What I Learned Today

Argus

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I started to post this in the Japanese Culture section, as it pertains to the language, but I thought it might be an interesting read for everyone regardless.

I was enlightened today.

I've been speaking Japanese for about 8 years now, and though my knowledge is definitely a bit spotty, I speak, read, and write fairly well at this point. But, it appears that there's always little things that slip through the cracks, only to be caught years down the road.

Today, I was in the grocery store with a few of my Chinese friends, and we came across watermelons.

To my amusement, they called them "xigua" in Mandarin, which, though it may not look so in writing thanks to the abomination that is pinyin, sounds like "suika," which is the Japanese word.

So, I thought "Cool, I'll impress them with my knowledge of kanji!," and proceeded to draw the characters 水瓜 (water, melon). I'm confident I know this one. After all, it's one of the first nouns I ever learned, and I know that 水's on'yomi is sui, and 瓜 is 'ka' from 'kabocha', so it's only logical that these characters are used to write "watermelon," right?

But, to my surprise, they stop me and tell me that it is written "west melon." What? That doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't that be seika or something in Japanese? It must be written differently in Chinese.

So, when we get home, I look it up. And low and behold, my IME converts すいか to 西瓜, and everything I thought I knew about this simple word for the last 8 years turns out to have been a mistake!

Of course, this word is not usually written in Kanji in Japanese, which is likely why I never saw the correct characters. But it's quite interesting that, regardless, I was under the impression that I had surely seen it written that way before, and that surely I knew such a simple and obvious word.

So, the moral of the story? Never assume you know anything you think you do, I guess! :D

It's quite easy for things to "slip through the cracks." Basics that we all thought that we surely know and understand, but, in reality, often overlook. And often, by cross referencing, asking questions, and getting the perspective of other knowledgeable people, and most importantly, staying humble, these cracks that we never even realized were there can be illuminated.

Or, you know, something like that! As always, I only think I know what I'm talking about :D
 

tshadowchaser

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that's the nice thing about learning new languages there is always something to learn
 

donald1

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At least it was legible :D

When I try write in kanji it looks poorly written and can't be read...
 

Xue Sheng

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Beijing Mandarin 西瓜 (Xīguā) sounds like SeeGua, but looking at the Pinyin and knowing how Beijingren pronounce stuff I would have expected SrrGua :D
 
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Argus

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that's the nice thing about learning new languages there is always something to learn

Yep. Just as in Martial Arts. To be honest, I see learning a language exactly the same way as I see learning a martial art.


At least it was legible :D

When I try write in kanji it looks poorly written and can't be read...

Haha. Well, my hand writing is just as bad in English as it is in Japanese. But, if you learn proper stroke order, your characters will be legible even if they're not pretty.


Beijing Mandarin 西瓜 (Xīguā) sounds like SeeGua, but looking at the Pinyin and knowing how Beijingren pronounce stuff I would have expected SrrGua :D

It sounded like "suiga/suigua" to me, if I were to put it into Japanese romanization, so I was able to make the connection.

But yeah, they're from the North, so they do add r's everywhere :D

What really gets me are the vowels, though. They're almost as bad (inconsistent) as English, and tend to have a "laziness" about them that I can only relate to a deep Southern U.S. accent.
 

Xue Sheng

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It sounded like "suiga" to me, if I were to put it into Japanese romanization.

But yeah, they're from the North, so they do add r's everywhere :D

What really gets me are the vowels, though. They're almost as bad (inconsistent) as English, and tend to have a "laziness" about them that I can only relate to a deep Southern U.S. accent.

Depending on what part of the North the accent changes. A friend of mine is from Heilongjiang and I have family in Beijing. The martial art Sanda is pronounced Sanda in Beijing Mandarin. But Sanda in Mandarin from people from Heilongjiang is Shanda.

Laziness may be a good way of putting it. My Mandarin (what little of it I know) got much better after watching Beijingren speak. They hardly open their mouth or move their lips to speak. I was trying to talk like I do in the USA and I was over annunciating everything. Basically speak like your going to mumble and you got Beijing Mandarin down :D
 

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