on the category of the item being counted. Thus san-bon means three long cylindrical objects, while san-mai means three thin flat objects, and so on. But is this any different in principle from the collective nouns in English—a "pride" of lions as opposed to a "pod" of dolphins?
Similarly, in English we say "I'm going out to post a letter", when in fact there are almost always not two but three actions involved: going, posting the letter, and returning. Perhaps we are not that bothered about the returning bit! The Japanese, by contrast, say "I'm posting a letter and coming back," and don't seem concerned about how they get to the postbox!
As a third example, replies to negative questions are also frequently different from English. In reply to a question "Aren't you going?" English speakers (if they were not going) would normally reply "No, I'm not." A Japanese, by contrast, would usually reply "Yes, I'm not" and this is even more confusing if the answer is just "Yes." The English-speaking respondent focuses on the action, which in this case is negative, whereas the Japanese respondent focuses on the accuracy or otherwise of the question, in effect using "yes" to indicate "You are correct." Which is the more valid as a reply? Of course, both are equally valid.
FIGURE 2d: How should I answer?
In the old days Western visitors to Japan often referred to it as a "topsyturvy" land because so much of its language and culture seemed to be the opposite of what they were used to. But it works both ways; the Westerners and their ways and words seemed pretty weird to the Japanese in turn. In our present day we recognize that it's simply different ways of approaching the same thing.
There are many more examples such as this, where Japanese and English do not correspond exactly. The key thing is to keep an open mind, and to see differences as interesting challenges rather than difficult problems. The very fact that you are reading this book voluntarily (as opposed to being forced) shows that you are interested in learning Japanese, and so there is a very high probability that you are the sort of person who will respond positively to the challenge of difference.
You will probably also be able to work out your own "solutions" or "short cuts" when it comes to tricky aspects of the language. For example, you will probably have worked out for yourself that one way of avoiding a confusing response to a negative question you might be asked (such as "Aren't you going?") is to avoid saying ee/hai "yes" or ie "no" and simply give the substance (i.e. "I'm not going" or "I am going").
FIGURE 2e: Let's be pragmatic
As Japan's international profile increases, we are all becoming more familiar with Japanese culture and even with a number of Japanese words. You probably already know at least twenty Japanese words from the hundred or so that have entered English, such as samurai, geisha and karate. This helps reduce the aura of exoticism and "alienness" that underlies so many of the perceived challenges.
And the bottom line when it comes to challenges? The Japanese have shown by their technology and in many other ways that they are a very smart people, but like any group they too have their share of those who are not quite so smart. Yet they all manage, even the least bright and least motivated among them, to learn the language up to at least a functional level. (In fact, it is a basic law of linguistics that any established language must by definition be able to be adequately mastered by those who use it as a first language.) And, perhaps surprisingly, despite having one of the world's most complex scripts the Japanese also have the world's highest literacy rate, at over 98%! Of course they have more exposure to the language, but nevertheless, this reality-check goes to show that the challenge of Japanese is not insurmountable.
Let us now move on to Part Two, in which we start to look at Japanese in terms of the formation of sounds and words.
PART TWO
The Building Blocks:
Sounds into Words
In this part of the book we look in detail at the basic components of the Japanese language so that you can start to see how it is made up. We cover sounds and words, before moving on to grammar in Part Three to show you how these words are actually used in sentences. Japanese script will be introduced in Part Four.
CHAPTER THREE
Making the Right Noises
Let us begin by looking at the sounds that make up the very basis of Japanese. This is one of the relatively "easy bits" referred to in Part One.
Good pronunciation symbolizes respect for a language, and that counts for a lot in Japan as in many countries. It is therefore important to make the right sounds.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to convey correct pronunciation in a written text, certainly without resorting to technical phonetic symbols. One of the main problems is that English pronunciation can vary greatly between English-speaking nations, so that any example we gave for British readers might be very misleading for Americans, and vice versa.
We therefore strongly recommend that you take every possible opportunity to try out your spoken Japanese with native speakers, and similarly to use tapes, and listen to Japanese television programs if these are available to you.
3.1 The basic sound structure
The sound structure of Japanese is simpler than English, with fewer sounds and none of those awkward super-long syllables such as "strength" or "broached" or "sixths." In English there are also ambivalent syllables such as "clear" or "flower"—are these one syllable or two? Japanese does have a similar sort of ambivalence when it comes to certain syllables, although much of its sound system is composed of straightforward "consonant + vowel" combinations.
It is actually easier to think not so much in terms of syllables as of moras, a mora being a crisper, shorter unit of sound that can be thought of as a "beat."
Japanese has 101 basic moras (moraic sounds), these being the different sounds as set out in Tables 3a and 3b together (duplicated sounds are indicated by brackets). The consonants in 3b are "hardened" forms of some of the consonants in 3a, i.e. g being the hardened form of k, z and j hardened forms of s and sometimes t, d the hardened form of t, and p and b being semi-hardened and hardened forms of h. Learning this lay-out will help you greatly when it comes to tackling the kana writing system, which is syllabic (or more exactly, largely moraic) rather than based on individual letters as in English. We defer the actual kana symbols till Part Four.
TABLE 3a: Basic moraic sounds in Japanese
TABLE 3b: Hardened moraic sounds in Japanese
It's important to note the following:
• All the sounds in these tables are stand-alone vowels, or consonant followed by vowel—in syllabic terms, "open syllables"—with the exception of -n (called the "moraic nasal"). The latter always follows a vowel and should not be confused with the n- row. It can never be used at the onset of a syllable, so it cannot start a word.
• Apparent irregularities such as shi instead of si result from modern Romanization systems that attempt to give a more accurate pronunciation guide to Western readers. That is, the Japanese si is actually closer to shi. (In earlier times it was indeed written si, and similarly chi and tsu were written ti and
