Lightbulb learning moments, what were yours?

[Asher]

Ahhh I see, to be honest I usually do this myself. But I do the same thing with actual singular kanji, not just grammar points. For example I will make sure I know many words that a kanji is used for before I assign an English meaning to it. The Heisig methods biggest flaw is that it is determined to assign a ‘single word’ to the vast majority of kanji. This makes many of them confusing when they aren’t.

In English we use phrasal verbs for soooo many things, but Heisig never uses these for some reason. Phrasal verbs are things like ‘give up’, ‘take down’, ‘hand out’, verbs that require 2 (or more) words for their meaning. Many kanji have meanings that match 1 to 1 with phrasal verbs, so it makes learning them so much easier. The usual example I give is 謝. According to Heisig it means ‘apologise’, but actually, it means to ‘square up’, as in square up a debt (repay a loan or fee) 月謝, square up a crime (apologise) 謝罪, square up your feelings (be thankful) 感謝.

It works the same way for grammar points, if you get to the bottom of the meaning (original meaning), then most of the grammar points make so much more sense.

If you are purely interested in the kanji behind most grammar points, I recommend getting a proper Japanese dictionary (most grammar points will be in it). Best one IMO is 新明解国語辞典. It is paid, but phenominal (You will never need another dictionary)

[Asher]

Hahaha, I think most people can relate to funny ones like that. Especially キノコ, I remember having the same realization haha.

[ssqvist]

I understand. That seems to be a good approach.
I used Heisig method so I can definitely relate.

Thanks!

[noktulo]

I think one of those for me was realizing that explanatory の pretty much literally translates to “it’s that…” and if I translate it that way in sentences the meaning is pretty clear.

すみません、地図を探しているんです。
Excuse me, it’s just that I’m looking for a map.

本は面白いの？
Is it that the book’s funny [that you’re laughing]?

It doesn’t work in every instance but it was interesting to see that the Japanese construction corresponds directly to an English one. (I.e. turning the sentence into a subordinate clause.)

[max99x]

A recent one was when I saw the 万葉仮名 -> 片仮名･平仮名 transition. Recognizing the shape similarity and the sounds from the original kanji blew my mind a bit. From the linked wiki page:

[Asher]

If that blew your mind, then here is something that is going to blow your mind even more. The shapes were NOT randomly chosen at all. They were chosen to represent a basic meaning that holds true for that sound in Japanese. Unlike English letters, kana all have a ‘basic’ meaning, from which kanji uses to make more clear. For example, さ always means the other half. In japanese, there always exists 2 parts to things (kinda like yin yang). は highlights the subject (just like the particle), さ highlights the object. That is why さ came from the kanji for ‘left’, left is the secondary partner to ‘right’, right is the meaning of は (something unchanged).

It would take forever to explain the meaning of each individual kana, but it is something cool to know, coming from a language where the letters don’t mean anything.

[Asher]

That is actually a really good description for の . I’d say that is a really good way to think about that grammar point!

[Houndstooth]

The shapes were NOT randomly chosen at all. They were chosen to represent a basic meaning that holds true for that sound in Japanese.

I’d be careful going around spreading your “discoveries” as fact when you still haven’t produced any proof beyond your theory. It’s an interesting idea, but this isn’t something that is written literally anywhere except for the thread you created on the idea last year.

[Asher]

Or you could just ask a Japanese person, as this is common knowledge for them. They all learn it in school.

Or you could read a Japanese grammar book that focuses on Japanese grammar aimed at Japanese people, as this ‘two part’ system is used to explain most of the grammar.

Edit: A skeptical mind is healthy though, and there isn’t many ‘western’ books written about this (probably because people thought it was irrelevant to language aquisition, not because it isn’t true). So I appreciate your opinion.

