The order of a person’s full name (family then personal or personal then family) is a lot like the question of which side of the street you should drive on: It doesn’t really matter as long as everyone agrees. Of course, if you’re used to doing things one way and then visit a country where they do things the opposite way a little confusion is inevitable, but at least mixing up Japanese name order is unlikely to result in a car crash.

Bonus confusion: When a Japanese person is talking to a foreigner they might decide to switch their names around and give it in western order (family name last). They do this to be helpful but it actually makes it harder to guess which name is their family name since you no longer know for sure which pattern they are following. This is likely to lead to much polite smiling and repeating of names until the mess gets sorted out.

Vocabulary

さん = Mr, Mrs, Ms

先生 = せんせい = teacher

Transcript

言語ガールズ #27

The First Shall Be Last

Yellow: So what else do I need to know about this Japanese honor stuff?

Blue: It’s important to call people by the proper name and title.

Blue: Everyone you meet, except children, should be called by their family name followed by the polite title さん.

Blue: Though if they have a more specific title like 先生 you should use that instead of さん.

Blue: And remember, in 日本語 introductions the last name comes first.

Yellow: That’s silly. By definition the first name comes first.

Yellow: I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.

Blue: What I mean is: In 日本語 introductions the family name comes first and personal names come last.

Blue: A man called John Doe in アメリカ would introduce himself as Doe John in 日本.

The general rule of thumb is that you should be humble about yourself and anything related to you while being respectful of whoever you are talking to and anything related to them.

So when talking about your father you use 父 (ちち) to show you are humble about your family. When talking to someone else about their father you use お父さん (おとうさん) to show you respect their family. And finally when talking to your father you use お父さん (おとうさん) because parents deserve respect from their children.

Of course, the fun really starts when you wind up talking about your father to someone else while your father is listening. Do you go humble to not sound like you’re boasting about your family or go respectful because he’s right there?

Also, happy Father’s Day. Not that this strip was originally published on Father’s Day or anything. But odds are good at some point in the future someone will read this comic on Father’s Day.

Vocabulary

父 = ちち = father (humble)

お父さん = おとうさん = father (respectful)

Transcript

言語ガールズ #26

Honor Thy Father

Yellow: I bet the 日本語 word for father has weird rules just like the word for mother.

Blue: That’s right!

Blue: You use 父 (ちち) when talking about your father but use お父さん (おとうさん) when talking to your father or about someone else s father.

Yellow: Why?

Blue: It has to do with honor, humility and tradition.

Yellow: I have heard the Japanese are big on honor…

Yellow: Wait, if I use the wrong word for father will I be expected to commit ritual suicide out of shame?

Blue: They don’t do that anymore.

Blue: And when they did it was usually for war crimes, not grammar mistakes.

This marks our first real encounter with the complexities of Japanese honorifics. Some words are considered humble while other words are considered respectful and figuring out which ones to use in any given situation can even give a native a run for their money.

Also, happy Mother’s Day. Not that this strip was originally published on Mother’s Day or anything. But odds are good at some point in the future someone will read this comic on Mother’s Day.

Vocabulary

母 = はは = mother (humble)

お母さん = おかあさん = mother (respectful)

Transcript

言語ガールズ #25

Mama Mother Mom

Blue: Back to your normal outfit?

Yellow: Yeah. I decided dressing up like an oriental schoolgirl was kind of silly.

Yellow: Also, when my mom found out I had worn my 制服 to school she took it away.

Yellow: She said I can’t have it back until Halloween.

Blue: That reminds me, there are two common words for mother in 日本語.

Blue: When talking ABOUT your own mother you use 母(はは).

Blue: But when talking TO your mother or about someone else’s mother you use お母さん(おかあさん).

Every Japanese high-school graduate is expected to have learned a set of 2,136 kanji called the Jouyou kanji, which covers the majority (but not quite all) of the kanji in common use today. Mastering this entire list is a difficult feat that many foreigners never accomplish. As a casual student of Japanese I personally am only familiar with a few hundred of the most common.

