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Learning a language is a little exciting but somewhat stressful too. In Japanese language, one cannot say that he mastered that without going through the writing. Kanji alone will make us overwhelmed with its around two thousand characters or so. When one start learning this part of the language, to one’s surprise most of the characters have several if not few readings.

Let us start with the three different readings per characters. Two of these are native to Japan, the kun yomi and nanori. Kun yomi is the common way of reading kanji which have equivalent meaning in Japanese. As for nanori, this type of reading is usually for Japanese names. It could be a persons name or that of a location especially the variances from province to province across the country. It is said that nanori is somewhat related to kun yomi. Anyway, both are native from Japan. The third one, on yomi (‘on’ means sound) was imported from China. Readings from this group imitate Chinese sounds and incorporate it to Nihongo. Typically, those kanji without native Japanese equivalents uses this kind of reading. As for the other kanji with Japanese meaning, they also have on yomi.

Let us now turn our eyes to the readings of groups of kanji. There are groups of kanji in which all the characters are read with on yomi. I believe that scientific terms are the best example of this. There are groups in which all the characters are read with kun yomi. According to this page, most of the family names are read that way. The third way is called juubako (on yomi + kun yomi) and yutou (kun yomi + on yomi). The next is called gikun or jukujikun. This one is neither read the way as mentioned above. Instead, it is a morph of sounds which is related to each of the kanji.

With my level, it is hard to give a list of examples but as I progress on my study, I will try to compile any good examples that I encounter.

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Ever since a child, I have been hearing grownup use Spanish numbers in Filipino context. When I first share about this in here, I was too confident that I did not verify each and everyone of the numbers. That led me to a wrong entry in here and I must edit it.

The problem lies in the million, billion and up. I found a page where this case is explained. One million in Spanish should be “un millón” and in the next numbers, the accent is dropped to make it ~millones. I find the next sets unexpected. Billion is mil millones and trillion is billón. Any numbers higher that trillion don’t have Spanish equivalent as I attempt to search from them in this online dictionary. The entries shows that in other countries like the United States, there are more numbers higher that trillion while these are not present in Spanish.

I wonder if Spanish will grow to adopt higher numbers into their vocabulary and if they do, will they base it on the American numerals or will they make it their own way.

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There are so many reference about Japanese language and in everyone, lessons, verbs are always present. While some concentrate on the formal, others add casual in their lessons and still another give introduction to respect language. There are two sites that I discovered in which there are an abundance of information given about these verbs.

The first one can be found here. In the overview, we can read that the author is a student and there is no guarantee to the accuracy of the entries. Despite of this, I still feel that this is worth studying. What I like about this site is that it has the luxury of details in it. For sure, a student of Nihongo like me will love it.

Each pages shows the complexity of Japanese verbs to the point that the reader may be dishearten a bit. Luckily, There are certain patterns which is easy to understand and memorize since they are the basic. To anyone who mastered the basic will find it easy. Below each page are notes in few words plus usage example which is supposed to be present (I hope that the site updates in the near future). The respect language is also included in the said site. There are several additional examples which defy the pattern because keigo is really complex.

The second one can be found here. This is organized in five bases (with five different stem endings) plus the te and ta forms. From this seven main divisions, the lessons grow to subdivisions in which the stems are attached to several words/phrases that completes a certain thought. The link I gave above will bring you to a page that lists 82 links to each lessons plus other links to further information.

On lesson 54 which entitled “Base 5″, you will see three (yodan/ichidan/irregular) tables that organized the stems to make it easier for students to learn. The transitive and intransitive verbs are presented in the “Notes on Japanese Verbs” page.

I hope that you also find these sites useful. Until next time!

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Translation is really helpful when it comes to sharing one people’s thoughts to the non-speakers. This way, many people who do not understand a certain language can learn from the speakers more things about the later and about what the later learn. Understanding the perspective of the others may help us better understand ourselves and our surroundings. Learning from others may provide more knowledge to explore and more to share. I dare to guess that translation efforts are as old as the time when men interact with other groups.