Edit 2: Yes it is written literally. In many Japanese books. I linked a good book last year by Masamichi Watanabe, here’s a screenshot. If your Japanese is pretty solid, I recommend reading the Japanese version, the translation is very sub-par and makes the very mistake it is trying to fix (putting the world inside an English mindset). But it talks in depth about every kana meaning

[Houndstooth]

I’ve admittedly only read the English versions preview, I do intend to check out the full Japanese version, but I have just one clarifying question.

The intro seems to suggest that these kana meanings apply exclusively words which origin is rooted in Japanese, not in Chinese, and that the kanas original meanings contributed to the creation of the archaic forms of words, not that they still hold their complete and total origin meaning in all modern words. If I’ve understood this correctly, it’s a very different stance than that which you argue on the other thread, and one I don’t actually disagree with, nor ever have.

[Asher]

Well it’s a bit of a tricky subject, technically all Japanese words are rooted in Japanese (except for katakana). Kanji was used to give meaning to pre-existing Japanese words, not the other way around. Japanese already had many words, kanji just gave each word an opportunity to show more specific nuance.

Originally, the sound etymology was muchhhhh more important, because without kanji as a reference for nuance, kana had to be able to paint a pretty clear picture just by itself. It did this through a system of meanings incorporated into each mora. Some words have changed quite a bit as you mentioned, but the vast majority (I would say over 85%) are still very accurate to their roots.

The translation of that book isn’t fantastic, I strongly recommend the Japanese version. It’s pretty much the same as what I put forward inthe other thread, just not as detailed. My ‘theory’, if you can call it that is a bit more complex… But it is a work in progress. As for the kana having meaning derived from their kanji, that is true. But it started Japanese and stayed Japanese. The sound was attributed to a kanji with a suitable meaning, then the kanji was simplified into a kana, but through the whole process the meaning stayed Japanese. That is just part of history, not a personal opinion.

Edit: For the history of kanji, and how sound gave their meanings to kanji and then extracted the meanings back out for their own ‘alphabet’, I strongly recommend this book. Which has a very detailed chronology of the process, which happened mainly in the Heian period.

[FredKore]

Or you could just ask a Japanese person, as this is common knowledge for them. They all learn it in school.

@Asher, I have to agree with @Houndstooth here. You’re overstating the “trueness” of the linguistic theory.
I’m half-Japanese, where my father, born in 1939, is Japanese and half my family is Japanese, and I never heard this idea that the sounds carry meanings separate from kanji (to your common knowledge remark). I have heard the ideas that there was probably a writing system before kanji, that there was a fully developed spoken language before the incorporation of kanji, that the elites chose to incorporate kanji, and that kana were derived from kanji (and there’s a couple theories why they even did that).

Linguistic theories are useful to understand how and why a language came to be, but be careful in assigning too much meaning to any one particular theory. Even the books you mentioned are explaining theory not fact. Modern linguistics is only a few centuries old. People still aren’t even sure when Japanese started using kanji. Many things happened in history that we can only make guesses as to why they happened, albeit really good and sound guesses, but still guesses.

That said, I like the idea that they chose kanji that were most closely related to an idea or feeling of the sound. It helps make the language make more sense.

[Asher]

Yeah, 100% agree. As for the common knowledge part, I was referring to the grammar diagrams used in Japanese schools for language aquisition, which use this 2 part system. These diagrams (from my knowledge) are a part of standard education. I will include some pictures later today, at work atm.

You are right, modern linguistics is very young; which makes it even more exciting. It’s full of things just waiting to be discovered.

I never heard this idea that the sounds carry meanings separate from kanji (to your common knowledge remark)

As for this, all Japanese onomatopoeia is based on the kanas meaning. But if you are able to feel the meaning of things when you hear onomatopoeia, then I’d say you are aware of the meanings… Even subconciously. Were you educated in Japan?

[FredKore]

I grew up in America. First started visiting Japan when I was 13. Of course, my dad and Japanese relatives were born/raised/educated in Japan.

