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- "ジョン"
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I believe that it's in Intro here because it's teaching you that katakana is used for loan words like, for example, foreign names such as John (ジョン) or Maria (マリア) or my name Joshua (ジョシュア)
The O sound doesn't get doubled unless there is an う after it. There always was one in the earlier lessons, but not here.
Also, these are katakana.
So let me get this straight: hiragana and katakana are two different alphabets for Japanese writing? And what is the use of them? When to use one and when the other?
My understanding (someone correct me if I'm wrong) is that hiragana is used for Japanese words, katakana is used for foreign words. The examples here are Western names, so they're foreign and use katakana.
Someone please elaborate on to this, I read on another comment that the different alphabets are used in writing to distinguish words apart in sentences
Both katakana and hiragana are historically derived from the kanji. Today, hiragana is used for grammatical particles and endings, and also some instead of uncommon/rare/hard-to-write kanji. While katakana usually is used for emphasis or foreign words. But previously they were used almost in the opposite way.
My native-speaking Japanese professor told me that historically, men wrote in the angular katakana and women wrote in the flowy hiragana.
I also read that from a book. They now have different uses as mentioned before.
Katakana is for foreign names and other words, and for sound effects.
Hiragana is for native names and other words, and for grammar.
katakana is used for foreign names, but for chinese and japanes names kanji are used
623
Chinese is special in that it shares an alphabet with Japanese, so I'd imagine that Chinese people would still just write their names in Chinese (and have Japanese people mispronounce the heck out of them.)
I have a couple of Chinese friends who write their names in katakana (when writing in Japanese) for that exact reason. After all, to a Japanese person, a Chinese name is a foreign name.
Also, despite Japanese kanji having common roots with Chinese characters, the two are largely unintelligible to each other nowadays, especially the more modern simplified forms of Chinese. While they still look similar, my partner, a native Japanese speaker, can immediately tell when she's looking at a piece of Chinese text, because she has no idea what it says. There are some overlaps where characters look identical, but overall, I wouldn't call them the same alphabet.
Hanzi is a logography, not an alphabet. And yes, Japanese borrowed hanzi and developed it into kanji, but many meanings have changed, as happens with language over time. A monolingual Japanese speaker will have a very difficult time reading a Chinese newspaper.
Kana is a syllabary, not an alphabet.
In addition to what Kiryn wrote, katakana is also used for emphasis, the same way we used italicized letters.
The "yo" being smaller means it is a modifier, turning "ji" into "jo". So it's really read as "Jo-n"
I think they may be referring to the fact that, in English, the name "John" is said more with an "あ/ア" sound than an "お/オ" sound. And in such case I agree; I have also noticed this with other Western names in Japanese as well, and I always found it a bit unusual.
I think you mean "in American English" ;)
American pronunciation of あ and お is quite well known in Japan, and often when parodying someone's poor Japanese for comedic effect. For me, it's easy to understand thay most American accents in English lend themselves to mixing up the pronunciation of あ and お, whereas my Australia accent makes it quite easy to pronounce them the same way Japanese people do. Unfortunately, most Japanese people don't have much exposure to other kinds of English besides American English (through school and media), thus propagating the foreigners speak "poor" American Japanese stereotype.
Joshua, thank you for your comment, and please accept my apologies in advance for the absurdly long response you are about to read. I spent way too much time writing this because this is actually something about Japanese that has itched my curiosity for years, and I have never received a satisfactory answer!
To begin with, please allow me to clarify that I personally have no issue with distinguishing vowel sounds in Japanese, as they are virtually identical to those in Spanish, a language in which I am fluent. You are right, Americans often butcher their vowels in other languages, but the possible mistake I am seeing in this case is with the Japanese spelling & pronunciation, not the English.
First, to respond to your comment, I would like to establish that in both American English as well as Australian English, the name "John" is definitely pronounced not with an お (IPA "o"), but closer to an あ (IPA "a"), as is demonstrated nicely here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-zl_QL3Qbo
Second, regardless of any possible differences between American English and other varieties, you yourself state that "most Japanese people don't have exposure to other kinds of English besides American English"; furthermore, much of the initial exposure that Japan had to the English language was from Americans. Thus, one can reasonably conclude that English words and names that made their way into Japanese would be based primarily on American English.
With those two things in mind then, i.e. that 1) in American English, the name "John" is pronounced closer to an あ (IPA "a"), and not an お (IPA "o"), and that 2) Japan's primary exposure to the English language (and thus also its names, like John) came and comes through America and its variety of English, here is the question that I was trying to state (and what I think abuchbinder was trying to say as well):
Why in Japanese is the English name "John" written as "ジョン" (with the vowel sound "o") and not as "ジャン" (with the vowel sound "a")?
