Japanese in Depth vol. 2 Shigekatsu Yamauchi Copyright 2006 by Shigekatsu Yamauchi Smashwords Edition 11. The world is; therefore, I am By Shigekatsu Yamauchi President of ICI (the International Communication Institute) www.stepupnihongo.com www.icijapan.com In a previous article we saw that there are more than 2,000 ways to say, “I am a cat” in Japanese, each with a different shade of meaning. This was shown to be partly due to the many ways of saying “I”. Today we will discuss some further implications of this mindset. If you listen carefully to English, you will notice how very frequently speakers use “I” in sentences, such as “I think…,” “I’m afraid…,” or “I don’t want to…” In contrast, Japanese tend to use words equivalent to “I” much less frequently. In another article about saying “I love you” in Japanese, we discussed how Japanese verbs, unlike their English equivalents, are not just words; each of them can be a perfect sentence on its own. We saw how, in principle, no subject is required to form a sentence. But what about situations requiring self-identification? One chooses the most appropriate of the options. To make this choice one considers age, gender, relationships, business considerations, the immediate situation and the broader circumstances. In short, unless you understand the situation, you cannot position yourself in it; in a real way, you cannot quite identify who you are. This contrasts greatly with English. In English whether talking to your child or to the president of the United States, you can always rely on “I” to define yourself. In short, the language considers you to be you, regardless of the situation. In my view, this English mindset can easily lead to thinking that “I” is the first concern. You have probably met people who operate from the premise, “I have a wish” and go ahead with it no matter the consequence or situation. Japanese people, however, tend to think of their social situation first, before taking action or doing the things they want. Their actions are responses to questions like, “Would my action affect others? If so, how? Would I look bad doing this?” These types of questions usually come to the Japanese mind before anything else. This “others-first consideration” is often so strong that many will easily abandon actions that adversely affect others. This is similar to the way that amoeba survive by carefully avoiding obstacles. While such people may appear indecisive or meek, it is not necessarily so. With its flexibility, avoidance of direct confrontation can lead to long-lived, hardy results; witness the multibillion-year survival of the amoeba. With a strong self and strong will, one looks strong. Solid principles hung onto during action look reassuringly firm indeed. At the individual level, the English-language mindset encourages people to promote their own will. Firm conviction and stalwart support of principle is expected. In a society with many people holding firmly to their own principles, is not confrontation likely? Is this why there are far more court cases in the United States than in Japan? Similar patterns are seen in English-speaking politics. Leaders claim to uphold principles like “human rights,” “democracy,” “freedom,” even “God’s justice.” Widely accepted principles are relied on for governments to take action, whatever the obstacles. This attitude looks reliable, but also quite rigid. If an obstacle lies in the way, it must be neutralized, whatever it takes; hence, perhaps, in the end leading to war. This sounds to me like what happened when former British Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher decided to go to war over the Falklands; or a description of how U.S. presidents have gone to war. Of course, Japan has started wars, too. But World War II, for instance, came not from principle, but an economic urge promoted by military powers. The Japanese government (then and now) could not possibly take an action just on principle’s sake. It might use some slogan as cover, but actions would certainly not be based on a principle. At the political level, when action is taken, the main consideration is always how the public or related parties think about it. At the individual level as well, when a Japanese person decides to do something, they typically think of the people involved; “What would others think of me if I were to do this?” This is the underlying psychology of what anthropologist Ruth Benedict called a “shame culture.” Speaking linguistically, we might say that the word for “I” cannot be determined unless the world around us, the context, is identified. Things change over time, however. Nowadays we see many shameless acts that completely ignore others. Traditions that placed others first seem to be eroding. It even seems that we can hear, in people’s speech, words such as “watashi,” “ore” and “boku” – “I,” “I” and “I” – more frequently than before. 12. Loanwords in Japanese By Shigekatsu Yamauchi President of ICI (the International Communication Institute) www.stepupnihongo.com www.icijapan.com As the last article was a little heavy, and even somewhat controversial, I’ll make today’s article more light and entertaining. Just as the French Academy, the academic overlord of the French language, does not like English words to be adopted into French, there is an underlying opposition to foreign words – especially English ones – being used in Japanese. From time to time, a list of foreign words whose use is discouraged is published by the National Institute for Japanese Language, and alternative existing Japanese words are recommended instead. Despite such efforts, plenty of foreign words continue to be used. Generally, this is because the foreign words either sound trendier or imply meanings not covered by existing Japanese words. Certainly, the adoption of foreign words into the Japanese language is not a modern phenomenon. Starting with Japan’s initial contact with China around the fifth century, numerous Chinese words have been absorbed. These are called kango (kan stands for an ancient Chinese dynasty and go for word), as opposed to wago, words of genuinely Japanese origin. Kango have been used for so long, and become so integral to Japanese that people do not realize that they are in fact “foreign.” The situation is comparable to the great number of English words that are, in fact, of Latin and Greek origin. In addition to Chinese, a number of Portuguese words were adopted here because of visits by the Jesuits. Pan (bread) and Iesu (Jesus) are two such words in common use. But most of the