The Japanese Language
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- Опубліковано 15 тра 2024
- This is a video all about the Japanese language, including its features and its history and development. 🚩 Learn Japanese with JapanesePod101: ►bit.ly/japanese-pod-101◄ Black Friday sale: Courses are currently 51% off for a limited time!
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Music:
Intro: "Rollin Through Osaka" by MK2
Main: "Back in Town" by Silent Partner
Outro: "Japanese Style Trap Beat" by Annex. • Video
00:00 General information about Japanese
00:52 The history and development of Japanese
06:54 Varieties of Japanese today
07:58 Japanese phonology
11:54 Japanese word order
13:14 Topic marker and subject marker
16:05 Agglutination
17:53 Vocabulary & the writing system
22:16 Final comments
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Will you a video on Malayalam.?
Pppp
おもろかったで
@@masnem1111 は何ですか
ひろみさんの声は音楽と同じくらい素晴らしくて美しいです
Mrs. Hiromi's voice is great and as beautiful as the music
صوت السيدة هيرومي رائع وجميل مثل الموسيقى
Russian: "I'm so simple. I always follow the same rules."
English: "I usually just do whatever feels right"
Japanese: "Here's a compass. Use your imagination."
Haha yeah
It seems like that only because the way we teach Japanese is simply wrong. If you understand the rule of Japanese grammar - not how Japanese is translated to fit English grammar - Japanese become one of the most logical language with almost no exceptions. The only language that is more logical with its grammar is Esperanto. And for sure it is not English. English makes no sense at all. Grammar is irrational and not regular and spelling system is just random - I do not see how Japanese writing system is less rational from English one. I would claim opposite (kanji helps you a lot when you learn Japanese - English spelling is just a pain).
@@toridori9473 I back that up, Japanese is very logical in its grammar and syntax, and its strength is that, if the context allows it or is obvious to the speakers, you can skip entire parts of the sentences and still be understood. The fact that the translations from Japanese to English are widely different just reflects the immense difference between the two languages. Among the 4 languages I speak decently, Japanese is the one I had the least time to put effort into to reach a decent level (I still have ways to go in vocabulary assimilation though).
@@toridori9473 i disagree with the almost no exceptions part. "Ok, all kanji by themselves are kunyomi, except numbers, except 4 and 7"
@@furretar6484 I meant grammar. Writing system I more complex but I would claim it is still better than English. Kanji are more natura for your brain than phonetic writing.
Once you get used to it reading is quicker and easier than English and it is far easier to read.
You can compare Korea which drop their hanja and Japanese which kept kanji. Japan have very high functional literacy where Korea have low. Meaning that kanji make it easier to read complicated text (it is hard to blame it on anything else since both country are similar in their relationship to education). In fact Japan have it higher than USA by a lot.
Funny enough people say that Korean writing is the most logical and Japanese the least. But an insertion that you brain is a logical machines is simple wrong.
Even when you read English you brain is trying to convert what you see into ideographs. Thats why you can randomly change order of the letter in the word (keeping first and last intact) and you will not even notice it if you are proficient. Your brain is looking for shape that represents an idea not for pronunciation. This is why you can find foreigner who can read and understand but they can not read out loud. I was like that for about a year and still there are word I understand in reading but have to look up in dictionary to know pronunciation - and I never do it since it does not effect my understanding so I do not care. I
Can you imagine if the English language functioned the same way as Japanese. You would have to switch between the greek and latin alphabets in the same sentence. Also throw in a couple Nordic runes into the mix because why not.
MrMathew And gothic characters because of German loanwords, then kanji, because of Japanese imported words, then cyrillic because of Russian words and so on
Sounds like a nightmare
this does not act as an appropriate analogy because the greek and latin alphabets are entirely similar in function and using both would offer no greater utility than using just one of them.
Alessandro Pedretti japanese doesnt do all of that though... its just chinese characters, kana, and latin alphabet. for example they dont use the cyrillic alphabet if they write a russian word. they just write it in katakana probably
this is actually a really good way of describing it. it's a little easier than it sounds though -- hiragana/katakana are *extremely* stable in pronunciation.
Kanji is an absolute dumpster fire though.
I'm Japanese and I've been learning English and Italian. It is hard for me to learn these language but watching this video makes me feel that both English and Italian are very kind languages. I respect and appreciate those who study Japanese.
Forza, non mollare! L'italiano è molto difficile e c'è tanto da imparare a memoria, ma personalmente lo ritengo molto elegante 😊
@@Abeturk well done kanka
As someone learning your language. I'm just going to say " Oh I've seen this level of pain before in my own tongue ". Where a native language inherited another language's words, but except it is through kanji. So I am always having to get creative on memorizing it. English is a Germanic language with Norse Words, Germanic spellings and Latin spellings slammed left, right, and center. If Learn English, go immedately to French not Italian. Why? You will deal with where a lot of the latin came from English. French has the non-phonetic writing problem, but responsible for that issue in English.
Ty! I appreciate you too!
@@Abeturk who asked though
"you don't need to know all the 2000+ kanji"
Yes, yes I do.
Go for it! :)
PFFF-
easy!!
"A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step."
I hope you overcome your challenge.
You do if you want to be fluent.
Dude, its even hard to imagine how much you have to study before you make any video. Respect.
Faisal Umai
He had a head start on Japanese, since he lives there.
666th like
very educational
dus sucke
lolol I see all these comments saying " I am Japanese, and I speak it fluently; however when I think about it, it's all kind of confusing."
How encouraging :D
Hannah Young
I’m Japanese and I feel exactly how you described it 😂
I don’t even try to think of how it all works but I think about Japanese words when I’m speaking with elder person because some words may change completely depending on who are you talking to.
I assume your native language is English? You could probably say the same thing about that, right? I think it’s a testament to the ability of the human mind to process and intuit complex patterns through simple exposure (and trial and error)
Bella
That’s so interesting! Do you have any examples off the top of your head?
I imagine this is the case with a word like
「お前」where it can be incredibly rude in certain situations but just the way to talk in others? Is it usually about the level of humbleness or politeness, formality va informality, the status of the people talking relative to each other, that kind of thing? Or are there a bunch of other reasons as well?