[FredKore]

A few of my learning moments:

1. This first one is not directly about Japanese but about how difficult learning Japanese really is. I remember having a lightbulb moment when I realized that unlike any European language, I can’t guess when I want to read something. When you’re studying Spanish or German, you can pick up a newspaper and read everything, even if you don’t understand everything, because once you know the letters you can phonetically read it. In Japanese, if you’re reading something (without furigana), when you come across a new kanji word, it’s like “well, no idea what that is”, even if you already learned the word but didn’t learn the kanji. And, of course, as you learn more kanji, you can make better guesses, but you never really know for sure because there’s always several readings for every kanji, and sometimes even “special readings” (eg. 上うえ、上手じょうず、上手いうまい). So, Japanese is hard. And it’s okay to progress slower than with another language. It’s okay. It’s still progress.

2. Learning Japanese is like learning 2 or 3 languages in one. Linguistically, as we’ve mentioned before, it’s a combination of the original Japanese language plus borrowed Chinese words, so you’re always learning multiple words for the same idea (外そとで食たべる vs 外食がいしょくする). And then when speaking, using different politeness levels – from casual to keigo – requires another skillset, because not only the conjugation changes but the words are different and the pronunciation is different as well.
   ご存知ですか、知りません、知らない、しゃあないなぁ

3. Passive form is pretty common in Japanese. Passive form is frowned upon in English because it is less direct and doesn’t convey action, so it took me a long time to understand how it’s used in Japanese. Of course, everything in Japanese culture is less direct, but in addition, conversation stories are often told from the speaker’s point of view, so instead of “The dog ate my food!”, you say “[my food] was eaten by the dog!” 犬に食べられちゃった！ (This speaker point of view also allows you to drop the subject.) (Technically, this probably falls under the “suffering passive” form.)

4. Japanese is a spoken language first. I learned this one early on, and it has become a guiding light for a lot of aspects of Japanese.

[Asher]

A lot of good points here. I especially agree with 2 and 4. There are so many words to convey ‘roughly’ the same meaning. Perhaps even more than english in some areas.

As for point 4, sometimes if I am watching something complex, I have the (japanese) subtitles on, and find myself confused. Then if I turn the subtitles off and just focus hard on listening, I suddenly understand a lot more. It really is a spoken language first. When I learned Swedish it was the opposite, I would turn the subtitles ON to understand what’s going on better.

[Kai]

I remember I used to struggle a lot with the にしろ・にせよ and にしろ～にしろ grammar points here.

It was so bizarre to me, seeing the imperative form used this way (to roughly mean “even though” or “even if,”). For some reason though, とはいえ (とは言え) was a similar grammar point used to mean “be that as it may,” but this one was easier for me, I guess because it came up in Steins;Gate a few times and didn’t have some strange “alternate form” (like にせよ).

I didn’t fully connect the dots until 文プロ came out with the であれ and であれ～であれ grammar points (which come from である). These are all imperative forms of verbs being used to indicate supposition, and that so-called “alternate form” (にせよ) that was so confusing to me is still just coming from する. You know how せず(に) is a negative form of する? Well, せよ is the same deal here. It’s simply the “form” of する that starts with せ.

After looking at all these grammar points side-by-side, にしろ・にせよ and にしろ～にしろ finally made sense to me

[severian]

I’ve a lot and they’re not coming to mind right now, but my most recent one was あっという間. Though I understood the usage, meaning and so on, I hadn’t really considered what the actual words involve mean. I did keep forgetting it though, because I hadn’t really been able to parse it to any real structure if that makes any sense. Then my fave singer used it on Instagram the other day and for some reason it just clicked out of nowhere right then as roughly being “in the time it takes to say ahh”, and now I’m noticing it everywhere and I sure as hell am not forgetting it again.

[Asher]

Haha yeah that one is very easy once you see it literally!

[Asher]

Imperative grammar points are confusing sometimes, especially the ones that use old/uncommon forms! For some reason I used to always get confused with さえ to mean ‘even’