It baffles me why the first people to transliterate this name did not choose to spell it as "ジャン", and why, after all these years, this different pronunciation still sticks. As stated, the English pronunciation is distinctly closer to an "a" sound, and the Japanese language obviously has an analogous vowel to that sound!
I will admit that, despite my experience with other languages, I am most definitely a novice with Japanese, so perhaps there is an obvious cultural or linguistic explanation that I am missing. Still, there it is. That is all I am trying to ask. If you or anyone else can shed some light on this mystery, it is certainly appreciated! (And thank you, in any case, for the tidbit about Japanese comedy and American vowels; I did not know that!)
Violet, no need to apologize :) I'm glad I'm not the only one posting stupidly long comments to a simple katakana recognition exercise :v
To respond to your points in order, I have to say that's an interesting clip. Like I said, I'm Australian and in my head, my "John" sounds a lot like it uses the IPA "o", but perhaps it does end up coming out sounding like the IPA "a" ┐('～`;)┌
Your question actually makes a really good point, which, embarrassingly, I have never really thought about. I'm afraid I don't have a good answer for you, but a few thoughts do spring to mind.
・The most unsatisfying possibility is that Japanese was just really inconsistent when adopting words from English. That is to say, there's no rule for deciding whether one follows the English pronunciation or the English spelling. But I realized as I was trying to come up with examples that that's not the case. The general rule seems to be to follow the pronunciation; it's even done for other English names like マイク maiku for Mike, and ジェイソン jeison for Jason.
The only case I could think of where Japanese follows the spelling over the pronunciation is ビタミン bitamin for vitamin, which actually just makes things more confusing. If Japanese predominantly follows US pronunciation, it would sound like バイタミン baitamin, but it follows the UK pronunciation instead?
・I'm not sure how these next two ideas hold up historically, but here goes. The first being the relative popularity of the name John in the US vs the UK at the time when Japan started getting familiar with English, with British "Johns" being more prevalent, thereby cementing the IPA "o" pronunciation.
Again, I'm completely uninformed when it comes to historical usage, but could it also be possible that the American accent did use the IPA "o" during that period, but now no longer does? I have no idea.
・When you mentioned if it was a possible cultural explanation, this idea immediately came to mind, but I honestly doubt it's accuracy: in Japanese, じゃん is a very casual contraction of 「じゃないですか」which roughly translates to "don't you think so?" An example would be 「あの子、チョーキレイじゃん」 ano ko, chou kirei jyan, which would be along the lines of "that chick is super hot, hey?" (disclaimer: this is extremely casual and will be considered extremely crass and offensive if said to basically anyone who isn't your best friend). But it's funny to imagine the first John that any Japanese came across introducing himself わたし、じゃん "hey, it's me, don't you agree?"
Alternatively, and arguably more hilariously, じゃん is also an onomatopoeic word in Japanese used when revealing something, kind of like "tah-dah!" in English. So the first John in Japan would be like "hey, it's me tah-dah∽∽" (I'm imagining his exasperated gestures when they keep laughing at his name must have looked like jazz hands :P)
In either case, the only logical conclusion is that the Japanese who met the first John decided it was rude to keep laughing at his name, and upon seeing him write it, found a solution to their problem :v
As a non-native English speaker, comparing the Japanese and English of "John", in my opinion, the English name "John" sounds more like ジョン then ジャン. ジャン being used for the name "Jean" (in the Euopean/French pronounciation). "John" seems to be "dʒɒn" and Jean "ʒɑ̃". Of course, bot are pronounced different than the counterparts but that's to be expected given the sounds used in Japanese.
I think it is obvious that the Japanese have literally translated the word John as is spelled, leaving out the silent letter h
I just can't see that It's small..it appears like the size of the other characters, that's confusing!
Okay to clarify, Hiragana is used for native Japanese words. Katakana is used for words that are borrowed from other languages that are not Japanese. Or used to emphasize or stress a natural Japanese word.
みかん "tangerine" (typically seen in hiragana and not kanji)
パン "bread" (borrowed from the French word from pan)
アニメ "animation" (not only for animation from Japan but for any animated feature from anywhere in the world)
I hope this helps.
(Just a little useless note: "Bread" wasn't borrowed from the French word "pain", but from the Portuguese word "pão".)
Why? That's the etymology. The Japanese got パン and 天ぷら from Portuguese traders.
Not sure but is the last one "anime" instead of "animation"? Or is it just pronounced that way but meant "animation"?