@@littlefishbigmountain - I think Bella is referring to honorifics(敬語) in general, which is very difficult to master in its fullest. It's common for many Japanese to make errors, and sometimes their intellectual levels and upbringings are questioned (behind their backs) if not used properly.
Age and social status of the person you are talking to or talking about can determine which nouns, pronouns (in your case of using お前, which would not be used to an older person or a person of higher social standing), verb to use and the associated agglutination. Sometimes the proper use comes out without thinking too much, almost subconsciously because you've been taught since you were small, and other times by paying close attention to what you are saying. It's similar to an English native speaker stating "it just sounds right" when asked why they spoke or wrote in a particular way.
GYYYO
I realize all of that already. I wanted a native speaker’s input on the matter, as I’ve heard plenty of 外人 try to explain it. Thanks for trying to help tho; you didn’t have to do that
I got an Asian studies minor in college with an emphasis in Japanese, 4 total years of 2 classes a semester and man it kicked my butt so hard. I studied for hours a day, spoke all day, wrote all day ( filled up four 300 page notebooks JUST to practice writing), and managed to get a perfect grade in the class every semester... but man it took a lot of work to get all the kanji, stroke orders, vocabulary, grammar, meanings and readings down to memory because they can get incredibly complicated. I grew up knowing Mexican Spanish and learned English later on, but Japanese makes those two languages seem like baby-stuff.
I'm also currently binge watching all your videos. They're so interesting and informative, even when they're about languages I already speak. The Mexican Spanish video was was very cool, and I even learned something as a native speaker!
El español tampoco es fácil. Soy tu compatriota y estudio japonés en la ENALT
yoo i wanna do the same! and i also have mexican spanish as my background so it doesnt make japanese as hard compared to an english mother tongue speaker
aye, fellow mexican spanish speaker!
@@morsol8491 sí; mi amiga está estudiando español en la escuela y muchas veces me anda preguntando ayuda porque tampoco no es tan facil el español; pero aunquesea no tenemos tres sistemas para escribir jajajsxjsn
That was maybe the best video I've ever seen
Ciao Brian. Bello trovare per caso un tuo commento 😅
Paul è un maestro nel condensare le informazioni.
I learned so much more about the japanese language from this 24 minute video compared to the 8 hour long online course
I love comments like this. It lets me know that the huge amount of time I put into these videos isn’t wasted.
I've been using duolingo for almost two months and, ignoring vocabulary, I have learned far more about grammar and writing from this video than the entire course I've taken so far.
Which is why I say, videos like the ones Langfocus makes, along with blogs like maggiesensei are the way to go for learning a language. Courses generally take you on a long useless journey of crap you don't need. Exposure teaches you most of what courses do, naturally.
Udit Karode
Except short videos and blogs basically give no exposure at all. Courses are only useless if you don’t take them seriously. When learning a language there is no such thing as useless stuff you don’t need. You need to know all of it.
Yeah, bookmarked for future reference cause this guy is good.
As a Polish native speaker learning Japanese for three months now I think I may be a hidden masochist.
hej i jak Ci idzie ? co cię zainspirowało ? 😉
Bruh polish is hard
Congratulation you just agreed to a question 👌
Ja też
저리가 no, I can understand it even without learning it
Japanese is my third language and now working on Spanish as the fourth language. It is weird how I feel Japanese and Spanish share the same pronounciation in some circumstances.
it does, as a spanish speaker, japanese pronunciation has been the easiest thing because it's almost the same
There are only some differences to pronunciaton, for example letter J, japanese J is similar to english and spanish J is like a strong english H, also japanese H is like english H meanwhile spanish H is mute in most cases
people often criticize Japanese as being a-tonal. and maybe to an untrained ear it might appear so,
in reality though, Japanese is very sing-song like similar to Italian and Spanish
In portuguese it is even more similar !
Italian has similar pronunciation to Japanese.
Some say otherwise but having learnt Cantonese as my first language have given me quite a head start in learning Japanese, which also made kanji ironically the easiest part of learning Japanese, suck it my fellow Japanese learners!!!!
damn
Funny thing is that, I used to brand my channel as “Tony” and the word from it is derived from “Anthony” cool thing is that- it’s my real name
for me it's backwards; studying kanji has helped me understand written chinese >:D
@@raven.petrichor same
I am a native Japanese speaker.
I was so surprised that what a complex language we speak...
Chineses are the culprit
@@naquatre lmao
Blame China
writing system is complicated too...
平假名，片假名，汉字……
That's honestly true for most languages. Native speakers learn from childhood through immersion rather than textbook grammar. So most native speakers don't understand the complex theory and details of their language at all, simply because it's not necessary. When you can already speak and write it fluently, there's no incentive to really learn WHY something is said or written the way it is, you just KNOW that it is for a fact. My mother tongue (Estonian- land of Baruto) is also one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn, not quite as hard as Japanese, but close. And I swear to god I have no fucking clue how or why the grammar is the way it is or what rules are used, or how I would go about teaching the language to anyone else. I'm completely clueless. Yet I can speak and write it fluently. The complexity of the language just never comes up in everyday life.
Yeah, I'm sold. Japanese sounds like a great life-long learning project. I'm in.
Elliott Lockwood
@@tohamaksum3200 What do you mean "Elliott Lockwood"? "Elliott Lockwood" what?
がんばってね！
Long live, Elliott san!
@@tohamaksum3200 walter
Kudos to you and Hiromi for the amount of work you did on this video. It answered a few questions and was very informative! Arigato gozaimasu!
Learning japanese is indeed very rewarding and when it clicks you can't help coming back looking for more. I've been learning by myself for almost 5 months now and I got really excited after I memorized every hiragana, then I learned katakana much quicker and started to learn some kanjis and understand complete sentences. It's a very good feeling of accomplishment because, as a complete illiterate in a language I couldn't even understand by ear, I thought I would have to spend a huge deal of time to be able to even start learning some words. But it's not like that at all and I'm really impressed. Kanjis are still intimidating, but I saw a video showing actual japanese people not remembering how to write them by memory, so I understand that seeing and recognizing them while reading is what matters most and it comes with practice and exposition.
