44
There are a number of common suffixes you can use to try to guess. Here is an incomplete list of common suffixes which are a pretty safe bet:
Female
ko 子
mi 美
ka 花・華
e 江・恵
na 奈・菜
no 乃
ri 里
Male
rō 郎
ta 太
suke 介・助・祐
o 男・夫・雄・生
ya 哉・也
kichi 吉
hiko 彦
nobu 信
Also, "girly" kanji—like 愛 "love", 幸 "happiness", 華 "flower", 美 "beauty" etc.—or hiragana will ...
42
This phenomenon is called 連濁 (rendaku). The basic rules for rendaku can be found in the following question, so please take a look at it first:
Rules or criteria for 連濁: Voiced or unvoiced syllables in compound words
Now, in addition to the rules mentioned in the linked question, there is yet another rule (or "tendency") regarding rendaku: there are several ...
36
Each family would use its own method and all I know for certain is how mine handled the matter.
We used on-reading words, meaning kanji compounds, which small kids generally are not familiar with. We also "created" our own on-reading words in cases where the generic words were already on-reading ones. Our final weapon was to say the words in English (we ...
23
It is in a slightly different order in Japanese.
First comes Celsius, then the amount, and degrees at the end.
This would be one hundred degrees Celsius written out:
摂氏{せっし}100度{ど}
Fahrenheit for example would be similar
華氏{かし}100度{ど}
Most of the time saying Celsius is redundant though.
If someone asks you what is the temperature, you can just say 26 ...
22
I share your experience. Sticking straight to the katakana pronunciation below, I have never had the problem of someone not understanding me any more. I believe this is the pronunciation currently taught in Japanese schools.
A: エー【HL】
B: ビー【HL】
C: シー【HL】
D: ディー【HHL】
E: イー【HL】
F: エフ【HL】
G: ジー【HL】
H: エイチ【HLL】
I: アイ【HL】
J: ジェー【HHL】
K: ケー【HL】
L: エル【HL】
M: エム【HL】...
22
There are three readings for 日本: にほん, にっぽん, and やまと. The last reading is non-standard as far as general use. The first two are still used often, but にほん is by far the de rigueur reading currently.
Possibly you are reading something old, where 日本 is written as につぽん. While today, a repeating consonant is written with a small tsu (っ), in the past it was often ...
18
I think on reading ヴァ, ヴィ, etc., people usually try to pronounce it differently from バ, ビ, etc., but with varying success. In fact, I think most Japanese that try to distinguish ヴァ and バ pronounce what would be //v// indeed like the Spanish [[β]], a voiced bilabial fricative (or like a combination like [[bβ]]). That seems to make sense since the voiceless ...
18
I'm a native speaker. When you tell a native Japanese speaker to say these words veeeeery slowly, they would say:
きょ、う、し、つ。 （or きょ、お、し、つ。）
せ、ん、せ、い。 （or せ、ん、せ、え。）
か、ら、あ、げ。
こ、ん、ぴゅ、う、た、あ。 （コンピューター）
And if you ask "How many 'sounds' are there in those words?", they would count using their fingers, and say 4, 4, 4 and 6, respectively. So this means so-called "...
18
It's like this:
Teacher: 「野田{のだ} 努{つとむ}さん。」
野田: 「はい。」
T: 「いわい 隆{たかし}さんですかね？しゅくさんですか？」(the surname reads 祝)
祝: 「はふりです。」
T: 「はふりって読むんですか。珍しい名前ですね。はふり たかしさん。」
祝: 「はい。」
This conversation has actually taken place in my twelfth grade first classroom.
Note: People with easy-to-read names don't end up in this kind of awkward conversation very often.
Still, ...
18
Derivation of レシート
Numerous dictionaries state that レシート is from English receipt. See, for instance, the Dajisen and Daijirin entries visible here at Kotobank (in Japanese), or here at Wiktionary (in English; full disclosure: I edited that entry. See the listed sources there for authoritatively edited materials.).
Why it is rendered this way in Japanese
...
17
The explanation in デジタル大辞泉 is:
「いく」の語形も上代からみられ、平安時代以降は「ゆく」と併用される。「ゆく」「いく」はほとんど意味は同じであるが、古くは「ゆく」のほうがより広く使われ、特に訓点資料・和歌（「生く」との掛け詞の場合を除き）では、ほとんどすべてが「ゆく」である。現在では「ゆく」に比べて「いく」のほうが話し言葉的な感じをもち、したがって、「過ぎ行く」「散り行く」など、文章語的な語の場合には「ゆく」となるのが普通である。なお、「ゆきて」のイ音便形「ゆいて」も用いられたが、現在は一般的でなく、促音便形は「ゆく」のほうは用いられず、「いく」を用いて「いって」「いった」となる。
My translation / synopsis is as follows:
いく ...
