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Dec. 23rd, 2005 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickA while back, I posted about this great thing involving Microsoft Excel and readings for Japanese kanji. I didn't go into much detail on why it was such a great thing but maybe I should have. If you are generally one of the faithful readers who skips over all the Japanese stuff, well, nothing I say is going to convince you to read this... but it's educational and reasonably brief.
More than a few Japanese kanji have more than one reading. The appropriate reading for use in any given compound is sometimes not readily apparent unless you're reading stuff for junior-high readers (or younger), in which case all the kanji have furigana pronunciation keys overtop of them. Reading material for allegedly mature readers does not have a whole lot of furigana.
Different readings? How does that work, exactly? Let's look at the kanji 日. It's one of the seventy-six kanji that Japanese children learn in first grade. (The Japanese Ministry of Education has a listing of the kanji and the order in which they are taught so's to standardize things for the wee ones. This appears to work better in Japan than NCLB seems to work here in the States.) The kanji 日 means day, sun, Japan and it appears in lots of everyday words.
In the word 日本語 [nihongo, Japanese language], it is pronounced ni.
In the word 今日 [kyou, today], it is pronounced u.
In the word 木曜日 [mokuyoubi, Thursday], it is pronounced bi.
In the word 一日 [tsuitachi, the first day of the month], it is pronounced tachi.
In the word 九日 [kokonoka, the ninth day of the month], it is pronounced ka.
In the word 日記 [nikki, diary], it is pronounced ni AND doubles the next consonant.
In the word 日 [hi, day], it is pronounced hi.
In the word 毎日 [mainichi, every day], it is pronounced nichi.
So, to summarize, when you're a dumb-ass 外国人 [gaikokujin, foreigner] and you see 日 in a word, you have got to figure out if you're supposed to pronounce it as ni, u, bi, tachi, ka, ni(double), hi, or nichi. The Excel widget I linked to tests you on this -- that's why it's cool.
More than a few Japanese kanji have more than one reading. The appropriate reading for use in any given compound is sometimes not readily apparent unless you're reading stuff for junior-high readers (or younger), in which case all the kanji have furigana pronunciation keys overtop of them. Reading material for allegedly mature readers does not have a whole lot of furigana.
Different readings? How does that work, exactly? Let's look at the kanji 日. It's one of the seventy-six kanji that Japanese children learn in first grade. (The Japanese Ministry of Education has a listing of the kanji and the order in which they are taught so's to standardize things for the wee ones. This appears to work better in Japan than NCLB seems to work here in the States.) The kanji 日 means day, sun, Japan and it appears in lots of everyday words.
In the word 日本語 [nihongo, Japanese language], it is pronounced ni.
In the word 今日 [kyou, today], it is pronounced u.
In the word 木曜日 [mokuyoubi, Thursday], it is pronounced bi.
In the word 一日 [tsuitachi, the first day of the month], it is pronounced tachi.
In the word 九日 [kokonoka, the ninth day of the month], it is pronounced ka.
In the word 日記 [nikki, diary], it is pronounced ni AND doubles the next consonant.
In the word 日 [hi, day], it is pronounced hi.
In the word 毎日 [mainichi, every day], it is pronounced nichi.
So, to summarize, when you're a dumb-ass 外国人 [gaikokujin, foreigner] and you see 日 in a word, you have got to figure out if you're supposed to pronounce it as ni, u, bi, tachi, ka, ni(double), hi, or nichi. The Excel widget I linked to tests you on this -- that's why it's cool.
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Date: 2005-12-23 06:54 pm (UTC)