I'm a bit irked by this.
When do you use which reading for 瞬く(またたく,しばたく,まばたく,しばたたく)? I think there are a few more but never mind that.
I still kind of like to read things out loud in my mind so it's a bit annoying when I don't know how something should be pronounced.
Japanese language
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I'm a bit irked by this.
When do you use which reading for 瞬く(またたく,しばたく,まばたく,しばたたく)? I think there are a few more but never mind that.
I still kind of like to read things out loud in my mind so it's a bit annoying when I don't know how something should be pronounced.Always pronounce it as matataku because of
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Porno Graffiti is such a good band. But yeah sorry I don't know enough to explain the differences.
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kureru! nante nai! DUN DA DUN DUH-DUN
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Always pronounce it as matataku because of
xD Alright I guess that's fine too. Too good a reason to forsake it for something boring like being correct.
Thanks guys! -
Every time I hear that song, the next thing I do is play this song:
On topic: I looked into it a bit. According to my dictionary, shibataku is just an abbreviation of shibatataku. And in turn it comes from "shikiri ni mabataku." はたく and たたく are more or less the same word (both are written 叩く ) but the latter seems to be more readily associated with violence (striking) rather than the former which has also the meaning of for example "to dust" (like to dust a pillow by beating it). Interesting that in English we also say "to beat wings" meaning the motion of raising and lowering them, just the way matataku means to blink/wink (actually that's the origin of the word – matataku = 目叩く ).
In conclusion I'm going to guess all versions are pretty much interchangeable, maybe with some versions like mabataku sounding "softer" (more feminine perhaps?). Perhaps shibataku, since it more directly includes "shikiri," also explicitly indicates that it's a continuous action. But these are just my guesses.
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For people who still want to learn japanese, here are some apps that I think that will be REALLY useful!! I have studying japanese for 5 years now and I still use them from time to time to refresh my memory.
Japanese:https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/japanese/id290664053?mt=8
Japanese Flash:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/japanese-flash-vocabulary/id367216357?mt=8As for a website, I can recommend one. http://thejapanesepage.com/
I checked it out and it seems really useful. It has a lot of tutorials too and the people on the forum are really nice to help out if you have any problems!
And That's It! Well Goodluck Guys! -
Every time I hear that song, the next thing I do is play this song:
On topic: I looked into it a bit. According to my dictionary, shibataku is just an abbreviation of shibatataku. And in turn it comes from "shikiri ni mabataku." はたく and たたく are more or less the same word (both are written 叩く ) but the latter seems to be more readily associated with violence (striking) rather than the former which has also the meaning of for example "to dust" (like to dust a pillow by beating it). Interesting that in English we also say "to beat wings" meaning the motion of raising and lowering them, just the way matataku means to blink/wink (actually that's the origin of the word – matataku = 目叩く ).
In conclusion I'm going to guess all versions are pretty much interchangeable, maybe with some versions like mabataku sounding "softer" (more feminine perhaps?). Perhaps shibataku, since it more directly includes "shikiri," also explicitly indicates that it's a continuous action. But these are just my guesses.
That's pretty interesting, nice research now I feel guilty for not putting more effort into researching it myself :O.
On a side note that's one of my favorite FM openings but I kind of like all of them.
It's too bad that most Japanese music I get to listen to are just opening songs for anime.
I've asked some exchange students for recommendations a year ago and they've recommended me Greeeen which wasn't my thing at the time(Jpop/rock seems to be fairly hit and miss for me hinging on my mood), the 2 I asked didn't have much else beyond that since they were actually mostly listening to stuff from the west.The few times I looked into other songs from bands of opening songs I liked they didn't speak to me either. Looking back the strangest thing though is that I was really into Jero that Enka singer from Pittsburgh for a while xD. Can't say that I understand its beauty anymore.
My guess is that I was mostly into it because it was very easy to listen to and understand what was sung.I currently really like LITE(no lyrics) but that sadly doesn't help training the ears.
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I listen to lots of random Japanese music of all types and periods so if you want some recommendations feel free to PM me or something. I don't know how useful it is for actually learning though.
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Alright, I got something that's been bugging me.
The name Saotome, the two spellings I've found online are:
五月女
早乙女The "me" I get. But how the heck do the first two kanji turn into "sa oto"? None of the readings in my dictionaries come to anything close, so I suppose this is a special case of something?
