Asian alphabets?

[Bob]

Any good place to learn those online?

Chinese, Japanese....

If it's possible.  I know they don't translate like 1=A.  More like shapes I heard.

Is there anything online that shows enough how to get a basic gist of a block of text?

[Bob]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_alphabet

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_alphabet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin

[iansinclair]

As you can see from those Wikipedia references, Chinese, Japanese -- and Korean -- do not use an alphabet in the Western sense of the word at all (well, Pinyin is a sort of alphabet arrangement for Mandarin Chinese, but it really shouldn't be confused with a Western alphabet -- it's more like a phonetic alphabet).

The symbols in those languages are pictographs or greater or lesser complexity, and they may -- or may not! -- convey a meaning related to the components of the pictograph.

So... there is no simple way to take a document in one of those languages into a Western alphabet;  one has to use a phonetic or quasi-phonetic transliteration, and even that may not work awfully well as the languages also convey meaning by variations in pitch within a word with the same sounds -- Mandarin Chinese particularly.

It's not simple.  And even if you do get a decent translation, the underlying cultural references and assumptions are sufficiently different that the classic comment "I know you think you heard what I said, but what you heard is not what I meant" holds true with great emphasis!

[Bob]

I suppose I'm wondering...
How to connect the sounds with the symbols
And the sound and symbol to the English meaning, but that would be a long way off.

Just sound to symbol for now.  Roughly I suppose too.  They sounds different based on context.

I thought there would be more of a response.  I know there are many Asian people on here.  I might be like asking an English speaker for English learning resources though.

[Bob]

Interesting.

JapanesePod101.com·

I was looking at the Russian pod series.  I didn't realize they had other languages...

[theholygideons]

Most Asian languages don't use an alphabet, E.g. chinese, japanese, traditional korean. They use characters which are basically pictorial representations of words. Each character has the phonological equivalence of a syllable, and a character can have multiple meanings, just like a word in English does as well. Anything to do with an alphabet, e.g. pin yin, is basically a western influence, to help people decipher the tones better.

If you were to learn say chinese, first you would need to learn the pronunciations of all the possible syllables (or sound bytes), and then link them to their corresponding pictorial characters, and then link the characters to their semantic meaning. Twice as hard as english in my opinion, since knowing the sound will not enable you to write the write the characters, i.e. words. 

There are such things similar to suffixes and prefixes when it comes to drawing the characters, where certain combinations of strokes form radicals, e.g. 3 dots draw vertically downward suggests something to do with water.

This is a list of all the syllables in chinese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuyin_table

the best way is to just buy yourself a language textbook I guess..

[faulty_damper]

Korean is different from Chinese.  With Korean characters, you can figure out how it sounds just by looking at it.  Japanese Hiragana/Katakana is phonetic as well but the Chinese characters, Kanji, are not.

[j_menz]

With Korean characters, you can figure out how it sounds just by looking at it.  

True of Hangeul, not of Hanja.

[theholygideons]

Korean is different from Chinese.  With Korean characters, you can figure out how it sounds just by looking at it.  Japanese Hiragana/Katakana is phonetic as well but the Chinese characters, Kanji, are not.

It just goes to show how languages are overtaken by those which use the more efficient alphabet.
However, memory intensive writing systems, like Chinese characters, do have their merits though, like in pattern recognition, which may have an influence on why Asians are so good at maths, although i'm just hypothesising...

[faulty_damper]

To say that Asians are good at math is to also imply that they are good at karate and kung fu.

Hai... YAH!

In actuality, the main difference between Asian instruction and Western ones is that Asian instruction focuses on student performance, not the talking head in Western ones.  As a result, Asian students spent more time practicing math while Western students are happy to complete their assignments regardless of whether or not they could actually understand the assignments.

[theholygideons]

To say that Asians are good at math is to also imply that they are good at karate and kung fu.

Hai... YAH!

In actuality, the main difference between Asian instruction and Western ones is that Asian instruction focuses on student performance, not the talking head in Western ones.  As a result, Asian students spent more time practicing math while Western students are happy to complete their assignments regardless of whether or not they could actually understand the assignments.

I'm not denying that asian and western cultures have different values and expectations, but there could be a link between languages that use characters and memory and pattern recognition. I'm not trying to argue anything.

