Hi, so basically I decided to start learning Japanese and this is my question…
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When watching a video she showed examples of 3 things that are pronuced the same with Hiragana but could mean 3 different things. I researched and people said you should learn basic japnese and communication before getting into KANJI. But now my question is how do people communicate with Hiragana if the sound could mean 3 different things.
Isn’t KANJI only for writing and doesn’t have a sound? So now I am even more confused how this sound could mean 3 things and the only way to know is KANJI but kanji doesn’t have a sound???
I am defiantly missing something here plz someone educate me because I’m really confused, does the words around it and how you create the sentence tell you.
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Edit: The example she gave was Bridge Chopsticks and Edge in KANJI but they all have the same sound so how if im speaking to someone would they tell the difference between them without me pulling out paper and writing it in KANJI?
8 comments
The context of the sentence
Either the context or pitch accent
your example:
橋 bridge: は(low) し(high)
(お)箸 chopsticks: は(high) し(low)
端 Edge however is „pronounced“ the same as bridge. In this case you gotta watch for the particle afterwards
橋が (low ga)
端が (high ga)
There are still some words which sound the same. Even with he particle afterwards. Only context helps then.
I‘d recommend Dogen‘s video to basic pitch accent if you‘re interested. He does a good job in elaborating it easy and clearly
How do you know whether somebody said “whether” or “weather” when they’re talking to you if they don’t write it down so you can see it? Or:
Write, right, wright, rite?
See or sea?
Lead or led?
By “left” did they mean “opposite of right” or “departed” or “remaining”?
You get the same things happening that you get in English, but which you never really had to think about before.
Pitch accent and knowing a bunch of vocab
Knowing which options to eliminate through context comes with knowing a lot of vocab.
it’s not that the sound is the same on all the words but you need to pay attention to pitch accents, also you just gotta see from the context of the conversation tbh
What everyone else said, plus a phenomenon called [collocation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collocation). Basically when you know a language fluently or natively, you predict what words will come next when someone is speaking so that you can do less work in active listening.
Don’t worry about it too much. You’ll get it naturally as you learn more. Even if you make a mistake, people will likely know what you mean. E.g. If you were in a restaurant and asked for chopsticks in the wrong pitch accent, they almost certainly wouldn’t bring you a bridge.
kanji represents a whole word not just a meaning. 英語 is eigo and means English. That’s how you would read it. Some words are written with 1 kanji some with multiple but in essence they’re just parts of words.
The kanji themselves usually have 2 or 3 sounds associated with them but a lot of it is down to just knowing the word before you learn the kanji or the other way around knowing the kanji that make up a word can give you hints about its meaning. If you want to say a word you’ve learned while reading you would either have to look it up, explain what kanji it uses and hope the other person knows it already or guess the pronunciation based on the kanji