Japanese as international language?

>>1485916
I'd like to learn Japanese for my Chinese cartoons, but even I know that Japanese isn't going to benefit me business wise

>a language with three different alphabets, including Chinese characters, should be used for international communication

I mean seriously that's as bad as suggesting that German should be a international language. It would be better to encourage countries to tech at least two secondary languages instead.

Besides, Esperanto already exists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ2ei7e6aAs

>>1485974
>Esperanto
Yuk

If we are going to use an artificial language, it should be developed with phonoaesthetics in mind, as well as grammatical simplicity.

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>>1485916
Fuck no
I aint speakin' no fuckin' neet moonspeak shit. Next time pick something that has letters and can fit on a keyboard.

>>1485974
German already is a fairly international language, although not to the extent that English or French are. Honestly, if there's going to be a truly international language, it's going to be English or French. Nobody speaks fucking Esperanto, and nobody wants to. Look at international sports, and you'll see: it's English or French. Possibly Spanish, although let's be realistic here: it has very little play outside Latin America.

>>1485916
Japanese as an international language is a horrible, horrible idea.

>>1485974
>Esperanto
Excellent idea.
Though, the three alphabets aren't an inherent part of the language; script-reformed Japanese would still be Japanese.

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>>1485999

>>1486003
Why, in particular?

>>1486002
It's estimated there's something like a million Esperanto speakers, and some 400 thousand learning it on Duolingo. That's not exactly no one.

>>1486023
Because the two basic alphabets between them contain more than 300 characters and while Japanese is an exceptional language for communicating Japanese concepts it is extremely limited when it comes to more exotic concepts and words.

>>1486002
German is a terrible, autistic language only suited to technical manuals.

http://www.kombu.de/twain-2.htm

>>1486034
Extremely limited when it comes to more exotic concepts and words? You do know the entire Bible (just to give one example) has been translated into Japanese, right? Plus, if they don't have a word for something, they generally just borrow it.

>>1485916
Not until they get rid of that fucking Kanji

>>1485916
Fuck off weeaboo.
And I say that as someone who's learning Japanese from 2010 and now lives in Japan.

>>1486065
Stop being a whiny weak-minded faggot and you'll overcome it.

>>1486060
That article literally compiles everything annoying about German without mentioning all the things that are easy for an Anglophone because of it being such a close relative to English that if they were people it would be illegal for them to marry in some states.

>>1486073
Hey man, I didn't write the article, I just translated it.

>>1486065
Hey, Chinese is written in kanji too, or hanzi as they call them (entirely in hanzi, in fact) and yet for a long time Classical Chinese was the de facto international language of East Asia (well, except for the areas where it was Sanskrit, though that was more in South and Southeast Asia, and there was some overlap).

>>1486098
They all used kanji for their native languages anyway so they didn't have to memorize thousands of new characters

>>1485974
>Esperanto

For some reason Esperanto just strikes me as the Reddit of language. I remember meeting this one Esperanto enthusiast and he was the typical neckbeard atheist. He even supported Bernie Sanders.

>>1485916
It's much easier to bring the international to Japan then making Japanese international. Everyone should move to Japan and find a Japanese waifu.

>>1486063
>Extremely limited when it comes to more exotic concepts and words? You do know the entire Bible (just to give one example) has been translated into Japanese, right?
Of course I know that. That doesn't mean that it survived intact. The bible has also been translated into African languages that barely even possess abstract thought.

>Plus, if they don't have a word for something, they generally just borrow it.
Yeah, and absolutely mangle it in transliteration.

>>1486098

De facto WRITTEN language. The interesting thing about classical Chinese is that the rulers of China, Vietnam and Japan knew those characters mainly in their own language. In fact, you learn to read classical Chinese texts by learning the characters alone without actually being able to speak the language.

>>1485997
You
I like you

>>1485916
There already is an international language, it's English. End bracket.

>>1486128
>>1486098
Hanzi were used as the international language in East Asia because China was an economic and military GIANT. Logographic systems are inefficient as fuck once writing stops being basic record keeping. It's also even more efficient for less analytic languages. It BARELY works in Japanese, and even then they had to radically alter the Hanzi into Kanji and use two separate alphabets.

http://www.zompist.com/yingzi/yingzi.htm

>>1486026
>It's estimated there's something like a million Esperanto speakers
That is exactly no one. By comparison there are over twice as many speakers of Slovene. There are far more speakers of Zulu, Hmong, Tsonga, Central Atlas Tamazight, Banjar, Haitian, and fucking Pig Latin.

You are delusional.

