Learning Other Asian Languages

[miss feli]

nvzero said:

erika said:

Oh dont give up! I honestly feel dizzy when i see a japanese newspaper.

hahha, i just watch anime now. with english subtitles. but i plan on picking up jap again...

felinius said:

Oh snap. Wrong quote. Haha. A popular one right now is BLEACH (they're waay into the series).


I'd suggest instead of reading manga, trying kids books. I can get you a good deal on Japanese kids books because we have an Uwajimaya around here and they sell Japanese manga straight from Japan for around 5$.

u live in the US though. I know in s'pore they sell translated manga for about $7 at Kinokuniya. Man i love that store. Australia's got one in Sydney, but i live in Melbourne

and Bleach is good. Just finished watching Full Metal Alchemist, very very good. one of my favourites!

Wouldnt everything be cheaper? Is Australia closer to Japan than US is? My geography is failing right now! Lol

I like FMA... also Ghost in the Shell : Stand Alone Complex... And Bobobo-bo-Bobobo bobobobajsdalkjfldjf bo!

[z.]

Borders sell everything expencive though. it's just nice to go there to read books and periodicals for free.

felinius said:

Wouldnt everything be cheaper? Is Australia closer to Japan than US is? My geography is failing right now! Lol

as u can see, Seattle is closer to Tokyo (Narita Int' Airport) than Sydney is.

SEA: Seattle
NRT: Tokyo
SYD: Sydney

[z.]

lol i just realised that i live in Melbourne, so it'd be a further distance south...

[miss feli]

nvzero said:

Borders sell everything expencive though. it's just nice to go there to read books and periodicals for free.

felinius said:

Wouldnt everything be cheaper? Is Australia closer to Japan than US is? My geography is failing right now! Lol

as u can see, Seattle is closer to Tokyo (Narita Int' Airport) than Sydney is.

SEA: Seattle
NRT: Tokyo
SYD: Sydney

Oooh... I was gonna say 100km wasn't that much, but then I really thought about it! Haha...

[z.]

yeah, i was gonna say that too. and just like u thought about it. lol

[Sensei]

nvzero said:

not like chinese, where it sounds like ur swirling water in ur mouth and about to drool. with all the "shh" sounds and alike.

haha!!! that's a great way of explaining it! ;D Actually, it's that "sh" sounds that attracted me to mandarin! I love it! Japanese sounds cool too, but just not as cool

erika said:

Chinese seems way too hard Cool sig pic sensei!

Thanks, Erika! like yours too. where's it from?

If you have the dedication to learn Japanese, I'm sure you could do the same for chinese. as zandonai said, try swirling water in your mouth to the point of drooling

[z.]

^lol.

sensei said:

try swirling water in your mouth to the point of drooling

if only it were that easy.

[rainbowcake]

i tried teachin myself mandarin but its too hard...

[Sensei]

yeah, it can be pretty difficult to learn on your own... it's important to have someone there who can speak Mandarin, not only so you can learn from their pronunciation, but also so he can let you know when you're mispronouncing a word--tapes cannot do that!

[jefe]

nvzero said:

as u can see, Seattle is closer to Tokyo (Narita Int' Airport) than Sydney is.

SEA: Seattle
NRT: Tokyo
SYD: Sydney

Yeah, that makes sense. And if you catch the jet stream right, you can probably get to Seattle in much less time from Japan than you could get to Sydney.

I got from Tokyo to San Francisco in 9hrs. I am sure it must take over 10hrs. to get from Tokyo to Sydney.

But Cairns is prob. only 8-9 hours from Japan and full of japanese tourists. But then even Honolulu is closer. Now that I think about it, the USA is definitely closer to Japan than Australia. I wonder if Chicago is closer than Perth.

[z.]

^

where:
NRT - Tokyo (Narita) [New Tokyo Intl], Honshu, JP
ORD - Chicago [Chicago O'Hare Intl], IL, US
PER - Perth [Intl], WA, AU

so Perth is closer than Chicago.

and i did a quick check on Qantas' flight schedule, tokyo - sydney takes 9h55min non-stop on a B747-300, so u were pretty right. ;D

[clara]

sensei said:

nvzero said:

not like chinese, where it sounds like ur swirling water in ur mouth and about to drool. with all the "shh" sounds and alike.

haha!!! that's a great way of explaining it! ;D Actually, it's that "sh" sounds that attracted me to mandarin! I love it! Japanese sounds cool too, but just not as cool

I always like the sound of mandarin, easy on the ears- almost melodic- well in comparison to Cantonese (a bit loud for me!) & Hakka (which my mum speaks).

****

On a side note: In the movie 2046, all the characters speak in their respective dialects (Ziyi Zhang- Mandarin, Tony Leung- Cantonese // Kimura speaks Japanese) - I wonder how that transcended to the HK audience.

When I am finished procrastinating, I’m going to (attempt) to teach myself from one of my mum’s books…

[muzo]

- i can read and write korean, which i thought was pretty easy to learn
- japanese.... i wish lol
- i can go to the market and haggle in hindi (good thing tho is when u start with ur poor hindi and then just start speakin english with heavy indian accent they'll think ur local = better price.. or should i say 'real' price)
- i really wana learn how to read and write thai, i think its the most beautiful script in the world
- i need to learn tibetan orthography.. its totally stupid cos u dont write the way u pronounce... ie. 'dage' (walnut) is written 'stargau' and 'yiden' (trust) is written 'yibrdan'.. simple words like 'la' (equivalent of japanese '-san') is written 'lakas'.. now go figure

[...austhai/...]

I wish I had time to. I'd like to pick up Sanskrit. But I don't know how difficult it is...
Anyone know?

[arcturus]

While I speak Vietnamese fluently, the only other Asian language that I've studied was Japanese back when I was in high school. It was quite poorly taught so I don't remember much about it.

What I find interesting are the discrepancies between many Asian languages. Although the writing systems of Japanese kanji bear certain hallmarks of written Chinese, it seems as though there are many differences between other Asian languages.

Despite being able to speak Vietnamese, I found that it didn't help whatsoever when I learnt Japanese. Furthermore, in spite of the geographical proximity of certain countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia I've found it difficult to understand anything being said in the languages of the last three countires. This particular point is amplified by the similarities often cited between the romance languages of Europe as well as Scandinavian languages (Swedish and Norwegian being mutually comprehensible, for example) who often share similar vocabulary and grammar.