Additionally, is there any way to read something like 座 as "sa"? I know about voicing conventions when the consonant isn't at the start, but in this case I do want it at the start and desperately need that kanji!
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Normally with names, all bets are off. Just in general, people will get super creative with readings or kanji to use. But in this case the name is pretty well-established so I looked into it and the result was more interesting than I thought it would be.
Let's look at the second kanji you listed first, because that's the "original" one. Basically, the original meaning of the word is a rice-planting girl. We can agree that 乙女 is the kanji for "otome" right? Because it is. The reading of 乙 by itself is usually pronounced "otsu" but "oto" is also a reading. So the remaining question is why is 早 pronounced "sa," and the reason for that is the word 早苗 "sanae" which means a rice seedling/sprout. Instead of "sanae otome" they just shortened it to "saotome."
Okay so back to the first, more bizarre kanji given. According to what I read, that was basically families getting… very creative, as I said at the beginning. But there is a method to their madness, which is that rice sprouts were traditionally planted in the month of May. So someone thought it would be clever to replace the first two characters with 五月. Mystery solved...
Source: this Japanese blog post.
As for your second question, my kanji dictionary lists "sa" as a possible reading of 座 but I can't think of or find any words in which it's pronounced that way. But again for names anything goes.
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Wasn't sure where and if I should post this but I think this is really cool for people that may want to go into the translation business.
http://8-4.jp/blog/
It's their latest podcast "CANDY has a CRUSH on SAGAt"(It's also been my favorite podcast for a while now.)
They have a really cool guest on the podcast that seems to be quite the name among jap-eng game translators.I think the thing that really got me as someone that used to think of free translation as pretty annoying for some time (cause they make it harder to reference from for learning purposes as a beginner) was "In the translation process there's always something that gets lost, so you really have to add something to it or you'll end up with something less than the original"(quote from memory).
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Hey guys I found some things if you're looking for names and name rankings like I was a few months ago.
http://myoji-yurai.net/ <- This website you put in a last name (in kanji) and it'll tell you the readings, the ranking of it in the county and how approximately how many people have it. However, it's first name counterpart website is nothing like it.
http://namaeranking.com/ <- This has rankings for the top last names and first names, and says how many people with those names are in each prefecture. But it doesn't have the readings, and doesn't differentiate by gender or year.
http://www.meijiyasuda.co.jp/enjoy/ranking/best100/index.html <- This has the top 100 first names for boys and girls (not sure if it's by year or altogether, though), but no last names. Another page has the top 50 names by reading too.
http://www.meijiyasuda.co.jp/enjoy/ranking/year_men/index.html <- Another page on the website above that ACTUALLY HAVE A BUNCH OF TOP NAMES BY YEAR (YAAAAAAY). It only has the top then kanji-names, though (boooo).
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How do you say "you're the best" in Japanese?
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How does one write "ten thousand lifetimes" in Japanese? I'm looking at mansei, but I'm not sure if -sei can be used as a counter in this regard.
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Fantastic new reference sheets I stumbled upon. I just got them in the mail and they're amazingly in-depth! Fuck you GENKI!!
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Excuse me, but can someone please tell me if I'm translating this to japanese correctly?:
Welcome to the Nico Robin: Rokushiki style project!!
ニコ·ロビン·プロ六式ジェクトへようこそ!!
I would truly be grateful for the help! :)
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Excuse me, but can someone please tell me if I'm translating this to japanese correctly?:
Welcome to the Nico Robin: Rokushiki style project!!
ニコ·ロビン·プロ六式ジェクトへようこそ!!
I would truly be grateful for the help! :)
As it is, this says "Welcome to the Nico Robin Pro-Rokushiki-ject!!"
This is how it should be (although there's nothing that says "style" in there):
ニコ·ロビン·六式プロジェクトへようこそ!! -
@CCC:
As it is, this says "Welcome to the Nico Robin Pro-Rokushiki-ject!!"
This is how it should be (although there's nothing that says "style" in there):
ニコ·ロビン·六式プロジェクトへようこそ!!Thanks a bunch, CCC!!
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Bahahaha I think some of you will get a kick out of this:
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Haha yeah… about five different people on my facebook feed posted that this morning.
It's a problem I didn't experience much in my two years there, mostly because I had essentially no native friends, forcing wait-staff to confront the terror that was attempting to communicate with me.
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Lol, from the youtube comments I saw that it's actually common there for natives to hear a foreigner say something clearly in Japanese to them, but then responding with "No English" in confusion lol. I thought the skit was extremely exaggerated but I guess there's some truth in it?