In Japanese many loanwords from other languages are used in an abbreviated form most of the times. While it's easy to see where some of the short forms came from, some of the original forms are not that easy to deduct (since they e.g. use the first part of the first word and the first part of the second word for one short form). Anime is one example of a shortened loanword. アニメ(anime) is the abbreviation of the loanword アニメーション (animēshon = animation). So, contrary to popular belief, anime is not an original japanese word but a loan word in itself. However, the shortened form might be something uniquely Japanese. It refers to all form of animations, though, and not only Japanese.
What he wrote in quotes is the meaning and not the pronunciation. The first one is pronounced Nakan (from what I have learnt here).
Just as an addition: Chinese loanwords are also not written in Katakana (which kinda makes sense). Though I guess most of them might feel like they are Japanese at this point.
シ shi - two dash lower
ツ tsu - two dash upwards
ン n - dash upwards
セ se - little stick
ヒ hi - no stick
マma - facing left
ム mu - facing right
These were the katakana I would always get confused with.
When writing the characters by hand, the stroke order/direction for シ and ツ is also reflective of the corresponding hiragana.
For シ, the two (mostly) horizontal lines are written first (top, then bottom), and then the curved diagonal line is written from bottom left to top right - kind of like the arc you follow as you write し.
For ツ, the two (mostly) vertical lines are written first (left, then right), and then the curved diagonal line is written from top right to bottom left - like the arc you follow as you write つ.
I wish I had this tip when I was first learning! This comment is 3 years too late lol
You mean ジ? It is the character ji. Without the accent mark at the upper right it would be shi.
That “accent mark” is called a dakuten: 濁点 (だくてん). It is used to mark a voiced consonant.
が、ぎ、ぐ、げ、ご......
The other one they have is the handakuten: 半濁点 (はんだくてん). Used to mark semi-voiced consonants.
ぱ、ぴ、ぷ、ぺ、ぽ......
Might sound dumb, but in one of the Naruto Mangas Kakashi-Sensei wrote his name on a tree in Katakana. I thought Katakana is only used for foreign words so can someone explain.
Katakana is also used for stylistic emphasis (similar to the use of CAPS or italics in English). Another possible explanation is that, although Japanese people commonly use hiragana to "spell" kanji, it's not unheard of to use katakana.
Also, historically katakana was considered the "male" script (1) and writing in hiragana was only widely done by women (2). I'm not sure whether the creators of Naruto were aiming for historical accuracy or not, but that could be another explanation.
Interestingly, your second link indicates that the "male" script was originally kanji, whereas the "female" script was hiragana: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana#History
The educated or elites preferred to use only the kanji system. Historically, in Japan, the regular script (kaisho) form of the characters was used by men and called otokode (男手), "men's writing", while the cursive script (sōsho) form of the kanji was used by women. Hence hiragana first gained popularity among women, who were generally not allowed access to the same levels of education as men. And thus hiragana was first widely used among court women in the writing of personal communications and literature. From this comes the alternative name of onnade (女手) "women's writing".
Katakana came decades later, though it was initially primarily used by men for "official text" (I'm guessing simply by virtue of them being the ones allowed to the work associated with that material): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana#History
Katakana was developed in the 9th century (during the early Heian period) by Buddhist monks by taking parts of man'yōgana characters as a form of shorthand, hence this kana is so-called kata (片, "partial, fragmented").
[...]
Early on, katakana was almost exclusively used by men for official text and text imported from China.
Official documents of the Empire of Japan were written exclusively with kyūjitai [traditional/unsimplified forms of kanji] and katakana.
And back to the hiragana link, regarding modern usage of both:
Male authors came to write literature using hiragana. Hiragana was used for unofficial writing such as personal letters, while katakana and Chinese were used for official documents. In modern times, the usage of hiragana has become mixed with katakana writing. Katakana is now relegated to special uses such as recently borrowed words (i.e., since the 19th century), names in transliteration, the names of animals, in telegrams, and for emphasis.
Fair call; I didn't say that "male" script was katakana and "female" script was hiragana in the same period of time, but I can see how my phrasing was misleading. In my defence, that's why I linked two separate articles f(^_^;
Regarding their modern usage, also consider this quote from my hiragana history link:
Even today, hiragana is felt to have a feminine quality.
And none of the listed special uses of katakana don't really apply to OP's original question of Kakashi's name. For emphasis, maybe, but that's not necessarily the whole picture :)
Not all foreign names and words came into Japanese recently. Even if it is considered Japanese today, its foreign origins are still reflected by using katakana.
