Yesterday I went to an interesting talk on Japanese mimetic words, which are onomatopoeia (擬声語 giseigo / 擬音語 giongo) or words connected to actions, emotions or states (擬態語 gitaigo). For example, くすくす (kusu kusu) – to giggle,ぐずぐず[する] (guzu guzu [suru]) – to procrastinate or dawdle.

Researchers in Japan have found that Japanese mothers use a much higher proportion of mimetic words with young children (60%) than with adults (10%), and their experiments found that children find mimetic verbs (those that use sound symbolism) easier to learn than non-mimetic verbs. They call this process mimetic bootstrapping. They also tested English-speaking children and adults using Japanese mimetic verbs and found that they were able to guess their meanings above the level of chance.

They also mentioned that mimetic words are not just found in Japanese – they are in fact found in the form similar to gitaigo in many of the worlds languages, though are rare in Indo-European languages.

The author of a site offering online Japanese lessons has kindly offered one full account for free to Omniglot visitors. The site offers Japanese lessons for beginners, plus some material for more advanced learners. Some of the lessons are free, once you’ve registered, others are available after payment of an annual subscription. The account will give you access to all the material on the site.

The “My favourite kanji” competition is your chance to win an account. Entries can take the form of a explanation of which kanji you like the most and why; a piece of calligraphy or art featuring your favourite kanji; a story or poem about your favourite kanji; or anything else you can think of based around your favourite kanji. Let your imaginations run wild and get those creative juices flowing!

Please send entries by email to the usual address. The closing date is the end of this month (30th June). The best entries will be displayed in the Omniglot gallery.

成語 [成语] (chéngyǔ) are Chinese idioms usually consisting of four characters. They tend to pack a lot of meaning into those four characters and many have a story, myth or moral behind them from Classical Chinese literature, in which they were used extensively. If you’re not familiar with the stories, it will be very difficult or impossible to work out what the idioms mean. They’re still quite commonly used in modern written and spoken Chinese, and there are between 5,000 and 20,000 of them.

Here are a few examples:

一日千秋 (yírìqiānqiū) = “one day, a thousand autumns” – implies rapid changes; one day equals a thousand years

一日千里 (yírìqiānlǐ) = “one day, a thousand miles.”- implies rapid progress; travelling a thousand miles in a day

一日三秋 (yírìsānqiū) = “one day, three autumns.” – when you’re missing someone very much, one day can feel as long as three years.

From Wikipedia

A good place to find out more about chengyu is this site, which explains a number of them in Chinese and English. Another useful chengyu site is this one, which contains a dictionary of 13,000 of them with explanations in Chinese.

These idioms are also used in Japanese and are called 四字熟語 (yojijukugo) – four character idioms. They come mainly from Classical Chinese and have the same or similar meanings to the Chinese ones. A dictionary of Japanese four characters idioms, with explanations in Japanese, can be found here, while this site explains some of them in English.

Languages Quick Fix is a very useful site I discovered today. It includes words, phrases, and idioms in English, Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, and German, plus a basic introduction to each language. There are recordings of the words, phrases, and idioms in all the languages – in the case of Chinese, the recordings are in Mandarin, Shanghainese and Cantonese. There are also links to news stories, dictionaries, and Chinese paintings (in the Learn Chinese – One At a Time section).

Another useful site I came across today is SmallMarble, a multilingual phrase book to which anyone can contribute. At the moment it has Spanish translations of most of the phrases, but few translations in other languages.

An article I came across today, via Keith’s blog, argues that it’s a lot more difficult to learn Japanese than Chinese.

The author of the article studied both Chinese and Japanese at the Defense Language Institute (DLI), and lived in Japan for over seven years. He feels confident about communicating in Chinese (Mandarin) and found it much easier than Japanese, or Spanish and German, which he studied in high school. He didn’t find learning Japanese at the DLI too hard, but had difficulty communicating with Japanese people in Japan. He believes the main difficulties are the sheer amount of Japanese syntax, only a small proportion of which is covered in most Japanese courses, and Japanese culture, in which people tend to avoid saying things in a straightforward way.

My own experiences are somewhat similar – I found Chinese easier to learn than Japanese, though I’ve only been to Japan once and was there for four months, whereas I spent over five years in Taiwan, plus a couple of months in China. Had I spent longer in Japan, I’m sure my Japanese would be a lot better now. Would it be as good as my Chinese? I don’t know.

In Mandarin Chinese, the word 和 (hé) has a number of meanings. On it’s own it is usually means ‘and’, but also means harmony, peace, to be affable, the sum, and ‘of Japan’.

Here are a few words featuring this character:
和平 (hépíng) – peace; peaceful; mild
和鳴 [和鸣] (hémíng) – to sound in harmony
和風 [和风] (héfeng) – a gentle breeze
和服 (héfú) – a (Japanese) kimono
和氣 [和气] (héqi) – gentle; affable; agreeable; friendly
和聲 [和声] (hésheng) – (musical) harmony

When pronounced hè, this character means to match; to harmonize, or to write a poem in reply (和詩). It has another pronunciation – huò – which means to knead or to mix. Apparently some people pronounce it han as well, but I’ve never heard that pronunciation.

In Japanese, this character is pronounced wa, o, yawa- or nago- and means peace; harmony; the sum; the total; Japan and various other things.

I came across today’s word on Amazon’s Affiliates site today. They use it as the name of a widget which displays products based on Amazon’s understanding of your site, the visitors to your site and the page you place it on. They say it means “leave it up to us”.

