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From: Miller, Bert <bert.miller@unisys.com>
To: 'David A. Tatum' <desaix@sysnet.net>
Cc: 'ffml@fanfic.com'
Subject: RE: [FFML] [fanfic][OMG\Ranma][Edutainment] Language Lessons,

Book I -  Japanese 100: Survival Course, Prolog and Chapter 1

Date: Friday, June 11, 1999 2:21 PM

Interesting attempt.  Can't say it made for a very good story, though.

Belldandy has a "western" figure?  Could've fooled me.  I thought this

was

Urd until they got to the temple.

Western?  Yeah, of course.  She's a germanic goddess, you know, and she
certainly isn't supposed to look Japanese (I believe I recall that
Keiichi's mother calls her a gaijin, but that might have been a fanfic)...

The word "kanji" is Japanese; the Chinese word for their alphabet is
"hanxi".  And I would describe it as "one of the three Japanese

alphabets"

rather than "adopted into the...".

You're probably right about the Chinese calling it hanxi, but that's not
something I'm gonna bother with- especially since the character telling the
story probably wouldn't know that (I sure didn't).  I did make it 'as one
of the' instead of 'into the' Japanese alphabets...

Also, <begin soapbox>, Japanese and Chinese people can't reliably tell

each

other apart until they open their mouths.  There is no difference in 
"slopes and lines around the eyes and nose" consistent enough to use as a
distinguishing feature. <end soapbox>

(dealt with in another reply)

Akane Tendou-san has placed an ad

In English, this is strange.  Belldandy hasn't explained "san" yet, and
she's using our name order, so she should probably be using a prefactory
"miss".  I hope she does explain Japanese name order before Akane gets
there.

No, Belldandy's not going to explain honorifics... I think that's going to
be one of the more advanced lessons, actually- it can get rather confusing.

The word for 'I' is watashi wa." 

While standard for teaching Americans in America how to speak Japanese,
I don't think this would be, by itself, very useful for teaching
English-speakers _in Japan_, as it leaves too much out.  For instance,

very

few
Ranma characters use "watashi" (Shampoo comes to mind).  Almost everybody
uses one of the other words for "I" (Kuno uses "boku"; Ranma uses "ore";
Ukyou uses "uchi"; Akane uses "atashi".)  Also, Belldandy is leaving out
the grammatical role of the "wa" here as the topic marker.

switched to 'most common.'  You have brought up something I'll be doing in
the next chapter, however- Akane's going to be using Atashi, which'll
confuse our poor hero to no end....

The word for American

The last syllable should be "jin" [jeen].  "Gin" [geen] means "gold".
There shouldn't be any confusion... oh, I see, you're on the vowel sound.
The standard, taught answer is [jeen], but [jin] is probably an

acceptable

accent.  Generally, if the Japanese don't distinguish two sounds, then
either sound, or any sound in between, is "heard" (understood) by them to
mean the same.  Think "r" versus "l", which they don't distinguish, or

[she]

versus [see].  

Er, no, I don't mean geen- I mean gin, the drink.  You might say I also
meant djinn, the spirit, since they're pronounced pretty closely to each
other (though the d in djinn causes problems).  The contention between me
and the prereader dealt with the een vs. in.  I realize it's probably more
dialect than anything, but he made a point of it, so...

Anyway, thanks for the comments...
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