I'm Japanese and was just amazed by the amount of research you did here. Your presentation is superb and I couldn't stop watching it even though I obviously knew the language.
Thank you for making this video.
こんにちは、ところで俺がサウジアラビアからです。実は私がもうやめた。その言語、とても難しい。ごめんなさい🙏
@@vapzo6919 日本語難しいですよね。
日本人の私でも難しいです。
@@sakura_7629 お前は日本人ですか？
@@vapzo6919 そうですよ！日本人です。😌
What I love about Langfocus is that every video of his is so high quality that it can easily be rewatched multiple times. It's clear how much work Paul puts into this channel.
Thank you!
When I watch their videos I always wonder how many languages Paul can speak.
I bet a dozen, at least.
@@Langfocus Thank you for making these videos Paul! I've rewatched most of them twice now. They're pretty much like Breaking Bad episodes-the quality goes up the more I watch them.
although his videos are quite helpful, I feel like he tends to put too much info into the video; and for people watching to actually learn the language, it can't get rather confusing and discouraging. However, since he is just trying to help people learn a little bit more overall; then I think he is quite effective at it.
海外の方が一生懸命日本語を勉強してくれてるんだと思うと英語の勉強頑張れる
今度誰か僕の母語を勉強してくれてる人がいるといいなぁ。
@@furumototoku-oi7kk では、お母語は…？
@@romanr.301 ヘブライ語ですね。
ヨーロッパで、いつも頑張ろう :D
@@mudkip_btw ヨーロッパ？ヘブライ語だってこと？
アラビア語にまあまあ似ているで。同じ語族。
I started learning Japanese exactly 6 months ago and it feels as rewarding as Paul says. Knowing most of the stuff in the video encouraged me to keep going. Good job Paul!
After 6 months, do you think you could communicate with Japanese speakers to a certain level?
How are your skills now?
Note: Around 14:10 I used the wrong kanji for "okoru". I used 起こる which means "to happen" rather than "怒る" which means "to get angry", but both are pronounced ”okoru". A silly mistake!
11:01 You got the pitch accents wrong for the three "hashi" :
箸(が)(chopstick) should be High-Low-Low
橋(が) (bridge) should be Low-High-Low
端(が) (edge) should be Low-High-High
If you consider Standard Japanese at least.
ありがとうございます! I am going to Japan next month and this video couldn't have had better timing! I have been studying Japanese for a year and it's amazing and I am so excited to see this wonderful country. It has been such a life changing rewarding experience. Thanks for the video Paul. 貴方のすごい！:D
Why did you say immigrants emigrants
Gogeography ! An emigrant is a person who leaves a country while an Immigrant is a person who comes to a country
Nathaniel Roe yep
Greek: If you can write a word, you can always read it, and if you can read it, you can most likely write it with few exceptions
English: If you can read or write a word, then maybe you can do the other too. Sometimes.
Japanese:Good luck. If you can read or write a word, then well done, you've spent years of hard work. Have a cookie.
Let me fix that.
Japanese: _Nihongo jouzu._
@SNES Nes 😂😂😂 totally true. Gotta love them all though for being honest to themselves 😉
@JustAMotobug true, but my point still holds 😂
@SNES Nes Not at all. Their hard work and innovation are probably some of the only things left that are keeping their economy as the third largest in the world. Of course there are circumstances where it goes overboard but that is often highly exaggerated by western media.
If some of the more wealthy European countries had larger populations and less lax work attitudes (not saying a more relaxed outlook towards work is bad), several of them probably would have overtaken Japan in gdp a while ago. Regardless, that's more likely than not going to happen in the very near future due to population decline.
Polish: If you can write a word, you can always read it[*], and if you can read it, you can most likely write it[**]
[*] - there are some exceptions to this rule.
[**] - not quite, you see, there might be "few" more exceptions[***]
[***] - some exceptions require more exceptions to fully explain a given exception.[***********...
Ughhhh Thank you so so so so much for making this video!
I'm a Japanese living in Spain. Quite a bit of people around me are curious about Japanese language especially because of manga & anime, for which I'm so grateful and proud of. But the problem is I always have trouble in explaining how Japanese language works actually!
For example:
People ask me like "What does 'Japanese word written in alphabet' mean!? "
Me "Well I can't tell what this exactly means without kanjis which have meanings."
People "?? How could it possible??"
I would recommend this video to anyone who is interested in Japanese. This video explains everything about my language way better than me only in half an hour!! 😂
Many thanks for this presentation. It's awesome the effort and research put into it and it is so well made everything is readily understood. I'm very grateful to all involved and to Paul in particular for communicating its content so successfully. It was a pleasure to watch!
Your presentations are designed to simplify as is possible some very difficult languages. Your methodology has me readily digesting languages I thought impossible for my linear brain to process. Learning Russian was a cake walk compared to this stuff. You are sharp, polished, never bore and were made for this kind of work. I enjoy every minute
Thank you! What a comment! 🙂👍
Yes he is very polished , very distinguished, well put together , i learned alot, from just one vedio.
I'm Japanese and even native Japanese often get confused about kanji reading.
There is a Japanese family name called "Yamanashi(phonetically means : no mountain, yama=mountain, nashi=doesn't exist)" and it is written in kanji like "月見里(moon viewing village, 月=the moon, 見=look, watch, 里=small village)". If we read the kanji "月見里" normally, then it should be read like "Tsukimisato(kun yomi)" or "Gekkenri(on yomi)" but it is "Yamanashi" as a family name, because "you can see the moon clearly from your village if there is no mountain"!
There are some more playful family names like this...
小鳥遊(little birds playing)=Takanashi(No hawks)
一(one)=Ninomae(before two)
四月一日(April first)=Watanuki(removing cotton(from futons))
Wow!!! Complicated but pretty lol
that no hawks kill me
That's very cute actually haha
One(befofe two)
Two(after one)
@@netyimeni169 二=いちのあと
That was intensely precise, well-organized, and useful. You sir are awesome. Thank you.
I didn't realize that those loanwords weren't from English, and were in fact Dutch in origin! Dutch and English are so similar that you can hardly tell the difference when its pronounced by a third party
@ꅏꍟꍏꌚꍟ꒒ Isn't it strange that English uses dog when every other Germanic language uses a word similar to hund?It is like English speakers are trying to differentiate themselves from other Germanic people for some reason.
