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[kcwong]

Or like how we continue to get Chinese tattoos and lettering on on bodies and clothes despite the hilarious failures.

Yup... I can never forget this example: A quite attractive woman with the Chinese character "雞", which means chicken/hen/rooster. (Chinese don't make separate words for an animal; instead additional characters are added as modifiers)

Maybe she loves chicken, or maybe she was born in the Year of Rooster according to the Lunar Calendar.

Unfortunately for her, the Chinese character also means "prostitute" as a slang.


Matthew Fox (Dr. Jack Shepherd in Lost) is an example of getting the meaning right...
http://www.ece.neu.edu/~xzhu/lost_tatoo.html

He should have chosen a better looking font though...

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Ow. My brain, which is conditioned to accept phonetic words (latin + arabic) is now hurts.

Very.

For real. There's no way I'm ever even trying to learn Chinese. Of course it helps that I have no interest. Alphabets are what's up.

Do you have any idea how Goddamn painful it is to learn this language? I'm giving up and trying German. At least I can write German.

Well, I'm learning both.

Heh.

[Rilder]

I want to learn Arabic or Russian so I can walk around being called a Commie or Terrorist... 

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

I want to learn Arabic or Russian so I can walk around being called a Commie or Terrorist... 

Da, comrade!

Iie, nakama!

...

OK, only 2 languages yet (Not learning russian... Officially )

[Eidalac]

If you think typed Kanji are bad, try finding some hand-writing.

It's like some kind of sick linguistic joke.

And, yes, there are, IIRC, some 3,000-4,000 kanji required for literacy, plus about 2,000 that are rare or used only in names.

While I was over there, I caught a linguistic based game show.  One of the events involved being told the name of a famous person and a list of possible kanji spellings.  Another gave the contestants the kanji of a name, and they had to figure out the famous person it was.

[JoshuaFH]

That sounds crazy Eidalac, "Ok, here's someone's name spelt out, WHO IS IT?!"...

I'm sure it has some redeeming value though, if people keep using it, right?

[G-Flex]

While I was over there, I caught a linguistic based game show.  One of the events involved being told the name of a famous person and a list of possible kanji spellings.  Another gave the contestants the kanji of a name, and they had to figure out the famous person it was.

On the other hand, we English speakers have spelling bees. Contests where you have to basically guess how to spell words you're being told. This entire concept is hilarious to a Japanese speaker, since in Japanese, if you know how to say a word then you know how to "spell" it (some issues with kanji and a FEW exceptions aside).

[Eidalac]

I have to figure that if your family name is so old the -letters themselves- aren't in common use, that has to be a point of pride of some kind.  Plus you don't have to worry about your name having the same reading as "Happy Rainbow Lover Boy".

In the end though, it's a matter of tradition, which is far more important in Japan than in America. 

Plus, FYI, we were once in a shopping district (basically a few city blocks with shops and covered roads turned into walk-ways) and, in the space of 5 minutes, got to see Yakuza (mafia), business men, geisha, teens in grunge, gothic lolitas and teens in bondage gear.

That's just how they roll.


And, yeah, while learning the Kana/Kanji is tough, the grammar rules are dead simple have don't have the if/and/but situations English does.  There are, for example, only 2 irregular verbs it the whole language.

[JoshuaFH]

May I ask what those verbs are?

[G-Flex]

A lot of Japanese particles aren't written the way you'd expect them to be. Granted, these aren't really "verbs", but yeah.

From wikipedia: "Japanese particles are written in hiragana in modern Japanese, even though some of them have kanji forms. They follow the same rules of phonetical transcription as all Japanese words, with the exception of the phonetical wa, e and o, written は (ha), へ (he) and を (wo) respectively ; note that some speakers pronounce the particle wo. These exceptions are a relic of historical kana usage."

[Eidalac]

May I ask what those verbs are?

Kuru and Suru.  IIRC, they are to-die and to-be, but I may be wrong about suru.

[Twiggie]

there are 3 irregular verbs... ikimasu to go, kimasu to come and shimasu to do/play etc
thats what ive been learning for 6 years anyways...
and shinimasu is to die iirc...

also, you have the occasional verb with ~50 meanings in english

for example, agaru
to enter; to go up; to rise; to climb up; to advance; to appreciate; to be promoted; to improve; to call on; to be offered; to accrue; to be finished; to come to (expenses); to go bankrupt; to begin spinning (cocoons); to be caught; to get ruffled; to eat; to drink; to die; to weaken (as a battery); to let up (rain)

[Eidalac]

Kuru is the dictionary form of kimasu, suru is the dictionary form of shimasu.  Ikimasu is a type 1 verb, at least by my dictionaries.

I don't know why I always think one of those is to-die.

[Twiggie]

yeah i think iku is irregular in one of the weirder rarely used verb forms... could be wrong though i spose

[Eidalac]

Man, I gotta get to bed. :p

IIRC, iku is a regular verb, but it seems irregular since we, as English speakers, tend to look at it as 3 letters, rather than the 2 characters it is in Japanese.

Or something like that.  It's been a while.

*needs to study more*