Proper spelling - is it that important?

Originally Posted by ramoth

I think I've said my peace in this thread but I noticed this:

At the risk of missing obvious irony, do you mean "piece"?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Ridan Krad

I disagree. The way you remember spelling is by taking note of patterns where they exist while being mindful of exceptions. Similarly, the way to develop proficiency in kanji is to learn radicals that form kanji and the patterns that develop in their usage. 金 illustrates this point well, I think, as it's used in a lot of various metals, over and over again.

I thought spelling is by knowing what letters make what sounds. From what I understand, while radicals may provide some indication as to meaning (and even then I'm sure there are some completely obscure etymologies), they often have no bearing whatsoever on pronunciation.

In English, if you know how a word sounds, you can usually figure out its spelling, or something reasonable close (I'd actually support spelling reform for the purposes of creating a 1-to-1 phonetic mapping). If one were to give you the pronunciation (or even meaning) of a Japanese word, would you be able to reconstruct the appropriate radicals purely from that?

Also, weeaboos.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Scarletdeath

Says the guy that listens to animu music.

:iceburn:

By the way, I don't remember the last time I've listened to an anime track (not including bad YouTube music videos).

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How does knowing the language make someone a weaboo.

If you're not Japanese, then knowing Japanese is usually a good sign that you're a weeaboo. If you are Japanese, then...well, fine, you've got me there.

Also if you're trying to tell me I misspelled "weeaboo," then that's a) kinda sad, and b) kinda wrong - see definition 2.

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Don't be jealous now.

I'll try my best, Sucaroletodesu-sama-kun-san~~~

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Ridan Krad

生 (sei) which is used as a radical in the kanji 性 (sei). Knowing the first kanji, you can guess the pronunciation of the second, more complicated one. This principle doesn't always apply, but it sometimes does and can serve as a mnemonic device as kanji became more complex.

Citing an exception that "sometimes" applies does nothing to support your argument that the radical system is anything akin to spelling. Do even 40% of kanji follow the convention you just described?

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There, their, they're
Too, two, to

Without context, how would you know which one to choose? I guess if you define "reasonably close" as picking one of the options, then sure; you're all set.

Again you're using exceptions to support a weak argument.

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But despite what the guy in the article says, I think to be taken seriously, knowing the correct spelling is important. Also, let's not forget about "silent" letters in English words. There's nothing intuitive about them, and sometimes certain letter combinations that are frequently used (-tion) would most certainly be spelled entirely different if the sound was isolated (shun).

Sure they may not be intuitive, but there are still conventions that make it possible for someone with no knowledge of context or meaning to reconstruct the correct spelling. I don't see that being remotely true for the radical system. Honestly I don't see why you're so intent on pushing this point when Japanese has actual spelling system in the form of kana.

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Also, I don't know if 1-to-1 mapping would actually necessarily be a good thing. Although many people have trouble using the above examples correctly, there are distinct meanings for each word and different spelling helps make this more clear.

Fair enough. It actually might be in our best interests to eliminate homophones as well, but then where would all our wacky puns go...

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Regarding your question, I don't think that's a fair comparison. In English, when you're guessing spelling, you already have a large vocabulary and have been drilled on spelling all through grade school (although if the article is anything to go on, some people would say that's a waste of time). You pick the correct spelling based on a combination of context, vocabulary, and general rules of spelling. In Japanese, you get drilled on kanji instead of spelling. But just as English has patterns of spelling that can aid in memorization, Japanese has its radicals.

Not a fair comparison? You're the one who made it. :/ The purpose of spelling isn't to serve as a mnemonic to aid memorization...it's so you *don't* have to come up with mnemonics that sometimes work in order memorize thousands upon thousands of unique squiggle configurations. The fact that the English language in particular is often not conducive to this purpose at all is another matter entirely, but again, in general as long as you know what a word sounds like, you can spell it with a knowledge of basic conventions, which is not true of radicals.

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I don't understand. Are you saying that you're against learning foreign languages, or that you're just against learning Japanese as a foreign language?

I always understood weeaboo to mean someone who thinks you can learn Japanese from just watching anime all day.