words have long since disappeared. In modern times, after the Meiji Restoration in 1868, many scholars and officials were dispatched to Europe and the United States to learn modern institutions, ideas and technologies. New Japanese words were often created to represent new notions, and it was at that time that a number of important words still in use today, including jiyu (freedom), shakai (society), yubin (postal system), kaisha (company), etc. were invented. Virtually all of these carefully created Japanese words are written with kanji; they are called waseikango, Japanese-made kanji words. (Interestingly, many of these words were then re-exported to China, adding to China’s vocabulary in the course of its own modernization.) At the same time, many words were adopted as they were, meaning without translation into kanji. These borrowings reflect the country of contact. As modern medicine was mainly brought to Japan from Germany, many German medical terms became a part of Japanese. Today, doctors still use words such as karute (Karte, medical chart), kuranke (Kranke, patient) and mesu (Messer, scalpel). Many skiing and mountaineering terms came into Japanese through introduction by Austrians; hence words such as, gerende (Gelaende, ski slope) sutokku (Stock, ski sticks), zairu (Seil, rope), pikkeru (Pickel, ice pick), are used. Like English, many fashion and cosmetics terms came from French. Nowadays, as the result of an overwhelming U.S, influence, most foreign words come from English and are largely adopted as they are, without the creation of new Japanese equivalents, although pronunciations are obviously distorted to fit the Japanese language. In this fast-moving age, with its constant innovation and invention, new words are always emerging. Understandably, many new words are short-lived, and many not be worth the trouble involved in creating good equivalents. Some readers may have noted the rarity of foreign words used as verbs or adjectives. This is because Japanese is form-based, i.e. “form illustrates function.” For instance, all verbs have a (r)u ending and all adjectives end in ai, ii, ui or oi. With such strict form requirements, we cannot expect foreign words to conform. So, all loanwords inevitably fall into the noun category, as it is the only word class without form restrictions. This is why, when English verbs or adjectives are adopted into Japanese, they are treated as nouns. What happens then if you want to use the English verbs “mail” or “fax” in Japanese? You add the most versatile Japanese verb, suru, to it; hence, meeru-suru (literally, do (e)mail) or fakkusuru-suru (do fax). This is similar to English, which has no form restrictions on words, and therefore, can use nouns as verbs, as in “I’m mailing it to you,” “She has just faxed it to them.” Nevertheless, there is no rule without exceptions. There are a few loanwords that have become Japanese verbs without the addition of suru. So, here is a quiz for you: Try to guess the meaning and original English word for the following dozen Japanese verbs. (answers are at bottom of page). 1. daburu 2. hamoru 3. negoru 4. neguru 5. toraburu 6. baburu 7. takuru 8. baguru 9. hejiru 10. dafuru 11. saboru 12. panikuru (answer) Original word and meaning 1. double -> double up; make a double fault in tennis 2. harmony -> achieve good harmony in concert 3. negotiate -> conduct a (business) negotiation 4. neglect -> neglect 5. trouble -> become a problem 6. bubble -> have a bubble economy 7. taxi -> grab a taxi cab 8. bug -> (a computer) has a bug 9. hesitate -> hesitate 10. duff -> duff (miss) a (golf) ball 11. sabotage -> play hooky, skip class 12. panic -> panic, do something in a panicky way 13. Status of Imperial Family predates nation itself By Shigekatsu Yamauchi President of ICI (the International Communication Institute) www.stepupnihongo.com www.icijapan.com Golden Week is coming up. And this year it really does look golden. It starts April 29 with Greenery Day, and if you just take off May 2 and 6 you’ll get a full 10-day vacation! A holiday on April 29 was originally held to celebrate the late Emperor Hirohito’s birthday. It was renamed Greenery Day after he passed away, as he was an avid botanist. As you know, until the end of World War II the emperor was considered a god. Even now, in spite of the Emperor’s public declaration of his humanness, there is a certain gold-like air about the Imperial family – reflected in how the Japanese people sometimes call the Emperor “the being above the clouds.” What makes this status possible? Let’s look at things from the point of view of language. The recorded ancestral roots of the Imperial family go back to the mythologies included in the Kojiki and Nihonshoki. According to myth, they are descended from the sun goddess Amaterrasu-omikami. She (or the spirit) is supposed to reside in the Ise Grand Shrines in my hometown, Ise, Mie Prefecture. The current emperor and family members make periodic visits to the shrines to pay their respects to her. Like Mecca for Muslims, Ise used to be, and still is to a certain extent, a place Japanese want to visit once in their lifetime. Of course, historically, it seems obvious that the ancestral clan of the Imperial family gained power through religious, political and military struggles, presumably over hundreds of years, just like all leaders from the past. Unfortunately, there was no Japanese writing system at the time – although the language itself did exist. So there is no written record of when the descents of today’s Imperial family first consolidated power. The story of their struggles was instead handed down orally for generations. By the time these stories were written down in the 5th century A.D. (using kanji brought to Japan from China around that time), all the characters in the stories had taken on a mythological nature. Contrast this with the “Three Kingdoms” saga of China. The acts of the numerous talented leaders in this sophisticated power struggle were precisely written down so that the characters remain almost purely as historical figures. Even if some of them are treated nowadays with respect at monuments, shrines and temples in China, they have little chance of becoming gods. Take Abraham Lincoln’s status in the United States. He has an almost god-like authority to some Americans, and the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. is not unlike a temple. Even so, he can never become a deity. One cannot be easily mythologized when so precisely documented. Deities require mystery. Gods are gods only if