>>1485916
Only Japanese natives and weebs speak Japanese, not nearly enough to make it an international language.

Japan needs more foreigners/immigrants as well to boost their birth rates and allow it to compete in an increasingly globalized society and economy.

>>1485916
The way people talk in Japanese is absolutely disgusting. No intonation at all, it's like they have no emotions.

Also Japanese women scream like dying pigs during sex.

>>1486116
You do realize that nearly anything can be expressed in any language if you stretch it enough, right? Hell, people have translated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into Toki Pona, and that's an invented language with only 120 words!

>>1486178
No intonation? Have you ever even heard of, say, Norio Wakamoto?

>>1486345
And that's where efficiency comes into play.

Lets all pretend English doesn't have a shit ton of borrowed vocabulary.

>>1486116
>Yeah, and absolutely mangle it in transliteration.
Like we don't do the same in English? "Carry-oh-key", anyone?

>>1486359
Toki Pona is an extreme case, being a language constructed to be absolutely minimal.

>>1486163
I admit, it's not a whole lot yet, but just realize: There is more written in Esperanto on the Internet than there is written in Basque. Crazy, right?

>>1486348
Have you heard normal Japanese people talk, and not voice actors intentionally trying to make their voice sound unique for a character?

>>1486116
>African languages that barely even possess abstract thought.

Lol really? Let me guess, you think African languages have no concept of time too?

>>1486540
I didn't say they didn't possess it.

>>1486116
>African languages have no notion of abstract thought

Holy crap! This entire time I've been 100% literal and materialistic when talking to my family & friends?!

Chineke!

Thanks for teaching me about my language

>>1485997
Grammatical simplicity? Esperanto has 16 basic rules and no exceptions! 6 basic conjugated forms for verbs, which follow the exact same pattern for every verb! What could be simpler?

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Can we at least all agree that Hangul is the best writing system?

>>1486989
This. Hangul should the new international writing system.

Some island in bumfuck pacific even independently adopt it.

Language with honorific system should rightly fuck off though. Classist fuck.

>>1486026
>million Esperanto speakers
>in a world of 7 billion people

>>1486150
How are logographic systems more inefficient? The only good argument i've heard is that you need to memorize the pronounciation for each logo, but that argument doesn't extend to written language. Give me serious replies, i'm genuinely interested in learning.

>>1486989
>read this pic a few times

>still can't read Hangul for shit

How

>>1486989
Hangul was a great concept but I'm sure it could have been done better.

English is already the international language. It could do with being more democratic, but it's here to stay for a while.

A big flaw with Japanese being an international language is the inability to properly transcribe other languages using its writing system(s).

eg.
>Romanization of Japanese
外国人がこの文を読めば正しく発音します。

Gaikokujin ga kono bun wo yomeba tadashiku hatsuon shimasu.

I know my Japanese is shit but you get the point.

>Japanification of English
This sentence when read using only katakana is completely unintelligible and incorrectly pronounced.

ジスセンテンスウェンレドユージングオウンリーカタカナイズコンプリートリーアンインテリジャブルアンドインコレクトリープロナウンスド。

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>>1486995
>bahasa cia-cia
I'm kind of disapointed less and less Malayo-Polynesian ethnic groups are using the Persian-Arabic script.

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>>1487274
Persian-Arabic script wasn't the original script of Insular Southeast Asia anyway.

>>1487274
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jawi_alphabet

>tfw no islamic state of greater indonesia

>>1485916
Cringeworthy.

>>1486002
Parolu por via mem, homo

>>1486995
The problem with that is that it's specifically designed for the sound system of Korean, and doesn't work very well for, say, Englishー it's missing a lot of necessary consonant sounds (v, f, th, dh, z, r/l distinction) and isn't set up to write consonant clusters. To write English practicably in Hangul we would need a rather modified version of Hangul. And don't get me started on, say, Mandarinー how would you write the tones? Again, you'd need a modified version of Hangul. So you wouldn't end up with a single universal script, you'd end up with many related scripts based on the same basis, just out of necessity for recording different languages.

>>1487188
The thing is, katakana transcriptions of foreign languages are generally written for the benefit of native Japanese speakers anyway, and it's difficult to produce a phonemic distinction that doesn't exist in your native language anyway, so the thinking is, why bother? For actually writing other languages in kana for the benefit of people who speak that language, there have been various modifications, e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_language#Writing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwanese_kana

>>1487188
>正しく
I wouldn't be so sure about that. Just based on that transcription, a foreigner who didn't know Japanese would be likely to pronounce the 'w' in 'wo' and the 'u' in 'shimasu', neither of which is actually pronounced in Japanese.

