Proper reading of words?

[neverbirth2848]

Just wondering, how do you find in a dictionary how a word composed of kanjis, with several readings, should be read? for example, today saw 出場する and my dictionary lists both でば　and　しゅつじょう for 出場, which one should I use? By context, and looking around I'd say the right reading in this case is しゅつじょう , but everytime I have doubts I don't want to make an extensive research.

In a dictionary, what does vs, v5, etc mean? Does vs mean, as I suspect, using a word as a verb by attaching する? An extensive list of all this abbreviations would be nice.

[mewes6190]

Hello neverbirth,

As far as I can tell, you really need to consider the context. (As so often in Japanese!)
So, which word would you guess would fit here?
"one's time to get on stage"?
or
"participate"?
In the first case, you would read it でば。In the second case it would be しゅつじょうする.
But to be honest, in this case it's a little easier, because it is a verb (as you can see by the する), so actually しゅつじょうする is the only possible reading, because でば is a noun, which can't be put into a verb logically.
So, でばする wouldn't be an understandable word.
In cases like this, you simply have to learn the vocabulary, i.e. でば vs. しゅつじょうする. You would know from context, which vocab is the right one, the Kanji only help you to distinguish the word.

As far as I can tell, you can't "read" the Kanji like we do with letters. you have to KNOW the vocabulary behind the Kanji, so the right reading comes by itself. later on, a good knowledge of Kanji simply helps you. By knowing, that 経 is read けい, and 暦 is read れき, you can quickly correlate 経歴 to けいれき. But you still have to know the vocab けいれき (career, or vita) for that to work. Or at least it helps you to construct that vocab.

So, if you knew the vocabs でば and しゅつじょうする, you vry likely would have immediately known, which one to use.

But that is just the way I understand it... :/

As for your second question: Here's a list for that abbreviations. (as you guessed, vs hints at する-able nouns. v5 indicates a godan-verb (and of course v1 indicates an ichidan verb).
http://www.epochrypha.com/japaneseold/v ... tions.html

Best
Kurokuma

[neverbirth2848]

As far as I can tell, you really need to consider the context. (As so often in Japanese!)

Guessed so, the things is: do we really need to fully understand the context to get a proper reading? as learners, we don't always fully understand some grammar construction, or don't understand it at all, so getting the context right is a tiresome task, and getting to understand the words alone first may help getting the other parts to fit into place.

Thank you for the link, really handy. In this case the vs abbreviation directly tells which one is the right reading and meaning, and although I bet it won't help on all cases, I'm sure the list will help me a bit to speed up my learning. Also, it's been quite some time since I first learnt about verbs, and when decided to pick up again on studying Japanese remembered them only as -u and -iru/-eru verbs, not as godan or ichidan.

[mewes6190]

As far as I can tell, you really need to consider the context. (As so often in Japanese!)

Guessed so, the things is: do we really need to fully understand the context to get a proper reading? as learners, we don't always fully understand some grammar construction, or don't understand it at all, so getting the context right is a tiresome task, and getting to understand the words alone first may help getting the other parts to fit into place.

Good point. Actually - yeah, I think, it's all about the context. I guess, that's THE difference between Textbooks, and, well, real-life language. In the textbook, the sentences are without context, simply to demonstrate a grammatical point. In real life, every sentence is part of a bigger context and therefore shaped in that way. (I'm just reading "Making sense of Japanese - what the textbooks don't tell you" by Jay Rubin, really a great book with lot of smart thoughts!)
I guess, that's why real-life japanese is so hard. By missing ONE grammar-structure, sometimes you can't make sense of the whole sentence. So you really should know a LOT of grammar structures, before going beyond textbook-phrases. In my opinion at least. After that, it's much easier to grasp the context, and with each vocabulary-lesson, it get's even easier. But I'm only realizing that at the moment myself, where I'm through with my textbooks and start building up vocabulary and internalizing all the grammar structures and so one. And it's STILL not easy to follow sometimes. :/
I STILL have to look up a lot and do some research or ask people farther ahead, to grasp some sentences or structures.

I guess there's not easy way around that... But than - all the more rewarding is every sentence, you can just simply and plainly - read.

At the moment, WRITING Japanese is the most tiresome thing I could find in the world to do. It's still fun though. But hard work! :/

Thank you for the link, really handy. In this case the vs abbreviation directly tells which one is the right reading and meaning, and although I bet it won't help on all cases, I'm sure the list will help me a bit to speed up my learning. Also, it's been quite some time since I first learnt about verbs, and when decided to pick up again on studying Japanese remembered them only as -u and -iru/-eru verbs, not as godan or ichidan.

Yeah, I missed that expressions the first time I started with Japanese too.

