日本語！This is so cool

[rynne]

私は高校の学生です。

AHAHA YES! Figured out how to type Japanese--including kanji! :D I've got an essay in Japanese due in March, but I'm not worried, as somehow I've gotten to be good at bullshitting essays in other languages. Last year for the Spanish AP I had to write an essay on "Who is responsible for a citizen's wellbeing, the government or the individual" (which was so unexpected, as my teacher said the essays are typically about family life of whatever; easier stuff, basically), and I think that essay was the only reason I passed the AP exam.

明日午前六時五分おきて学校行きます。日本語のクラスがすきです。

(Translations: I am a high school student. Tomorrow I get up at 6:05AM and go to school. I like Japanese class. It's very simple stuff, but wheee I can type it! :D)

In other news, I am not doing my statistics homework because I'm doing something wrong and I don't know what the hell it is. I asked some of my friends in Japanese, as I figured hey, they're in college, maybe they've already taken stats and know how to properly do a test of significance, only nooooo, they're taking stats themselves and are further behind than I am. *sigh* I hate math.

And for something much happier...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, violet_quill! :D:D

How does one do the sparkly font again...?

Comments

[losselen.livejournal.com]

The Japanese keyboard has it easy. You should try typing Chinese. Really, sometimes I forget how to spell something and type it in up Japanese and pretend it's Chinese. (And then my father complains that the word is translated weirdly. I tell him to blame the computer.)

[raesa.livejournal.com]

My friend taught me how to type in Japanese. Unfortunately, that was on his compy, and mine currently doesn't have the capacity for lovely kanji and wotnot. *shakes fist at stupid machine*

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

I'm *terrified* of the French AP. On our midterm exam, a relatively simple thing, i took three and a half hours because writing in another language is like pulling teeth for me. Rar.

I'd help with Stat but i'm taking calc instead, sowwy.

[happyreaper.livejournal.com]

I can understand a bunch of words in the second sentence. This is because some of the words are written exactly the same as how they are normally spelled in Simplified Chinese, or come pretty close. But then out of the blue comes these curlier things...and they really don't mesh together, I find it very odd. =P Like two different languages mixed, which I suppose it sort of is, in a way.

[violet_quill]

Thank you! *hugs* Don't worry, it's sparkly in my imagination. *g*

[rynne.livejournal.com]

:D *sends you sparkly thoughts*

Btw, weren't you going to send me that website I can get those consent forms from?

[rynne.livejournal.com]

Well, I just have a regular keyboard--it's a program for MSWord that I've got now that lets me type in Japanese. I think it has Chinese as well...

[rynne.livejournal.com]

If you've got at least a Windows 98 (and your installation disc), you can upload the software for East Asian languages onto Microsoft Office. I can send you the instructions, if you like.

[rynne.livejournal.com]

...The AP tests are only like three hours long, if not less. But it's really not that hard--just pray you get an easy essay topic (unlike mine :p). I just think that my essay was the reason I passed the Spanish AP because I'm so much better at written communication than oral, in my native language or in others.

[rynne.livejournal.com]

:p The curlier things are hiragana, and the less curlier things (the クラス) are katakana. The others are what Japanese call kanji, which is basically the Chinese characters (Simplified Chinese? There's another form?), as I guess they're more expressive than hiragana? I don't know. The Japanese use them a lot, but there's so many to memorize...

[raesa.livejournal.com]

I've got XP, I just don't have the software. I already loaded on all sorts of French, but for some reason I forgot to get the Japanese.

[raesa.livejournal.com]

Kanji are Chinese characters. Occasionally, the style in which they are written is changed slightly, but they're basically the same as their Chinese origins. Thought you might like to know. :D

[happyreaper.livejournal.com]

Simplified Chinese (I think they use this in Beijing now) is a simpler (well. obviously :P) way of writing Traditional Chinese characters (used in Taiwan for sure), because traditional is a bit...extra. Too many strokes.

I was never quite sure about the Japanese thing, I always thought they had 3 writing systems, much like Chinese (and many other languages) have splintered into a lot of dialects. You mean hiragana, katakana and kanji aren't different forms, but instead just different types of characters used together all the time? So one word wouldn't have 3 different ways of writing it, but just 1?

[losselen.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I was talking about the way they are typed by the romamnized alphabet.

[happyreaper.livejournal.com]

Oh wait, I was wrong. They are spelled exactly the way they are in Traditional Chinese. It's just that many words in Simplified and Traditional are written thes same way. I initially didn't take too close a look at the 時 and 語, see.

[exsequar.livejournal.com]

I know they're three hours, but our midterm was basically two thirds of an AP exam (same type of questions and everything) and yet it still took me that long. I'm screwed for the AP if that happens again -_- And I think the essay topics are about a specific literary work required on the AP syllabus... at least I'm pretty sure it is. Bah. So scared.

[rynne.livejournal.com]

It's not that hard. All you do is go to the control panel and click on regional and language options, then go to the languages tab and check "install files for East Asian Languages". Or you can get there from the Microsoft website (microsoft.com)--search for Global IME Japanese font, go to related link: "Download the Japanese Global IME or Office XP", and follow the instructions from there.

[rynne.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know kanji are Chinese characters. The Japanese have just adopted them for themselves and renamed them kanji. :)

[rynne.livejournal.com]

Well, katakana is used exclusively for foreign words and names--the katakana I used, クラス, is ku-ra-su, which means class (and sounds sorta like if if you say it quickly).

Hiragana is for Japanese words, meaning words that were already in the language before foreign languages started becoming so prominent in Japan (like English).

The kanji are used in place of hiragana, sometimes because they're simpler, 一is simpler than いち, for instance. Other times it's used because it has more shades of meaning, I think. I'm not sure. Kanji confuses me. :p

But yes, one can use hiragana, katakana, and kanji all together (as I did in my post). It's all Japanese--even the parts that are Chinese. :p

[happyreaper.livejournal.com]

Thanks for explaining!