something about them can never be proven scientifically or comprehended intellectually. Recorded in words, a thing becomes history. In Japan’s case, the Imperial system and family predate the writing system, so their origins are lost in the dimness of a mysterious past. Linguistically, Japanese retains a sense of the Imperial family’s “specialness” through several traditions. For instance, it is something of a shock to many Japanese people, akin to blasphemy, to hear the emperor called “Emperor Hirohito” in English. This is, in part, because first names are seldom used even among common Japanese adults, let alone regarding the emperor. To these people he is Showa Tenno. You would no more call the late emperor “Emperor Hirohito” than you would call Queen Elizabeth II, “Queen Liz.” Japanese emperors are usually referred to according to the pattern: reign period name + Tenno. The current period, Heisei, means something like “peace and accomplishment.” So, the current emperor could be thought of as “The Emperor of the Period of Peaceful Accomplishment.” Obviously the mystery is being promoted – we have no name to refer to the “person.” What about Tenno? This term is used only to refer to Japanese emperors. All other emperors in the world, historical or living, are called Kotei, never Tenno. As ten means “heaven,” Tenno can be interpreted as “Emperor from Heaven” or “Heavenly Emperor.” (Because of this, Chinese people who understand the literal meaning of the kanji and get its direct impact sometimes feel the term has an arrogance to it.) Now considered to be in its 127th generation with the birth of a daughter to Crown Princess Masako three years ago, the Japanese Imperial family is one of the longest-lived Japanese institutions, predating, in some real ways, the nations itself. 14. Is it an adjective or a noun? By Shigekatsu Yamauchi President of ICI (the International Communication Institute) www.stepupnihongo.com www.icijapan.com Imagine a language where “pretty” was a noun, and “same” was both an adjective and a noun. Unlikely, you say? Well, if you’re learning Japanese, read on, because you’re studying such a language! In a previous article I discussed that Japanese verbs and adjectives have form restrictions (verbs end u or ru, adjectives end ai, ii, ui or oi. Because these form restrictions are strict, borrowed words almost always become nouns. Even borrowed verbs become nouns. To use them as “verbs” the versatile suru is added, creating a compound verb: repooto-suru (to report), kopii-suru (to copy), komyunikeeto-suru (to communicate). So, what happens to foreign adjectives? The same rules apply. We cannot possibly expect foreign words to conform to the strict rules held for Japanese adjectives. The words inevitably become nouns; that is to say, they behave as nouns. Despite this obvious fact, most Japanese textbooks call these words “adjectives,” or more specifically “na-adjectives.” This is only because the original foreign word was an adjective. I challenge this naming convention, for the sake of people learning Japanese. Why they are called “na-adjectives” requires us to first look at “regular” adjectives and nouns. In Japanese, modifying nouns with adjectives is simple; put the adjective in front: omoshiroi shimbun (an interesting paper), atarashii hon (a new book), etc. However, when noun X modifies noun Y, the connective particle no is necessary: kyoo no shimbun (today’s paper), watashi no hon (my book), Tookyoo-eki no soba (near Tokyo Station), etc. The only exception is onaji (same), which mostly behaves as a noun but does not require a connective: onaji hon (the same book) instead of onaji no hon. And you might occasionally encounter the “living fossil” onajiku. This is interesting because, even though onaji is a “noun,” the –ku suffix is exclusive to adjectives. But, in general, Japanese is very good at sticking to its rules; this is one of very few exceptions. When a “na-adjective” X modifies a noun Y, the connective na is employed, instead of no: shikku na nkutai (a chic tie), torendi na kooto (a trendy coat), etc. Although these are French and English words, a good number of “na-adjectives” not realized by most Japanese to be loanwords exist: kirei (pretty; clean) and benri (convenient) are examples form Chinese. Most Chinese-origin words have been part of Japanese for so long that they are integral to it, like many Greek- and Latin-origin words are thought of as English. Apart from these loanwords, whether Chinese, English, or other, there are a number of purely Japanese “na-adjectives,” like shizuka (calm, quiet), and odayaka (peaceful). They invariably take na when modifying nouns: sizuka na tokoro (a quiet place), odayaka na hanasisai (a peaceful discussion), etc. Many words, whether foreign or Japanese, may take either connective when modifying nouns; dame (no good), daijobu (OK), genki (good sprits), nimaime (handsome), kenkoo (health or healthy). Hence; dame na/no hi (a bad day when one is not available), raishu daijobu na/no hito (there person who is available next week), kare no genki no/na wake (the reason he is in good spirits), ano hito ga kenkoo no/na himitsu (my health secret), etc. As you can see, sometimes it’s pretty difficult to determine whether a word is a noun or an adjective just by its meaning. Even in English this can be true. Can you say that the word “fun” is an adjective or a noun? (Its meaning is adjective-like, but you don’t say (or at least grammarians say you shouldn’t), “This is very fun” because “fun” is a noun. Or rather, because it behaves as a noun, it belongs to the noun class. (However, these days this nouns is often treated as an adjective: “This is more fun” “This is a fun game” – traditionally unacceptable usages). For the sake of foreign learners of Japanese, who must very consciously strive to use the language like natives, it is more useful and practical to think of the words they learn not as “na-adjectives” but as “na-nouns.” This is because they behave as nouns. You don’t say genkiku nai, but genki ja nai; not kirei katta, but kirei datta. This is just like saying Nihonjin ja nai, and Nihonjin datta, etc. Also, male and female styles of speech are differentiated by the word class. For example, geki da yo sounds masculine while genki yo femine, just like Nihonjin da yo sounds masculine while Nihonin yo feminine. There once was an English word used as an adjective stead of a noun – a very unusual case. That was naui, from the English word “now,” whose meaning was “trendy.” Although this word is almost no longer used, it was then an adjective: naui hito (trendy person), nauku nai (not trendy), etc. To the best of my knowledge, this was the only ever case where a foreign word became an adjective. 