お任せ (omakase) is a Japanese word that means “entrust” or “protect”. It’s used mainly in Japanese restaurants, where customers might say “お任せお願いします” (omakase onegaishimasu), which you could also translate as “Chef, I’m in your hands”. When they say this, they are asking the chef to select and prepare food for them in a manner of his choosing. The chef also decides how much to charge. This usually results in a very good meal at a reasonable price as the chef will feel obliged to create a worthy meal out of the freshest foods he has, to reward and retain a valued customer’s trust in him.

Today’s word, パチパチ (pachi pachi) is an onomatopoeic Japanese word meaning:

1. pleasant clapping sound;
2. sound of something hot bursting open (i.e. popcorn);
3. incessant blinking

It came up while I was chatting with some Japanese friends earlier today and is one of the many onomatopoeic words in Japanese.

Here are some more examples:

バラバラ (bara bara) – rattle
クスクス (kusu kusu) – giggle
ポチャポチャ (pocha pocha) – splash
フサフサ　(fusa fusa) – a full and attractive head of hair
ギトギト (gito gito) – being oily
イライラ (ira ira) – the state of being frustrated
ポカポカ (poka poka) – the state of being nice and warm

See also this site and this site.

Interestingly, some such words describe visual phenomena, such as blinking, or feelings rather than sounds. Does any other language do this?

By the way, apologies if you’ve been unable to access this blog, my other blog, the Omniglot forum or some of the pages on Omniglot recently. Unfortunately I haven’t managed to find a solution to this problem yet, though it usually sorts itself out after a while. If any of you have any ideas how to fix it, please let me know.

When chatting with some Japanese friends today, the subject of finger names came up for some reason – specifically what the different fingers are called in Japanese and English. It took quite a while to establish which finger corresponded to which name – to make this clear, I found a picture of a hand, added labels and uploaded it to my site.

This is what the fingers are called in those languages:

拇指 (boshi) / 親指 (oyayubi) lit. “thumb/parent finger” = thumb
人差し指 (hitosashiyubi) = lit. “person offering finger” = first finger / index finger
中指 (nakayubi) = middle finger
薬指 (kusuriyubi) = lit. “medicine finger” = third finger /ring finger
小指 (koyubi) = lit. “little finger” = fourth finger / little finger / pinky

In Latin the fingers are named thus:

Thumb = Polex
First finger = Demonstratus (pointer)
Second finger = Impudicus (gesticulates)
Third finger = Annularis (ring)
Fourth finger = Auricularis (removing wax from ear)

Their names in Welsh are as follows:

Thumb = bawd
First finger = bys troed (foot finger)
Second finger = bys canol (middle finger)
Third finger = bys y fodrwy (ring finger)
Fourth finger = bys bach (little finger)

and Irish they’re:

Thumb = ordóg
First finger = corrmhéar (odd finger)
Second finger = méar fhada (long finger)
Third finger = méar fáinne (ring finger)
Fourth finger = lúidín

What about in your language?

As I have no classes this weekend, I decided to go to Aberystwyth today. The bus took about an hour and a half to get there and went through some nice scenery and some pretty villages and towns along the way. I particuarly liked Aberaeron, a small town by the sea with attractive Victorian houses painted in many different colours.

Er nad oedd dosbarthiadau heddiw, penderfynais i i fynd i Aberystwyth. Treuliodd y daith ar y bws tua awr a hanner ac aethon ni’n trwy gefngwlad hyfryd ac trwy nifer o drefi a phentrefi pert. Mae Aberaeron yn arbennig o ddeniadol, gyda llawer o dai Fictoraidd lliwgar.

In Aberystwyth I spent quite a bit of time wandering around the town and bought some Welsh CDs, a new Irish course, and another book of tin whistle tunes to add to my collection. There are some good bookshops in Aber, including one with French-Welsh and German-Welsh dictionaries, and courses for learning Breton and Irish through the medium of Welsh. They also had a Cornish course and dictionary.

Treuliais i maith o amser yn grwydro o gwmpas y dre a brynais i gryno ddisgiau gan Siân James, Gwenan Gibbard a Swci Boscawen, Cwrs Gwyddeleg newydd, a llyfr o diwniau ar gyfer y chwiban. Mae nifer o siopau llyfrau da yn Aber, yn gynnwys un sy’n gwerthu geiriaduron Cymraeg-Ffrangeg a Chymraeg-Almaeneg, a chyrsiau Llydaweg a Gwyddeleg trwy gyfryng y Gymraeg. Mae cwrs a geiriadur Cernyweg da nhw hefyd.

After having a look around the castle, I walked along the prom, and then went up Constitution Hill on the cliff railway. The views from the top were amazing – I could see more or less the whole of Cardigan Bay from the Llŷn Peninsula in the north to the Pembrokeshire Peninsula in the south. The sun even came out for a while and the clouds cleared making the view even better.

Ar ôl i mi gael cipolwg ar y castell, cerddais i ar hyd y promenâd ac es i i lân y Graiglais ar y rheilffordd y graig. Oedd y golygon i lawr y bryn yn ardderchog – o’n i’n gallu gweld Bae Ceredigion braidd i gyd o’r Llŷn yn y gogledd i’r penrhyn Sir Benfro yn y de. Disgleiriodd y haul am sbel a gwasgarodd y cymylau hefyd ac felly, oedd y golygon yn well.

On a semi-related matter, I received an email today from Steafan MacRisnidh, a speaker of Scottish Gaelic who is currently working in Japan. He has set up a new blog with some Gaelic lessons in Japanese. He also has a number of other blogs in Gaelic. Just though I’d mention it here.

As we usually have a quiz at the weekend, I don’t want to disappoint you today, so here it is:

Which of the following places is the odd one out?
Caerhirfryn, Caerliwelydd, Caerlŷr, Caernarfon, Caerfaddon, Caergrawnt, Caergaint, Caerwysg, Caerwrangon