First, the feature request:
In Japanese, there are words that have no kanji associated with them. However, if you study readings as well as writings, you're presented these words to be recalled just from the definition (becuase of their lack of kanji). I really, really don't like doing this, and I'd figured that it'd be massive pain in the butt to ban each and every kanji-less word in all of my lists. Would there be a way you guys could set it up so that people like me could study readings of words that have kanji and not have to ban words that lack them?

Now, the first question: I think I talked with you guys once about the dictionaries that are okay to just copy and paste from. I'd like to do some work on the Japanese-Japanese definitions, but I don't do know what kind of dictionaries I could get definitions from. Unfortunately, if I do this, it would just be copy-paste definitions because I'd be worried that if I cut something out, I'd be cutting out something important.

Now, the second question (not even closely related to Skritter): Does Chinese have homonyms? Same sound (including tones), but multiple writings?

Final note: The word in Japanese for professor is 教授, not 教師.

@weirdesky

Dictionaries are hard to make.

You need to have intermediate or advanced knowledge of Japanese in order to help create a dictionary. Copy and pasting won't cut it: A simple bot could do that flawlessly.

The problem is that precision is paramount. Even many native speakers do not use the language correctly. I hear children -- and some adults -- make mistakes that even I know are incorrect. For example, many native level speakers can't explain or conflate the difference between そこ and あそこ(there by the listener and over there away from both the speaker and listener). It's an even harder task for English speakers as we lack that distinction in our language and have to rely on circumlocution in order to convey the same meaing.


The above example is trivial; real dictionaries have to explain much more complex concepts concisely. Good luck with that.

@weirdesky

Regarding the feature request, we could consider it. However it would have to be useful for many users, and so far this is the only time I've heard it brought up. We generally try to stick with creating options only for things that would be widely used, otherwise we'd pay a heavy price in site maintenance with every which way you could configure things. What do other Japanese users think?

Is there a better way to study readings for such words? Is it because just having the definition is vague and could be any number of words? Or are you just mainly interested in learning Kanji?

One alternative solution might be to figure out a way to make banning the items faster on the study view, maybe with keyboard shortcuts if we can squeeze them in somehow. Though, there probably won't ever be a way to do something like that on the iOS app.

For the dictionary, you can use any dictionary that isn't copyright protected and is free for commercial use. Otherwise you'll need to come up with your own definitions. But icecream is right, for dictionary creation you'd need to be comfortable enough with Japanese to make the definitions fit our criteria (clear, concise definitions that cover the major usages, and fit into a small space, and are not necessarily exhaustive) without sacrificing quality and accuracy.

Where does 教師 appear?

"Now, the second question (not even closely related to Skritter): Does Chinese have homonyms? Same sound (including tones), but multiple writings?"


"WenWu found 11.6 percent of Chinese words to have homonyms, compared to 3.1 percent for English (1980:120). Zhou reports that in a Chinese dictionary of 60,000 words, some 4,000 or about 7 percent of its entries have homonyms; for a 120,000 word dictionary, the homonyms increase to about 6,000 or 5 percent (1987:13)."

http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/east_asian_languages.html

@icecream, As for the copying and pasting, as I'll mention below, I know of some dictionaries that would do excellently, at least for a small subsection of words. They'd also be great for parts of speech for the other words.

@scott: It's mostly an only wanting to do kanji thing and a general distaste for recalling Japanese from English (or from any language to any language). I think that no matter how precise you make a definition you're going to have some trouble with ambiguity. (It's mostly just because I don't like doing it XD).
If it's trouble, then it's no big deal. Is there a way to bulk add words to lists? If there is, then I can make custom, all-kanji lists.

As for the definitions, how do I find out about copyright of dictionaries and stuff? I'm interested in the 大辞泉. The reason I was curious about it was because it was on Yahoo! Japan's dictionary, so there's a chance that I'd be able to use it. Furthermore, for nouns (especially uncommonly used ones that can't be verbified), its definitions are beautifully concise. Here's the definitions for dryer:

かんそう‐き〔カンサウ‐〕【乾燥器／乾燥機】
水分を除いて乾燥させる装置。「布団―」

The smallness of the definition maybe troublesome because of the monolingualness of the definitions. How did you guys keep your Chinese-Chinese defintions so short?

Amd of course, lastly, and marginally tangentially: I think you guys could really have a great deal of success in Japan if you got a good monolingual dictionary going. I've showed the app to my Japanese friends and they're always just enthralled by it.

教師 is the name given to The Professor—the little Skritter that pops up to help. But I guess that could be Chinese and not Japanese XD.

@atdlouis, I see. Do you guys have any similarly defined homonyms? Like when one means climb (as in stairs) and the other means climb (as in a mountain)? Or search for something that necessarily exists and something that only may exist?

@ weirdesky - Yes there are characters for words that sound the same and have similar meaning. These are the characters I am the worst at. The two that always trip me up are:
像 (xiàng) and 象 (xiàng)
唯 (wéi) and 惟 (wéi)

I've heard from various people either that 1) the characters are used interchangeably, or 2) the differences in meaning are distinct, yet subtle.

There are plenty more (登 & 蹬, both pronounced dēng), but they don't give me as much trouble.

Oh! I recognize those first two! (The latter of the latter two we don't have in Japanese). They're both pronounced　ぞう or zou. But only the second one has any meaning when used independently (that meaning would be elephant. I don't know why). And I don't think there are any compounds containing those two in Japanese where they're interchangeable. The two in Japanese that have given me the most trouble are 憬れる and 憧れる, for which there seems to be no difference in meaning (it's kind of like longing).

@icecream on a tangent, Spanish has a similar distinction. "Este gato" is "this cat (here)", "ese gato" is "that cat (near you)", and "aquel gato" is "that cat (far away from us)". Some people use these words more loosely of course.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=391729

James

Yo jww. In Japanese the distinction actually goes beyond simply distance from you or who you're speaking to. At least with the pronoun triplet, this, that, and that over there, the last one is used when you're talking about something and both you and the listener understand what you're talking about.
For example, if you've ever read mangas, and they start talking about how they're about to use "that," or "that" move, they're usually using あれ, which is literally, that thing over there.

The thing is, I've never heard a Japanese person misuse そこ or あそこ. Granted, I rarely hear them used at all, but still.

@ jww1066

Many languages, in disparate areas of the world, make a tripartite distinction.

@ weirdesky

これ and それ and あれ are not pronouns. They are demonstratives. The main difference among them is in regards to distance.

Japanese lacks number. That means the plural of “manga” is still “manga”.

How about that, they really are called demonstratives XD. I guessed, because in Japanese they're called　指示代名詞. And those last three characters are the characters for pronoun. In Japanese they're conflated together. (Searching 指示代名詞 on the Japanese Wikipedia, you’ll be redirected onto the page for pronouns, 代名詞. It then gives some examples of English pronouns: you, who and then this. My bad XD ).

Alrighty, so I'm sorry for not quoting a source, there. Here’s one, but it’s all in Japanese, so bear with my poor translations:

Here's the first source, which addresses all the こ/そ/あ　(此/其/彼) demonstratives in Japanese (which may or may not be all the demonstratives in Japanese). Unfortunately, it's a Yahoo Q&A (if you can read it, you can just skip my achingly poor translations, and just search for 文脈指示 : http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1313078618 ).

Firstly:

About the distance distinctions:

The article says this:

「眼前（現場）指示」の場合・・・
結果的には「距離的な違い」と等しくなることも多いのですが、「あ・こ・そ」の決め手は、自分の領域にあるか、
　相手の領域にあるか、ということです。　「領域」というのは物理的なことだけでなく、「その人の支配の及ぶ範囲」という意味です。

In the case where it's used for something in front of you (or a place), then although it's generally simplified to sound as if it's differences in distances, it's really distinguished by differences in domain. And by domain, I mean the sense in which it means “things you can affect.”

It continues with examples:

たとえば、自分の背中にかゆいところがあって、相手に掻いてもらう場合、相手が「ここ？」と触れた場所について
　掻いてもらう人は、自分の背中というこの上ない近いところであるにもかかわらず「そこ、そこ！」と言いますね。
　「今相手に掻いてもらっている」という点で、自分の背中が「相手の領域」に入っているわけです。

For example, when the middle of your back itches, and you getting someone to itch it for you, and they say "Here? (ここ？)", you'll respond "There! There! (そこ、そこ！)" even though it's the middle of your back. In this case, this means that the middle of your back is in the other person’s domain, but not your own.

自分の領域でも相手の領域でもない場合は、両者から対象物の距離的な関係となります。
　タクシーの客が運転手に「そこで止めてください」というような場合です。

When neither you or the person you're speaking to can affect the place that you're referring to, then it falls back upon simple distance. For example, when someone in a taxi says "Can you stop there for me? (そこで止めてください)".

