Читать книгу Japanese for Travelers - Scott Rutherford - Страница 6

Basics

BASICS

Grammar

Orientation

Pronunciation

Sentence Subject

Verbs

Essential Verbs

Questions

Asking A Question

The Written Word

Japanese Syllabaries

Numbers

Basic Numbers

Counting Things

Essential Verbs

The Clock

Amount of Time

Calendar

Talking

Politeness and the Group

Basic Expressions

Greetings

Good-bye

Encounters

Apologies

Saying No

Thank You

Aizuchi

Invitations

Family

My~

Yours/His/Her~

People

Religion

Names

Work

Essential Verbs

Home

Furnishings

Schooling and Education

文 法

bunpō

grammar

Basics

GRAMMAR

There’s no way to become fluent in Japanese in a week, three weeks, or three months. Probably not in a year, or even three. Certainly not by using this book, for it’s not intended to be a language course.

Spoken Japanese is not especially difficult: neither grammar nor syntax is particularly complex. In fact, Japanese is probably easier to learn than English. (The Japanese, however, prefer perpetuating the myth that Japanese is the world’s most difficult language.)

Written Japanese, on the other hand, is a challenge. It uses katakana and hiragana—two phonetic alphabets—and around 2,000 Chinese characters, or kanji. Roman letters also often appear, especially in advertising.

Most difficult, however, are the embedded cultural and social codes of the Japanese language. To fully grasp the more veiled of these practically requires being born Japanese.

Within a group, the ideal form of communication is that which is sparse and ambiguous. Messages are conveyed through verbal fuzziness, contextual clarity, and implication. This semi-verbal mode of communication is called ishin denshin, or “telepathic” communication. Different as it is from the directness preferred by many Westerners, it plays an important role in reinforcing Japanese feelings of uniqueness.

ORIENTATION

For many Japanese, their language is a cocoon that defines the group, the nation, and the race. Recognizing you as a foreigner, Japanese will often operate on the assumption that you most certainly can’t understand their language. This assumption is so strong that even when a foreigner speaks their language well, Japanese people sometimes do not seem to realize that their language is being spoken. Some people may talk about you openly in the elevator or in stores, especially outside the major cities. Mothers have been heard telling children in restaurants to “watch how the foreigner eats,” especially if the foreigner is using chop-sticks. You are, you will learn quickly, a thing of curiosity, especially outside of Tokyo and Osaka.

On the other hand, being a curiosity can have its advantages. Whatever mistake or gaffe you make, you’re an outsider and a foreigner, and your mistakes are generally dismissed on that basis. You’re not Japanese, after all.

Here are some terms related to Japanese language and grammar:

JAPANESE	ENGLISH	CONVERSATION	WORD, LANGUAGE
日本語	英語	会話	言葉
nihongo	eigo	kaiwa	kotoba

PRONUNCIATION

Japanese sounds like all mush unless one takes care with the pronunciation of vowels. English-speakers typically utter sloppy-sounding vowels, making a muck of languages, like Spanish and Japanese, that require precision in vowel sounds. A native English-speaker’s thick accent is often the result of laziness in vowel pronunciation.

It’s this simple: if you want to be understood when you speak, be diligent in pronunciation.

Vowels

In short, each Japanese vowel has a single sound, as spoken in the following words:

a as in father

i as in sushi

u as in rude

e as in egg

o as in oat

Sometimes, Japanese vowels are pronounced in 2 beats, instead of one. For example, the word sōji, or “cleaning,” is pronounced so’oji. This book follows standard convention by using macrons (lines) over all double vowels except i. The double i sound is represented as ii. It is important to be aware of this nuance of pronunciation, as the length of a vowel can change the meaning of a word completely. For example, hodō means “sidewalk,” but hōdō means “news report.”

In regular Japanese conversation, the i and u sounds are often not heard at all. For example, the name Matsushita becomes Matsush’ta, and kusuri, meaning “medicine,” becomes k’suri. De-emphasis of i and u is especially common after the sh and k sounds.

Consonants

Japanese consonants are generally similar to English ones, but there are some important differences.

F

The Japanese ear doesn’t distinguish between the English f and h sounds. (On some maps of Japan rendered into English by Japanese speakers, Mt. Fuji may be written as “Mt. Huji.”)

The Japanese f is not a strong f sound, but is halfway between the English f and h, like an f sound in which the upper teeth do not meet the lower lip, and air is forced out through narrowed lips.

G

Always g, as in “gate.” Often softened into ng, as in “sing.”

R

The Japanese inability to distinguish between the English r and l is often a mother lode of snickers—“rice” becomes “lice” in a restaurant, “election” becomes “erection” at cocktail parties. The Japanese r hovers somewhere between the English r and l. As with the English l, the tongue is placed on the ridge behind the upper teeth, but with a lighter touch.