Can anyone explain to me why the "john" name use "ji" "yo" and "n" instead of "jo" and "n"
There is no single character for "jo". That's why the combination with the half-size character is necessary.
http://www.neverup.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/katakana-hiragana-chart-desktop.jpg
"Shi- yo- n" "Shon" "John" Are pronounciations adapted to sound LIKE the foreign words or am I wrong and "Shy-yo-n" is not how you say this?
ジ is "ji", not "shi". "shi" is シ
The small ョ is not pronounced separately, but rather modifies "ji" to "jo".
excuse me for the stupid question, but how does this translate into john and not jijon? (sorry this is only my third time doing this lesson)
The size of the character matters. Modifying characters are written half-size and are not pronounced in the usual manner. Here, the small ョ(which is pronounced "yo" in its full-size form) modifies "ji" to "jyo" (or as we render it with our English-language pronunciations, "jo").
https://files.tofugu.com/articles/japanese/2014-09-03-learn-katakana/katakana-chart.jpg
https://files.tofugu.com/articles/japanese/2014-06-30-learn-hiragana/hiragana-chart.jpg
Thank you for this information! First, I could not figure out why Duo kept saying that ジヨン was incorrect. Then, I couldn't figure out how to get the correct character with my IME keyboard. The linked charts had the answer: type jyonn (in romanji-katakana mode) instead if jiyonn. Voila, ジョン!
PS, if anyone else is having trouble with the Windows Japanese IME, Alt+toggles between latin characters and kana. Once in kana mode, Alt+CapsLock switches to katakana, Ctrl+CapsLock switches to hiragana. (But if you're in latin mode, both of those keys just switch back to the most recent kana, same as Alt+ !)
I find that all I need to do is type "jo" and it will give me じょ. I simply continue to type "nn" and I get the option to render it in katakana ジョン.
It depends how you pronounce it.
- Rhymes with "groan" - ジョーン
- Sounds like "Jo-anne" - ジョアン or ジョーアン
- Spanish "j" - ホアン
Good question. Here are the different "j" sounds you can get by combining other kana with ジ -
- ジャ = "jah" as in "jar"
- ジョ = "joh" as in "john"
- ジュ = "ju" as in "june"
- ジェ = "jeh" as in "jelly"
As you can see, none of them match the "jay" sound you're after. You can get that sound by extending the ジェ sound. Depending on whether the vowel sound is monophthongal or diphthongal in your accent, you can use ジェー or ジェイ, respectively, though the difference is largely negligible in Japanese.
- 623
Now we can write more places! Besides America, Japan, and China, there are now Africa, Italy, Europe, Mexico, Rome, England, Asia, and John!
The character "so" ang "-n" are confusing. They're the same symbol. How can you tell the differemce on these?
They are written similar to their hiragana
In So the strokes line up horizontal, moving left to right and then downward そソ
in N the strokes line up vertically moving down and then move upward んン
The same thing with Tsu つツ and Shi しシ
- 623
Oh my gosh I never knew that trick (that you're stroking in the same direction as the hiragana counterparts.) That's super-helpful! Sadly, I think that my hand-written so-n and shi-tsu are indistinguishable... Hopefully, with this trick, that will change. :) Thank you very much!
They are not identical. There are subtle differences between them.
ソ so
ン n
- 377
Am I the only one that hears "Johm"? Do Japanese pronounce the 'n' (no vowel) a little different?
Yes. The Japanese ん/ン is not identical to the English N, and it's not quite the English M either.
Yes, long vowel. Quoting from another comment on this page:
It depends how you pronounce it.
Rhymes with "groan" - ジョーン
Sounds like "Jo-anne" - ジョアン or ジョーアン
Spanish "j" - ホアン
It's not シ. It's ジ. The little marks in the upper right (called "ten-ten") makes the difference between "shi" and "ji". And the mini ョ is what turns the ジ ("ji") into ジョ ("jo").
Jon and John are the two common ways to spell the name. I don't see Jhon very often, so I wouldn't expect to see it coded into Duo.
You wrote a large ヨ.
ジヨン is "JiYoN".
What you need is a small ョ to change how ジ is pronounced, from "Ji" to "Jo".
ジョン is "JoN".
http://www.neverup.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/katakana-hiragana-chart-desktop.jpg
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I spend the last week learning Hiragana so i could use Duolingo to learn Japanese. Now its throughing a whole new alphabet at me out of nowhere!
Japanese uses four different scripts (and yes, there are rules for when to use which one; they're not interchangeable).
- Kanji, which is Chinese hanzi logographs, for core words
- Hiragana, a syllabary, for native Japanese words, names, and grammar bits
- Katakana, a syllabary, for foreign words, names, and sound effects
- Romaji, which is the Roman alphabet you and I are using right now.
