Kana/Kanji

[Kd]

As some of you may or may not know, I'm learning to write and understand Japanese script. I'm working on hiragana at the moment, building up to kanji where it can be used, and I'm also trying out katakana translations on relevant things.

When I get back to college (in about 2 weeks from now) I'm going to start scanning and posting my personal writing in kana, ranging from stroke practice to sentence formation. I'd like 2 things:

1) GL members who can translate and understand kana, to comment on my technique and use of script.

2) Other GL members who aren't so clued up, to ask me about kana and kanji, to test me on what I know or think I know.

Sign up here. (super excellent, yo, blah blah blah)
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[i_h8_evil_stuff]

Merg. My first Japanese class starts today at noon. Thats about 4 hours from this post.
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[RequiemEternam]

I'd be glad to help read and critique your kana.

[Legend of Tenshi]

I hope you are learning hirigana and katakana via mnemonics. It is the easiest way. (Spelling errors ahoy!)
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[Kd]

aaa, gomen nasai.

Scans will be up next week, hopefully. Thanks for the interest, and I hope I don't suck at this...

[i_h8_evil_stuff]

[Legend of Tenshi]

I hope it has been almost six years since I had anything to do with the Japanese language.

nihon go wo (I think it is wo, I know it is a 'o' sound though) dekimasen
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[RequiemEternam]

'wo' would be right for the 'o' sound in that case, except that the correct sentence is:

nihongo ga dekimasen

Kd-san no kakikata o matte imasu yo! Machigatta ka doo ka wakaranai kedo, itsu made mo machigawanakattara, doo yatte joozu ni naru deshoo ka ne.

[Antrax]

wakarimasen.
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[Samadhi]

[Legend of Tenshi]

Deffinately Samadhi. Anything else and I would be pissed
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[i_h8_evil_stuff]

Hajimemashite. Pooru desu. Doozo yoroshiku.
Watashi no senkoo wa doboku koogaku.
Keidii-san ga kirei ni hito desu.

That's all I really know how to say, even though I should know a lot more by this point.
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[RequiemEternam]

[quote=ih8]Keidii-san ga kirei ni hito desu.[/quote]

should be na to connect "kirei" to a noun (like "hito").

KD, how's the kana/kanji coming? I always love looking at girls' script: it's almost always more aesthetically pleasing thatn guys' kana/kanji.

Motto hayaku shite kudasai. Raishuu, boku no kaita kana o "post"-suru ka mo shiremasen. (Please post soon! It's possible that next week I'll post some of my own (probably GLers' names in katakana)).

[i_h8_evil_stuff]

Rrg. I guess I need to study more.
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[Kd]

Ok, yo! Hiragana table and some basic kanji will be up tomorrow. I like to think I can draw each one ok...

RE: What's with the English words in speech marks? I always assumed katakana was just put in romanji capitals to distinguish it from hiragana... at least anime lyrics are...

[mole]

romaji is evil anyway.

[Kd]

Ok, links are below (or will be once I upload it all to glpics)...

Hiragana table
Katakana table
Basic Kanji and Composition (rules of basic to come later)
Numbers

[i_h8_evil_stuff]

The second "o" sound is actually "wo", but it sounds VERY similar.

I will post my charts as soon as I get unlazy.
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[Mercuria]

hmm... i don't actually know anything about kanji, except that most of the characters are chinese... at which point i'm going to suggest that you look into the legs of "person." if it's like chinese, you need to make it obvious which leg extends to the "head," because the other leg extending is another word altogether (which i can't remember, but that's not part of the point). this applies to characters that are based on person as well (ie: "fire")

i have to say, though, that your handwriting (in general) is very pretty =]

ps: should probably mention that the left leg is the one that extends up for "person"

[Kd]

*snogs merc* More pretty, although technically flawed, writings to come.

[mole]

The one with the right leg extending is "enter" if I remember correctly. enter + mouth = entrance!

I was never taught the "left side is 1/2 as big as the right side" thing. Weird.

[Kd]

Doesn't 'enter' have a little flick pointing left on the top?

[Vinny]

yeah your writing is pretty. Much more pretty than me.

[Vinny]

Except for the numbers one. Those SUCKS.

[Vinny]

Like merc and mole said, the way you wrote the person character is wrong. That word actually means "enter" the way you wrote it. The right slash has to start in the middle of the left slash to slant to the right.

And that's not the word for "water"! That's the word for "tree".

"Water" is 3 tiny slash on the left, a middle verticle with a left hook at the bottom, and 3 tiny slash on the right.

wait that's wrong. I forgot how to write water. Shame on me. I'll have to get back to you.

Oh and when you make the square, like for mouth and sun, make sure you don't extend the edges like that so you have lines sticking out.