@@myk1137 im pretty sure hund comes from "hound", while dog comes from "docga" a word of unknown origin but is suggested to mean strength or muscular
@@fakename2336 But my point still stands. It is like they are trying to separate themselves.
@@myk1137 That's because while English is considered a "germanic" language, it's heavily influenced by other languages including French
@@myk1137 nobody wants to be associated with germans
Japan is an island by the sea, filled with volcanoes, and its *BEAUTIFUL*.
Lemuel Ogabang yeah but just an island? Did you take geography classes? It's a very big archipelago with beautiful landscape.
Dude, what?
He means there are several islands
Tal Sheynkman fml
Did anyone even get the reference?
I am Japanese but I didn't know the grammatical system of Japanese. This is a great video!
It's totally normal, I don't even know grammer existed in my everyday expression lol
I don't go that deep into grammar. I just learn the simple structure and memorize all sentences that feel useful to me. It's actually easier then learning and applying complicated rules.
It's because you just grew up with it. You just picked it up while listening, and probably if you thought about grammar rules, you would be confused.
@@lucinae8510 agreed. Trying to learn grammar rules for learning a language is not a good idea, from my experience.
This happens to everybody ! Nobody knows these notions before we go to school 😂
I started learning Japanese 4 months ago, and love it. I know it will be a never ending struggle - but such fun.
I have a small advantage with 2 yrs of Chinese ....though sometimes that is more of a distracter with kanji!!
This video is so clear about the different forms of writing, why each script is used and when, and basic Japanese sentence structure. Brilliant.
And thank you for the native speaker contributions 👌🏼👌🏼🥰
I've been studying Japanese for awhile, and this is a great supplementary video for it all! Thank you very much!
when you said to say hi to Hiromi, I turned my head to my wife (she's also Hiromi) and she said "not me!"
Shout out to your Hiromi as well ! :D
「こんにちわ」を彼女へ俺から言って下さい!
I’m Japanese. Almost all Japanese people distinguish は(wa) and が(ga) intuitively and don’t take much notice of them. I am one of them and have always found it difficult to explain the difference. The explanation in this video makes sense. Especially I’m convinced of the idea that ga is a focus marker. When we say “something ga”, we often allude to “not other things but the thing” or “especially the thing.”
In colloquial situations, wa and ga are omitted more often than not.
One thing I cannot overlook is that the explanation in this video about the difference between the pitches of 端(hashi)(edge), 橋(hashi)(bridge), and 箸(hashi)(chopsticks) at about 10:45 is not correct. The pitches pronounced in this video are closer to Kansai dialect (although not perfectly accurate), which is the most popular dialect in Japan used in Kyoto, Osaka and so forth, rather than to Standard Japanese.
In Kansai dialect, the three words are pronounced differently as follows:
端(edge): ha and shi are pronounced in the same pitch.
橋(bridge): the pitch of ha is higher than that of shi.
箸(chopsticks): shi is pronounced in the higher pitch.
Whereas, in Standard Japanese, they are pronounced like this:
端(edge): the pitch of shi is slightly higher than that of ha.
橋(bridge): shi is higher than ha.
箸(chopsticks) ha is higher than shi.
Reminds me a bit of trying to explain The and A in English but harder. There's a clinical difference but you'd have to stop and think about how to explain it on the spot. Or the difference between Lately and Recently. I guess. I've never been able effectively use or explain が so I just feel my way through it and hope for the best lol
But in chopsticks this Ohashi, like no one says jus Hashi lol. And pronunciation problems are frankly inevitable without a native speaker. I’m half japanese, but I always speak Japanese to my mom and I go to japan in the summer usually. My grandparents say I don’t have an American accent, but I speak like a little kid, which makes sense cuz when I went to school I felt sooooo dumb.
@@noayamaguchi9021 I think an easy way to explain the difference is that an indefinite article means just that, it could be any number of things (a book, which one?). Whereas a definite article refers to something that is definite and certain (the book, that one!). The same with the indefinite particle "は" (Watashi-wa or I am /As for me... ) and "が" (Watashi-ga or I (certainly) am ... ). It appears subtle, but the distinction is quite clear.
OH, NEVER MIND!!! JUST SPEAK ENGLISH.
I noticed the same, 10:45 is definitely wrong but then i just realized that is probably the correct pitch accent for Kansai dialect instead. I guess the girl was reading those Japanese on this video is from west side of japan.
Thanks so much! Really enjoyed your brisk explanations! Will listen again when I’ve learnt more Japanese!
Very motivating!! 😃
Thank you for this video. Even though I already speak a little bit of japanese, it still taught me very interesting stuff and concepts that my japanese friends sometimes struggle to explain.
I'm a native speaker of Japanese who has been watching your videos for a year and finally a video on Japanese!!
I'm grad that you mentioned wasei-kango.
I'm very proud of the fact that they invented wasei-kango which uses Chinese characters to represent western concepts. When Japan opened its doors to the outside world in mid 19th century, they had no idea what "democracy", "economics" or "telephone" means and didn't know how to call these in Japanese. So they decided to use kanjis to represent those concepts. For example, Japanese word for "telephone" is 電話(でんわ denwa) and these two kanjis literally means "electricity talk". I think this way of translating foreign concepts helped to keep Japanese vocaburalies less foregn and feels more natural to the natives.
Although kanjis are literally characters from China, many of these wasei-kango words are also adopted in Chinese language. Chinese word for "telephone" is 電話(dian hua) and this is a Chinese word that derives from a Japanese word which uses Chinese characters to represent western concepts.
Sad thing is, we don't make wasei-kango words anymore. Japanese word for "Internet" is インターネット(inta-netto). Today, when we encounter a new western words like "Internet", we simply use katakana to phonetically represent it and don't make any effort to think which kanjis would suit the concept the best. But in Chinese it's 網路（wang lu）or "net route" so they are still making new chinese vocabralies with Chinese characters.
I feel that Japanese language is changing a little bit too fast. I hope more Japanese people would respect the originality of their language.
盲亀浮木 hi, HKer here. I agree that wasei kango are beautiful. Thanks for inventing them which added many vocabularies to Chinese. I've also been to your country once. Very nice sceneries and people.