[neverbirth2848]

Good point. Actually - yeah, I think, it's all about the context. I guess, that's THE difference between Textbooks, and, well, real-life language. In the textbook, the sentences are without context, simply to demonstrate a grammatical point. In real life, every sentence is part of a bigger context and therefore shaped in that way. (I'm just reading "Making sense of Japanese - what the textbooks don't tell you" by Jay Rubin, really a great book with lot of smart thoughts!)
I guess, that's why real-life japanese is so hard. By missing ONE grammar-structure, sometimes you can't make sense of the whole sentence. So you really should know a LOT of grammar structures, before going beyond textbook-phrases. In my opinion at least. After that, it's much easier to grasp the context, and with each vocabulary-lesson, it get's even easier. But I'm only realizing that at the moment myself, where I'm through with my textbooks and start building up vocabulary and internalizing all the grammar structures and so one. And it's STILL not easy to follow sometimes. :/
I STILL have to look up a lot and do some research or ask people farther ahead, to grasp some sentences or structures.

I guess there's not easy way around that... But than - all the more rewarding is every sentence, you can just simply and plainly - read.

Yeah, Japanese looks so easier when learning it in books and the like, but then you jump into the real thing and hate how many sentences you cannot fully grasp heh. A language full of idioms and omitted parts (and no small parts indeed!).

Will look for that textbook.

At the moment, WRITING Japanese is the most tiresome thing I could find in the world to do. It's still fun though. But hard work! :/

Barely ever tried written Japanese, would like to try it some day, but my spare time is severely limited, and actually I barely write on paper.

[community.japanese]

neverbirth2848-san, Kurokuma-san,
kon'nichiwa

To be 100% honest with you, when we (Japanese) come across the word written in kanji for the first time,
we can't always know the correct readings. It's a bit like when we come across a very new word in English
with complicated spellings. When we learn English, any new words are "unreadable" or, at least, "uncertin
pronunciation", don't you think? Japanese words in kanji are exactly like that for Japanese learners.
If your native language has feminin and mascline nouns, that'd be another good example.

The key is;
when you see a word in kanji, instead of trying to figure out how to read every single time,
you can rather remember words in kanji. This way, you don't see "kanji" in context, but you'd see "a word".
I mean, when you see 出場 in some context and don't know how to read (because you don't know this word),
check dictionaries and learn it as a word. Words like 出場 would usually come out as example when you
check it out in dictionaries. Thanks to internet and IT technology, we can find out the readings of words
pretty easy just by searching with proper key words.
What I often do is to put the kanji on search engine and add another key word 読み (= reading).
It usually sort it out for me in a second

Not all native speakers of English know the spellings perfectly, nor guess it and get it perfectly.
Kanji is just another form of such issues.

Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[neverbirth2848]

Not all native speakers of English know the spellings perfectly, nor guess it and get it perfectly.
Kanji is just another form of such issues.

Well, English speakers can head to several sources, like the Cambridge dictionary, to get a word pronunciation, the Kanji case I'm exposing is more severe, as it is not about how to read it, but more about what it means at all.

[mewes6190]

Not all native speakers of English know the spellings perfectly, nor guess it and get it perfectly.
Kanji is just another form of such issues.

Well, English speakers can head to several sources, like the Cambridge dictionary, to get a word pronunciation, the Kanji case I'm exposing is more severe, as it is not about how to read it, but more about what it means at all.

I guess, what 奈津子先生 meant, was more along the line, that an english native speaker who stumbles upon words like Tortoise or Parley, where you're not immediately sure how to pronounce it, have to look up the reading.
The same way, even japanese people have to look up the reading of an unknown Kanji-compositum. There are actually a lot of sources to look up the reading of a Kanji-word.
The fun thing is, often one knows the MEANING of the word before one knows the reading. Words like 金庫, consisting of the kanjis for "Gold" and "Depot" quickly lead to the meaning of "Safe". The reading on the other hand, one would have to look up (Or guess from the readings you might already know...)

Best
Kurokuma

[community.japanese]

neverbirth2848-san, Kurokuma-san,
kon'nichiwa

I guess, what 奈津子先生 meant, was more along the line, that an english native speaker who stumbles upon words like Tortoise or Parley, where you're not immediately sure how to pronounce it, have to look up the reading.

Thank you so much; that's exactly what I meant... It's difficult to know how to read some kanji(s) and/or how to "spell" a word with kanji. I've seen many wrong usage of words and mis-spellings of English and that's simply why
I thought this could be a good reference to compare....

Just like Enlish speakers can head to several resources, we Japanese also have vast information sources
thanks to internet technology other than dictionaries. The only thing I wanted to say was that we have some
sources to "confirm", but we never know what the correct version would be without some helps from such
resources. And this is just same in both English and Japanese.


Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com