I am new to learning Japanese, so I am not afraid of ignorance. I often write some thoughts on Japanese here. I am grateful for the advice from netizens who understand Japanese. I am very grateful. Although it is said to be a "beginner", it has been more than a year. Mr. Liang Qichao believes that as long as the Chinese use the right method, "those who learn Japanese can achieve a small success in a few days and a great success in a few months." Although I am not a "wise person", I have never classified myself as a "rude person". However, I have been learning Japanese for six or two months. Why can't I still enjoy the pleasure of "rolling a roll in my hand and savoring it" And pleasure? If it's not that I'm as stupid as I am wise, I think it must be because of improper learning methods.
So what is the right way to learn Japanese? In the book "Japanese Grammar" published by Shanghai Commercial Publishing House in 1933, he wrote: "We should not regard Japanese language as a foreign language, but as a kind of Chinese language, that is, Chinese language mixed with Japanese vernacular. . Our country’s writings are often mixed with folk languages. This is also seen in Sanskrit in Buddhist scriptures and Mongolian in Yuan history. If you read the text, you will not understand the folk customs. The meaning of the language is also difficult to understand, but we do not regard it as the national language because it is mixed with folk words. Japan uses Chinese and is a country with the same language as me; but the Chinese language is mixed with kana to record its folk words. If we study it a little, understand its kana, and master its grammar, it will be easier than reading Buddhist books and local history. "The main meaning of this passage is that we should regard Japanese as Chinese. It is a dialect of writing, and with a little study it is easier to read Japanese than Buddhist classics and ancient Chinese classics. For example, the word "I" is expressed in Japanese with the Chinese character "private". In various Chinese dialects, there are different ways of saying "人", "Zan", "E", "Ou", "Ala", etc. We can selfishly treat Japanese as a Chinese dialect.
Although this is said, there are two specific problems that need to be solved if you really want to learn Japanese well. First, we must face the deception and interference of unfaithful “faux friends” (I borrow the literal translation of the French word faux amis, “faux amis” refers to a French word with the same spelling as in English but a different meaning). After all, the Chinese characters in Japanese are all borrowed from China. Even if they are the same as Manjusri in the modern sense, it is still possible to find some clues in ancient Chinese books by tracing their origins. For example, in order to explain the word "reluctantly" in Japanese, the Qing people searched for the sentence "perhaps do it safely, or do it profitably, or do it reluctantly, and succeed" in "The Doctrine of the Mean", and determined that "reluctantly" means "reluctantly". "To work hard" and "to encourage learning", therefore it means "learning". Another example is "face white" in Japanese. In modern Chinese, it is used to describe the complexion of a beautiful woman after applying makeup, but in Japanese it means "interesting". In the late Qing Dynasty, a scholar named Dan Tao searched his guts and found such a "basis" for "white face" in Tang poetry: "Whose white-faced man is about to come?" This poem is originally a line from Du Fu's "Youth Journey" ("Someone's white-faced man is about to get off his horse and sit on a bed in front of the street. I don't know his name, he is very rich, he points to the silver bottle and asks for wine to taste."), not only is the original text "白面", it is different from the Japanese The word order of "white face" in the novel is different, and we can't see how "interesting" the white-faced boy in Du Fu's works is. One of the favorite things that scholars in the late Qing Dynasty liked to do was to find a basis for Japanese Chinese characters. The purpose was to make "people from the Eastern Capital read it and think about the roots of water and trees; students from China will not be shocked by foreign characters when they read it" ( Dan Tao's "Japanese Ancient Micro"). If there was no basis for a word, Chinese literati at that time would be quite depressed and would often give helpless explanations: "I don't know where the meaning is" or "the specific meaning is different." In fact, if we use the far-fetched method, I think any Japanese Chinese character word can be explained, as long as it is convenient for us "Chinese-earth students" to remember. For example, the Japanese word "toilet paper" means "letter" in Chinese. If we are looking for a basis, we can think of it this way: Chinese call a handwritten letter "handwritten", but when the Japanese borrowed the word, they did not understand the exact meaning of "handwritten" and confused "book" with "paper". So "handwriting", which has a specific meaning in Chinese, evolved into "toilet paper" which is generally referred to in Japanese. Since letters have become "toilet paper", "hand" can be used as a symbol of "letter", so "cut hand" in Japanese means "stamp" in Chinese. There is also a strange Chinese word "blame me" in Japanese. Please use your brain to guess what it means. To facilitate memory, we can imagine a scene like this: When a Japanese went to China for a study tour, he saw two Chinese people accidentally bumping into each other while walking, and one of them was unfortunately injured. After the accident, the two people were still polite. One said: "Blame me, blame me", and the other also said "Blame me, blame me". Seeing this situation, the Japanese next to him connected "hurt" with "blame me", so today "blame me" in Japanese means "hurt" in Chinese.