>>1487050
You need practice to read any script.

>>1486989
Abugidas are pretty easy and nice to use.

>>1488681
So are you saying Hangul is an abugida, and that's why it's nice and easy to use, or it's not an abugida and that's why it could be nicer and easier to use? I mean, it's kind of hard to classify since it could plausibly be classed as either an alphabet or an abugida.

>>1488695
I should have put "too" at the end of the sentence.

>>1488715
Oh, I see. (Though I don't really see what advantage an abugida gives over an alphabet, exactly.)

Who the fuck even thought of this?
Go watch your Chinese cartoons and stop pestering people with your bullshit.

>>1486502
Not him, but yes. They don't speak in a deadpan if that's what you think.

>>1489349
Yes him, and why are you assuming I'm a guy? Not saying you're wrong, but why are you assuming?

>>1489419
Clarification after posting because I realized my phrasing could be a little unclear: By "Yes him" I meant "I am in fact the person in question (whom you denied being by saying "not him")"

>>1489159
Japs wants to export their culture the same way Americans do.

>>1487050
Maybe you are just stupid, it worked for me. Not trying to start anything just saying

>>1485974
You understand there is literally no reason why English is the major language of the world except for the fact that most of the people who had the money in the world spoke English?

Essentially if you want to make money on the international market, business is conversed in English.

If you take a course on how to teach English you find it's actually THE hardest language in the world to pick up AS A SECOND LANGUAGE.
>inb4 people who never picked up English past their childhood they can't remember say it's not hard at all
Literally fact.

>>1489712
True, english has so much inconsistancies and rules of exceptions in grammar, spelling, and pronounceation that it can only be learned by practice.

Really not an easily picked up second/third language you learn past childhood

>>1489712
>Literally fact
It isn't. There are far harder languages to learn as secondaries. Russian, Mandarin, some of the Bantu languages. You think grammar rules in English are bad? Try picking up Russian. Everything is a massive contradictory clusterfuck.

>>1485974
>open thread
>unwarranted german hatred

Every fucking time on /his/.

>>1489761
>>1489712
Both of you are forgetting something: What language is easier to learn depends often on your native language. For a Dutch speaker, English is easier to learn than Russian because they're interrelated. For a Polish speaker, Russian is easier to learn than English because they're interrelated.

>>1488695
Hangul is not an abiguda.

>>1488844
>Though I don't really see what advantage an abugida gives over an alphabet
The only advantage it can possibly give is saving you from writing one vowel, but this is countered by the fact that you also have to have a symbol for zero-vowel (assuming your language has closed syllables).

>>1490005
Well, it would seem to me in that case to be a question of what is the most common thing to follow a consonant sound, whether it be some vowel or nothing. If a consonant is most likely to not be followed by a vowel (you'd have to have quite a lot of consonant clusters for that, eh?) then it would make sense for zero vowel to be the default one. If a is the most likely vowel to follow a consonant, then a should be the default vowel. And so on.

>>1489738
Joseph Conrad didn't learn English until he was in his twenties. Clearly, not only can it be done, it can be done well.

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This is how English sounds like to non-English speakers, apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt4Dfa4fOEY

>>1491169
Shit, I wonder if this is how foreigners feel when they get poked fun at. I feel like I should understand this but it's just gobbledy gook and it is frustrating the fuck out of me. Is it autism?

>>1491236
Dutch is the same for me. Sounds like a drunk English speaker trying to speak German, or vice-versa.

>>1491169
If that's how English sounds like to foreigners, I feel sorry for them.

It's all slurry and mushy.

Is it really that ugly sounding?

>>1491293
Shit senpai, I'm American and even I can tell you our language sounds awful no matter who is speaking it. Aussies, canucks, Kiwis, Brits, us, Africans, it doesn't matter. It sounds like shit. It's not the worst sounding language by any means, but it sounds awful.

>>1491302
In Received Pronunciation it's not quite so awful. 'Course, a lot of it has to do with your intonation and whatnot anyway; even German can sound darn nice if done right, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-st3LPU1pw

>>1488563
Some Japanese dialects pronounce the u on the end verbs, though, and it would be easy to change all wos into os.

>>1491302
Bullshit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RzVKCWXrRA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeGBpTFZhh4

>>1489433
they do? what happened to the "Most Xenophobic country in the world" thing I was told about?

>>1491169
DIdn't they use this for the Warcraft Movie?

Only brilliant bit of cinematography in that film.

