Japanese (Language)
You’ve heard me state before that the Japanese Language sucks.
But of course, things aren’t as simple just because I say so.
The Japanese written Language consists of several different parts. And I’ll start with just the alphabets, leaving grammar out of things completely for now.
I. Kanjis
II. Hiragana
III. Katakana
These are the building blocks of the Language. Before you start measuring Kanji against vowel and Hiragana against Consonant . . . . it doesn’t work that way. Before some historical point, the entire written Japanese language was built up of Kanjis. One sign indicating one word. Where 
is station and 
is dog. This is a very clear system. Very precise. Very Very elaborate. There’s more than 40.000 Kanjis. All of them having very little connection between shape and pronunciation. A list of 1945 mandatory Kanjis was compiled by the Japanese Ministry of Education to clarify what any japanese citizen should know after school as a minimum to get by.
Now, around 1700 the Japanese came into contact with other nations that didn’t use this form of communication . . . That’d be us. For us they started to make a system based on phonetics, similar to our alphabet. The two systems of Hiragana and Katakana emerged from this.
The Hiragana are used to express modern Japanese words.
The Katakana are used express modern foreign words.
Now, before you mistake this for 3 separate systems. . . . All 3 can and will be used in 1 sentence. But by the nature of the signs used one can derive what kind of word is used. “Com-pu-ta”, a word only invented after the introduction will be expressed in hira-/kata-kana. Whereas “dog” will most likely be expressed in Kanji . . . though it is entirely possible to spell inu (dog) in either of the other 2 systems.
Well, that’s a rather short and crude way to describe it as . . . . there is a kanji for computer, there’s Kanjis which look exactly like katakanas and should you express a dell “com-pu-ta” in katakana (for being foreign) but a sony “com-pu-ta” in hiragana (for being japanese)?
Well . . . follow the link above to the hiragana and katakana alphabets. And look at it for a while. Then you can decide for yourself if I am worthy of pity.
Please consider this while not thinking of the year in Japan that comes with it
Or the €15.000 I’ll get for it
That’s what I thought, life is hard éh. I guess I’ll just have to keep labouring and get this thing done.
Oh, and if you go here you can see my brand spanking new visa.
And here are some pictures from the Brussels trip. Though there are still only a few there. I hope to get some better ones later.
If I may correct you, I believe there never is a connection between a Kanji shape and its pronunciation. You can occasionally find a link between its shape and its meaning, especially if you have a predisposition for understanding modern art or Rorschach tests.
Now the thing is, the Japanese could speak before they went to steal the Kanji from the Chinese. What’s, uh, amusing is that they also stole the Kanji’s pronunciation, while keeping the native one at the same time. Thus, a word like 水 (water) can be “mizu” (native) or “sui” (chinese). This is why they have 2 different sets of numbers too. How to know which one to choose? Pretty much random. I’ll spare you the other ways to say “water” according to the level of politeness…
(Good news : there’s only one way to say “biiru”)
Aye, that’s what I meant
But it’s a fairly simple guide. Didn’t even touch on Romanji, though one shouldn’t really count that as a significant part of the Japanese Language.