Like vowels, consonants are sometimes pronounced in two beats. Again, this is a crucial distinction, because a word’s meaning can utterly change as the result of just a single doubled sound. Doubling is especially common for t, p, and k. This book expresses doubled consonants as double letters: tt, pp, kk, etc.

Unlike English, in which every multisyllabic word stresses a particular syllable, Japanese does not stress syllables at all. For instance, although the Japanese word for banana is very similar to the English, the pronunciation is considerably different. The Japanese word is pronounced ba-na-na, with each a sounding like the a in “father,” and each syllable having equal intensity.

While stress is not important, however, proper pitch is very important. A word’s dictionary meaning doesn’t change with pitch, but the unspoken message and mood can, and usually do.

Japanese language books commonly explain that the subject of a sentence is marked by wa, or in certain cases, ga. This is not, in fact, always the case. But, for our minimal needs, we’ll simplify life by designating wa- and ga- marked words as subjects.

Mearii wa (kaerimashita).

Mary (went home).

Note that there is no difference in Japanese between singular and plural subjects. Like much in the language, they are inferred from context.

SENTENCE SUBJECT

Unlike in English, the subject or focus of the sentence in Japanese is often unspoken, implied instead through context. In fact, using the subject sometimes overemphasizes it, flooding it with spotlights and exclamation points. This is a pitfall for foreigners learning Japanese, who try to put in subjects at every pause. This tendency is automatic, but produces an undesirable effect. In the examples below, the subjects “I” and “flower” are left unsaid.

I am Mary.	The flower was pretty.
(Watashi wa) Mearii desu.	(Hana wa) Kirei deshita.
(I) Mary am.	(Flower) Pretty was.

Even though the speaker may not state the subject explicitly, it should be clear; context remedies ambiguity. It is a deeply embedded Japanese cultural and linguistic trait to prefer saying and explaining as little as possible. Proficiency in Japanese requires substantial patience and intuition for the unsaid. Think of Japanese as a minimalist language, in company with traditional Japanese design and aesthetics.

this	kore	これ
that	sore	それ
that	are	あれ
this ~	kono ~	この～
that ~	sono ~	その～
that ~	ano ~	あの～
I	watashi	私
we	watashitachi	私たち
you	(sng.) anata	あなた
you	(plural) anatagata	あなたがた
HE	kare	彼
she	kanojo	彼女

Japanese people often prefer to avoid direct and explicit requests. Instead, requests are understood from context and intonation.

Indirectness is a social tool to maintain harmony and avoid direct confrontation. Regardless of the realities of a situation, a request is best phrased and spoken in a way that enables the listener to appear to grant the favor through his own will. Westerners may think it’s like a game, this diplomatic finessing of words and meaning—but it works for the Japanese.

As is the case with many languages, perfect and complete sentences are often not normal in conversational Japanese. When offering a cold beer in English, one needn’t say, “Please have this cold beer.” Rather, one might hold out the beer and simply say, “Please.” And so in Japanese, too, one can offer something by simply saying dōzo. A complete sentence, in fact, would sound stuffy and artificial.

A request usually ends with kudasai, roughly translated as “Please.” For instance:

Please be quiet.	A beer, please.
Shizuka ni shite kudasai.	Biiru o kudasai.

On the other hand, if someone offers you something, then you should reply onegai shimasu, which can be thought of as “Yes, please.”

Would you like some coffee?	Yes, please.
Kōhii wa ikaga desu ka?	Hai, onegai shimasu.

To make things simple, stick to these guidelines: (1) When offering something, say dōzo ; (2) When requesting something, use kudasai ; and (3) When accepting an offer, use onegai shimasu.

VERBS

While this book isn’t a grammar text, it will be worth your while to understand the basic verb forms used here. Besides, Japanese verbs conjugate consistently and straightforwardly; they’re a piece of cake.

The infinitive (basic) form of all verbs ends with an u sound. Aside from being the “main” form of verbs (the one, for instance, that you’d look for in a dictionary), this is also the informal form, the one used with family and friends. In more polite language, such as that used with strangers on the street or casual acquaintances, the infinitive verb is changed so that it ends in -masu. Verbs that end with u or -masu can be used to indicate either the present or the future tense.

Verbs are classified based on their endings and are conjugated into their -masu form and other forms accordingly. A simple overview of endings and their conjugations appears on page 15.

Let’s look at a couple of verbs in use. Aru means “to exist,” and is used only for inanimate objects.

There is a book.	There was a book.
Hon ga aru. (informal)	Hon ga atta. (informal)
Hon ga arimasu. (polite)	Hon ga arimashita. (polite)

For animate objects like animals and people, iru is used.