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The only reasonable and realistic choice would be English in how widespread it already is. That or either a latin based language.

Seriously Japanese is one of the only major language being learnt on passion

>>1485916
The language itself is fine for an international language, but the writing system makes Japanese totally unsuitable for international use. Literally nobody is going to want to wade through that mess of kanji and katakana and hiragana

>>1492502
Return to latin as lingua franca WHEN?
for fuck's sake 'lingua franca' is a latin term

What's the best method for learning a language? I'd like to get the basics down on german (enough to read a book or have a basic convo with a kraut)

>>1492062
It's weird, because they're xenophobic and yet at the same time xenophilic (i.e. are obsessed with foreign, especially American stuff, and think it's cool). But like just about every country they have a certain sense of "our country is the best, so let's spread all the things that are great about our country!"

>>1492691
This might sound a bit old-fashioned, but I would advise picking up a "Teach Yourself" book (you can check one out at the library for free). Although considering how closely related English and German are, if you're feeling brave you could just get something simple written in German and start going over it with a German-English dictionary.

>>1492691
Duolingo is the best free resource for learning words and some grammar. The best method for learning, period, is immersion, though.

>>1491812
It sounds bad. I don't know why you posted upper class/middle class southern accent as proof that it doesn't. It might sound better than the average American english, but it still doesn't sound very good.

t. Alabama

>>1485974
>Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution
Fucking this. At least in Russian you can tell the gender of a word just by a quick glance.

Though it's fucked up in some other aspects, I tell you that as a native speaker (participles vs adjectives that got formed from verbs because that shit suddenly matters in the spelling; the entire matter of punctuation; ordinals et cetera)

>>1491293
>It's all slurry and mushy.
Exactly. When I first started watching movies in English the speech definitely felt that way. I couldn't discern anything.
Hell, I still don't get about 10% of Monty Python.

>>1487188
>ジ

>>1485999
Japanese only has 20 to 25 phonemes so a decent alphabet is less of a problem than, say, in English.

>>1489851
All Indo-European languages are related.

>>1494309
True. But English and Dutch are much more closely related to each other than they are to Russian or Polish, and similarly Russian and Polish are much more closely related to each other than either one is to English or Dutch. That was my point.

>>1494317
Yes good ok

>>1493938
Duolingo is crap. It focuses on memorizing translations and therefore makes it hard to actually think in the target language as opposed to translating in their head. Translating in your head isn't an impossible habit to unlearn, but it's better to never start with it.

>>1494326
It's good for learning words and grammar, which is what I said it's best for. Again, immersion is the best route. You can fuck off.

>>1494532
It's not even good for that, really, because it teaches you the bad habit of hearing "Hund" and thinking "that means 'dog'" instead of hearing "Hund" and connecting it to the mental image of a dog.

>wanting a language where you have to make up an entirely new character when something new shows up

>>1495134
You do realize that kanji are pretty much a fixed set with no additions at this point, right? And that they generally either invent new words out of existing kanji (原子, 野球) or borrow the word?

Jap has some things going for it, like how there aren't any idiotic elements like silent letters, meaning its basically impossible to read their words wrong. Also the grammar really isn't that hard. But goddamn is kanji a stupid system. Are there any words in English that are homonyms and spelled identically that can mean two totally different things depending on the context?

>>1494079
Speaking of people speaking their native language unintelligibly to non-native speakers, I watched a movie from France the other day and noticed something real interesting. Im from Canada and took French immersion up until the 12th grade. Spoke it decently, but not really that great. In school we watched a bunch of movies, all crappy ones made in Quebec, and I couldn't understand a goddamn word they said. So a few months ago I was watching Brotherhood of the Wolf, which was made in France, with subtitles on, not really trying to understand what they were saying. Halfway into the nearly three hour movie, the subtitles lost their shit, because it was the extended edition and the subs were from the theatrical one. I gave up trying to sync them and decided to try and understand the dialogue. To my utter surprise, I was totally able to keep up with what was going on. Missed some more obscure words and sometimes lost the sentence when they talked real fast or hushed, but I could still fill in the blanks.

It was then that I realized Quebec is like the Alabama of the Francophone world.

>>1495217
Bear (animal) and bear (carry), ring (for the finger) and ring (what the telephone does), bat (animal) and bat (for baseball), well (adverb of 'good') and well (a pit they get water out of)... the list goes on.

>>1495272
Back when I started learning it, after a few months of Anki, I'd get so pissed when it threw me a word that could have meant one of three things. Should have made it show me the sentence on the "front" of the card way earlier then I did.