As a Portuguese, I'm very glad to see signs of our language in Japonese. Kopu (カップ) and Karuta (歌留多), for exemple, is literally how we say, respectively, cup and card in portuguese (Copo and Carta). Not only in language but in other culture aspects like food. Tempura, for exemple, it's a very old portuguese cooking. We are the first ocidental country to meet Japan (1543) and we are very proud! Sorry for the fire weapons, but you were very interested in them and it was a very good Trade Object for us. For the good and bad, it helped to unify Japan... :)
The same for Indian languages. We have Sanskrit. Sanskrit has many affixes, suffixes, prefixes, inflexions, declensions etc to make new words. These words are fit for Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu and other Indian and South-Asian languages. dūrabhāṣ (दूरभाष) telephone, saṁgaṇitra (संगणित्र) computer, antarjāl (अन्तर्जाल) internet, vidyutpreṣ (विद्युत्प्रेष) email, tantrāṁś (तन्त्रांश) software, yantrāṁś (यन्त्रांश) hardware. But peoole prefer English loanwords like ṭelīphon, kampyūṭar, iṁṭarneṭ, īmel, sāphṭvair, hārḍvair.
Yeah i know Joel Araujo, but our friend paul find that it wasn't that important to include the Portuguese origin of the most often japanese words, such as Arigato, Pan, Tempura and many more.
Being the First Whites (Europeans) to meet the Great Japan is not nothing after all
Its time to tell him that Portuguese influences had an impact on Japanese culture.
Help me remind him what important element he forget
Viva Portugal!
盲亀浮木 in mainland China,internet is called 网络,which means the net which is karamariatta(sorry but i forgot how to say it in english).in my opinion,after the war2 japanese goverment thought that english is more popular than chinese,so they begann to import words only to use katakana.waseikanngos are great to describe things and concepts,such as 経済，自由.these words are created for hundred years but you japanese give them new means which can accurately explain the meaning of gairaogo.according to the rule of waseikanngo,we chinese created a lot of new words,which makes the language more enegetic.I respect you japanese for the talent of creating waseikanngo but i dont know why the process stopped suddenly.this is really a pity.
Many thanks to Hiromi for her audio samples. They really help a lot. Greetings from Germany :-)
Love this video and the ending was just amazing and sweet! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us! ✨
日本人でも難しいんで、日本語を勉強される外国の方は本当に尊敬します！勉強になりました
Even Japanese people have difficulty, so I really respect foreigners who study Japanese! I learned a lot
僕は日本語を勉強している韓国の中学生です僕がなりたい職業は日本語通訳士ですまだ学ぶべきこと漢字も単語も沢山ありますががんばろうと思います！
永遠のぼっち系 UA-camr 韓国語と日本語は点を打つ方が少し違うと知っているので、少し勉強して、実践するようにしますね。
ふぁっ？！韓国の中学生すごスギィ！ンアッー！
淫夢好きのSCP-173とか怖すぎる
천승훈 応援してます!
日本語上手ですね！
中学生でそんなに日本語ができるなんて、尊敬します！日本語通訳士の勉強頑張ってください！
It always takes me twice as long to watch your videos because they're so densely packed with information - detailed graphics, grammatical concepts in rapid-fire succession, audio pronunciations, interesting bits of history to look up. Inevitably I'm pausing, hitting repeat, going back to certain parts, searching the web. Just goes to show how thorough and quality these videos are. Like mini-language crash courses. Can't even imagine the time you put into these.
Thanks for recognizing that! You're right that it's a lot of work. As a viewer, I'm sure it's a little bit like drinking from a fire hose, but I expect that different things will stick with different people, and then they can look more into the language on their own.
This is the first time I understood the object focus and subject marker concept. This was outstanding!
Hello Hiromi! And Paul thanks for this video. Thank you for all your videos! You explain everything in great about every language. Keep up the awesome work!
What do you guys think of the thumbnail image for this video? I didn't do the usual style image because I was too tired and looked terrible in the photo. But how is the style I used, with just the title and graphic?
Yeah it was nice, i liked it
Looked fine to me. If it gives you just 1% more energy to produce quality content like today's video, then its worth it.
To me it looks more professional like this, which is especially for this video very fitting, because it's very clear that you put a lot of effort into this one.
Langfocus looks great my man
זה נראה מצוין אחי
I'm going to have to change the thumbnail. UA-cam is punishing this video by running almost no ads on it, which is something they do to videos that they don't like, almost always political/racial stuff. The only possible reason at all is that the thumbnail looks nationalistic or something.
Stupid UA-cam, screwing with people and refusing to give a reason.
I'm just learning katakana and the fact that the differences between ツ,シ,ン and ソ makes me think that the Japanese are sadists.
Then I watched this video and now I'm more terrified than ever.
頑張ります
The differences are simple between those characters. "Tsu" and "So" are angled with a narrow downward stroke, keyword is downward, which is evident in many typefaces and in writing. These floating strokes are angled toward the bottom of the character, whereas "Shi" and "N" are slanted with a wide upward stroke, and this upward stroke is easy to tell in various typefaces and in writing. The floating strokes are angled less, and don't go steeper than 45 degrees, and their upward stroke doesn't reach as high since the character is meant to be wide as opposed to narrow.
So knowing those key distinctions, you can look at that line and read it as "tsu, shi, n, and so". I thought hiragana and katakana were beautiful, so I studied Japanese writing for many months before I even began to learn Japanese, lol, so I came to know the nuances and characteristics of each character, which helped a lot when I started learning the actual language, lol.
It's a piece of cake -- shi and tsu look alike, but tsu looks like it's going to flow up and to the right, which resembles the hiragana; つ while shi looks like it flows downwards to the left, also like the hiragana し, so that's how I avoid getting them mixed up in my head. The n consonant is also pretty straightforward if you again compare it to ん since it has the same kind of rhythm in the way it's written. The katakana for so doesn't have any obvious connection to そ, but even if my brain is having a slow day and I draw a blank I can figure it out by process of deduction.
