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SO YOU WANT TO LEARN JAPANESE
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Dan Barrett
You've eaten at a few Japanese restaurants, seen some anime, hosted
an exchange student, and had a Japanese girlfriend. And now, somewhere
in the back of your tiny brain, you think that Japanese would be a good
language to learn. Hey, you could translate video games! Or Manga! Or
even Anime! Pick up Japanese girls, impress your friends! Maybe you'll
even go to Japan and become an anime artist! Yeah! Sounds like a great
idea!
So you head down to the library, pick up some books with titles like
"How To Teach Yourself Japanes In Just 5 Seconds A Day While Driving
Your Car To And From The Post Office" and "Japanese For Complete And
Total, Utter Fools Who Should Never Procreate". Hey, you already know
a few words from your manga collection/girlfriend/anime. Excited and
impressed with your new knowledge, you begin to think: "Hey. Maybe,
just maybe, i could do this for a living! Or even major in
Japanese! Great Idea, Right?
WRONG.
I don't care how many anime tapes you've watched, how many Japanese
girlfriends you've had, or books you've read, You don't know Japanese.
Not only that, majoring in the godforsaken language is NOT fun
or even remotely sensible. Iraqi war prisoners are often forced to major
in Japanese. The term "Holocaust" comes from the Latin roots "Holi"
and "Causm", meaning "to major in Japanese". You get the idea.
And so, sick of seeing so many lambs run eagerly to the slaughter, I
have created This Guide to REAL TIPS for Studying Japanese. Or, as is
actually the case, NOT studying it.
This should be an obvious.
Despite what many language books, friends, or online tutorials may
have told you, Japanese is NOT simple, easy, or even sensical (Japanese
vocabulary is determined by throwing tiny pieces of sushi at a dart
board with several random syllables attatched to it). TheJapanese
spread these rumours to draw foolish Gaijin into their clutches.
Not only is it not simple, it's probably one of the hardest language
you could ever want to learn. With THREE completely different written
languages (none of which make sense), multitude of useless, confusing
politeness levels, and absolutely insane grammatical structure, Japanese
has been crushing the souls of the pathetic Gaijin since it's conception.
Let's go over some of these elements mentioned above so you can get
a better idea of what I mean.
The Japanese Writing System
The Japanese writing system is broken down into three separate, complete,
and insane, parts: Hiragana ("those squiggily letters"), Katakana
("those boxy letters") and Kanji ("roughly 4 million embodiments of
your worst nightmares").
Hiragana is used to spell out Japanese words using syllables.
It consist of many letters, all of which look completely different
and bear absolutely no resemblance to each other whatsoever. Hiragana
were devloped by having a bunch of completely blind, deaf, and dumb
Japanese people scribble things on pieces of paper while having no
idea why they were doing so. The resulting designs were then called
"hiaragana". The prince who invented these characters, Yorimushi("stinking
monkey-bush-donkey") was promptly bludgeoned to death. But don't worry,
because you'll hardly use Hiragana in "real life".
Katakana are used only to spell out foreign words in a thick,
crippling japanese accent, so that you'll have no idea what you're
saying even though it's in English. However, if you remember one simple
rule for Katakana, you'll find reading Japanese much easier: Whenever
something is written in Katakana, it's an English word! (note: Katakana
is also used for non-english foreign words. And sound effects, and
Japanese words). Katakana all look exactly the same, and it's impossible,
even for Japanese people, to tell them apart. No need to worry, because
you'll hardly ever have to read Katakana in "real life".
Kanji are letters that were stolen from China. Every time the Japanese
invaded China (which was very often) they'd just take a few more letters,
so now they have an estimated 400 gazillion of them. Kanji each consist
of several "strokes", which must be written in a specific order, and
convey a specific meaning, like "horse", or "girl". Not only that,
but Kanji can combined to form new words. For example, if you combine
the Kanji for "small", and "woman", you get the word "carbeurator".