When I saw it I actually saw it in a positive light, saying "Hmm yes, this will be me one day :D"
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I don't think I ever got a "No English" in response to my Japanese, but very very frequently, I would just get a "huh?" or "what?" in response to a perfectly well-formed sentence with proper diction and a not terrible accent. I'm naturally self-doubting enough to suspect that maybe I actually made some ridiculous linguistic mistake… except that my completely fluent friend was often there and said I was totally fine. We came up with the theory that relative strangers were just so shell-shocked from unexpectedly hearing Japanese coming from whitey that they went into a daze and missed what I said.
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I don't really blame them for being surprised, I guess. If you were born and raised in a country where everyone you saw was your own race and everyone spoke only your language, to see a foreign person voluntarily come to your country and learn your language is a bit shocking. But I think the shock should've wore off like…. 20 years ago.
Hmmmm.. wonder what life would be like if I lived in a uni-cultural country. Heck even my home country of Trinidad is multicultural.
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For people who still want to learn japanese, here are some apps that I think that will be REALLY useful!! I have studying japanese for 5 years now and I still use them from time to time to refresh my memory.
Japanese:https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/japanese/id290664053?mt=8
Japanese Flash:https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/japanese-flash-vocabulary/id367216357?mt=8As for a website, I can recommend one. http://thejapanesepage.com/
I checked it out and it seems really useful. It has a lot of tutorials too and the people on the forum are really nice to help out if you have any problems!
And That's It! Well Goodluck Guys!Was just browsing this thread and decided to check these out. I decided to finally start learning Japanese!
Thanks for posting them!
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I just had a.. really random thought pop in my head and I wondered if there might be someone here who knows enough about the language and actual culture to answer XD It's more of a weird curiosity than anything. I kinda wrote a lot of detail so if you don't really care to read my entire story just skip to the TL;DR section at the end for the question.
I was thinking about how, at least in America (not sure about other primarily english speaking countries ((Well I'm sure this goes on in Canada too, and it sounds like the UK too to some extent)) it's popular to come up with unique (and usually horrible) spellings of names. The names sound the same as the standard spelling, but of course they're not. A great example of a cringe-worthy one is I had someone come to pick up a prescription last year and told me the little girls name was Isis. I was like oh thats so pretty, so I-S-I-S? The mom gave me this look like I was unbelievably stupid and said "No, I-C-E-C-E-S-S". Icecess. I've seen numerous horrible name butchers but that continues to stand out as number 1 (#2 being a simple name that the mom decided would look cute with 6 extra letters in there and combined with a long last name, the insurance wouldnt pay because the full name wouldnt fit into the computer XD good job, idiots)
I know this really confuses the hell out of non english speakers. My name is Ashleigh, which is a variant spelling of Ashley. Leigh = "lee" sound so it sounds the same but lately I've found a ton of people (native english speakers and not) that cannot figure that out.
Anyway, it got me wondering about how in Japanese there are plenty of words that make up Japanese names, but many words have multiple kanji and while it sounds the same, the name will have a different meaning depending on the particular kanji that's used. I always thought that was neat. I kinda noticed some trends (I have no idea if its actually common or very rare) where it seems to be the equivalent to the english equivalent of giving a girl a boy's name but the particular spelling makes it cutesy. I noticed that this happens to both boys and girls in Japanese (Like a boy has a name that sounds like a girls name but the Kanji used to make up the name are generally different from when its used for a girl) while this is more common with girls having boy's names (at least) in America. There are some unisex names in english that can easily have a more masculine and feminine spelling and still sound the same (though lately I've noticed people are spelling their boy's name with the more cutesy girl spelling, ugh), though there are plenty of names that guys get stuck with that are, dictated by pop culture and society, to be primarily feminine. A lot of those names were originally male names but are now primarily used for girls (Ashley again is a good example, same with Kendal, Kerry, Terry, Andy, Charlie are some others)
Again, I really don't know if the boy/girl name swapping is super popular in Japan, I've just noticed quite a few examples recently.
TL;DR:
My actual question is, currently in Japan, is it common to see a lot of little kids with just… really odd names for the language? Like, are parents coming up with name spellings that use random combinations of kanji that SOUND like something but the meanings are really odd and unusual? Or gibberish?Basically are there popular japanese baby names going around essentially the equivalent to Nevaeh in just how weird and random the meanings come out to be (I know Nevaeh is Heaven backwards but it's still dumb, I don't give a fuck). Like is it a trend there too to come up with crazy unique names for their kids?