Actually, there's a way to visualize this: If you can draw a "V" or a ">" in the largest space between the long single stroke and the short double strokes, you can see the difference.
the 2 strokes above tsu (ツ) are aligned to the upper stroke of its hiragana counterpart (つ) while shi (シ) is aligned to the left side stroke of its counterpart (し). Now for n (ン) and so (ソ), the upper stroke of so (ソ) is aligned to the upper part of the right side stroke. N (ン), the top stroke of it is more aligned to the left side of its lower stroke.
Japanese is the hardest popular language in the world full stop. It is legitimately a massive hurdle, and unless you’re having a lot of fun now I would suggest trying out a romanic/germanic language first assuming English is your first language if you’re feeling overwhelmed. Wouldn’t want you to be turned off by other languages as a whole
Wow this was a perfect combination of everything I was looking for. Thank you!!
Working on a Linguistics assignment. I understands it more clearly watching this video and then reading my textbook. Your video gives more background to the language that I need. Thank you!
I’m glad to hear it!
Oh, God. I have been waiting for this one for so long...
Alexandro Sánchez if he made this while I still had Japanese class, I might have got a D- (that's not offending him, I'm saying I have no clue when it comes to these kooky non-European features in a language)
Lol. My Japanese tutor didn't know how to explain the difference between "wa" and "ga". You just did.
When was that? I still struggle with it, lol
標準の日本語発音だと、端 Low-High、橋 Low-High、箸 High-Lowです。また「ガラス(glass)」は「ガ」が強調(High-Low-Low)されていますが、3つとも平坦に発音しています。あえて言うならLow-Low-Lowでしょうか。関西の方言のほうがアクセントのある単語が多く、東京以北は平坦な発音が多くなるような印象があります。
とはいえ日本人自身でもあまり考えたことなく使っていた「は」と「が」の違いなど目から鱗でした。とてもわかりやすくて勉強になりました。ありがとうございます！
One of the things about Japanese I like is that it's got some of the same rules as my mother tongue, Hungarian. Makes it just a little bit easier to learn.
Would you ever consider making a video on sign language(s)??
that's a great idea.Sign languages are fascinating!
WhateverArts Indeed, sign languages are very happy.
Nice idea! :)
Second this! Sign languages deserve more public recognition as languages in their own right
I agree, as a signer of asl and relative of Deaf individuals :)
or should I say...
I AGREE WHY? 1) I SIGN ASL AGENT 2) MY FAMILY SOME DEAF
日本人だから日本語について気にしてなかったけど、
他言語話者の意見を聞くと「なるほど〜」となってしまう笑
非常に興味深いものでした。
はい！それは私が日本語を勉強して英語についてとても学んだのと同様に驚くべきことです！
誰か和訳してw
我々ようこんなわけわからん言葉しゃべっとるわって思った笑
普段、文法を意識する事はないよね！^^
Certainly, we are not usually conscious of any grammars.
｢は｣｢が｣は確かにややこしいよなー、、と思う。
Your videos are really nice and I always learn a lot from them! Very interesting all the languages you explain
Thank you so much, Paul
This video is really amazing, your presentation part by part was superb 😊😊
I’m living in Japan and studying the language now. This is very informative and helps explain many confusing things! Thank you!
「は」と「が」の使い分けとか日本人だと感覚でやってるので、説明しろと言われるといまいち説明できない
勉強になった
@@HaydenWR こんちわ！
Shark puppet And Friends Hi l’m also Japanese. Where do yo live?
Shark puppet And Friends Ok
ばん 草
よく分からないけど使い分けができてるよなw
Just some food for thought: When I studied Japanese in Japan and was learning agglutination, instead of looking at 怒る as okor-u, we were taught to look at it as oko-ru. This is because when written in Japanese you aren't taking る (ru) and dropping the -u but instead are replacing ru entirely.
Very well researched video by the way. For full context, I studied the language intensively for 2 years at a language school in Japan and then studied Japanese linguistics at University in Japan for 4 years!
Oh, and that part about how reading a sentence entirely in kana being harder than reading one that contains kanji hit real hard, lol. I had a friend who would constantly send me sentences entirely in hiragana asking if it was correct and my only reply was, "I can't read that".
I have learned so much from your videos. You are a wonderful human being and I really appreciate all the effort and studying you must have put into creating these videos and making this information available to us all. Thank you for everything you do. Best wishes.
I like that since it was first founded Japan's basically been a sponge for soaking up culture. And now, after absorbing practically every culture for the last 21 centuries, it's quite possibility one of the most unique and confusingly original cultures in existance
Also yes Japan (nihon) literally called itself 'sunrise land'
I knew nothing about Japanese before seeing this video, other than knowing the writing system is difficult. I thought the spoken language itself would be simple to learn because of the consonant+vowel pronunciation. I had no clue that there is complex grammar behind that easy pronunciation. It's now clear to me that Japanese is very, very foreign compared to Indo-European languages.
The Altaic language family isn't real.
Japanese grammar is not actually that difficult once you get used to it. It is like German in the sense that there are many rules to learn at the start, but once you know them, there are few exceptions and they generally follow common patterns.
Unlike in say English, if you learn how to say the negative past tense for one word in Japanese, you can pretty much do it for all words.
Once you figure it out, their grammatical structure is pretty simple, and a lot more consistent than English.
Yeah, they say that Japanese has much harder grammar than Chinese. But I've also read that Japanese grammar is basically simplified Turkish. But Turkish grammar doesn't seem too hard to me:
Ben ona kitabı okudum. (I he/she/it-to book-the read-past-I)
Although when learning it you may be surprised by some certain unexpected but nonetheless coincidental similarities.
Hello! I must say that, having come from an era where we were taught English grammar from a constructivist sense, rather than purely memorization (like today’s school kids), your channel is awesome. For once, I find myself understanding things in Japanese that had always been “commit to memory”; the construction was a mystery. No one can memorize every word of every sentence. Your brain constructs the sentence, but the word get all slopped around of you never really knew why you say things in certain ways. So, the way you present is excellent for those of us who want to understand. Can’t quite Patreon just now, as I’m going to sea for several months. But when I get back! Thanks!
Loved the video. Super informative. Well made. I learned a lot.
It's crazy how are your videos are soooo helpful. I have been struggling for so long. Thank you.