15. More ‘inscrutable’ particles By Shigekatsu Yamauchi President of ICI (the International Communication Institute) www.stepupnihongo.com www.icijapan.com In a previous article, I discussed when and for what function Japanese needs particles, ending with a discussion of the particle ga. Today I’d like to expand my discussion further to cover some other particles. First off, let me remind you that particles are employed only when needed. Their function must be called for: The speaker wants to add a certain nuance to a word or phrase (in relation to the predicate, typically verb). In other words, particles are used when they are needed to convey a difference in meaning. In cases where the addition of nuance is unnecessary, particles are not used. This last is particularly true in oral communication, because conversation necessarily occur between two or more people who have some relationship, at a particular place, occasion and point in time. Though they might not share the same interpretation of their mutual context, there will be things in common that all parties understand without discussion, such as the time, location and participant’s relative ages. Because of the absence of any specific context when writing, written Japanese has good reason to use particles frequently. This probably contributes to Japanese often feeling that dropping particles, common in speech, is somehow “not correct.” Thus, in spite of its naturalness, if you say “Watashi kino sushi tabemasihita,” most Japanese would “correct” you, saying that you should say “Watashi wa kino sushi o tabemashita.” With “corrections” like this, it is easy to be misled into believing that X-wa means X is the subject, and that Y-o means Y is the object. You are probably unconsciously thinking that all languages always have a subject and object. Until you unlearn this Eurocentric habit, the European-language mindset holds you spellbound, and your Japanese will feel strained. Generally, if you start using the terminology used for analyzing English, you will fall into this trap and start making many exceptions to the rules. When you do this, the pleasing regularity of Japanese disappears and the language becomes more difficult to analyze (and learn). Before discussing why X-wa does not denote X as “the subject,” let me return to the question, discussed in a previous article, of whether X-ga means X is the subject. X-ga shows that X is the doer of the action if the predicate is an action verb. Hence, “Suzuki-san ga tabemashita” literally means “Suzuki as doer, eating occurred,” which means “Suzuki is the one who ate it” or “Suzuki ate it.” If the predicate refers to a state (rather than an action), X-ga shows that X is subject matter of the state. Hence, “Suzuki-san ga suki desu” literally translates as “Suzuki as subject-matter, liking occurs,” which therefore may mean, “Suzuki likes it” or “I like Suzuki.” Now, let us focus on X-wa and Y-o. When you are trying to state something, you are likely to choose some item or matter as your topic, at least for the time being. Since there are countless possible topics in the world, when you say X-wa, like shushi-wa, then sushi shows up momentarily, as if highlighted on a TV screen. Thus: - Sushi tabemasu. – I eat sushi. - Sushi wa tabemasu. – Sushi as a topic for the moment, eating occurs. I eat sushi at least (and I’m not taking responsibility for other food that I may or may not eat.) Many of you might argue that you should use the particle o here, as in “sushi o tabemasu,” because sushi is “the object” here. Your English-based thinking has now created a problem. If you define o as an object indicator, then you must make an important exception and say that it can also be used with some intransitive verbs, like “Kono michi o kimashita” which literally translates as, “I came this road.” The problem here is that intransitive verbs, like “come,” are defined as verbs that do NOT take objects. “Kono michi o kimashita” means “I came (by choosing) this road” “I came via this road (instead of the other roads).” In other words, coming was acted upon “this road” among other choices of routes. For whatever reason, the speaker wanted to add this nuance. When you say “sushi o tabemasu” as opposed to “sushi tabemasu,” you are implying that you have selected sushi for eating among other choices of food. In summary, “sushi tabemasu,” “sushi wa tabemasu,” and “sushi o tabemasu” are all correct and valid Japanese but they differ in nuance. All three statements can correctly be translated to “I eat sushi”; differences in nuance in English come from the manner of speaking – such as accenting, raising the voice, gesturing and facial expressions. This makes English speakers more visibly expressive. The availability of these instrumental particles in Japanese is one of the reasons why Japanese people can speak without much obvious expression, perhaps appearing “inscrutable” to foreigners who do not understand the nuances created by the precise use of particles. 16. Speaking freely vs. “the rules” By Shigekatsu Yamauchi President of ICI (the International Communication Institute) www.stepupnihongo.com www.icijapan.com Sometimes when people study foreign languages they come to believe there is only one “correct” way of saying things. As students they are constantly learning rules and being corrected, so it is easy to understand why this happens. In today’s column, I’d like to loosen you up a little, set you free, at least in a manner of speaking. I recall a chat I had with a young American woman who was sent to a local high school in Japan to be an assistant English teacher. She said she was often shown a number of similar English sentences by Japanese teachers of English and asked which sentence was correct. When she chose several, saying that all were correct but had different nuances, the teachers would push her to choose the “most correct” sentence. Understandably, she was at a loss for what to say. As a Japanese native, I think we are particularly prone to this tendency. Perhaps it is because we grew up with multiple-choice school tests; tests that always had “one correct answer.” There often seems to be a mindset, not only among teachers of English, but also among teachers of Japanese, that there is always only one correct answer. If you have already begun studying Japanese, you surely have been taught some rule, probably including the following: 1. Use arigato gozaimasu when thanking someone for a current deed, and arigato gozaimashita for past deeds. 