Japanese Vocabulary

Esav, yup, words like sdravstvujte, kak u vas dela, and of course privet made me lose track fast. Extremely fast. I picked up Japanese not too long after. About the four "alphabets" hiragana, katana, kanji, and Romanji, the first two weren't that bad to memorize, Romanji is basically english lettering. Kanji is different. I don't know how you can learn every damn symbol in that thing unless you're surrounded by them, my teacher didn't even pick up on most of them until she was 16, and she grew up in Tokyo.
 
Esav,
You were a Russian linguist for the Army? I remember when I was in IFOR there was Russian Linguist that attended the SF candidate briefing at Kaposvar North, unremarkable except that he was wearing a camo yamulka. Any chance that was you?
 
Will, that wasn't me! I was Air Force, 1965-69. I would have had fun in Yugoslavia. Serbo-Croatian isn't too far from Russian ... one of us could pick it up pretty quick. My Yugoslav friends in NY were Albanian, not Slavic, so I'd have ended up looking up relatives once I arrived :)

That was one miserable war, wasn't it? Just before it started in Kosovo, the teenage Kosovar boys from NY went to Belgium for military training for the KLA. How long before they all have a stable environment to live in again? Croatia and Slovenia may be OK.
 
Don, I think most kanji are simplified Han (Chinese, for those who don't know that's what they call themselves) characters. Katakana/hiragana are further simplified from some old kanji for words that shared those sounds. Of course, katakana/hiragana are really the same, sort of like different fonts for the same alphabet.

There is a way to learn kanji pretty easily, though, and theoretically, they could be used for any language, being independent of sound. Some people can do it easier than others, being more visually oriented. You just have to get one of those dictionaries that lists them by complexity, and practice, practice, practice.

Originally, educated Japanese simply wrote in Han characters because for educated works they used the Chinese language, period. Later, they used a few simplified forms to spell out words by sounds, and kept some like we keep some Latin phrases: Quod erat demonstrandum, in flagrante delicto, habeas corpus.
 
That's a great word, yarmulka. I think it's originally Mongol. Russian Jews use it, but in Israel the word is kippah.
 
Esav,
Sorry for the spelling.

I was in Croatia for 7 months with IFOR and in Kosovo for 7 months. The Croats will have an easier time of it than the Kosovars. They have a better economic base than the Kosovars and they are an independent nation. They are still saying that Kosovo is a "province" of FRY. There's no Kosovo border, it's a boundary and a bunch of other semantic games.

It was pretty calm in Kosovo when I was there KFOR October 2001-May 02. The journalists I dealt with said that they were laying low because they knew that post 9-11 the US soldiers were spoiling for a fight and they didn't want to antagonize us. I was reading reports of US/KLA "interaction" right up to 9-11. Then all action over there ceased. While I was in Kosovo there was a noticable downturn in all areas of interest. There have been several incidents over the last 3 months. I don't know enough of the current situation to know if it's being blown out of proportion or not.

You ever try to learn Hungarian? I tried.... probably one of the few languages I don't have an "ear" for. My translator said that the language has no Slavic languages, that it's closest cousin is Lapplander.
 
Originally posted by Nimravus
For those who wanted to know how to pronouce SEKI

SAYKEE

Pronunciation
A = ah, as in Bahamas
E = ay, as in okay
I = ee, as in bee
O = oe, as in Joe
U = ooh, as in too
Y = ee, as in bee
AI = eye, as in pie
EI = ay, as in say
EN = en, as in ten


http://aikido.ncf.ca/Glossary.html
Click to expand...

Machigatta, ne.
Actually, SEKI is pronounced as it is written. "E" is not pronounced "ay". "EI" is, as shown above. "E" is pronounced eh, as in Esav or "E"xcellent blade you got, there.:cool:
Nihongo wo benkyo no hito ni, ganbatte kudasai, ne.

Cut Safe.
FM.
 
Er...forgot to put the "e as in bed" in my first post. Not the first time I've submit before rechecking.:footinmou

Speaking of benkyoo...nihongo wa mada joozu ja arimasen, still studying, but at least I can still hold down how to get directions, ask for the bathroom, etc.:D Back to reading, writing, and repeating. Ashita shiken ga arimasu.
 
Lapp, Finnish, and Estonian are all closely related, and members of the same central Asian language family as Hungarian. But they are distant relatives, along with the Turkic-Mongol languages.

The grammar doesn't work the same as Indo-European languages, which makes it a bit harder also. But no language is really difficult in and of itself -- or the little kids who learn to speak it, couldn't :D I was able to get the idea of some basic Turkish when I was stationed there, so I think if I ever tried Hungarian, I would have been able to learn it. Like Turkish and unlike English and Russian and Chinese, Hungarian is pronounced pretty distinctly.

I lived in a very Hungarian neighborhood in New York. The Austrians among my ancestors lived in the same neighborhood a long time ago. Only the Hungarians really remain. The Germanic and Slavic communities have faded.
 
Oh, yamulka .. yamulke .. yarmilkih .. whatever; it was spelled and pronounced differently in every little Polish-Jewish village and Russian-Jewish town. It may have come to us from Turkish through Russian, but Yiddish being a Germanic language written in a modified Hebrew alphabet, it is very difficult to say what a "correct" transliteration should be.
 
Japanese has long "e". It's usually spelled "e", sometimes "eh", and pronounced as "ai/ay".
But if you pronounce Seki like "say key", you're saying "genital organ" in Japanese.
 
We had a fun time of it for about 3 weeks with our Hungarian interpretor, he'd say "seeya" while greeting us and "alo" when leaving, we figured he had it backwards until we found out that "seeya" was hi and "alo" was bye. Only other 2 words I could pronounce and learn was thanks and you're welcome.

Croatia was my first time working with interpretors and I always try to learn languages when I travel. I asked how to say, "you're welcome," in Serbo-Croatian. I used this newly learned phrase when a Croat soldier's daughter thanked me for some candy, dead silence and some angry men and women. :confused: The Croat interpretor started yelling at me about why did I say that to a child. :mad: Apparently I invited this child to my home saying, "you're welcome to come home with me." :footinmou WRONG :eek: I told her that we say "you're welcome" when someone thanks us, you could see the light bulb go on.... some rapid fire Serbo-Croatian and everyone started laughing except for the child's mother. Apparently Croats say "please" when someone says "thanks." Be careful what you ask to learn I guess. :rolleyes:
 
My father spent a few years in the Philippines during WWII, when he was a combat engineer. He retained his few lines of Japanese most of his life. In Japanese he could say, “Japanese soldier! Throw down your weapons, take off your clothes, and come out of the cave with your hands up!” It made him a real hit at any party where people spoke Japanese!

Darrel
 
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