Rosetta Stone Questions

[Sqwunk]

This sounds are very similar to Spanish, we use the same sound and cut them exactly like them.

german also. Pretty confusing at first when you have to learn that E sounds like long A. and I sounds like long E.

[kuronosan]

Anyone have a clean torrent with all 3 versions for Japanese?

I've been trying to teach myself with hopes of going to visit there someday. I figured I'd start with the 2 alphabets then move on to nouns and grammar. These websites have been pretty helpful to me so far:


Hirigana with sounds: : : Access Japanese : HIRAGANA CHART
Online quiz: Japanische Hiragana und Katakana online lernen und ben mit KanaTeacher

I found one that seems to have every language. I dunno if it has Japanese.

Rosetta Stone Lang System Ultimate Disk v2 (download torrent) - TPB

[Izzy]

While we're on the language thing...I can't find any Cantonese language software anywhere. Rosetta Stone only offers Mandarin. Does anyone know of any Cantonese learning tools?

[Resin]

I also agree with the pronunciation of Spanish and Japanese being nearly the same. Somehow Spanish does include both "L"s and "R"s, though.

[SephYuyX]

Japanese are efficient and just use L's and R's together!

[Resin]

So, I've been wondering...It definitely sounds like they have words that make an "R" sound. Does that mean the "L" sound just doesn't exist phonetically?

[Ksandra]

So, I've been wondering...It definitely sounds like they have words that make an "R" sound. Does that mean the "L" sound just doesn't exist phonetically?

they technically only have an "r" sound but when you make it, it's like inbetween a "L"/"R" sound. Best way I can describe is when we make an L we press the tip of our tongues to the back of our teeth. They make the sound by pressing the tip of the tongue further back, on the roof of their mouths. (god only knows what the technical part is, it's the flat part behind your teeth before it curves up to make your roof). Someone can probably explain that better...

[SephYuyX]

Go to : : Access Japanese : HIRAGANA CHART and click on the R row (1st full row from the bottom). Thats how they sound.
When using Katakana (taking non Japanese words in to Japanese), the R row is used for both foreign R and L sounds.

[Resin]

Interesting. Only the Ri and Ru have an "R" sound. The other three definitely sound like "L"s. I know I've definitely heard Ra have an "R" sound, like a sakura, but it's not in that Hiragana chart.

[SephYuyX]

All the R's have a mix of L and R, Ri and Ru have them too, just that the R sound is more voiced. It also highly depends on the person saying it. All R's are supposed to have the L/R mix, even sakura, but chances are if it's coming from a non Japanese speaking person, that L/R mix wont be there, and a lot of the words make it hard to make the L/R sound too.

It's kind of the like that in Spanish when they roll their R's, unless your native or trying really hard, it wont come out very easily. And some words make it easier than others.

[Darus Grey]

So, I've been wondering...It definitely sounds like they have words that make an "R" sound. Does that mean the "L" sound just doesn't exist phonetically?

*phonologically

[r] and [l] are actually the same sound, there's many sounds like this (ex: [g] and [d])

These are called allophones(in the case of [r] and [l] allophones of the same phoneme).

Where a single physical sound is realized in two different ways. The way it's realized in human hearing is the letter preceding or following the allophone shapes the way we perceive it as either [r] or [l].

To summarize the answer to your question is no.

Edit: It's weird to see people discuss linguistic problems without actually knowing any of the termanology of what they're trying to say =/ Some of these explainations are semantically defunct ;0

[SephYuyX]

Big words are not my friend.

[Maaglin]

they technically only have an "r" sound but when you make it, it's like inbetween a "L"/"R" sound. Best way I can describe is when we make an L we press the tip of our tongues to the back of our teeth. They make the sound by pressing the tip of the tongue further back, on the roof of their mouths. (god only knows what the technical part is, it's the flat part behind your teeth before it curves up to make your roof). Someone can probably explain that better...

This is by far the hardest sound for me to get correct in class. When I have time to think about it I can do it, but when I'm using these sounds in sentences I usually fuck them up pretty good. My teacher claims I have too much American accent. Go figure.

[Maaglin]

*phonologically

[r] and [l] are actually the same sound, there's many sounds like this (ex: [g] and [d])

These are called allophones(in the case of [r] and [l] allophones of the same phoneme).

Where a single physical sound is realized in two different ways. The way it's realized in human hearing is the letter preceding or following the allophone shapes the way we perceive it as either [r] or [l].

To summarize the answer to your question is no.

Edit: It's weird to see people discuss linguistic problems without actually knowing any of the termanology of what they're trying to say =/ Some of these explainations are semantically defunct ;0

Face it, you're in the minority here. This is how most people talk about language.

I mean, I could go into a thread about how to change a light bulb and go off about electrical engineering, but it really doesn't help the people asking the question much now does it?

[Darus Grey]

Face it, you're in the minority here. This is how most people talk about language.

I mean, I could go into a thread about how to change a light bulb and go off about electrical engineering, but it really doesn't help the people asking the question much now does it?

You contradicted your own (bad)analogy. My comments are clear and give accurate information that ultimately simplifies the question/answer. Explaining how electricity works does nothing to help you install a light-bulb, knowing what a phoneme, allophone, morpheme, parts of speech, etc etc is, certainly simplifies a conversation about them.

By your own (horrible)analogy we'd be discussing the electricity(the fundamentals of how the process works), and not the light-bulb.

Not like I'm even insulting anyone for not knowing these things, just as an observer it's obvious people were struggling to explain what they were thinking, and since this is my area of expertise I posted.

[netz]

Face it, you're in the minority here. This is how most people talk about language.

I mean, I could go into a thread about how to change a light bulb and go off about electrical engineering, but it really doesn't help the people asking the question much now does it?

You'd only have to go all electrical engineering on people if they made critical errors in usage of basic concepts taught in circuit analysis or physics in this discussion of changing a light bulb.

Sure, you could go ahead and let them continue to be ignorant, but that doesn't make them any less wrong. It can't hurt to learn the correct words to describe what you mean to say; it's why the words exist in the first place, after all...

[Resin]

I found it interesting, at least. Linguistics are interesting to me, so I appreciate the explanation.