Note that ローマ字 (rōmaji) is basically never used in Japanese itself, except maybe in contexts where it's impossible to type in the Japanese scripts themselves.
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Why do they not use the characters what we have learnt so far? What is the sence of another n?
What do you mean, "another n"? Are you talking about hiragana vs katakana? They're used in different contexts.
http://www.neverup.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/katakana-hiragana-chart-desktop.jpg
The small ョ changes how ジ is pronounced.
ジ = Ji
ジョ = Jo
http://www.neverup.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/katakana-hiragana-chart-desktop.jpg
It is unbelievable how english native language trully belive that Jhon is not a foreign name in non english-spoken countries. In fact, the difference between katakana and hiragana is so simple. Both can be used to write in japanese any word. The difference is when the japanese people uses hiragana and katakana. A japanese will use hiragana to write any japanese word. For example, the word tree (árbol in spanish) they have a word of themselves, I mean japanese people, wich is き (ki). They named what we know as a tree with a word of their own き. This is the use of hiragana for native japanese words. Katana is a used by japanese people to identify foreign word. A foreign word, or loanword, for a japanese is any word that was not "given" by japanese people to name something, somewhere or someone. So, my name Alejandro (spanish) is a foreing word for them. They assimilated the word and to identify that it is a foreign word they use Katakana to write it. My name, in any country where the native language is spanish, Alejandro is how is written because is a spanish word. But, in Japan, my name Alejandro is written with Katakana アレクサンダー. It doesn't spell exactly the same way because they are in different alphabets and they don't have sounds or syllables for the "le" sound as it is in spanish (not the same in english as well).
Historically, Japan used chinese ideograph (kanjis) to write, but at some point of their history, they decided to "create" a japanese language, and so the katakana was born. At that moment only men were taught to read and write with Katakana. But, the high society japanese woman, also created an alphabet for themselves and they named it Harigana. Any japanese Kanji can be written with Hiragana or Katakana, but, the japanese people uses mostly Kanjis to written communications. Hiragana is use only for particles such as の and Katakana, as many said before, for foreign words.This is because they are a very traditional culture and Kanjis are rooted to their origins and have an philosophical importance. So if you don't learn Kanjis you will be able to write and speak in japanese, but you won't be able to read. Also, I think it is important to remarck that every Kanjis, generally, uses Harigana and Katakana symbols, in its structure, so learning Katakana and Hiragana will help you to memorize Kanjis.
- 623
Actually, it's less that the Japanese use Hiragana and Katakana to make kanji and more that Hiragana and Katakana were made from kanji. As you said, kanji came from China, and was the first written language the Japanese had. In fact, "kanji" literally means "Chinese writing." Also, not all loanwords are in katakana (especially not Chinese loanwords), but western loanwords tend to be. This is especially true for western names (and is true for given names such as Alex or John, as well as family names, such as Smith.)
In the end, though, even loanwords are technically Japanese if they've been integrated into their language, and so they get to decide how to spell it. That's why, even if how they spell it doesn't make sense to some who speak the language the loanword originally came from, it needs to be accepted as one would any other piece of Japanese vocabulary. It may be confusing, but that's how it is.
I'm not completely sure if this was the point you were making, but if it is, I certainly agree with you.
Also, I believe that the name "John" was originally from Hebrew, not English, historically speaking (technically making it a foreign name in English, even if it's become a sort of "English name." Honestly, if you look at it that way, it's validly a name found in many languages.) I'm not completely certain about this, though.
I concord. It is something we must accept as a parte or learning japanese. Regarding the semantic origin of the name Jhon (Juan in spanish) it is well known that most of the western first names are rooted with religion, and the common source of all the main western religions is the idish or hebrew (same language), but we can go deeper and find traces of arameo, and other primitive languages used in mesopotamia of rivers Tigris and Eufrates in the Middle East. So, I will leave that inquiry to the linguistic semantic experts. Really nice to read you.
I dont need to learn how tonread John. Inwant ..hotel, ramen,washroom, plane,police,...important stuff. Who cares about John !
You know, no one's forcing you to do this course. It's free anyway, so it's not like you've lost anything learning about John. There are other ways of providing feedback that don't make you sound like a spoilt brat.
Besides, if you really want to learn that badly, you could look it up online yourself. ホテル、ラーメン、洗面所、飛行機、警察... 重要なもの
So sad... Learning a language is not only the words but also the culture. Japanese traditions are so important to learn the language. Some users are just spoiled brats.
ジョシュアにお会いできてうれしいです。
