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Stuart-says-yes said:
Also today some people were in a frenzy of excitement about Black Ops, and actually going home at lunch just to play it, isn't it just another run of the mill FPS? from treyarch, so why the excitement, these already tons of others available for Xbox and PS3.
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Because gamers are stupid and Activision have as much integrity as Richard Nixon.
 
ilmaestro said:
Mispronouncing made up words is one thing... mispronouncing "atelier" is a whole other. :p
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I stopped using the English transliterations of Japanese words which use "ou" where the sound is actually "oh" for similar reasons of unintentional mispronunciation on my part. It will never cease to annoy me how words are not phonetic. Stupid f*cking letters. Sound like how you look.
 
Oh, Japanese is totally phonetic (almost. Certainly it follows pronunciation rules a lot better than English), you just don't know what the right phonemes are. :p The "u" in that instance is just there to indicate that the "o" is a long vowel, it's not like it can sometimes be "ou" as in the English word "you", or the one in "out".
 
ilmaestro said:
The "u" in that instance is just there to indicate that the "o" is a long vowel, it's not like it can sometimes be "ou" as in the English word "you", or the one in "out".
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Except when is "ou" used to represent a long vowel "o" in any English word? It's always "oh". Why use a different set of rules for transliteration of another language?

Why we don't just use diacritics like other languages I don't know. Having an Ō would make these things simple.
 
ayase said:
Except when is "ou" used to represent a long vowel "o" in any English word? It's always "oh". Why use a different set of rules for transliteration of another language?

Why we don't just use diacritics like other languages I don't know. Having an Ō would make these things simple.
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"Soul" or "poultry" aren't bad examples of the pure "o" sound in English. However, English is a horrible language in that respect with its phonetic jumble.

I personally prefer Ō to OH in transliteration if for some reason an alternative romanisation has to be used as the H is completely arbitrary to me and assumes a consistency in English which I don't believe exists, but Ō does leave some vagueness between OU and OO in Japanese which is annoying too. I always just write it out as literally as I can for clarity and learn the pronunciation rules separately.

It's necessary to use a different phonetic key for each language, I think, no matter how you choose to romanise things. Even languages which use the roman alphabet can vary wildly in how they pronounce the same letter.

R
 
ilmaestro said:
Mispronouncing made up words is one thing... mispronouncing "atelier" is a whole other. :p
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Well you can't blame me all entirely for a French word that looks like only two syllables to an Englishmen, when in fact it's four. I noticed the exact same thing with people who had watched Galaxy Angel and spelt Vanilla's surname wrong. The important thing is I know now.

As for this "Ō to OH in transliteration" isn't the effect basically the same? With that, it doesn't surprise me that they do this do to not knowing how these accent letters are pronounced.

This thread has turned to an English class, come on people get your onomatopoeias out
 
ayase said:
ilmaestro said:
The "u" in that instance is just there to indicate that the "o" is a long vowel, it's not like it can sometimes be "ou" as in the English word "you", or the one in "out".
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Except when is "ou" used to represent a long vowel "o" in any English word? It's always "oh". Why use a different set of rules for transliteration of another language?
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Well that's what I mean about you not knowing what the phonemes are, rather than it still being vague even after you know.
 
I won't even pretend I knew what phonemes were at all before you mentioned them just now, maestro.

After having a look I think I understand, but I also still think it's bloody stupid. It doesn't really matter if letters aren't always pronounced the same; they should always be pronounced the same (IMhO). At the very least the way a letter is pronounced should be connected to the letters adjacent to it, it's really a problem I have with English rather than Japanese.

It might seem pointless to go on about things like this, but there are just some things which infuriate me because... I can't see why no one else can see them. Perhaps a few can, but who can swim against the tide of conformity?
 
ayase said:
After having a look I think I understand, but I also still think it's bloody stupid.
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Hah, fair enough. :D

Like you say, in this instance I think you're focusing too much on the "English" part of it, when really it's just a system that uses our letters to best represent which mora are in the Japanese word. Without knowing how Japanese is pronounced anyway you have little chance of always getting it right, and with knowing you have basically no chance of getting it wrong.

As for other people who go on about it... my Mom teaches some after-school classes for young children, and she was telling about one particular kid who was particularly interested in what the "point" of silent letters at the start of words is. So somewhere out there you can find people who will share your frustration at it... they just might be eight years old. :p
 
ayase said:
I won't even pretend I knew what phonemes were at all before you mentioned them just now, maestro.

After having a look I think I understand, but I also still think it's bloody stupid. It doesn't really matter if letters aren't always pronounced the same; they should always be pronounced the same (IMhO). At the very least the way a letter is pronounced should be connected to the letters adjacent to it, it's really a problem I have with English rather than Japanese.

It might seem pointless to go on about things like this, but there are just some things which infuriate me because... I can't see why no one else can see them. Perhaps a few can, but who can swim against the tide of conformity?
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I know I've just joined this discussion but I'm in total agreement with you. English is one of the weirdest languages around and makes absolutely no sense. Hell a lot of English people don't even know some of the rules or exceptions to the English language. That's why I feel sorry for anyone who has to learn it! It's an evolution of so many different languages and influences that it's turned into what it's turned into.

