A question about this japanese translation and japanese in general?
Could someone translate this, its from an anime song - specifically the Excel Saga opening. The romaji (romaji is the correct word, right?) is "Tonzura koite." Ive heard it translated about two or three different ways and i was just wondering if i could get the exact translation. I know absolutely nothing about japanese except kawaii is cute, desu is something like to be, and ne is something like "right?". As a side note and unrelated question (for those who are good speakers or fluent), how long did it take to learn japanese? i've always wanted to learn japanese, but never got around to it because i always figured it would take like a lifetime to learn and i hear that its extremely difficult for westerners to learn. Do you need to learn all the kanji too? or can you just get by with the hiragana & katakana thing, because that looks a great deal easier lol. Thanks in advance if anyone can answer any one of these questions or any combination of them.
Weird kanji reading (Japanese)?
音 is pronounced as ね in the more poetic/literal contexts. Eg. 風の音、虫の音、風鈴の音 I would read 開く音 as Hiraku oto, because I think it is neutral, whether it is the sound of a door opening or a vowel at the end of the word.
A question about Kanji...?
A kanji is used in words. You have to learn the pronunciation for each word. There are some rules to help you and you can often guess the correct pronunciation, but you still have to learn how every word is pronounced. A kanji has two types of readings: onyomi and kunyomi. Onyomi readings come from Chinese, while kunyomi readings are Japanese. As a general rule, when the kanji is used by itself (maybe with some hiragana attached) then kunyomi is used, and when the kanji is used in a compound, then onyomi is used. Of course there are exceptions. Most kanji have several kunyomi and onyomi readings, but some are more common. Exemple : 音 (noise, sound) Kunyomi: おと (oto), ね (ne) Onyomi: イン (in), オン (on) Words: 音 by itself is pronounced おと (oto) and means sound. It's a kunyomi reading. 音楽 is pronounced おんがく (ongaku) and means music. It's a compound so it uses onyomi readings for the two characters. If you look at other compounds like 音符 (おんぷ, onpu, musical note) you'll quickly see that オン (on) is by far the most common onyomi reading for this character. As I said there are exception since 足音 (あしおと, ashioto, footstep) uses kunyomi despite the fact that it's clearly a two character compound. All in all, it doesn't make much sense to learn characters with their on and kun readings by themselves. You should focus on learning words instead.
In a Japanese kanji reading having both on'yomi and kun'yomi, how do you know when to use which one?
I'll try to add something valuable to the discussion, there's already some great answers here. People have already covered the "2+ kanji => use on'oymi" rule, but I'd also like to add onto it. After reviewing a lot of vocab, you'll start to get a feel for when the kun reading will be used when they are employed in vocabulary. Where I think some of the confusion comes from is when two kanji are put together, but they are actually two distinct words put together instead of combined into one. Examples will help...右 and 左 are the kanji for "right" and "left" respectively. Furthermore, their kun readings are みぎ and ひだり (respectively).You'll have words like 右手 (みぎて）and 右側 （みぎがわ）that mean "right hand" and "right side." These are examples of two words being put together to form a phrase that are literally just the sum of their kanji meanings. Contrast this to 左右（さゆう）which means "influence" or "left and right" (as in shaking or moving. The two kanji together form a new word with a distinct meaning. Sorry if this is a poor example, it just spring to mind.To give a lame answer, you learn what to do from experience and exposure to the different words used in everyday Japanese. Luckily though, with kanji that have billions (kidding) of meanings, you'll soon hone in on which readings are used the most frequently, be them on or kun.Hope I offered some insight, this was a confusing issue for me as well!
A question about Japanese?
1) For an English native both are real hard and difficult. Chinese phonology is tonal and has lots of different sounds. Japanese is not tonal, and sounds are clearer an purer (only 5 vowels, syllabaries do exist, etc... ) Syllabaries are REAL useful in early stages of your Japanese courses, as they allow you to start reading from the very first day. (once you learn them, but it's real easy). 2) In true japanese resaturants maybe... 3) Nope, in fact Japanese is one of the most "monotonous" languages around. 4) If you work in a large Japanese company, maybe 5) Japanese kanji's are MUCH more difficult, because one single character can have MANY different pronunciations depending on the word where they are used. Parting from the fact that Chinese and Japanese phonology are both difficult for the English native, once you "master" them, you will find that Chinese is super regular ( one kanji/hanzi has one pronunciation). On the other hand, in Japanese, this kanji ---> 生 (life, birth, etc...) can have as many as 40 different pronunciations (!!!!), and there is no clue about which one to use, once you see it written, until you know a LOT of vocabulary. One would say that Japanese, using only 2000 legal characters (6000 + exist), and Chinese (using 5000, having 10000+, but people normally using 3000-4000) should be more easier, but in the practice, Japanese people sometimes use many more than the official 2000 ones, reaching to 3000. So, in number of useful characters to be learnt, both have the same difficulty, i.e. you will have to learn 2000 in Japanese (with their reading irregularities !!!), or 3000-4000 In Chinese (all of them with regular readings). You choose which number is the best... 6) LOTS and lots of japanese pages. (Their wikipedia is one of the more powerful nowadays)
How do Japanese read kanji in restaurant names and other kanji words not found in a Japanese dictionary?