There are also thousands and thousands of historic kanji that have basically faded from modern Japanese and only show up in historic documents and certain names. There really isn’t any reason for your average American student to worry about these. In fact, most Japanese aren’t really that familiar with the older kanji either.

Anyways, don’t obsess about memorizing kanji too much. You don’t have to read kanji to speak Japanese and a lot of entry level Japanese literature has hiragana pronunciation guides called furigana printed right next to every kanji symbol. Even more complex texts tend to have furigana for uncommon kanji so you really don’t have to memorize all the kanji all at once to start enjoying basic Japanese stories and comics.

Vocabulary

可愛い =かわいい= cute

恥ずかしい = はずかしい = embarrassing

Transcript

言語ガールズ #24

Always A Silver Lining

Yellow: I’m tired of dictionaries. Maybe I should just memorize all the kanji.

Blue: Good luck. There are several thousand.

Yellow: Several thousand!!

Blue: Don’t worry. Modern 日本語 only really uses about 2,000 of them. The rest are pretty uncommon.

Yellow: That’s still too many! Especially since this 制服 isn’t making 日本語 any easier.

Blue: Did you really think it would?

Yellow: Oh well. At least it’s 可愛い.

Blue: I think the word you’re looking for is 恥ずかしい.

Computers are amazing all-purpose devices. Maybe a little too all-purpose.

Anyways, if you want to try out an electronic kanji dictionary I suggest http://jisho.org/kanji/radicals/. It’s free, easy to use and has an excellent database of both common and uncommon kanji. It’s my go-to resource when I need to translate something. Why not grab a kanji from a previous strip and see if you can find it?

Transcript

言語ガールズ #23

Electronic Induced ADD

Yellow: The computer lab?

Blue: Digital kanji dictionaries have certain advantages over normal paper dictionaries.

Blue: One big advantage is that electronic dictionaries let you search for multiple radicals at the same time.

Blue: This let’s you pinpoint the exact kanji you’re looking for.

Blue: There might be a hundred kanji with the 亠 radical but there are only two with both the 亠 AND the 力radical.

Blue: Even you can’t complain about results like that.

Blue: So, do you want to give it a try?

Yellow: I found a video of a 猫 stuck in a box!

I think we’ve all experienced the feeling that a hard thing should be easier than it is.

A lot of the time that’s just us suffering form unrealistic expectations. Some things are just plain hard and there’s not much you can do about it except grit your teeth and keep working.

But sometimes there really is an easier way to solve your problems. Which is actually the topic of the next comic.

Vocabulary

夜 = よる = evening, night

Transcript

言語ガールズ #22

Totally Rad

Yellow: Looking kanji up by stroke count is frustrating.

Blue: You could try looking them up with radicals instead.

Blue: Radicals are the simple symbols that get combined together to make complicated kanji, like this 亠 symbol here.

Yellow: So I just flip to the 亠 section of the dictionary and…

Yellow: What!? There’s over a hundred different kanji in this list!

Yellow: This isn’t radical at all. This is just as slow and frustrating as stroke counting.

Blue: Patience is a virtue, especially when studying 日本語.

I was planning on giving you some useful tips on how to count brush strokes only to realize that I’m not 100% sure myself. I guess my best advice would be to look up some tutorials on how to properly draw the basic three and four stroke kanji. That might give you a feel for what sort of stoke shapes are and aren’t common. Example: a lot of kanji have strokes that go to the right and then angle down, but very few have strokes that start out moving down and then angle right.

Or you could just give up on stroke counting for now and try a different kanji look up method.

Vocabulary

目 = め = eye

Transcript

言語ガールズ #21

Relative VS Absolute

Blue: Let’s try looking up this kanji by stroke count.

Yellow: I count six lines, so is that a six stroke kanji?

Blue: It’s actually a five stroke kanji. The top and right lines were drawn with one angled stroke.

Yellow: So I just flip to the list of five stroke kanji and… WOAH!

Yellow: There must be a hundred of these things! How is this helpful?

Blue: Searching a list of 100 symbols is easier than searching a full list of thousands of symbols.