I entitled this post, Salinwika which means translation in Tagalog/Filipino wherein salin means to pour and wika means language.  I created this post to recount the efforts that I made on my first translation project. I found a traditional Japanese song and since there are already English translation to it, I decided to write a Tagalog translation. The result of that translation can be found here. As for the “behind the scene”, I will share it in this post.

The first thing that I did was to count the notes per line. Then, I compared it with the number of syllables. In most lines, the number of notes is greater that the number of syllables. I, then, tried to translate it in a rather simple way and to my surprise, it was a little easier. Although it was not true in all of the lines. I tried, as much as possible, to grasp the meaning of the words minus the cultural barrier. Another challenge was the meter itself. Though I value the original, I somewhat varied the translation in favor of the meter. I wanted it to be a mirror of the song in terms of meter and thus explained. Anyone who knows that song can sing my Tagalog version with ease.

Another thing that I did was to list the vocabulary in both Japanese and Tagalog/Filipino using English as my medium. For the Japanese-English part, there were ready list for that and my only effort to that was to confirm the equivalent terms. For the Filipino-English part, I just translated the words but not the sentences unlike the first part where I even translate per line. I want to continue my story about my translation project next time so I could provide more information. I will also try to have a Spanish translation of the song but I will still check if it will be more hard or not. Again, I want to prefer meter over the original so if ever feasible, that will also be metered exactly like the original.

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I cannot say that I have totally conquered English. There are still more to learn. I need to sharpen my skills. One day, I came across a site which I also mentioned yesterday. This site also have erudite vocabulary list. At first, I don’t know what erudite means and I don’t have any idea what that list is all about. When I tried it, I begun to like it. Wow! the list is really good. I am still on the first list. I hope that I can finish it faster so that I can start with the next list.

I feel enthusiastic about exploring this side of the language especially the specific use of these words. I grew up with a language that is rich with specific words needed to use and I love to learn more about it. It is sad to say that many people in the Philippines from the younger generation prefer to use those foreign alternative. Because of that, Tagalog is dying fast. Anyway, back to erudite vocabulary, I am doing some efforts to research Tagalog erudite words as well as studying English erudite words.

I am so happy to know smart.fm that I even created my own list. I want to share Tagalog words to those who like to learn it. I hope that I can make my own erudite list. The one that can boast Tagalog’s old glory. Speaking of specific words, I remember a discussion about ‘rice‘ in Tagalog. I found another site which shows that there are even more words for rice which a typical Filipino don’t know. I was so amazed upon my first encounter with that old dictionary entry. I would like to quote that one entry but first, I will give a short list of words about rice. Below is my list.

• Palay (raw grain)
• Bigas (polished rice)
• Kanin (boiled rice)
• Sangag (fried rice)
• Bahaw (left over rice)

Next is the entry in an old dictionary.

Yabyab – La segunda molienda del palay en el pilon; la primera llaman lopac, la segunda, yabyab, la tercera digas, y estando ya totalmente limpio, bigas. Itong palay ay yabyab lamang digasan mo. En Batangas se dice. Yabyaban, y es la primera molienda, y la segunda lupac.

Yabyab – the second milling of palay in the pylon; They call the first one as lopac, second, yabyab, third digas, and being already cleaned totally, bigas. This rice is still a yabyab, polish it to become a digas. In Batangas it is said, Yabyaban, and it is the first milling, and the second is lupac.

Given this situation, we now know of certain words like lopac, yabyab and digas. Since ‘decir‘ which means “to say” can be conjugated as ‘digas’, it almost fooled me. Thankfully, the author followed a sentence which gave a hint.

From English erudite words, this post grow to include Tagalog erudite and then to rice. I may seem funny to put picture of palay here but I guess this is covered (somewhat?).

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