I tried to learn a bit of Japanese, one thing I’ll say (if it was correct hopefully) for the most part you can figure out the hiragana (? I think correct name, whichever is the syllables characters come from) from the syllables.
Knife? Kite? Yeah completely different in English depending on the word. Would be convenient to know sounds when you see a symbol. Is K a … Nigh or a ke sound. Really English is annoying glad I grew up with it, sounds awful to learn as another language. Sure there’s worse but yeah.
I think I am pretty much agreeing is all just thought I’d comment on experiences.
Hiragana isn’t perfect. 新聞 is しんぶん but the ん is pronounced more like an m (often happens before some p- and b- sounds) yet there’s no hiragana for standalone ‘m’. It also doesn’t handle devoiced vowels such as in 靴下 くつした socks.
These are predictable rules at least. ん assumes the following place of articulation, and high vowels go unvoiced at the end of words or between two unvoiced consonants.
Yeah, fair enough. It’s a lot more predictable than English, but if you don’t know the rules, kana alone would be insufficient for proper pronunciation. (Pitch accent is a whole other story.)
I tried to learn a bit of Japanese, one thing I’ll say (if it was correct hopefully) for the most part you can figure out the hiragana (? I think correct name, whichever is the syllables characters come from) from the syllables.
Knife? Kite? Yeah completely different in English depending on the word. Would be convenient to know sounds when you see a symbol. Is K a … Nigh or a ke sound. Really English is annoying glad I grew up with it, sounds awful to learn as another language. Sure there’s worse but yeah.
I think I am pretty much agreeing is all just thought I’d comment on experiences.
Hiragana isn’t perfect. 新聞 is しんぶん but the ん is pronounced more like an m (often happens before some p- and b- sounds) yet there’s no hiragana for standalone ‘m’. It also doesn’t handle devoiced vowels such as in 靴下 くつした socks.
These are predictable rules at least. ん assumes the following place of articulation, and high vowels go unvoiced at the end of words or between two unvoiced consonants.
Yep. There are rules. Just trying to make the point that the orthography on its own doesn’t 100% accurately tell one everything.
Yeah, fair enough. It’s a lot more predictable than English, but if you don’t know the rules, kana alone would be insufficient for proper pronunciation. (Pitch accent is a whole other story.)