I'm a librarian, and I'm used to seeing library = としょかん. The explanation I've read is that としょしつ is a small, one-roomed library... whereas としょかん is like a public library or a university library... と思う。 Unless your main user-base is in high school... wouldn't としょかん be the more-common word?
Slight distinction between toshoshitsu and toshokan. The translation "Library" for toshoshitsu is not entirely correct and toshokan would probably be a better fit as toshoshitsu is more of a reading room (am I right here?) and toshokan would apply better for an entire building, such as a public library.
Also, the thing about a word like 静か (shizuka) is that the か part means you can only read it as shizuka. The raw kanji may have different readings, but 静か is a word (a 言葉, ことば、kotoba), and this word has only one possible reading. I'd love to help with more specific cases.
I think I understand. As I type these words, I am seeing, to the right, 静か, which is read as しずか (shizuka), for "quiet." In this case, the hiragana on the second (2nd) line indicates the pronunciation of the entire word (kanji + kana).
I haven't used this site much, but that seems to be the idea. Does this help?
I am a former translator turned tutor so, if there's any help I can be with specific kanji and so forth, let me know.
I'm still not sure I understand what you are asking, but I will try to answer what I think you are asking. Most kanji have at least two different phonetic readings, and some kanji have a lot more than that. There are two kinds of readings-- kunyomi ("meaning readings"), which are based on the pronunciation of a word native to the Japanese language, and onyomi ("sound readings"), which are related (in some cases, quite distantly) to how the kanji are or were once pronounced in Chinese. When a kanji has several readings, which one you use depends on what word you see it in, and this has to be learned. By convention, kunyomi are often given in hiragana, and onyomi in katakana, when both are being shown for a kanji. Does that answer your question? When you say "you know how they give you the kanji character and to the side...", I don't know what kind of page you are seeing this on. I assume that by "they" you mean the person who wrote most of the content for this website.
okey so you know how they give you the kanji character and to the side it says meaning but which one is the sound for the kanji though like カ is ka in romaji and か in hiragana but the kanji doesnt like tell you what it is does it?
dustyrain-san, hajimemashite.
It would help if you would explain what screen you are looking at when you have this difficulty. Some questions give you a word spelled in kanji and ask you to choose the phonetic spelling of the word in kana. You didn't say enough for me to know whether this is what you're talking about. There are also words which consist of a mixture of kanji and kana (usually hiragana). Perhaps that "other stuff to the side" is the part of a word written in hiragana. Please explain a bit more what you are looking at. Do you know about kanji, hiragana and katakana? If not, try the lessons on "Writing in Japanes" linked to on this page: http://www.studyjapanese.org/lessons
hey guys
so im new to this program. i had a japanese teacher for half a year but i had to move but i still wanna learn japanese but i dont quite get this program. when the show you the kanji character i get that but whats the other stuff to the side
As you probably know, most kanji have at least one onyomi (sound reading) and at least one kunyomi (meaning reading). "kai" and "e" are the onyomi of 会. 会 is read "kai" in 会議 = kaigi, meaning "meeting", for example. 会 also has kunyomi "a." The word you are familiar with comes from the verb 会う = au, meaning to meet, to get together with. The form 会いたい is usually used to mean "(I) want to see (you again)", although literally it means "want to meet (with)." 会いたくて is just the continuative form of 会いたい. 愛 = ai, meaning love, is a completely separate word. It is a noun which can be used with する. Since 会いたい can be used to say that you miss a loved one, I understand how you could have been confused between these; but the words themselves are not related.
I have a question
I was studying Chapter 6 in level 1 kanji
and I saw that 会 sounded like "e" or "kai"
but I have always seen it read in the "a" sound
like 会いたくて
why is that
also what is the difference between 愛 and 会い?
thanks :)
fuonk-san, hajimemashite. Arigatou. I was trying to type ほん, initially, which doesn't have any text after the final ん. Thanks for the tip about the "nn." I also, through trial and error, discovered that n' also will convert to ん. I was used to JWPce, so only tried n-space. Thanks again!
bookkish-san, hajimemashite. I haven't used this site in a long time, but most IMEs (input methods) expect two n's ("nn") for ん. If you type just one n and then type a syllable starting with anythin other than a vowel or an n, the IME will usually convert a single n preceding it to ん. For example, you can just type "genki" for げんき(元気) since the syllable after ん starts with the consonant sound "k." However, てんいん must be typed "tenninn," and こんにち must be typed "konnnichi"-- the first two n's are interpreted as ん, and the third n as part of the syllable に.