確かめる (kunyomi with okuriganas)
達する (onyomi with okuriganas)
受付 (kunyomi whithout okuriganas)
確認 (onyomi whithout okuriganas)
場所 (half kunyomi, half onyomi)
And that's the moment you realise there's no absolute rule for which one of the kunyomi or the onyomi you should use, always exceptions and you begin to become crazy. xD
You mean hiragana(?)
The okuriganas disappeared in a glorius morning of 1900.
There might be some rules, but actively learning them is kind of a waste of time. Since the more kanji and more kanji vocabulary you learn, you passively acquire a sense of which reading should be used. (And often you don't even realize which one is the native one and which one is chinese)
It's, it's just Kanji😢😂😂
Here’s a fun etymology:
カラオケ (karaoke)
カラ (空) empty, as in 「空いてる」or “I don’t have any plans” or “nothing is inside” + オケ, a short form of オーケストラ which is the katakanafication (I think I just made that word up) of the English “orchestra.”
Some other fun modern Japanese words:
エモい (emoi: having the qualities of an emoji)
ヤバい (yabai: countless meanings in modern spoken Japanese, ranging from intensely good to extremely dangerous)
セフレ (sefure: a shortened katakanafication of “sex friend”)
ソフレ (sofure: a shortened katakanafication of “soft sex friend” . . . I think)
ガラ携 (garakei: a cell phone used only in Japan made up of gala, as in “Galapagos” and “kei” the first morpheme of “keitai” Japanese word for cell phone)
These words all combine either hiragana and katakana or katakana and kanji.
Incidentally, I’ve never formally studied Japanese but I speak it fluently and can read and write it with no difficulty
. It’s a fun language and dynamic language. And much, much easier to learn to speak than most foreign languages.
Amazingly detailed research you have done ！
I will come back to this video again in the future. As I did now. It’s so good and informative. Thank you again.
I'm so early they are still speaking proto indo European here
But the Japanese weren't !
Oh, hello my gopnik friend! I did not expect my fellow gopniki to hang around here at Langfocus. I wonder if Boris speaks Japanese. Anyway, stay #cheekibreeki!
Squatting Latvian Tupus Latviešu good squat 8/10 hope heels reach ground but can't confirm
Squatting Latvian Tupus Latviešu nobody c.... I mean, linguists gonna shit their pants.
YE━━━━━━ d(゜∀゜)b ━━━━━━S
I wanted to sleep but
ABORT MISSION
lol, go to sleep right after the video!
I've been up all night myself, so I need to sleep.
It's 3 am where I am.
Sure! I really love Kansai dailect I'm so glad you mentioned it! :D
KMnO4 WTF me too😂 I've got work tomorrow but a notification popped up I was like: Japan ?..... Hell yeah
It's 9 AM here...
Love and thanks to you both Paul and Hiromi, You really do a great job introducing languages to us and I'm really Grateful for that.
I'm Japanese and often watch this video. It's very useful!
とても分かりやすいですね。
,zip たるま 全てのビデオは分かり野菜ですね
@Gibbon 漢字はそれほど難しくありません.
一生懸命働いてあなたは何でも勉強することができ
ですね！そうそう！
I like your language 😍
あなたは日本語が分かり易いと言うのです。
そんなにおかしいのです！
Of course japanese is easy for you... Maybe I should tell you that French is easier for me..
但是中文实在是更好学的。
One of the most informative and well done videos on the subject I've seen! I've been casually studying Japanese for awhile and still learned a ton from this. Subscribed.
Hiromi sama doumo arigatougozaimasu🙏🏻 Seriously, this is very informative and well narrated. I’ve learned a lot about the Japanese language and it’s history. I’m studying Japanese for more than a year now and it’s a fun language to learn although challenging sometimes.
Ohayo Hiromi and Paul. I really enjoy the Langfocus videos. We were fortunate to live in Japan on two different occasions and learned some basic Nihongo.
I've watched a number of your language videos and I am just amazed at the amount of research you did on so many languages. I just wanted to express my admiration.
Thank you 🙂👍🏻
@@Langfocus who voiced the part at 8:11? you or a voice actor?
@alyanahzoe I don't know what you mean. There are only two voices in the video, mine and my wife's. If it's a male voice, it's mine.
@@Langfocus does your wife know every language? i just revealed her voice!
She knows Japanese and English.
What up Hiromi
ty a sup dawg
teh cealing
nah
teh sky brah
These videos are so useful, as well as entertaining
Wow what a great video! I have been learning Kana for a few weeks now, so this was fascinating to learn about!
Great video! Thanks to you and Hiromi, you two did great! I, as a Japanese learner, I could identify many basic points of my first days of learning and see precious tips to begginers, like the origin of Kanas and why is difficult read a text fully written in kana! Good job! Continue! What I love in japanese is the variety of writing forms and the agglutinative nature.
私はトルコ人です 私は日本とその人々が大好きです私は日本語を勉強していますそして本当に難しい
漢字 :( トルコからのご挨拶 ♥ !
Hey there, I don't understand anything you've written but that looks cool
Thanks)
Мені подобається Японія, бро )
頑張ってね！
いつか日本でお会いできたら楽しいでしょうね！
İyi çalışmalar kardeş
卂.K 普通に分かります！凄い！
i've been learning japanese for a while and this history lesson is really helpful
ty:)
Thanks! I’m glad to hear that.
Amazing, incredible video. So instructive, detailed and at a fast pace that makes it interesting for all levels of Japanese speakers. Great work -congratulations - and thanks!!
My favorite example of a Japanese verb with a tone of morphemes is"tabe-sase-rare-taku-na-katta." eat-causitive-passive-desireative-negative-past. "I didn't want to be forced to eat it."
Would that be 「食べさせられたくなかった」in kana and kanji?