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http://kotaku.com/5844559/babys-anime-name-thrills-some-baffles-others
In all seriousness, in my experience in the countryside, I didn't encounter too many awesomely weird names (school of 300, students ranged from 12-15, with a lot of parents right around 30-35, meaning they had them young). There were a TON of kids who shared names with others in the school (like 10 different kids named Yuuta, 5 named Miho, 15 Yukis) so most creativeness did indeed come from the kanji, although never to the extent that anyone was teased, the way a kid in America named "Apple" might be. And there are a lot of names that are acceptable for either gender (I was shocked when I met a male Kaoru, given that I grew up on Rurouni Kenshin).
Could be a totally different story with big city folk nowadays though. Not sure.
EDIT: For the record, I know like four different Ashleighs (five now). ;)
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@CCC:
(I was shocked when I met a male Kaoru, given that I grew up on Rurouni Kenshin).
I guess someone never read The Tale of Genji :P
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Haha that I haven't!
But I really should, considering one of my professors published a translation of it.
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TL;DR:
My actual question is, currently in Japan, is it common to see a lot of little kids with just… really odd names for the language? Like, are parents coming up with name spellings that use random combinations of kanji that SOUND like something but the meanings are really odd and unusual? Or gibberish?Yes. They are called "kira kira names" and while a lot of time they are laughed at or discouraged (it can lead to bullying in classrooms or just life-long embarassment), some parents throw kanji together that have no commonly accepted reading, or even worse, assign a made up reading to those kanji to get the desired name. I can post a list of examples if you'd like, but the answer to your question is that yes, those sorts of names do exist in Japan.
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@CCC:
Haha that I haven't!
But I really should, considering one of my professors published a translation of it.
OH MY GOD, WAS YOUR PROFESSOR SEIDENSTICKER?!?!? IF IT WAS I'M GONNA GEEK OUT SO HARD.
Uh, sorry. I really love The tale of Genji.
As for the names question, it's a thing that you can watch in nearly any language i think. Both weird names and different spellings of other names like Cristhian.
Fuck, i love the Genji Monogatari.
Edit: Holy shit if your professor is Arthur Waley cause that would mean he's a Time Lord xD Uh, Maybe Royall Tyler? Haven't read that version yet.
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lol.
Naw, he's Washburn. Pretty sure this was a really recent version. Like he was doing it when I was still in school.
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Oh, i don't know that one.
(sucks that there are almost no spanish versions and i think there are none directly translated and holy fuck is ancient japanese hard).
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Oh, i don't know that one.
(sucks that there are almost no spanish versions and i think there are none directly translated and holy fuck is ancient japanese hard).
I don't know that the language is hard per se; sure, there are a lot more affixes and combined forms to remember, but on the whole, it's a lot more precise when dealing with aspect, as well as the direct/indirect reporting of information. The problem is that it was artful to be as vague as humanly possible, and also make lots of allusions to poetry and societal practices that have since disappeared. Now that's hard.
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I don't know that the language is hard per se; sure, there are a lot more affixes and combined forms to remember, but on the whole, it's a lot more precise when dealing with aspect, as well as the direct/indirect reporting of information. The problem is that it was artful to be as vague as humanly possible, and also make lots of allusions to poetry and societal practices that have since disappeared. Now that's hard.
I know, you're totally right. Let me be more specific, hehe. Holy fuck is the Genji Monogatari hard b:
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So, I have this lamp (pic below) with Japanese characters on it (I think) and I was wondering if they actually meant something or if they're just some random characters.
Anyone here who can read this?
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It seems pretty random to me.
気 天 川 文 山
Roughly: spirit, sky/heaven, river, literature, mountain.Also, every character is oriented with the top of the kanji at the outside of the circle, except for the third one (river) which is upside-down. This leads me to believe that the person who made it had no clue what they were doing.
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Ah, thanks. I figured it'd be something like that.
Seems like it's in the same category as those t-shirts you sometimes see with random gibberish on them, haha.
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At least none of them is the character for "rape" or something (which does happen on tattoos and such, unfortunately).
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Yeah, that's partly why I asked. I wouldn't want to have something with an offensive or otherwise unpleasant meaning on my ceiling.