There is a person.	There was a person.
Hito ga iru. (informal)	Hito ga ita. (informal)
Hito ga imasu. (polite)	Hito ga imashita. (polite)

The common word desu, which loosely translates as “is,” is like a verb, but is technically considered a different animal, The polite past tense of desu is deshita. Desu is used with both animate and inanimate things, and is remarkably useful.

I am Mary. (My name is Mary)	It’s a desk.
Mearii desu.	Tsukue desu.
I am an American.	He was a teacher.
Amerikajin desu.	Sensei deshita.

ESSENTIAL VERBS

to be able to hear	to ask a question	to talk, speak
聞こえる	質問する	話す
kikoeru	shitsumon suru	hanasu
to hear, ask	to pronounce	to read
聞く	発音する	読む
kiku	hatsuon suru	yomu
to listen	to say, tell	to write
聴く	言う	書く
kiku	iu	kaku

QUESTIONS

An important difference distinguishing declarative sentences from questions is a marker often nailed onto the end of the latter: ka? Listen for it. If someone deluges you with Japanese that you find quite incomprehensible, and the final sound is ka, a response is expected. Any response. Even a response of not understanding. Figure out from context if a simple yes or no is required, or turn to the bottom of page 55 and point to the appropriate expression, making it clear that nothing’s registering.

A related marker, though not exactly one indicating a question, is ne. Ne comes after an assertion to soften it and could be thought of as “... isn’t it?” or “... don’t you think?” Let’s compare some examples.

It’s hot today.

Kyō wa atsui desu.

Is it hot today?

Kyō wa atsui desu ka?

It’s hot today, don’t you think?

Kyō wa atsui desu ne.

The basic sentence remains the same. Only the end markers—ka and ne—and voice intonation change. Intonation is critical in Japanese. The only way to learn it properly is by listening to spoken Japanese and observing context. Listen to the conversation all around you.

ASKING A QUESTION

Asking questions in a strange language can be intimidating, given that success is anything but guaranteed. And for most Japanese people, being approached by foreigners can be equally intimidating. Their first worry is that they’ll be addressed in English, and expected to reply in kind. The second worry is that there’ll be communication problems, failure, and loss of face.

If asking a question, always precede it by acknowledging your rudeness with Shitsurei desu ga. Alternatively, Sumimasen ga can be used. Shitsurei and sumimasen can be used to apologize for just about anything, from addressing a stranger on the street, to spilling a drink on your date’s lap. Shitsurei shimasu apologizes for something the speaker is doing while he speaks; shitsurei shimashita apologizes for something already done.

If making a request, be aware that properly asking a favor or making a request requires a certain amount of diplomacy. In Japanese, one ideally need not explicitly state a request. An understood and shared context, and a hesitant intonation, make the request obvious. It’s good to sound apologetic and unsure, as this can convey politeness at least as effectively as correct grammar and verb conjugation.

To summarize, before springing a question in Japanese upon the unsuspecting, preface it with a smile and apologies, spoken graciously and unaggressively:

Sumimasen. (Excuse me . . .)

or

Shitsurei desu ga. (I’m being rude, but. . .)

And when all is finished, successful or not, bow your head slightly and say Dōmo arigato gozaimashita, which means “Thank you very much.”

The directness of the question “Why?” poses problems for many Japanese. It’s a confrontational query. One shouldn’t have to ask why about most things; the answer either is irrelevant, or obvious from clues with which the speaker has littered the conversation.

what	nan/nani	何
when	itsu	いつ
where	doko	どこ
which	dochira	どちら
who	dare	誰
why	naze	なぜ
how far	dono kurai	どのくらい
how long	dono kurai	どのくらい
how many	ikutsu	いくつ
how much	ikura	いくら
what time	nanji ni	何時に

Naturally, when traveling, you’ll want and need to ask where places and things are. In Japanese, in which politeness is all-important, asking where has a normal form, doko, and a polite form (dochira, which can also mean who).

(Toire wa) Doko desu ka? (normal)

(Toire wa) Dochira desu ka? (polite)

As a guest or a special stranger, a foreigner will most likely be questioned with dochira, adding to the novice Japanese speaker’s confusion: are they being asked who, or where?

Word order in questions generally, though not always, goes like this: Subject (if there is one), interrogative keyword (who, what, where, why, when), then verb. For instance:

Where is the toilet?	Who is it?
(Toire wa) Doko desu ka?	Dare desu ka?

THE WRITTEN WORD

As mentioned earlier, written Japanese is where the real language barrier springs up for many people. This hellishly complicated system combines four discrete elements:

KANJI : The core of Japan’s writing system. Kanji came from China in the 4th century A.D., and have been modified greatly over the ensuing centuries. Most kanji have at least two pronunciations each: one or more original Chinese pronunciations, and one or more home-grown, Japanese pronunciations.