@@blacker4404 yes
I have been studying Japanese seriously for about a year and I totally agree that it is very rewarding. You discover something new every day and see connections to many other aspects of the language you previously didn't know about. At this point I know about half of the commonly used Kanji and I am comfortable with every day situations. But there is still a long way to go :D This was truely a great video. Well done.
this; it's genuinely been really rewarding because I'm at a point now where I'm starting to understand a lot more nuances of the language and as someone who loves linguistics, it's one of the most rewarding things ever (and I can nerd out with my friends by analysing texts and stuff :D)
@@raven.petrichor Do you have any advice for someone curious? I’ve never learned a second language but Japanese is a fascinating one. I have so much interest in learning different languages just because I have a pretty broad friendship group online, and personal interests, that I’d benefit from so many. Japanese seems so challenging and curious, plus I love the food, and music, and playing games online certainly opens me up to potentially joining Japanese servers, investigating in Japanese communities and meeting new people.
Right now I’m sort of going through the basics of what linguistics actually is so that I can have a better understanding of removing my own English-biases of seeing how language works, trying to deconstruct and put some deep thinking into that right now, but I would love to hear about resources that are helping you learn?
@first last I started off by using duolingo, which is where I learned grammar and the kana (and some kanji); I highly recommend using resources that let you practise writing, since it will help you remember
also, immerse yourself in the language; I watch videos in japanese and turn on jp subs, and I also changed the language of my favourite game to have jp voiceover (surprisingly, I managed to pick up quite a few words that way).
talk to people as well; I use hellotalk (an app), but it's rather limited if you don't wanna spend on in-app purchases. if you have friends who know the language, even better; you'll feel less intimidated to talk to them, and less ashamed to make mistakes (plus, you all know each other so you have better conversation topics)
also, I like to read; my japanese dictionary app (it's called "japanese") has really fun example sentences and many features to help you look up words you don't know. also, there is a site called nhk easy news, which has furigana (that is the kana reading of kanji) so can learn to read many kanji. I like having my dictionary app on hand to look up kanji I don't know.
another thing I do is learn songs in japanese; my favourite artist, mafumafu, happens to be japanese, so by learning to sing many of his songs I am inadvertently picking up more and more of the language. singing along to karaoke videos (make sure to look them up in japanese if you want to practise your jp reading (those will use furigana and not romaji)) is both fun and a good exercise to test my reading and speaking (though be wary of odd rhythms in music, since they may stretch or compress words too much to be easily recognisable at first listen)
there are also a lot of youtubers out there who teach japanese; I like to watch yuta, japanese ammo with misa, and tomo sensei for bite sized videos; but there are others I watch when I have more time to spare.
if you don't mind having a limited site, nativshark seems to be pretty nice so far; I've already picked up a lot of useful tidbits that have helped me in real life.
also, study the culture; you'd be surprised how many things suddenly make sense in a language if you familiarise yourself with the culture behind it. also, it makes for moments where you understand something in another language that cannot be translated, which is really cool and rewarding in itself
but my biggest tip of all is to make learning the language fun; not only will you be more motivated to continue it, but you'll also remember it better because your brain will see it as something to enjoy, rather than as a chore. that is why so many of the things I do are tied to my interests and hobbies; I already know I will remember nothing if I don't make it engaging
I sincerely wish you the best of luck on your journey, and I hope this helps. have a good day, and take care o7
Amazing and clear video!! Thanks so much.
This is so good - I'm learning Japanese.
Trying with 誠実に(honestly)is important with you☺️👋 Good luck 💪✨
(I’m japanease)
Samee
Not even close
@@Outlaw_j84 ?
Me too
The example of accent of "Hashi" used for the bridge and the chopsticks are swapped, or used Kansai accent. In Tokyo accent, 端 (edge) and 橋 (bridge) has same accent pattern (Low-High) when not pronouncing particles. And 箸 (chopsticks) is High-Low pattern.
I do believe that the example accent was the one of Osaka. There are thousands of words that accents are opposite in Tokyo and Osaka. I find it very interesting. And I'm trying to make a list of major words. :)
Yes, it definitely Kansai pitch accent. My girlfriend did the audio samples, and she speaks a Kansai dialect.
interesting, when I was a kid I learned to say hashi with the low-high pattern, but I always hear westerners say it with high-low. I thought this was just westerners all pronouncing it wrong, good to know this isn't (always) the case.
Aikawa perhaps?
Is pitch accent similar to stressed vs. unstressed syllables?
No, pitch accent is all same strength in all syllabes. Imagine to sing a song, "DO MI MI" or "MI DO DO" .
Living in Japan now and THIS is the video they should show every American day one. I never studied Japanese in school. The distilled gramatical fundamentals presented here are EXACTLY what I have been searching for for two months. Thank you sir!!!
I have been learning Japanese for many years and this is one of the best videos on the Japanese language I have ever seen. Congratulations!
You deserve a medal Sir. Those explanations about は and が were useful even for people that already are learning japanese. I have trouble with the accent I didn't knew about it jajaja thanks a lot for this pretty well made video
｢は｣と｢が｣の違いなんて説明を聞いてるだけじゃチンプンカンプンなのに、我々日本人は普段の日常会話の中では苦労する事無く正しく使い分けしてるんだもんなぁ...。
言葉って不思議やな笑
確かに。
説明できないけど我々日本人は難なく使いこなせてる。
やっぱ慣れってやつなんだろうか…
自転車の原理を知らなくても自転車は乗れる、原理だけ知ってても自転車は乗れない
monoris2008 なんかいい例えやな
Thanks to both of you! And to think I watched this lesson because of watching episodes of Zatoichi! Wonders never cease!
thx , Thanks, this is the best video on explaining Japanese! finally I understand this language much better !!
With Gratitude to both of you for another GREAT and educational video. Your Logical and Fun approach to the language makes it easy to learn. Thank you for sharing your Wisdom.
As someone learning Japanese, this is very useful. Thanks for making such a good video!
I study Japanese in university and we recently went to see the school's collection of ancient Japanese manuscripts. It was super interesting to see the really old stuff that was just Chinese! They also had some old copies of the Tale of Genji, the first novel ever written (in the world!), that was also super influential in creating the combined Chinese-Japanese writing system they have today. Great video!
Well actually they are native Japanese written with Chinese characters, and some hybrid ones.
I like how calmly he explains the complexity of Kanji readings lol.
I was burning inside! 😄
@@Langfocus hahaha!
Excellent video, Mr. Paul, I have to say that even though Japanese has intimidated me more than once, you made it look so easy that I feel like trying to learn it. Thank you very much.