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Fun (?) with Japanese
Mar. 29th, 2018 12:20 amFour is shi, except when it's yon. "Four things" is yottsu (the n changes, because fun)
Eight is hachi, except when it's ya or some variant thereof. "eight things" is yattsu.
...fine, except. "Four days" is yokka (again, the n changes into "duplicate the next consonant") ... but "eight days" is yōka, not yaka or yakka.
Whyyyyyy.
(Rhetorical question.)
#
Cuteness: the word/kanji for child is 子. The word/kanji for dog is 犬. The word for puppy? 子犬.
(Not everything makes this much sense. Though I am also amused that unskillful / bad at, 下手, visually "translates" as "below hand". I bet 上手, above hand, is skillful / good at. And volcano is, of course, 火山, fire mountain. ...I haven't figured out why entrance is 入り口 -- enter+"ri"+mouth -- whereas exit is just 出口 -- exit+mouth.)
(And I really really wish I could stop reading letters wrong. Hiragana, not kanji. I keep reading リ as い, confusing こ and に, and a few others trip me up... and I'm way more solid on hiragana than katakana, which has シ ツ ソ ン (shi, tsu, so, n). And kanji are just as bad; it took me a while to figure out the difference beteeen 右 and 石, which is kind of important since one means right (not-left) and the other means stone.)
Eight is hachi, except when it's ya or some variant thereof. "eight things" is yattsu.
...fine, except. "Four days" is yokka (again, the n changes into "duplicate the next consonant") ... but "eight days" is yōka, not yaka or yakka.
Whyyyyyy.
(Rhetorical question.)
#
Cuteness: the word/kanji for child is 子. The word/kanji for dog is 犬. The word for puppy? 子犬.
(Not everything makes this much sense. Though I am also amused that unskillful / bad at, 下手, visually "translates" as "below hand". I bet 上手, above hand, is skillful / good at. And volcano is, of course, 火山, fire mountain. ...I haven't figured out why entrance is 入り口 -- enter+"ri"+mouth -- whereas exit is just 出口 -- exit+mouth.)
(And I really really wish I could stop reading letters wrong. Hiragana, not kanji. I keep reading リ as い, confusing こ and に, and a few others trip me up... and I'm way more solid on hiragana than katakana, which has シ ツ ソ ン (shi, tsu, so, n). And kanji are just as bad; it took me a while to figure out the difference beteeen 右 and 石, which is kind of important since one means right (not-left) and the other means stone.)