17
Other examples of intentionally altered readings to avoid confusion:
私立【しりつ】 (private) & 市立【しりつ】 (city-run) → 私立【わたくしりつ】 & 市立【いちりつ】
売春【ばいしゅん】 (selling sex) & 買春【ばいしゅん】 (buying sex) → 買春【かいしゅん】
波線【はせん】 (wavy line) & 破線【はせん】 (dashed line) → 波線【なみせん】 & 破線【やぶれせん】
市長【しちょう】 (city mayor) & 首長【しゅちょう】 (mayor in general) → 首長【くびちょう】
Learning ...
17
The entry for 街【がい】 you linked to is:
(尾) まちなみ． ▼繁華～
If you take a look at the explanation for the dictionary, we find what (尾) means:
(尾) 接尾語
Ie, it is used at the end of words, and not in isolation. Other dictionaries say
がい【街】
(造)
...
(造) means almost the same: used only to form words, but not in isolation. 「街灯」「商店街」「オフィス街」「地下街」「...
17
Here is what I know. If, by "complex rules", you refer to more complex ones than these below, I wish one of the experts here would post an answer.
By the way, the nasal sound we are discussing here is called 「鼻濁音{びだくおん}」 in case someone did not know. "Nose-muddy-sound", literally. Since you know the word now, you can hear how it actually sounds on ...
16
Both the OO and XX are pronounced なになに。
（なになに）するには（なになに）すぎる。
Source: I just asked my partner who is from Japan.
16
I'm fairly certain that this has to do with pitch in Japanese and accentuation in English.
The natural pitch for デバグ【HLL】 is HLL, whereas デバッグ【LHLL】 would naturally be LHL (and バグ【HL】 is HL). To mimic accentuation by pitch (i.e. accented syllables get a high pitch after transliteration), the ッ is necessary to give the バ a (natural) high pitch. バグ already ...
16
Basically, there are just some sounds that exist in other languages which cannot easily be phonemically represented in Japanese.
Disclaimer - this is a simplified answer, but ...
As with any language, you must differentiate between the actual sounds (phonology) and the writing system which represents the language (orthography). Although there are ...
16
Japanese, a language which has 3-level vowel height system, does not have the distinction of //e// and //ɛ//. Or speaking more correctly, Japanese え and お are (true) mid vowels, that their sweet spots fall just midway of theoretical [[e]] and [[ɛ]]. (We write them [[e̞]] and [[o̞]] in IPA if necessary.)
(chart from Wikipedia)
And as far as the Standard ...
15
I'm Japanese native speaker.
In my opinion, little "っ" at the end of sentence is not pronounced at all.
However, it often indicates "small" (not so serious) emotions of speaker, I'll show you some example, comparing with other two expressions for writing:
01. ふざけんなよっ
02. ふざけんなよ…
03. ふざけるなよ！
(All sentences mean "Don't be silly")
As you see, first sentence is ...
14
Basically this is very difficult.
Real Japanese sentences on the net are mixture of kanji, hiragana, katakana and English alphabet. See Japanese writing system on Wikipedia.
Among these, hiragana and katakana are almost "pronunciation symbols" themselves. You can replace them into romaji using this table and you're 80% done. The remaining 20% is a bit ...
14
The general method of counting in Japanese poetry is by a rhythmic unit known as the mora (morae or moras in plural). A mora is (essentially) the length of a single (full-sized) kana; so is a bit different from a syllable.
For instance:
A long vowel is counted as one syllable, but two moras. e.g. えい is a single syllable, but is two moras.
ん is counted as a ...
14
They are spelled differently. Riyū is always りゆう and Ryū is always りゅう. The latter contains a yō-on. Notice the small ゆ, which is different from the normal ゆ. (If you don't know about small ゆ, please refer to any beginner textbook.)
If you saw りゆう for 留 in modern Japanese book, it's most likely a typo, but there are rare exceptions:
If you are reading a ...
13
ん assimilates to the consonantal sounds that follow. If it is followed by 't' or 'd', then it is pronounced like an 'n'. If it is followed by 'p' or 'b', it is pronounced like 'm'. If followed by 'k' or 'g', then like 'ng' from 'sing'.
If ん is not followed by a consonant, then there isn't really a true English equivalent; it's more or less its own ...
13
The reading depends on the situation. In a scientific or technical environment Chris's answer is 100% correct.
However, in conversational non-technical situations it is read differently.
When speaking with someone you can say
[度シー]{どしー}
for Celsius. However, in Japan the standard for expressing temperature is metric, so there is no need to clarify that ...
13
Japanese is a highly "playable" language both in spoken and written forms.
「る゛」 would just ”mean” the same thing as the regular 「る」 but with some kind of emphasis, exclamation, emotionality, etc. intended by the author added. As a manga reader, you can pronounce 「る゛」 as 「る」 because there is no "official pronunciation" for 「る゛」.
This can be said about any ...
13
(First, 日本 is pronounced like nippon or nihon, but not nitsuhon.)
Unfortunately, there are tons of irregularities and exceptions regarding the readings of words, and you have to master them individually, word by word. Pronunciations change over time, but spellings tend not to change. In the case of Japanese, there are even kanji words that completely ignore ...
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