If a name or a word is not found in a J dictionary, you have an exceptionally rare item, and you can bet the farm that the restaurant or user gets regular questions about how to read it. And it's also a safe bet that s/he gets repeated, insistent advice about changing it.Kanji that rare practically never have more than a single on'yomi and often no kun'yomi (Chinese and Japanese reading, respectively). The purpose for having a kun'yomi is to give a decipherable meaning, this in a language with relatively few phonemes and many, many homonyms. For example, kiji can mean "(raw) material," "newspaper article," "pheasant," "foundling," "wood grain, unpainted wood," and "stink worm." All six meanings are clear in kanji, but must be guessed in context if written in kana. (And it says something about you if you understood all 6 meanings in English without a dictionary.)It's never rude to ask how to read a kanji so rare that it doesn't appear in a dictionary. But as any avid kanji learner knows, after a certain level of complexity, most kanji tend to sort themselves out into "strong" and "weak" groups. Any kanji not found in a dictionary is likely to have more than the average number of strokes (I'd guess 12 or so to be average) and usually the right half will have a single reading (making it "strong") or two, at most three readings (making it "weak").Example of a strong kanji group (all found in dictionaries): 義、儀、議、蟻、䧧、艤、犠、㬢、檥、礒 All are read gi, and several don't have kun'yomi.Example of a weak kanji group: 弟、第、悌、稊、娣、罤、睇、涕、剃、鵜、梯、悌. Some are read tei, some are read dai, some are read both.So you can see how the complexity of a kanji can, in many cases, make it easier to read.
Japanese: a doubt about reading kanji names.?
there's no such thing as a general rule in japanese name readings, and people need to figure out how to read it by commonsense. not counting retarded names young parents are giving birth to nowadays as japanese names, reading japanese names correctly is one the most difficult task in japanese culture, in which to reduce the error of decipherment(yeees, in some cases) needs building up commonsense through expanding ones knowledge of kanji readings, and social interactions. if you lack commonsense, you might end up with answering guessed works that are "not so true" like the guy/girl above did. yes, it's matsuko. shoushi sounds like oumu shinrikyo's holy name.
What is some good basic Japanese reading / learning material?
Let's divide this between books and online resources. If you really want to crunch, I would suggest buying at least one of the books; the online resources are good but they won't give you the same level of hands-on learning.Online resources:For grammar / sentence structure, try this site.To learn about individual kanji, the Kanji Alive site is pretty good.JapanesePod101 has a daily email with sample sentences with a very good system for picking up new kanji and vocabulary.For a more thorough review of kanji, this site is also pretty solid.Definitely do some searching around on google if this isn't enough. There are a lot of resources like this out there and you might find one that really suits your style of learning.Books:If you're mainly looking to bolster your reading, Read Japanese Today is a great book -- it provides a very visual method of learning to read and understand kanji in context. Practice makes perfect, so if you're serious about memorization, The First 100 Japanese Kanji will give you more practice than you probably want.For an integrated approach to the language, I would go for a modern textbook. The Genki series is one of the best, and comes with supporting material. It covers beginner through early intermediate material. If you're looking for something a little more advanced, I suggest Tobira. It's much more intense on kanji action, and if you're willing to struggle, it will get you there fast.
How do you know when to use the On'yomi or Kun'yomi readings of a Kanji?
Onyomi is the Chinese reading, Kunyomi is the Japanese reading. As a general rule, you use the kunyomi when the word is made out of one kanji which might also have hiragana attacked to it (雨 (rain : ame)、黒い (black : kuroi)、私 (me : watashi); all using kunyomi). You use the onyomi when the word is made out of more than one kanji (外国人(stranger : gaikokujin), 時計(watch : tokei), both using onyomi) There are of course exceptions, but you'll learn them when you learn the individual words. For the words composed of several kanji, you'll find the pronunciation when you look up the word itself. For other words you just generally take the kunyomi, or look it up to make sure. Sites and apps for learning kanji/vocabulary will often give you the pronunciation.