So, "false friends" in Japanese vocabulary are not a big problem for Chinese people. What is more important to learn Japanese well is to "straighten out" Japanese grammar so that it can be easily understood by Chinese people. Of course, linguistically speaking, the language family of Japanese is still controversial. Some people think it belongs to the Altaic language family, while others think it belongs to a separate Japanese language family, but no one thinks that Japanese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family.
Therefore, my attempt to figure out the relationship between Japanese grammar and Chinese here is purely pragmatic and has no basis in linguistics. It is just to facilitate my own understanding of Japanese and to "read it with gusto" as soon as possible. According to my understanding, the Japanese speak slowly and leisurely, with foreplay, process, and finally climax, Ding is Ding, Mao is Mao, unlike us Chinese who speak crisply. No matter what the Japanese say, they first explain the overall background without panic, what exactly they are talking about, who or where they are related to, and then talk about the specific work. For example, the Chinese sentence "I want to go to Japan" has 5 syllables in one sentence and can be completed in one breath. If translated into Japanese, it would first enter the foreplay: "Just talk about me"; then explain the destination: "Where in Japan"; and finally the climax of the action: "Walking and doing what I want to do" ("private Japanese へ行きたいです") , 13 syllables (Watashi wa Nihong e Iki Taidesu), which is much more verbose than Chinese. Although it is wordy, we Chinese are not unfamiliar with it, especially friends who have watched classic movies such as "Tunnel Warfare", "Mine Warfare", and "Plain Guerrillas" are all familiar with this "Japanese Grammar".
When I was studying and learning English many years ago, the teacher always said that in order to learn well, we must first correct the "learning purpose", but what exactly is this "learning purpose"? I am reminded of the "Taiwan Zhongxin Senior School of Business Administration" founded by Mr. Gao Zhendong in Taiwan. The first page of the English textbook for the class studying in the United States has this sentence printed on it: "Learning English for the Chinese is our national humiliation, and learning English is the most tragic thing for China." But we have to learn because others have surpassed us. Today we must learn their science before we can surpass them! We must learn English well, so the purpose of learning English is not ours! It’s not just to wash dishes and wash toilets in the United States, to serve foreigners, and to do things that would disgrace our ancestors for eight generations!” When it comes to learning Japanese, you must not only correct the purpose of learning, but also correct the attitude towards learning. Specifically, what should you do? Should Japanese be regarded as a foreign language or a dialect? This is a key issue whether we Chinese can learn Japanese well. If you think Japanese is a foreign language, first of all, you will lose momentum for a while. The three big mountains of memorizing words, learning grammar, and taking grades will be overwhelming, and it will be difficult to turn around. If we regard Japanese as a dialect of Chinese, we will have a psychological advantage. "Japanese characters account for seventy-eight out of ten, and their special kana do not use Chinese characters, but context words and particles, etc." (Liang Qichao's words), plus "guizi" "Grammar", what's so difficult about Japanese!
Finally, let us use the example sentence "I am learning Japanese" I gave at the beginning of this article to review it. If you want to say "I'm learning Japanese", don't be in a hurry. First enter the foreplay slowly: "Just talk about me"; then clarify the object: "Japanese people"; and finally the climax of the action: "the work of learning" - " Private 日本语を reluctantly しています”.
The article is quoted from: