"He should take the bus."

[steepholm]

In the previous entry I mentioned a distinction that English has but Japanese lacks. Here, to redress the balance, I want to do the opposite, by thinking about the multiple meanings of the word "should

Comments

[ron_broxted]

How do you remember the 5000 hirakana? Happy Birthday.

[steepholm]

The hiragana and the katakana aren't so bad - there's only about 50 each. It's the kanji that are the real buggers. The good news? You only need to learn around 2,200 for a working knowledge of Japanese. The bad news? That's still a fuck of a lot, especially if (like me) you don't have a good visual memory. The worse news? Each of them can be pronounced in a number of different ways, depending on context, and you have to memorise all the readings.

My birthday's not till Saturday, but thank you in advance!

Kosturino

[ron_broxted]

LJ said it was your birthday! I was thinking of learning a foreign language with non latin (or cyrillic) script. Scary.

[chazzbanner]

There's also "he ought to take the bus" - similar but not identical?