First, I didn't say anything against learning Japanese, I merely suggested that it's a fairly accurate otaku-dar because the motivation more often than not stems from anime and/or video games. This has been supported by my general experience on both the Internet (just for fun, see how many Japanese threads there are on this forum for every thread about a different language) and real life (my sister is an "East Asian Languages and Cultures" major - read: huge weeaboo ). And unfortunately, you and Scarletdeath's little discussion didn't do much in the way of disproving that impression, you have to admit.

Second, are you guys really taking a word like "weeaboo" seriously? (Why you gotta make me cry, Bigblah? ;_; )

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Bigblah

"Weeaboo" doesn't really bother me (I'm Asian, I live in Asia, I can damn well enjoy Asian entertainment without having to feel guilty about it), but still, considering that we can enjoy Disney movies, American cartoons and pop music without getting called names, you have to wonder why Westerners are derided for enjoying anime and J-pop/K-pop/whatever-pop.

If Japanese America-philes are even half as annoying as the majority of their Western counterparts, then maybe they should get called names.

Originally Posted by Ridan Krad

Try 4%.
Granted, the system isn't perfect, and this only helps with guessing the on-yomi (Chinese reading) of the kanji, but I have heard that after learning a certain number of kanji, it does become possible to guess at meanings and pronunciation.

Keyword being "guess." Your point would be much stronger if each radical had a standard pronunciation and 90% of pronunciations could be determined from the combination of radicals or vice versa, but even in the original Chinese this is simply not the case.

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As for English, it's easy for you to dismiss examples I give as "exceptions," but if spelling is so intuitive, why do we have spelling tests? Why does most people's spelling suck? Why was this article written?
Someone who only has studied the alphabet and learned about what vowels and consonants are isn't going to have good spelling. Even with a decent "speaking" vocabulary, in writing, it would not be unexpected to see a child misspell words, substituting in what they feel are more intuitive spellings. An educated adult will certainly do better, because they will have gotten lots of reading practice, and will be used to English conventions. For instance, if you ask a child to spell the word "phonetically," it probably won't go so well, because they aren't used to the Ph- F sound, and even if they are, may not recognize that this is a root word being used in this longer construction.

I'll be the first to say that English is a very hard language to learn because of all the exceptions. However, there are conventions, and if you learn them you will be able to spell the majority of words correctly without looking up a dictionary. The reason spelling tests and articles like this exist is that people don't bother learning these conventions.

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All I'm saying is being able to break down words into subcomponents is really useful for spelling correctly in English, and likewise being able to break down words and kanji in Japanese into subcomponents is also useful.

That may have been what you meant, but you ended up basically saying that spelling is a different form of the radical system, which it isn't, especially for languages that are more internally consistent than English.

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I was talking about being able to guess meaning/pronunciation when seeing a new word in print. You're talking about hearing a word and then putting it to print yourself.

I'm also saying that if you know English well enough, you don't *have* to guess as to pronunciation. I don't know how it is in Japanese, but if you're given a new Chinese character, no matter how well you know the language, that's the best you can do...guess. The radical for "wood" is pronounced mu. The word for "woods" (made of two "wood" radicals) is pronounced lin. While the meaning is intuitive, the pronunciation is completely unrelated.

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Incidentally, since you make Japanese sound so completely unintuitive, "thousands upon thousands of unique squiggle configurations," why is Japan's literacy rate so high? Human Development Report 2007/2008 - Adult literacy rate (% aged 15 and older)

I would attribute that more to culture and education. A spelling system that's actually phonetic also helps, I'd imagine.

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But then, it doesn't seem like you really meant it seriously, so nevermind.

Man I just gained like 10 backpedal levels.

Originally Posted by Scarletdeath

And what. We didn't mention anything about animu or obsession on Japan, just a discussion on the language that we learnt mutually. You already admit on being a weaboo yourself, just don't drag us down to your level.

That's assuming you're not already there OSNAP.

Originally Posted by Kairi Li

whatever that stupid word is derived from...

Wow long post is long.

Edit:
Haha I just noticed this.

Originally Posted by Scarletdeath

Dhsweeaboo

Too great for words. This just got freakin' REAL.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Scarletdeath

What, because you saw my "ANIMU" journal entry? I don't even watch animu. Seeing how I'm doing a design and animation (nothing to do with J-anime for that matter) course, good art is VERY relevant to me. So again, don't drag others down to your level. x10


You know it's true

Hahaha, wow, seeing as you have clearly missed it to this point, I'll let you in on a little secret...

Your only makes my penis harder.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?