Possibly a newbie site-user question here... I was on the Practice portion of the website and I was trying to type ん as part of my answer. Most romaji convert to hiragana automatically, but I couldn't get 'n' or 'm' to change over. Any suggestions? I took Japanese throughout college and I'm trying to brush up.
Seeing you back to JCJP, reminds me of my forgotten promise to you haha.
I am sorry to take a long time for me to be reminded ><
I have just modified all the English words in the vocabulary database according to your guidance. I did that manually, so maybe I did some mistakes.
Doing those modifications to the English vocabularies made me realize that your inputs can really improve the quality of JapaneseClass.jp and I think that I should have done that earlier.
Please let me know if you have any other suggestions and fixes.
お帰り、フオンクさん。I think を has no other use nowadays. It's ALWAYS a particle, so it's (theoretically) always pronounced as "o". However, some people pronounce it as "wo".
There are two other particles which are also spelled differently than they usually sound in modern Japanese. The particle pronounced "e" is spelled へ (he) and the particle pronounced "o" is spelled を (wo). As spanz-san said, へ can be recognized by where it occurs in a sentence, and there is no problem with を since it is rarely, if ever, used for anything but the particle.
Of course, there are cases of ordinary は at the end position, too (あげは sounds Ageha). You need to know the words to be able to distinguish when は is a particle.
It's the same with へ, that sounds "he", but when it's used as a particle, it sounds "e".
は sounds "wa" ONLY when it's used as a particle (a topic marker). Otherwise, it sounds always "ha". The particle は is used so much that you can find it probably more frequently than the ordinary は (that sounds "ha"). As particles always appear at the end of the expressions (hard to tell without spaces), if you find a は in other position, it always sounds "ha".
For example: はるこ sounds Haruko.
In your case, こんにちは, は is a particle, so it sounds Konnichiwa.
Note that some Japanese people write it こんにちわ on purpose. I guess they are acting funny. Anyway, こんにちわ is a mistake.
Hi! I'm new to this website and I'm working hard to learn Japanese. I'm always puzzled how は always seems to make a "wa" sound. Isn't it suppose to make a "ha" sound? For example : こんいちは versus こんいちわ. I would have wrote the first one. Can anyone help. Thank You! :3
I just want to tell you guys that you can now participate in translating JCJP vocabulary database to your language
(if your language is not available, you can suggest your language to me, as long as you are willing to translate them).
To contribute in the translation, you just need to go to 'Vocabulary Translate' Section in JCJP Group Page.
You can also report any mistaken translation from the Vocabulary Lesson page. Those reports will go to the 'Vocabulary Translate' Section.
Please tell me if there is anything you do not understand.
@ bijik and creiz: Welcome. Nice to meet you.
@core: you need to get up to 1500 in order to go to the next level and to get that point, you have to answer as many hiragana/katakana/kanji as possible. The point will be accumulated. It will not lost.
Also, when doing vocabulary tests, my answer choices (after the first correct answer) turn to "ボールペン" instead of kana. I'm assuming nobody else has had this problem?
In the Hiragana/Katakana lessons section, it gives you a button to press to bring up what seems to be a multiple choice question about what each symbol means.
For some reason, when ever I click on the answer, nothing happens. I've tried clicking on wrong answers too. It seems to be this way with both Hiragana and Katakana. Is there something wrong with my computer? Or is their something wrong with the site?
Sorry for giving you so much headaches, but one of my translation to English is misplaced. I'm pretty sure I put it in the right sentence, but now it's in another one, so it makes even less sense than in it's correct place. This is the sentence with my "translation":
いいことと悪いことを決定することが難しいです ... by bahasa_jepang via Bahasa Indonesia English: (vocabulary not found in the sentence) I shouldn't be here, so I'm already going. make correction (English) by spanz
There is already another english translation in the correct sentence so, please, can you simply delete my translation?