Yellow: Easier doesn’t mean easy!

If your main goal is to speak and listen to Japanese the kanji probably aren’t a big deal. But if your goal is to read Japanese the sooner you learn how to use a kanji dictionary the better. Being able to look words up on demand is a lot easier than having to memorize 2,000 kanji before even thinking about reading your first Japanese comic or news article.

Transcript

言語ガールズ #20

Priorities

Blue: Alphabetic dictionaries are useful when you know how a word is spelled.

Blue: But what if you needed to look up a word based only on its kanji, or symbol?

Yellow: I would ask you.

Blue: What if I wasn’t here?

Yellow: I would wait until you showed up.

Blue: What if I was dead?

Yellow: I’d be too sad to care about a dumb kanji.

Blue: Well, if you did want to look up a kanji, you could use a kanji dictionary.

Yellow: Why would you be dead anyways?

Blue: Kanji dictionaries organize Japanese symbols by things like the number of brush strokes in each kanji. They’re really useful.

Yellow: Was it the lizard-clones? Did you know too much about their plans?

I won’t lie; Electronic dictionaries are incredibly useful. I personally use jisho.org for 99% of my Japanese needs and only break out my physical dictionary on those rare days when I’m tired of staring at a computer screen and need to give my eyes a break.

Still, knowing how to alphabetize words is a useful skill. You never know when you’ll need to do something low-tech like find a book in an alphabetized shelf or look someone up in a company registry.

Vocabulary

寒い = さむい= cold

Transcript

言語ガールズ #19

Be Prepared

Blue: Why don’t you try your dictionary skills by looking up the word さむい?

Yellow: Let’s see… It starts with an “S” sound which comes after the vowel and “K” sounds, so that’s the third section of the dictionary.

Yellow: あいうえおorder means that さ is the first S sound, so I should focus on the beginning of the “S” section.

Yellow: Next isむ. “M” sounds are near the middle of the Japanese alphabet, so さむいshould be in the middle of the さwords.

Yellow: む comes after ま and み so… Here it is: さむい means “cold”.

Blue: That wasn’t so bad, was it?

Yellow: Typing SAMUI into an electronic dictionary would have been faster.

Blue: But… umm… what if you need to look up a word during a power outage? That coul happen, right?

Yellow: Good point! I might need to talk to with a samurai during the zombie apocalypse.

For anyone too lazy to look it up on their own, the order of the hiragana groups is: Vowels, K, S, T, N, H, M, Y, R, W. Congratulations, you can now alphabetize in Japanese.

A lot of Japanese-to-English dictionaries actually spell the Japanese words with the Latin alphabet and Latin alphabetization. So you would look up “neko = cat” under “N” instead of looking up “ねこ = cat” under ね.

As a beginner a Latin alphabet dictionary will probably seem easier to use, but I strongly suggest getting a hiragana based Japanese-to-English dictionary instead. Forcing yourself to use Japanese characters is tough at first but will help you master the hiragana. It will also prevent you from accidentally mixing up English and Japanese pronunciation rules. It’s just too easy to see a word like “are” and immediately think of how you would read it in English instead of how it should sound in Japanese. That’s also why this comic has been using hiragana since the very start. In the long run it really pays off.

Transcript

言語ガールズ #18

Method Acting

Yellow: Now that I’m dressed properly learning 日本語 should be easy.

Blue: That’s why you’re wearing that?

Yellow: To speak like the Japanese you must dress like the Japanese.

Blue: If you say so…

Blue: Anyways, today I wanted to talk about dictionaries.

Yellow: What is there to talk about? They’re just big lists of alphabetized words and definition.

Blue: That’s true, but 日本語 has different alphabetization rules than English.

Blue: For example, their vowels are organized あいうえお instead of A E I O U.

Blue: In fact, each letter group follows the sameあいうえお pattern. So for the “K” sounds the order isかきく け こ.

Blue: So if you remember the あいうえお pattern and the order the letter groups go in you’re done.

Yellow: I guess I’d better go find a hiragana chart to study.