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Does anybody have any advice on how a slow learner can try and learn Japanese? I've been going through the thread and have seen a couple possible good leads linked, but overall it's been people who already have somewhat of a grasp on the language asking for help, or people who just want a particular word or phrase. But, I want to try and really learn it. My problem is, I don't do well in classroom settings. It takes a LOT of repetition for me to get the hang of something, and having to learn this or that by a certain deadline would just stress me out to the point of not wanting to learn anymore. Is there any good way to learn more casually? Has anybody ever tried Rosetta Stone? I tried looking it up on Amazon, but the reviews aren't as great as I would have liked so I'm not sure it would be worth it to spend so much money on the program.
I've had it in my head for YEARS now that I should try and learn Japanese, but I've never really done anything about it, and I think I'm ready to change that, but I have no idea where to start or how to go about finding a way to learn that would work for me. I don't mind if it takes forever to learn, as long as I can learn at my own pace.
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Does anybody have any advice on how a slow learner can try and learn Japanese? I've been going through the thread and have seen a couple possible good leads linked, but overall it's been people who already have somewhat of a grasp on the language asking for help, or people who just want a particular word or phrase. But, I want to try and really learn it. My problem is, I don't do well in classroom settings. It takes a LOT of repetition for me to get the hang of something, and having to learn this or that by a certain deadline would just stress me out to the point of not wanting to learn anymore. Is there any good way to learn more casually? Has anybody ever tried Rosetta Stone? I tried looking it up on Amazon, but the reviews aren't as great as I would have liked so I'm not sure it would be worth it to spend so much money on the program.
I've had it in my head for YEARS now that I should try and learn Japanese, but I've never really done anything about it, and I think I'm ready to change that, but I have no idea where to start or how to go about finding a way to learn that would work for me. I don't mind if it takes forever to learn, as long as I can learn at my own pace.
I didn't really have a grasp at all when I started seriously.
Heard a few words here and there by watching anime but nothing great, start in steps.I think the first step is really learning kana it's basic and useful and really before you master it learning Kanji will be quite the challenge.
http://old.realkana.com/hiragana/
play around on this site.
If you like try to write them out too but writing and reading are different skillsets and on the road to learning japanese I personally rate reading on the top of my list(for any language really). -
I started with this and found it to be really helpful :)
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First off, let me seconded what DarthAsthma had said, writing and reading are indeed different skillsets and I too prefer reading for starter. In fact, my writing still sucks as ever, especially kanji.
I think learning hiragana/katakana can be from anywhere, but for basic grammar, I personally learn from Minna no Nihongo. The content is easy to understand. You can find its free download in google. Or you can try Genki, many people say it's easier but I don't really know myself. Both are good I guess.
And by far learning kanji from course book never work on me, maybe it works for basic kanji like fire water etc but for the rest, I tend to forget faster that way. So if you have the same problem and you like reading, I urge you to try visual novel (after perfectly memorize all the kana and some basic grammars first, of course). Pick any VN you're interested in the most cuz in that way you'll have no choice but to read those kanji if you wanna know the story. VN has image and audio installed in it, they'll help you understand the sentence better. Since the kanji used in some daily conversations will be repeated regularly, it'll stuck on your mind faster too.
Or you can try reading any Japanese song lyrics you like, kanji ver of course. I try both and they're been very helpful.
Btw, I myself prefer playing otome games, most of them are VN. Super effective I must say, since I need to know what the flirty words those hot guys had spoken to me or I'm going nuts, lol.
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there's also this
http://www.kanjidamage.com/
and this
http://www.tofugu.com/japanese-resources-old/hiragana42/ -
And set up a Lang-8 account if you want. That way you can write entries in Japanese, and native speakers will correct it.
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lang-8.com's been a really interesting experience so far. It's great to get native speakers to correct you, AND give other ways to say it. Not having much of a chance to really do much Japanese reading for years - and next to never putting my own thoughts into Japanese - this is a really good site.
If you're just started learning, get your hiragana and katakana down pat, and then ease into kanji with this. I'm sure they'll "correct" any kana into kanji for you, and maybe you can start to learn kanji that way. And might be easier than how I've slowly, gradually, painfully learned kanji.
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So we're booking our trip to Japan for later this year.. I hope you guys can bail me out and translate a few sentences I'll need for shopping and eating and stuff o.o
I'm planning on taking a little notebook with the translated and transliterated sentences.Also if anyone speaks Korean, I need the same help for that. Anyone speak Korean as well?