will only take us so far, and in my opinion kind of defeats the purpose of studying a language seriously. Kanji is part of the charm and beauty of learning Japanese, as difficult as it may be - just as our spelling is in English (often seen as ridiculous by foreigners and even native speakers) or not pronouncing consonants in French. Asking for everything to be written in romaji would be like asking the English to spell phoentically (funetikly) all of a sudden -----> you lose the actual experience of the language itself.

[/quote]

[christian110]

In fact，it is not very difficult for us to study Japanese!
Don't be shy,you can do it!!!


_________________
christian110
thomas sabo charm carriers-thomas sabo ohrringe-buy discount pandora beads-pandora bracelets sale

[jdrowgym]

A quick example of the problem with writing everything in romaji or even in kana that I ran into:
kurumade/くるまで. Which was it? By car/車で? Until arriving/来るまで?
A Japanese person would probably have had no trouble at all but I (as a relative beginner) had to read the sentence several times before I understood which.