But I think it's a conclusive FACT, that there are only two categories for a westerner when it comes to maths: stupid, or completely autistic. 

[Bob]

One idea I've found that works fairly well...

Find a college that offers the course.  Get the textbook title.  Borrow it from the library. Get the course syllabus/schedule, online fairly often.   That gives you the flow of learning, although it's probably just following the book.  Possibly order whatever is needed online.  Also, check the textbook publisher's website for 'bonus' materials, like previous edition online materials they don't care about anymore or the audio clips from paper workbooks.  

It's work, but... considering a lot of the work in those courses is done on your own it waaaay cheaper than actually taking a class and nearly as good.  Except for the lack of time part.


I found the mother ship of the pod websites...
https://www.languagepod101.com/
 

Chinese
https://www.chineseclass101.com/

Japanese
https://www.japanesepod101.com/

videos

[faulty_damper]

The difficulty with learning languages from a book is that it doesn't provide feedback.

True story: my former piano teacher learned some German words from a Schubert lied.  When he was in Germany, he used the word in a sentence and the locals laughed out loud and told him that word hasn't been in use for over a century.  Lesson of the story: Don't learn German from Schubert's songs.

[invictious]

The difficulty with learning languages from a book is that it doesn't provide feedback.

True story: my former piano teacher learned some German words from a Schubert lied.  When he was in Germany, he used the word in a sentence and the locals laughed out loud and told him that word hasn't been in use for over a century.  Lesson of the story: Don't learn German from Schubert's songs.

This also applies to Italian and French from arias and chansons!

Many of those words are considered archaic. Then again, you may desire to sound like a knight from a century ago.

[thorn]

I read Japanese, so that's what I can comment on.

The phonetic "alphabets" (Hiragana and Katakana) are really easy to learn. Start with hiragana, learn a row of 5 per day and read/physically copy from texts aimed at beginners (i.e. *without* kanji) and you soon assimilate that one. Then do the same with katakana (by this point I can guarantee you'll already recognise some from your beginner texts.

Kanji, you want the textbook "Remembering the Kanji 1" by James Heisig. It organises them really well and guides you to create mnemonics to help. I actually learned all of the "daily use kanji" (2,000+) in a summer using this method. (He also wrote "Remembering the Hanzi" if it's Chinese you're interested in).

"Remembering the Kanji 2" is supposed to teach you the phonetic readings of the Kanji, but to be honest it's a bit of clutching at straws. You're best studying them in context like I said to do with the Hiragana/Katakana.

"Remembering the Kanji 3" teaches Kanji outside of the "daily use list" and is a total waste of time you can spend on other parts of the language (unless you're a Kanji fanatic like me).

[jxavier]

I'm sure there are countless books on the subject at your local library. I found some pretty excellent chinese character books at mine.

[Bob]

I'm still wondering where people just start with this.  Romance languages, similar alphabet.  Cyrillic, still similar a few odd character, but it's possible to learn them. 

But pictures.... Hm.  I'll have to grab a book somewhere.

[justanamateur]

Most Asian languages don't use an alphabet, E.g. chinese, japanese, traditional korean. They use characters which are basically pictorial representations of words. Each character has the phonological equivalence of a syllable, and a character can have multiple meanings, just like a word in English does as well. Anything to do with an alphabet, e.g. pin yin, is basically a western influence, to help people decipher the tones better.

If you were to learn say chinese, first you would need to learn the pronunciations of all the possible syllables (or sound bytes), and then link them to their corresponding pictorial characters, and then link the characters to their semantic meaning. Twice as hard as english in my opinion, since knowing the sound will not enable you to write the write the characters, i.e. words. 

There are such things similar to suffixes and prefixes when it comes to drawing the characters, where certain combinations of strokes form radicals, e.g. 3 dots draw vertically downward suggests something to do with water.

This is a list of all the syllables in chinese: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuyin_table

the best way is to just buy yourself a language textbook I guess..

Characters should not be treated as semantic blocks. It's a common faux pas to treat a character as a pictorial symbol with a sound and a meaning; in fact, this was common practice before Qing Dynasty linguists came along. Not every character has semantic significance on its own (i.e. qualify as morphemes). 猶豫, 徘徊, 蜘蛛, 蜥蜴, etc., make no sense if one is to break them apart.