2. Use the particle ni for places where something is located, but de for places where some activity occurs. 3. Arimasu is used for inanimate objects, while imasu is for animate objects. 4. When using time words, you generally use ni, like ichiji ni (at one o’clock), kayobi ni (on Tuesday), etc., But some time words do not take the particle ni, like mainichi (every day) and asa (morning). 5. You must use the honorific or polite form when addressing superiors (teachers, presidents, etc.) Rules of this type are unkind to learners, and can even be misleading. Let me give you my ideas regarding the above “rules.” 1. It is safer to say that arigato gozaimasu is used when you give thanks for something that is (being) done, and to use arigato gozaimashita for something that has already been done. Even so, this “rule” is still inadequate; I believe it is up to your subject judgment whether the “something” us finished or unfinished. 2. This rule is true in principle. Most other languages do not make this kind of distinction in relation to location, so foreign learners of Japanese need to make conscious efforts to correctly distinguish between these particles. However, there are situations where both particles are possible. An example is “kono biru no mae ni/de kuruma o tomemashita” (I stopped the car in front of this building). If you regard “stopping” as an action, de is more appropriate. But if your focus is on the place where the car is located upon stopping, ni is appropriate. 3. This rule is essentially accurate, but misses an important point. If you say “asoko ni kuruma ga imasu,” your Japanese teacher would tell you that you should say “asoko ni kuruma ga arimasu.” But what you have said is fine, so long as you understand that the listener would take it that in your mind cars are “alive,” which is quite nice in fact. Many Japanese children use imasu for cars, trains, etc., which charmingly reflects their world view. 4. Your kind Japanese instructor might give you a chart organizing all the time words: those which take ni; those which do not; those which can be used with or without. I would simply say that if you envisage time in your mind as having a flow, and want to indicate a certain point in that flow, then use ni. In situations where you aren’t thinking of locating a point in the flow of time, don’t use ni. Words like the current time, date, month, year, etc., are usually taken to be terms indicating a point in the flow of time, but words like asa (morning), yoru (evening, night), etc., are not. I hold, however, that this is not a matter of correct or incorrect, but a matter of how you conceptualize the word in an actual context. In my neighborhood, there is a sign which says “Yoru ni gomi o dasanai de kudasai” (Don’t put out your garbage at night). In the author’s mind, there was a notion of a flow of time like: morning – daytime – afternoon – evening – night – morning, and he/she used “yoru ni” to indicate a specific point in that flow. Keep in mind, many Japanese would not use ni here. 5. If you think you MUST use honorific or polite Japanese to your seniors, you are wrong. Of course, you don’t have to. Honorific or polite forms are used to show respect to a person. It is ultimately up to you whether or not to use the respect-displaying forms. However, keep in mind that, like all societies and cultures, there are protocols by which Japanese society operates. You are encouraged to do your best to stick close to these to function and operate optimally in Japanese society. Let me ask you a question: When you say you write letters using a PC, would you say you write letters “on” or “with” the PC? Both these prepositions are used in this situation by native English speakers. It seems a conceptual difference: If you think a PC is a substitute for paper, you write “on” the PC; but if, in your mind, PCs replace the pen, you use “with.” Once again, usage reflects your subjective mind, and is not a question of “correct” or “incorrect.” 17. Letters that produce sound By Shigekatsu Yamauchi President of ICI (the International Communication Institute) www.stepupnihongo.com www.icijapan.com Anyone who has studied the language even a little is likely to think of katakana, hiragana and kanji when they think about Japanese. In the same way, many Japanese learners of English – having started their studies by learning their ABCs – tend to equate the language with its alphabet. This tendency to equate a language with its script is almost universal. But since letters do not produce sounds themselves (they cannot “self-pronounce”) they are useless without significant prior knowledge. That prior knowledge is the sounds that they are considered to represent. So, let’s look at Japanese and English sounds at a very basic level. What are the basic differences between the sound characteristics of Japanese and English? If we think in terms of quantity, English has more sounds than Japanese. I other words, a Japanese person studying English would face more novel sounds than vice-versa. We could get into those differences in some detail. But apart from the different sounds themselves, the basic difference is that Japanese is pitch-oriented, while English is stress-oriented. English always puts an accent on one sound (syllable), whether at the word level, phrase level or sentence level. Sounds before and after the accented sound fall off dramatically. Let’s compare the common English name “McDonald,” as pronounced by English natives and Japanese speakers. Keep in mind how Japanese people pronounce it, that is, ma-ku-do-na-ru-do. In English, the accent is put on the second syllable “do.” The sounds before and after the accent “mac” and “nald” are very weak. To typical Japanese ears, only the “DO” sound is heard; the other two sounds are almost inaudible. This is because the Japanese native is not used to this type of strongly accented/unaccented sequence and also has difficulty with consonants standing on their own. Unlike English, Japanese has no accent anywhere. Each of the ma, ku, do, na, ru and do sounds is equally accented. There is, however, a pitch or tone difference (confusingly often called an “accent”). In the Kanto (Tokyo) area, the ku-do-na is uttered in a high tone. Thus, ma-ku-do-na-ru-do could be described as LHHHLL (L: low tone, H: high tone). People from Osaka would usual have a tone pattern like this: LLLHLL. Imagine how difficult it would be for you to say or even hear, “McDonald,” if when growing up you had only ever heard ma-ku-do-na-ru-do. With ears long tuned to an equal-stress system, you probably would not even perceive all the sounds – sounds which seem so very obvious to your well-trained native ears now. Since letters do not produce sound, it is next to impossible to express these traits in writing. Possibly I could attempt to show the English pronunciation as “macDOnald,” as a sort of last resort. If letter size correlated to actual stress differences I would probably require twice as big a “DO” as shown here. This stress-orientation of English is not just seen at the word level. Think of how you might say “I’m pleased to meet you,” for example. Typically, you would say: “i’m pLEAsed to MEEt you,” as it were. But there are situations when you might say: “I’m pleased to meet YOU” or “i AM pleased to meet you.” But we can say that in all possible cases you’d never put one accent after another consecutively, saying “I AM PLEASED TO MEET YOU” unless you were being really sarcastic for some reason. The Japanese equivalent, dozo yoroshiku onegaishimasu, does not have any accent, just tonal differences that can be described as: HHL LHHH LHHHHHL. But back to letters and their shortcoming: I have long thought it was a solemn truth that they can’t create sounds. However, innovation leads to changes, even, it seems, to truths. As a result of technological developments, I must now concede that letters CAN produce sound; at least, they can do so when “clicked.” This is a revolutionary change in the language learning world. Traditionally, recordings such as tapes and CDs have been used to make up for the limitations of letters. These have been powerful aids, allowing students to hear actual native pronunciation, but they have always been physically separate from written materials. Through the convergence of different media – “audio” and “paper” – letters have gained a new power. With some language learning materials it is now possible to click on the text on a computer screen and immediately hear a spoken version of it. This means we’ve come to a time when just releasing language books or audio is insufficient – language learning is no longer complete without “converged media” or multimedia. With that in mind, my company ICI has recently completed and launched an e-Learning system for studying Japanese by oneself. Surely similar projects and products exist all over the world. It is so much easier to have effective and efficient tools when you can access letters that produce sounds. The difference is more than one of degree – the convergence of media creates a difference in kind for the student: It is a revolution! A large part of language study can be done, or should be done, by oneself. This requires, however, suitable teaching materials. Recent innovations have changed the game. The age of digital multimedia allows you access to better, faster, more efficient and effective language study. 18. Why is ‘one’ so special? - The mystery of singular or plural By Shigekatsu Yamauchi President of ICI (the International Communication Institute) www.stepupnihongo.com www.icijapan.com Native English speakers may be surprised to know that you cannot precisely translate the Japanese statement “Inu ga imasu” into a single simple English sentence. This has nothing to do with any unusual properties specific to these particular words, either. To attempt to exactly translate this into English, we are stuck with saying, “There is/are (a) dog(s),” unless we have knowledge of the context which allows us to specify the number of dogs. Plurals in English seem to follow a simple rule: Add ”s” to a noun to create the plural. But this basic rule has many exceptions. When you have more than one “child” you must say “children,” instead of “childs.” Micky is a mouse, but he and Minnie are “mice,” not “mouses.” And there are a number of words that never get the ”s” regardless of number, such as fish, deer and sheep. Hence: two fish, many deer, hundreds of sheep. The “mouse-mice” combination looks regular in its own way when one sees “louse-lice,” but the singular of “rice” is not “rouse” nor the plural of “house,” “hice.” Quickly we see that this “rule” is hardly even that. And of course there are others: “tooth-teeth” and “goose-geese” but there is no “beeth” for “booth,” nor “meese” for “moose.” The difficulty with English nouns stems from all nouns either being “countable” or “uncountable.” Generally, it seems, unless specifically trained, English natives are not aware of this fact. Words like water, milk and air are uncountable － basically because they have no shape. Even Japanese people can accept this for words such as these, but when it comes to cheese, butter, bread and other solid things, the explanation stops being convincing. Japanese conceptualize these items as commonly seen in stores, where they indeed look “countable” because of packaging and presentation. Obviously these words, and the “rules” that apply, come from a time when cheese, butter, bread and the like were not packaged and presented like they are now. To make matters even worse – and from the perspective of a nonnative speaker, it is a huge mess – many nouns can be used either way. Even “cheese” can be counted if you have different “cheeses” in front of you. For example, generally “glass” is uncountable because it is a material, but six “glasses” can be on the table when the same noun is extended slightly (“glass material, shaped so as to hold liquids”). As a result of this differentiation between singular and plural, unnecessary complications, which could be eliminated with a different system, pop up all over the place. You might say that these “unnecessary complications” add clarity and precision to English. Precision, maybe, but how clear is the following? “If a party or parties raise(s) a question regarding this matter, the party or parties need(s) to take such steps as specified in the rules below.” This is exactly the problem I touched on in the first paragraph. This complication, and the accompanying linguistic gymnastics it necessitates, never arises in Japanese documents. The core of the problem is: How are nouns conceptualized? For instance, nouns that refer to intangible things (e.g. “information” and “production”) are usually uncountable, but “meeting” and “event” are treated as countable, even though they are not tangible. The subtle, hair-splitting, conceptual nuances which differentiate “countable” nouns from “uncountable” nouns are why nouns are difficult for foreigners. Simply grasping the meaning of a nouns is not generally difficult, but know how it is conceptualized is not nearly as easy. If you have had a chance to read Japanese people’s English writing or hear them speak the language, you may have noticed mistakes or strange usages of singular and plural forms for nouns, misuse of the definite and indefinite articles (“the” and “a”), and corresponding verb disagreements. This is because the distinction between singular and plural, taken for granted in English, is a novel notion to Japanese natives, who do not single out “one” for special treatment. To be more precise, Japanese is number-neutral (as are many other languages). Ever since I began studying English, I have wondered why “one” needs to be treated differently from “two or more.” “One” is just one of all the many numbers. Some languages do actually have special forms for “two,” as well as “one.” They distinguish between singular, dual and the rest. Theoretically, there could be languages that distinguish between single, double, triple and more. Happily, Japanese does not distinguish “one” from “more than one.” It treats all numbers of nouns equally. This means that Japanese nouns – since they have no notion of number – represent an abstract notion of the noun. If there is a need to quantify this notion for some reason, a unit called a “counter” or “classifier” is employed; English does this with its uncountable nouns, by the way, saying “two pints of milk,” “three sheets of glass” or “four head of cattle.” Foreign learners of Japanese often complain about having to learn different counters for different object; hon for long objects, satsu for bound materials and mai for flat items, to name a few. But this is simply because all nouns are treated equally, eliminating the “need” for the kinds of unnecessary complexities found in English. Whose complaint do you think is more justified? 19. Despite styles of speech, Japanese is gender neutral By Shigekatsu Yamauchi President of ICI (the International Communication Institute) www.stepupnihongo.com www.icijapan.com In some languages, gender is important. Gender has been even invented for things – “table” is female in Spanish, and “weekend” is male in French. Last month I discussed the number-neutral nature of Japanese, so it seems fitting to extend my discussion to gender neutrality this time. Your first response to the idea that Japanese is gender-neutral might be to say that this can’t be the case, because Japanese obviously distinguishes between male and female speech. There are certainly styles of speech which sound masculine and feminine, and you can choose, if you so wish, your style of speech according to gender, desired outcome, or, perhaps even sexual orientation. For instance, some gay Japanese choose to use feminine style intentionally, or maybe unintentionally. But these are not the “gender differences” that I want to talk about here. Speech style does stem, in part, from gender, but grammatically speaking, Japanese lacks gender distinction. I will elaborate more on the differences between speech styles in my next article; the gender neutrality I discuss here is a completely different thing. Gender differentiation is particularly obvious in European languages, and English retains aspects of this. In English you have both “he” and “she” just for third person singular, while you do not distinguish gender for third person plural (“they”). Luckily for students of English, whether “he” or “she”, the corresponding verbs and adjectives in an English sentence do not change form. In Latin-based languages, such as French and Spanish, every single noun is either feminine or masculine – as if the thing itself had a sex. Accordingly, these languages distinguish between male and female definite and indefinite articles; related adjectives and verbs must also change form depending on the noun’s gender. This is all an unnecessary hassle. There is no logic to creating or requiring a gender for all nouns; most of those words are inanimate things or concepts anyway. I was discussing neutrality in number and gender with a Spanish friend of mine, comparing Japanese with English, and she said that in Spanish, number and gender-neutral documents are an absolute nightmare. The linguistic gymnastics necessary are the height of complication. English is much better in this respect. Nevertheless, English still requires differentiating male and female when discussing people. You need to choose “he/his/him” or “she/her” when referring to individuals. Coupled with the singular-plural issue, this gender orientation results in considerable complexity from the point of view of languages that do not distinguish gender and number. For instance, when attempting to write contemporary gender-neutral English, one sees things like: “When (a) Member(s) of the Association decide(s) to oppose a resolution by the committee, he, she or they who has/have so decided, need(s) to submit his/her/their decision to the chairperson of the committee in writing.” Likewise, if Nelson were current, he might have said: “England expects everyone to do his or her duty.” I think you’ll agree this lacks the “punch” of the original. For historical and cultural reasons, apart from distinguishing between male and female, English tends to use the “male sense” to represent both sexes. “Man”, for instance, means “male” in its narrow sense, but in its broader sense, it stands for both males and females. This is what probably lead to “mankind” being changed to “humankind.” Looked at this way, it appears to me that the women’s liberation or feminist movement had to arise in European-language speaking countries, where the languages have been treating “female” as secondary to “male.” Even the word “female” looks derived from “male.” (Etymologically speaking, though, it is not: masculus and femella are the root Latin words). In Japanese, we avoid all this complexity: there is no linguistic distinction between male or female, just like there is no distinction between singular or plural. First, there is no gender for any Japanese nouns. Since there are no such things as “pronouns” in Japanese, “he” or “she” do not arise as a concern when referring to men or women. Those of you who have studied Japanese might say, about now, “What about kare and kanojo?,” words usually taught to mean “he” and “she” respectively. In my opinion these words have been pressed into use, unnaturally, to create a correspondence to English, because of the absence of corresponding Japanese words. If we look closely at the meanings, kare is used when the speaker refers to a man whom both the speaker and his/her counterpart know of; so, the real meaning is more like, “that guy we know,” “the boyfriend,” etc. Kanojo is the female version of this word, with the same implications. In most cases in Japanese, when we know whom we are talking about, we just don’t specifically mention them directly as subject or object. Recall that the whole idea of “subject” or “object” in the English sense of the word does not exist in Japanese. With a linguistic background like this, Japanese people have no mental mindset to distinguish between whether the person in question is male or female. It is for this reason that they are prone to misuse of “he” or “she”, “him” or “her”, etc., when speaking English. That they make this mistake is part proof of the gender neutrality from which they naturally look at the world: their mind is unused to making gender distinctions just so as to refer to another person. 