Lance M. Hatami (michio@jps.net)
Sat, 6 Feb 1999 19:17:04 -0700
X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Macintosh; I; PPC) Message-ID: <36BCF79E.3991@jps.net> Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 19:17:04 -0700 From: "Lance M. Hatami" <michio@jps.net> Subject: Re: Iris Songs
Just had to write about this Japanese language debate since I've been
reading about it.
I'm not exactly sure what all the fuss is about in the reading of
"itoshi" since I have never taken a class about Japanese grammar (for
Terrence who attends UC Davis, like me!, I've never had a class with
Sakakibara, Uchida, Shigeyama or any of the lower division, so it's all
beyond me). The way I see this problem is that it's just one of those
things you just take, no questions asked. Kinda like things in English
that some teenager from Japan can stump you with. For example, when do
you use "made of" versus "made from." Both are pretty interchangable,
but sometimes one sounds better than the other and as a result correct
(think the Snapple logo: Made FROM the best stuff on Earth).
I must admit that Japanese is HELLA confusing and who ever created the
language in the past just made things hard on everyone learning the
language, even the Japanese. After all, how many ways do you need to
count? I was helping young Japanese children with homework and they
were even confused with reading. They weren't too sure about which
counter to use for certain items. Also, there are even famous people
who just make mistakes sometimes when not too careful (like reading
"tabi" as "do").
Just in case someone gets mad at me for saying this, some Japanese
scholars in the past (and probably still) wanted to get rid of the kanji
system since they saw it unneccessary. After all, having four writing
systems in use (yes, I count Roman letters since everyone in Japan is
taught English in schools now) is pretty tiresome. No other country I
know of has that many writing systems (even my Chinese friend
complained). When you consider the reasons why all the writing systems
were created and/or put into use (class/sex differences, communication
with China, etc) it does seem pretty weird to still have them all. And
if you only stick to classroom Japanese, katakana is pretty useless (ask
most of the students in a Japanese language classroom who have no
interest outside of the class).
> > Is it "Itoshi" or "Itoshii?" I mean is it shi+i? If it is, then it has to be
> > read "Itoshii."
"Itoshii" can be used without the "no" (Itoshii hito). With the "no,"
drop the "i," I just asked my walking dictionary, my mother. :>