h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello Miao !

My name is Martin, and I am a longtime student primarily of Japan, and a professional historian regards to the Pacific War.

During my research on the war, China was a very tough area. Only the help of a Japanese friend of mine who served in the war (he was in a transport regiment, not a combat one and was not involved in any atrocities), allowed me to sort out many of the locations in China.

What we found was that during the war years of the 40's, places in China might have as many as 4 different names ! -

The name a place was generally know by in Chinese
The name a place had in the local Chinese dialect
The name given to a place by the Japanese
The name given to a place by the western nations

This was further complicated by many of the documents available using often archaic and very old Chinese characters which my friend was only able to translate after a struggle.

I know a limited amount of spoken Japanese, and am learning the Hiragana and Katakana characters as a starting point, but eventually I intend to learn the Japanese Kanji characters, which are all drawn from China of course.

While I have not been to China (yet), I have been to Japan last year in the guise of my altar ego where I design and operate the light show for a band that toured there, and expects to go back again this October.

If you have any advice for learning these characters, or can suggest some references I would appreciate it greatly !

thanks,

Martin "The Chef" Favorite

Hey Martin!
(Dissertation follows)

Seems like you're new around here (me, too), so welcome! Wow, I checked out your page, and I find that we have a similar background in music, as well as a common interest in Kanji/Hanzi. (If you pick up the thread "Fascinating!", you'll see that I've been chatting with a guy named ox, and can find out more about me there.

I "performed" for a number of years (as a bass player) before working as a booker, sound engineer and all-too-available target for irate performers. Sigh, *those* were the days.

Anyway, about Kanji. Please be warned: any advice I give you will be biased towards Chinese, especailly Classical Chinese. You have been warned. Ok, take a deep breath...

I am just starting out in Japanese (any advice?), and I find that Kanji are a godsend; even if I can't pronounce the word, I can understand it, and I can usually fake a reasonable pronunciation- which makes endings like "-suru" a piece of cake. The main reason for this, I feel, is that I have a background in Classical Chinese.

Assuming that your goal is to learn those pesky Kanji once and for all, then here is my free advice- take it for what it's worth.

If I can persuade you to do something as crazy as taking a course in Classical Chinese, you might be surprised- even a few weeks will have huge benefits. You will really get a bang for your buck because the Japanese borrowed Kanji, what, up until the 900's? After that they then "raided the vault" during the Meiji to form modern terms as common as "bunka".

Don't worry too much- Classical Chinese and Japanese are much closer gramatically that the respective modern languages (my fiancee says so), so you would get the benefit of learning the *characters themselves*, without too much "noise" in a grammatical sense.

There's another benefit, too: I am sure you know about on-yomi and kun-yomi. Well, sometimes, at least, you'll get the on-yomi "free of charge" so to speak. "Mountain" is "Shan1" in Chinese, and either "San" or "Yama" in Japanese- pretty close, at least in that case. So you "get one free" in a sense.

One other possible benefit: if you can master some classical Chinese, say a few lines from Confucious or something, then you will *really impress people*. Besides, things Chinese are very popular in Japan right now.

If you completely reject my view, then I have one other suggestion: learn all 214 radicals by heart. Unfortunately, if you work at this strictly in Japanese, the relationship between radicals and significs- and their pronunciation- will of course be obscured.

So that will just be hard work- no shortcuts there. But perseverance being such a virtue, you'll get big gambatte points for sticking with it! Such "cultural" points *always* help.

Failing all of the above, you can just get a simple dictionary, or better still- an approved list of common Kanji and memorize, memorize, memorize. You can do it! Use memnonic devices (that's where knowing the radicals helps most) or any other device you can come up with.

But there is *never* a substitute for hard work. Just ask any salaliman! There is a kind of logic behind character formation, but it's very loose. Take a "zen" approach, and savor the sweet moments when they come.

Wow! I apologize for babbling so! What is *your* advice for learning Japanese? I leave for Osaka on Saturday! Help! Funny that you're a historian, too. You should definitely take a look at the h2g2 Historical Society- once you have noted the amazing omission, please get back to me, we have work to do! Anyhow, I don't want to frighten you off...there are many other things I'd love to chat about, and I hope we will soon. Nuno? Cool!

Thanks for the good work on drummers,
Miao