[Vinny]

Here I found a site with the letter water and some neat info about chinese pictograms.

http://www.blss.portsmouth.sch.uk/hsc/chinchars.shtml

[Mercuria]

haha! vinny's thinking of the word side instead of the word itself!!! ;p

i know the elements, some other basic stuff... and everything i need to play majong!

and that's not the word for tree, exactly... it's wood. you put two woods together, and you get a forest (my last name!). and i think you get a tree if you put three together, but i'm *really* not sure about that...

and when you write fast, sometimes mouth looks like a really loopy capital "R"

i was gonna comment on the sticking out thing, but i figured it's a handwriting thing...

[RequiemEternam]

Kd, it appears as if for Person and Enter (in Japanese, "hito" and "hairu/iru" respectively), you're trying to match the printed version of these characters. In typed up or printed versions, they are identical except for, as you noted, a small horizontal tick at the top of Enter.

Person vs. Enter

Also, my handwriting for these, two of the simplest characters in the entire lexicon, sucks; your handwriting is quite nice, indeed.

[Kd]

*kicks crappy book I got all the stroke placings from*

Not my fault. I had misleading information.

Thanks for the tips, everyone.

[mole]

Tomorrow I'll post some that can be used to make some words that you might actually use . Just need to set up the scanner.

[mole]

But it's not working, so I'll do days of the week instead, since they're easy. I'm not sure if it's easy enough for me to relate without any pictures, but we'll try.

First of all, your kanji for "sun" also means "day". Here, it's the "bi" in "you bi" which means "day of the week". We'll ignore the kanji for "you" for now since it's complicated and otherwise pretty boring, but you already know almost all of the others:

Sunday: nichi (sun) you bi
Monday: getsu (moon) you bi
Tuesday: ka (fire) you bi
Wednesday: sui (water) you bi
Thursday: moku (tree/wood) you bi
Friday: kin (gold) you bi
Saturday: dou (earth) you bi

[Kd]

*nod nod* This book I've been working from didn't have many examples of full working sentences or proper meanings. It was more about how to write kanji than understand them. *shrug* It's not easy to admit that I can't read my own writing.

[Mercuria]

it finally came to me lying in bed! well, the pronounciation did... i have no idea how to explain three of those things together in english...

anyway, back to the wood/tree/wood/forest thing...

in chinese, one symbol alone a formal word for tree (with a character normally being used for "tree"), but can be used as a modifier as "wood" (ie: a "wood board"). two together can be considered a "forest" by itself. it's often tranlated as "wood" to convey the idea that it's not as large a forest as the three-symbol forest. in american english, "woods" would be a better tranlation. the three-symbol character, by itself, is defined as "forest; luxurant vegetation." i'm not sure exactly what that means, but...

the actual collection of characters used for "forest" is often a three-symbol character followed by a two-symbol character, but sometimes "mountain" followed by the two, or "tree" followed by the two ("tree" in the common usage, not one-symbol, formal "tree").

sometimes giving defining meanings on one character alone is an extremely inexact science. i can't imagine why anybody would write a book about formation of characters and their (supposed) meanings without at least usage notes.

[Mercuria]

also, i'm interested in seeing more non-kanji. i think it's prettier (though that might be because i think it contributes to prettier handwriting in english...)

[mathgrant]

How do you write "mathgrant is an idiot" in Kanji? I wanna see it!
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[Termital]

This is a (somewhat cleaned up) pic of part of a candle holder that's in my room. I have the sneaking suspicion that it's probably insulting me, so I'd like to know, if possible:

• What language is it in?
  
• Should I be looking at the other side of the glass?
  
• What does it all mean?
  
• How is it pronounced?

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[Mercuria]

1) either chinese or kanji, though i suspect chinese
2) it's facing the right way
3) i only recognize one character (guess which one ;p)
4) depends on which language it's actually in (read: wait until someone who actually knows what's going on wanders in here)

sorry i couldn't really help... except to say that it's right side out...

[i_h8_evil_stuff]

It's Chinese. However, I can't read Chinese, I can just recognize it. Japanese Kanji isn't usually used for decorations.
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[mole]

My guess:

top left: centre
bottom left: flower
right: mirror

[RequiemEternam]

good guesses, mole.

I did some dictionary digging, to find some compounds that would involve the three words, or any combination of any pairing. none list flower-mirror together, nor center-mirror.

The Mandarin pronunication for center-flower is "zhong hua" (both first tone). There does exist a "zhong hua" combo, but the "hua" is pronounced second tone, and the combination is an alternate way of saying "China" (the usual way being "zhong1 guo4", or center-country.

The mirror character is also translated as "lens", and is used in compounds meaning "reflection" and "perception". Make of that what you will.