Kanji also have different pronounciations depending on where they
are in the word, how old you are, and what day it is. When European
settlers first came upon Japan, the Japanese scholars suggested that
Europse adopt the Japanese written language as a "universal" language
understood by all parties. This was the cause of World War 2 several
years later. Don't worry, however, since you'll never have to use
kanji in "real life", since most Japanese gave up on reading a long,
long time ago, and now spend most of their time playing Pokemon.
Politeness Levels
Politness Levels have their root in an ancient Japanese tradition
of absolute obedience and conformity, a social caste system, and complete
respect for arbitrary heirarchical authority, which many American
companies believe will be very helpful when applied as magaerial techniques.
They're right, of course, but no one is very happy about it.
Depending on who you are speaking to your politeness level will be
very different. Politeness depends on many things, such as age of
the speaker, age of the person being spken to, time of day, zodiac sign, blood type, sex, whether they
are Grass or Rock Pokemon type, color of pants, and so on. For an
example of Politness Levels in action, see the example below.
Japanese Teacher: Good morning, Harry.
Harry: Good Morning.
Japanese Classmates: (gasps of horror and shock)
The bottom line is thatPoliteness Levels are completely beyond your
understanding, so don't even try. Just resign yourself to talking
like a little girl for the rest of your life and hope to God that
no one beats you up.
Grammatical Structure
The Japanese have what could be called an "interesting" grammatical
structure, but could also be called "confusing", "random", "bogus"
or "evil". To truly understand this, let's examine the differences
between Japanese and English grammar.
English Sentence:
Jane went to the school.
Same Sentence In Japanese:
School Jane To Went Monkey Apple Carbeurator.
Japanese grammer is not for the faint of heart or weak of mind. What's
more, the Japanese also do not have any words for "me", "them", "him,
or "her" that anyone could use without being incredibly insulting
(the Japanese word for "you", for example, when written in kanji,
translates to"I hope a monkey scratches your face off"). Because of
this, the sentence "He just killed her!" and "I just killed her!"
sound exactly the same, meaning that most people in Japan have no
idea what is going on around them at any given moment. You are supposed
to figure these things out from the "context", which is a German word
meaning "you're screwed".
When mostAmericans think of Japanese people, they think: polite, respectful,
accomadating. (They could also possibly think: Chinese). However, it
is important to learn where the truth ends and our Western stereotyping
begins.
Of course, it would be irresponsible of me to make any sweeping generalizations
about such alarge group of people, but ALL Japanese people have three
characteristics: they "speak" English, they dress very nicely, and they're
short.
The Japanese school system is controlled by Japan's central government,
which, of course, is not biased in any way (recent Japanese history
textbook title: "White Demons Attempt To Take Aaway our Holy Motherland,
But Great And Powerful Father-Emperor Deflects Them With Winds From
God: The Story Of WW2"). Because of this, all Japanese have been taught
the same English-language course, which consists of reading The Canterbury
Tales, watching several episodes of M*A*S*H, and reading the English
dictionary from cover to cover. Armed with this extensive language knowledge,
the children of Japan emerge from school ready to take part in international
business and affairs, uttering such remarkable and memorable sentences
as "You have no chance to survive make your time", and adding to their
own products by inscribing english slogans, such as "Just give this
a Paul. It may be the Paul of your life" on the side of a slot machine.
Secondly, all Japanese people dress extremely well. This fits in with
the larger Japanese attitude of neatness and order. Everything has to
be in it's correct place with the Japanese, or a small section in the
right lobe of their brain begins to have seizures and they exhibit erratic
violent behavior until the messiness is eradicated. The Japanese even
FOLD THEIR DIRTY CLOTHES. Sloppiness is not tolerated in Japanese society,
and someone with a small wrinkle in their shirt, which they thought
they could hide by wearing a hooded sweatshirt over it (possibly emblazoned
with a catchy english phrase like "Spread Beaver, Violence Jack-Off!"),
will be promptly beaten to death with tiny cellular phones.