Btw, I voted for myself in the correction you gave me back (私は京都で旅館に泊まる) and it worked! Didn't you say that the author can't vote for him/herself? Maybe the system thought that the author were you (although the name was mine). Please, remove my vote.
Ya there is a problem with exact same correction. well this kind of things always happens, its unavoidable. one way to avoid this low quality content is through democratic way which is votes. So the users should be wise to vote.
actually its not a vote, its like giving your opinion to the correction by giving a vote. I dont know how to explain this correctly but, every time there is a new correction, each user has the right to give their opinion. if you like the correction, then you can click the number on the left of the correction. if you dont like the correction, then just leave it as it is.
I was trying to test the voting system and deleted my cookies to see if you can vote twice or more times. Well, you can't. Deleting the cookies and refreshing the window logs you out of the site (or it seems to log you out), so you can't vote.
Well, that's right, but you CAN correct a sentence, and this isn't right. See:
私は京都で旅館に泊まる make correction (Japanese) by nintendo via English English: I stayed in Japanese-style inn in Kyoto
This is my correction: I (stayed) [will stay] in Japanese-style inn in Kyoto reason: There's no past tense in 泊まる. stayed = 泊まった. by via English
As you can see in the last line "by via English", there's no name but the correction was saved. This is a bit dangerous ;-)
Example: 空を見るな。 English: don't look at the sky. Other vocabulary: 空 sky Notes: 見る plain form of 見ます Notes: な negative imperative
this is exactly what I am thinking, I am planning to include grammar notes as well. but the problem is, there is no grammar lesson in JCJP... and Im afraid that the user become lazy to add a sentence, because he/she has to input so many things, 2 sentences, vocabularies, and grammar notes...
ya of course its not automatic, the sentence adder has to add the vocabularies by themselves. however, when the user is trying to add a vocabulary, the user will be given translation suggestion if he/she is trying to add a vocabulary that is existed in the vocabulary database.
the extra vocabulary list is not related to the main vocabulary in the sentence, so lets say you add a sentence for 空 this 空 will be automatically added to the extra vocabulary list. and the sentence adder has to add other vocabularies like 見る,etc
actually the sentence list is already implemented partially in the practice page for trial and feedback. if you answer correctly on the vocabulary question and if the vocabulary has some sentences, the sentence list will be printed out on the left as unapproved sentence. You can try to find the vocabulary question in the practice page if you are curious.
Thank you for saying that it is fun, it makes me happy and think that my work is not useless for others =D
I don't know, when this whole group feature will be done until the basic system of it works properly. Maybe it will take some time, because my holiday is over now. I will work as much as I can, but I still need some discussions like this, so I can work on the right track.
Agreed with Nagareochiru. And it's not only vital. It's FUN. Can't wait to see this runinng.
Beeant-sama, I don't understand the subfeature. Who's going to fill in the list? The sentence's author? Or are you planning to do it automatically searching for other expressions present in the vocabulary database? With such a limited vocabulary, the automatic approach won't work.
I think it's better if the author (with group's approval) lists whatever he/she wants (not only vocabulary), including some grammar hints if were necessary to explain the differences between the sentence and the vocabulary's form.
Something like:
Vocabulary: 見ます English: watch, see, look at
Example: 空を見るな。 English: don't look at the sky. Other vocabulary: 空 sky Notes: 見る plain form of 見ます Notes: な negative imperative
Of course, this needs a stricter approbation than the sentence alone. I think explaining all the sentence (を particle in this case) is maybe excessive, but maybe not. I think keeping the list short is the best.
Anyway, what I don't understand is when do you intend to show the extra list. In fact I don't understand either how did you plan to merge the vocabulary with the sentences. Are you going to add the sentences whatever extra info list only to the vocabulary lessons? Or do you plan using them also in practices or tests?
Do you have any suggestions for this feature? I am thinking to add a sub feature for the sentence, something like a list of vocabularies used in the sentence. Actually this sub feature may be unnecessary for users who are using Rikai chan, but what do you think?