20. The peril of feminine Japanese By Shigekatsu Yamauchi President of ICI (the International Communication Institute) www.stepupnihongo.com www.icijapan.com Those of you who have lived in Japan have probably noticed that Japanese women sometimes raise their tone of voice quite high when acting very politely. This is especially noticeable when speaking on the phone. Apart from this obvious mannerism, there is a clear style difference between men and women in spoken Japanese. During Allied Occupation, many GIs in Japan frequently associated with Japanese women from drinking places. In doing so they picked up the type of Japanese spoken by Japanese women. Despite their big bodies and sturdy demeanor, the GIs spoke girlish Japanese. This mismatch was often quite amusing to us Japanese natives. Today I’d like to give a piece of linguistic advice to those of you who tend to associate with Japanese women, so that you will not repeat the same mistake. Students of Japanese obviously spend lots of time copying the speech of their teachers, and since most teachers of Japanese are women, the men among my readership might particularly want to take note. In last month’s article, I discussed the gender neutrality of Japanese from the viewpoint of grammar. You will recall that I stressed that the neutrality is a different thing from the female and male speech style differences that are found in spoken Japanese. As long as you maintain the distal-style (i.e. the so-called desu/masu style), which maintains a respectful psychological distance between you (the speaker) and your counterpart (the listener), there is no difference in style between men and women. The difference emerges when you use a more direct and casual style, eliminating the desu/masu ending, hence, removing the distance. First, some sample sentences: 1. Moo tabeta yo. (I’ve already eaten, you see.) 2. Moo tabeta wa yo. (I’ve already eaten, you see.) 3. Kore oishii yo. (This tastes good, I tell you.) 4. Kore oishii wa yo. (This tastes good, I tell you.) 5. Sore benri da yo. (That is handy, you know.) 6. Sore benri yo. (That is handy, you know.) Of the above sentences, 1, 3 and 5 are male style, and 2, 4 and 6, female. A Japanese native would immediately feel this difference. But why? Do you see any rule? Obviously yo, found in all of these sentences, must have nothing to do with it. Its function is to indicate that the speaker thinks she/he is giving new information, like the effect created by adding “you know,” “you see” or “I tell you” to and English sentence. You probably noticed the sentence-particle wa, making (2) and (4) female. The sentence-particle wa, when uttered in a high tone, makes a statement feminine. You could restate (6) as: “Sore benri da wa yo” to create another female speech pattern. *Note: wa spoken with a low tone is used in the Kansai (Osaka and its vicinity) area by both men and women, and is virtually identical to yo as used in Kanto (Tokyo and its vicinity). Why, then, does 6 sound feminine? In order for the rule to make sense, we need to first distinguish the three types of Japanese sentences – verb, adjective and noun sentences. Each of the three has its own consistent pattern. In the previous examples, 1 and 2 are verb sentences; 3 and 4, adjectives; and 5 and 6, noun. With respect to this particular issue of male or female style, verb and adjective sentences follow the same pattern while noun sentences behave differently. A word of warning: Here I part ways with many teachers of Japanese. You may have been taught that words like “benri” are “na-adjectives” because their meaning is “adjective-like.” Here lies danger! Even though benri means “handy” or “convenient” – which just so happens to be an adjective in English – it is a noun. How do we know this? Japanese adjectives follow very strict rules－rules that benri, and words like it, do not follow. Japanese adjectives all end in ai, ii, ui or oi; but benri does not. This is because benri is a Chinese loanword and foreign words cannot possibly conform to the strict form restrictions of Japanese adjectives. Since Japanese verbs also have form restrictions, the noun class is left as the catch-all class. Now, what does this have to do with the issue of male or female speech? Well, if you end a noun sentence with the sentence-particle yo, you are using female style. Hence, “Watashi Amerikajin yo” definitely sounds feminine – native would instinctively believe the speaker to be a female. If you said “Boku Amerikajin yo” you might well be taken as gay. Let us compare the following two sentences: 7. Kore ii yo. (This is good.) 8. Kore dame yo. (This is no good.) Can you see now that 7 sounds masculine while 8 feminine? In order for you to distinguish between these two examples, you need to recognize that ii is an adjective while dame is a noun. Japanese is amazingly regular in its behavior – once you identify the part of speech, you should be OK. Whenever you learn a new Japanese word, always pause to identify which word class it is (verb, adjective or noun) – that way, you will immediately know how to handle it. For all practical purposes the so-called “na-adjectives” should be identified as “na-nouns” instead. Having said all that, however, we have to remember that language is alive, together with the people who speak it. Values and trend change as time goes by. These days we see more and more women using male speech style intentionally. Perhaps this is comparable to the increased use of four-letter words by men and women of all ages in English – in the past words used almost exclusively by men.