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Class Session 2a Chapter 1. Pronunciation Practice The Japanese Written Language (Information Only) The Japanese Writing System Basic Hiragana Particles ( wa , o , e ) The Diacritics ˚ (plosive) and " (voicing) Long Vowels Double Consonants ( ā , ii , ū , ē , ō )
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Class Session 2a Chapter 1 • Pronunciation Practice • The Japanese Written Language (Information Only) • The Japanese Writing System • Basic Hiragana • Particles (wa, o, e) • The Diacritics ˚ (plosive) and " (voicing) • Long Vowels • Double Consonants (ā, ii, ū, ē, ō) • Palatalized Sounds (kya, myo, ryu) • Katakana • Kanji • Punctuation and Format Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Pronunciation Practice – Unvoiced Sounds Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Pronunciation Practice – Voiced Sounds Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Pronunciation Practice – Palatalized Sounds Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
The Japanese Writing System Japanese writing consists of three different systems: kanji, hiragana, and katakana Kanji (literally, Han Chinese characters) logographic characters Hiragana A syllabic writing system Katakana A syllabic writing system All three systems are routinely used in writing Japanese: 私は中国とアメリカに行います。 (kanji, hiragana, katakana) Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Kanji Characters 漢字 • Japanese was originally not a written language • Kanji were introduced from China through Korea around the 5th Century AD by Korean scribes who could write Chinese • In order to write Japanese, one had to learn (a form of) Chinese; writing was limited to the educated elite • Over time, kanji were adapted to more directly represent the Japanese language • Japanese and Chinese are linguistically unrelated languages • Using Chinese characters to represent Japanese was a long and difficult process • Today, written Chinese and written Japanese are two different systems, although they use some of the same characters • Language reforms in 1947, 1972, and 1981 resulted in a list of 2,135 “common use” chararacters (常用漢字, jōyō kanji) • Many more characters must be learned to read older material • Kanji characters are used to represent concrete meanings conveyed by nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Kanji • Kanji characters were developed in China 4000-5000 years ago • Each kanji represents meaning rather than sound • Many kanji have both a Chinese and a Japanese pronunciation • Most of the simple kanji were created from pictures • More complicated kanji were created by combining two or more simple kanji into a single character Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Example Kanji Characters Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Hiragana 平仮名 • Created from cursive forms of kanji characters used phonetically to represent Japanese sounds during the Heian Period (794-1192) • Each symbol represents a syllable sound rather than a meaning (a syllabary) • Used to represent grammatical items (verb endings and particles) and words that are not written in kanji or katakana • Here is a sample sentence written normally, then in only hiragana: • 私は中国とアメリカに行います。 • わたしはちゅうごくとあめりかにいきます。 • There are 46 basic hiragana characters, two diacritics and a few conventions (discussed shortly) • You can write anything in Japanese using hiragana Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Katakana平仮名 • Katakana are the angular-shaped syllabic characters derived from parts of kanji characters (kata means “side”) • The katakana syllabary was derived from abbreviated Chinese characters used by Buddhist monks to indicate the correct pronunciations of Chinese texts in the 9th century. • Also consists of 46 basic characters, two diacritics, and some different conventions than are used with hiragana • Used for foreign words, words that mimic sounds, scientific names of plants and animals, and to put emphasis on words • Some new conventions have been developed to better represent foreign sounds Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Basic Hiragana Unvoiced Sounds Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Particles (wa, o, e) Convention used in the syllabaries (hiragana and katakana) include the use of the following symbols for particles: ha (はand ハ) is used for the particle wa (w)o (をand ヲ)is used for the particle o he (へand ヘ) is used for the particle e Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
The Diacritics " (voicing) and ˚ (plosive) Two diacritic marks are added to the right, upper corner of some of the basic kana characters to represent sounds added to Japanese speech: The voicing marker ″ changes the initial voiceless consonant of the syllable to its voiced counterpart. For example: ka かbecomes がga ke けbecomes ge げ ki きbecomes ぎgi ko こbecomes go ご ku くbecomes ぐgu The plosive mark is added to ha, hi, fu, he or ho to convert them to syllables with The consonant ‘p’ haはbecomes paぱheへbecomes peぺ hiひbecomes piぴhoほbecomes poぽ fuふbecomes puぷ Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Hiragana Long Vowels Two hiragana characters are used to represent long vowels: Putting aあafter kaかrepresents kāかあ Putting u うafter o おrepresents ō (sometimes romanized as ou or oo) Putting i いafter e えusually represents ē (ええmay also be used) A long i sound is usually represented by ii (rather than ī ) Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Double Consonants Double consonants are represented by a small tsu つ(hiragana) orツ (katakana) Kitte (stamp) and kekkon (marriage) include a double consonant and are written in hiragana as きって けっこん The tsu is not pronounced but represents the brief pause (a glottal stop) before the next consonant Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Palatalized Sounds (kya, myo, ryu) Palatized sounds (such as kya, kyu, kyo ) are represented by the kana character that represents the initial consonant plus the vowel i and a small-sized character ya, yu, or yo (hiragana や ゆ よand katakana ヤ ユ ヨ) hiragana katakana kyō (today) is written as きょう (キョウ) kaisha (company) is written as かいしゃ (カイシャ ) Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012
Punctuation and Format • Japanese is written vertically, top-to-bottom and right-to-left • Japanese is also written horizontally, left-to-right • No spaces are used between words • Common punctuation marks include: • 。 period • 、comma • 「」 quotation marks • No question mark is needed (but ? is sometimes used) • Except for the period, there are no strict rules on using punctuation Japanese 1100-L02a-07-08-2012