Now although that was interesting, the next part actually pertains to what I was referring to in my last post:

「文脈指示」の場合

In the case of context:

　「こ」　・・　話し手の身近にある情報　
こ: Stuff familiar with the speaker.
　１・目に見えないものを、あたかも目の前にあるように述べる。
1. Talk about things you can’t see as if they were right in front of you.
　例・　「新しい社員が入ったんだけど、これが変わり者でね・・・」
Example: “A new guy entered the company, but he’s （これ） a little weird” (I think. I have no idea why これ is used here).
　２・これから話そうとする内容も指示できる
2. To indicate what you’re about to talk about.
　例・「こういう話、知ってる？　鈴木さんから聞いたんだけどさ、実は・・・」
Example: “Do you know this story (こういう話)? I heard it from Suzuki, but, the truth is…”

　「そ」　・・・既に話題になった語句
そ: Something that is already a topic of conversation.
　１・　聞き手が知らない（と話し手が思っている）場合
1. Something (the speaker) doesn’t think the listening knows about.
　例・「彼は××っていう町へ行ったんだって。そこはすごく小さい町で・・」
Example: “He said he went to xx, the town. He said that it (そこ) was incredibly small…” (This is an awkward translation, because when it’s said in English, we have a pronoun where they have a demonstrative).
　２・　話し手自身が知らない場合
2. Something the speaker themselves don’t know.
　例・　「私、××って町へ行ってきました」「へえ、そこ、どんな所？」
Example: “I went to xx, the town.” “Oh really? How what kind of place was it (そこ)?” (This is awkward for the same reason the previous one was awkward)

　「あ」　・・・頭の中のイメージ
あ: An image in your head.
　１・話し手も聞き手も、対象を知っている場合
When both people know the object of the demonstrative.
　例・「きのうレストラン××へ行ってきたよ」「ああ、あそこ、おいしいでしょう！」
Example: “I went to that restaurant, xx, yesterday!” “Oh yeah,? It’s (あそこ) good, right?” (As above)
　２・記憶の中の対象を指す場合
Indicating something in memory.
　例・「去年フランスで食べたフォアグラ、あれはうまかったなあ！」
Example: “That Foie gras we had france, it (あれ) was soo good.” (As above).

@weirdesky

What is your native language? I really don’t know where, or how, to begin to respond to your post.

Only “you” is a pronoun. “Who” and then “this” are not pronouns.

Having the same characters does not imply conflation. To give a rough analogy using English, the word “cat” and “catch” both have the letters “c” “a” “t” but that doesn’t mean “catch” has anything to do with “cat”!

You shouldn’t cite Yahoo! as a source; it’s about as accurate as asking random people on the street.

Common words have many meanings based on context. You can’t give an exhaustive definition succinctly. Hence why we focus on the salient aspects. I stand by my original comment: distance differentiates the demonstratives.

Well... English is my native language. Born and raised in the States. And um... who, is, indeed a pronoun (albeit an interrogative one). Furthermore, demonstratives can be as well (albeit demonstrative pronouns). The case in which a demonstrative is a pronoun is when it replaces a noun. As in "I'm going to shoot him with this" and not "Pick this one".

Hence, in plenty of dictionaries, both interrogative and demonstrative pronouns are simply listed as pronouns. Check out http://dictionary.reference.com/ or http://www.merriam-webster.com/ . The parts of speech of, say, "who" and "this" are listed as "pronoun."

As for this confusion about words containing characters implying conflation, I apologize for the confusion. When the article said "こ", it was referring to the set of Japanese demonstratives beginning with that character. An exhaustive list would be: これ、この、ここ、こいつ、こっち、こちら、こう＆こんな. The same for そ：それ、その、そこ、そいつ、そっち、そちら、そう＆そんな and then again for あ: アレ、あの、あそこ、あいつ、あっち、あちら、ああ、＆あんな.

In fact, in Japanese, these words are often referred to as こそあど言葉, and those beginning with こ act similarly (referring to things close to you, within your power, or what you're familiar with), and the same for そ and あ.

If more sources are necessary, I've found one I think should be of sufficient authority: http://www.osaka-ohtani.ac.jp/common/img/department/welfare/download/033_p62.pdf

It's a paper written by 井上優希, and is up on a Japanese University website. The main point of this paper is actually the need for more education on the context definitions of the こそあど demonstratives in Japanese. Although, these context definitions are fairly scattered throughout the paper (as it's not about the definitions themselves, but the fact they need to be taught), they agree with those listed by the guy I referenced in the Q&A.

You can also check out the Japanese Wikipedia page 指示語 under the heading 文脈指示, where it says the same thing in a more concise manner (three or four sentences).

I have to say, thought, that guy from the Q&A really wrote it clearest.

You are right: who and this are considered pronouns by Webster. I guess I need to recheck some of my assumptions and references.

As I mentioned in an old post, your English ability will deteriorate over time. I guess mine is already a bit impaired.

I live in Japan. My speaking and listening ability is much better than my reading and writing ability. I can read my Nintendo DS instrutions; academic papers are too difficult.

I know what you mean about deteriorating English ability. I can no longer talk or write like I used to be able to.

I still live in the states, so my sources of audio input are just television shows and anime. For the longest time, because could I understand so little Japanese when it was spoken at a native pace, I just read manga. So my reading comprehension is leagues above my listening comprehension.