Lastly, the Japanese are all short. Really, really short. It's
kind of funny. Not ones to leave being tall to the Europeans or Africans,
however, the Japanese have singlehandedly brought shoes with incredibly
gigantic soles into style, so that they can finally appear to be of
actual human height, when in reality their height suggests that they
may indeed be closer in relation to the race of dwarves or Hobbits.
Japanese culture is also very "interesting", by which we mean "confusing"
and in several cases "dangerous". Their culture is based on the concept
of "In Group/Out Group", in which all Japanese people are one big "In"
group, and YOU are the "Out" group. Besides this sense of alienation,
Japan also produces cartoons, and a wide variety of other consumer products
which are crammed into your face 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Japanese also like cock fighting monsters that live in your pants,
taking baths with the elderly, and killing themselves.
Japanese food is what some people would call "exotic", but what most
people call "disgusting", or perhaps, in some areas, "whack". Japanese
food evolved in ancient days, when the main staple of the diet was rice.
People got so sick and tired of eating rice, in fact, that they ate
just about anything else they could find, from seaweed to other Japanese
people. This has led to the creation of such wonderful foods as "Natto",
which I believe is a kind of bean but tastes like battery acid, and
"Pocky", which is a stick with different frostings on it, the flavors
of which include Sawdust and Strawberry.
Despite this variety of foods, however, the Japanese have succeeded
in making every single thing they eat, from tea to plums, taste like
smokey beef.
As if learning the language wasn't hard enough, Japanese classes in
America tend to attract the kind of student who makes you wish that
a large comet would strike the earth. There are a few basic type of
students that you'll always find yourself running into. These include
The Anime Freak, The Know It All, and the Deer Caught In Headlights.
The Anime Freak is probably the most common, and one of the most annoying.
You can usually spot a few warning signs to let you identify them before
it's too late: they wear the same exact Evangelion shirt every day,
they have more than one anime key chain on their person, they wear glasses,
they say phrases in Japanese that hey obviously don't understand (such
as "Yes! I will never forgive you!"), they refer to you as "-chan",
make obscure Japanese culture references during class, and usually fail
class. You have to be extremely careful not to let them smell pity or
fear on you, because if they do they will immeadiately latch onto you
and suck up both your time and patience, leaving only a lifeless husk. Desperate for human companionship, they will invite you to
club meetings, anime showings, conventions, and all other sorts of various
things you don't care about.
The Know It All typically has a Japanese girlfriend or boyfriend, and
because of this "inside source" on Japanese culture, has suddenly become
an academic expert on all things Japanese, without ever having read
a single book on japan in their entire lives. You can usually spot Know
It All's by keeping an eye out for these warning signs: a cocky smile,
answering more than their share of questions, getting most questions
wrong, questioning the teacher on various subjects and then arguing
about the answers (a typical exchange: Student: What does "ohayoo"
mean?,Teacher: It means "good morning", Student: That's
not what my girlfriend said...), being wrong, talking alot about Japanese
food and being wrong, giving long, unnecessarily detailed answers which
are wrong, and failing class.
The Deer Caught In headlights are those students who took Japanese because
either a.) they thought it sounded like fun, b.) they thought it would
be easy, or c.) they just need a couple more credits to graduate. These
students wear a mask of terror and panic form the moment they walk into
class till the moment they leave, because all they can hear inside their
head is the high pitched scream their future is making as it is flushed
down the toilet. They are usually failing.
Although many of Japanese-language students are smart, funny, hard working
people, none of them will be in your class.
If you can get past the difficulty, society, and classmates, you will
probably find Japanese to be a fun, rewarding language to learn. We
wouldn't know, however, since no one has ever gotten that far. But hey,
I'm sure You're different.
Author's Note:This whole essay, although sprinkled with truisms here
and there, is a joke and should be taken like one. I'm actually a Japanese
major myself, and even if I've given it a bit of a hard time, I love
the Japanese language, and I think everyone should give it a try.
You should just be ready for a whole lot of pain.
HAPPY LANGUAGE LEARNING!
Dan Barrett |