A Portuguese friend of mine asked me why we have three words for to. Two, to and too all sound exactly the same but all mean different things. A bit like there, they're and their. I honestly couldn't explain the reason why this has become so.
 
Churchy99 said:
ayase said:
I won't even pretend I knew what phonemes were at all before you mentioned them just now, maestro.

After having a look I think I understand, but I also still think it's bloody stupid. It doesn't really matter if letters aren't always pronounced the same; they should always be pronounced the same (IMhO). At the very least the way a letter is pronounced should be connected to the letters adjacent to it, it's really a problem I have with English rather than Japanese.

It might seem pointless to go on about things like this, but there are just some things which infuriate me because... I can't see why no one else can see them. Perhaps a few can, but who can swim against the tide of conformity?
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I know I've just joined this discussion but I'm in total agreement with you. English is one of the weirdest languages around and makes absolutely no sense. Hell a lot of English people don't even know some of the rules or exceptions to the English language. That's why I feel sorry for anyone who has to learn it! It's an evolution of so many different languages and influences that it's turned into what it's turned into.

A Portuguese friend of mine asked me why we have three words for to. Two, to and too all sound exactly the same but all mean different things. A bit like there, they're and their. I honestly couldn't explain the reason why this has become so.
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But it's the same for many languages. There's like 10 ways to say "I (when referring to yourself)" in Japanese and in French nouns are either masculine or feminine.
 
Code: 
Der, die, das, die.
Den, die, das, die.
Des, der, des, der.
Dem, der, dem, den.

I struggle with the last line, and cannot begin to recall the same table for indefinite articles or adjectival endings.
 
So yeah I'm back... again. Feel free to send your adorations to my private mail or let them be known here so that all may see how much I am loved.

So? Everyone good? :wink:
 
But that's the weird thing. In lots of other languages the rules are much more set in stone. As someone whos learnt German, when you start off it feels confusing as you're familiar with such a system but once you get used to it, it follows the patterns and it becomes much easier and makes a load more sense in terms of consistency. Or at least it did to me anyway!
 
Zin5ki said:
Code: 
Der, die, das, die.
Den, die, das, die.
Des, der, des, der.
Dem, der, dem, den.

I struggle with the last line, and cannot begin to recall the same table for indefinite articles or adjectival endings.
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Sometimes its hard to give the correct gender to the language (der - male, die - female, das - neutral, die - when speaking about objects i believe)

Der Hund
Die schtule
Das kanhiken

Yes my geman is abit rusty :p but non the less i can still jump between german and english when i need to.

Anyway, Stu I hope your feeling abit better about the dream thing. maybe its your subconscious tryin to tell you to sleep more. Or warn you of something.


@Skikes, where've you been mate? Yeah i'm good thanks, todays my last full day of the week :) time for a nice long weekend with the gf. really looking forward to it. she's got the whole thing planned out lol.
 
I'm suffering, it has to be said. I ordered pizza last night, and it's all gone down hill since then. I've been in pain all night up until now, where it's steadily gotten worse. It ain't sickly pain, just pain. So yeah, i ain't ordering from them again anytime soon, that's for sure.

As for now, i'm in the student union at uni attempting(and failing) to study. Things have just gone to pot in the last 3 weeks when it comes to uni, only respite i had was the trip to london, and it's back to the way things were again, if not worse. If you be wondering why i don't post much about here at the mo, attempting to study + too much sleep are the reasons. I need help, and a lot of it =/
 
:/ sorry to hear that Arby, if you need help maybe this might aid you: Try to get your brain into a pattern, sleep for set times and then whilst studying remember to ratio breaks into it so your brain gets a rest. the key to remembering things and strengthen the memory is to read through something out loud, then leave it and come back to it later and read the same thing again. repeat a few times and it should stick.

As for dodgy food, try eating bread and drinking alot of water. if its stomach ache caused by acid or something the bread should soak it up and if its solids help to push it through, the liquids should neutralise the stomach again. sleeping also helps, it'll give you time to absorb the food and process it without discomfort.

tablets aren't the answer to everything.


Tachi's day so far.... every unit i have in my county have woken up and remembered that i'll be gone as of monday.....what they don;t know is that i actually finish tomorrow. So their now sending through a flurry of requests at the last minute, been on the ball today and have covered as best as possible right now....but i fear that the ever increasing requests won't all be completed come tomorrow afternoon.

As a result of me leaving.... i won't be here on the forums come monday....nor the whole week infact....things will be too busy for me to find time to come on. So if i don't speak to most of you at all after this post.....have a great weekend....and i'll see you when i can, take care of this place for me.
 
Some would call it a promotion, i prefer a headache ;) still got the same job to do....just on a larger scale.

Anyway, laters stu, if the sleep doesn't help....down a few beers, it'll work....now....off to tidy and clean and do random stuff before hitting the pub... adieu!!
 
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