this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
227 points (96.7% liked)

World News

39407 readers
2963 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Summary

Japan’s English proficiency ranking dropped to 92nd out of 116 countries, the lowest ever recorded.

The decline is attributed to stagnant English proficiency among young people, particularly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Netherlands ranked first, followed by European countries, while the Philippines and Malaysia ranked 22nd and 26th, respectively.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Gsus4@mander.xyz 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Thanks for that.

Japanese has a tone system but it’s simple enough a foreigner can get by without knowing it

Isn't this just learning each word's tonic syllable? Or if you mean the flow of a sentence, the general waving tone structure like in Spanish or French?

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 2 points 1 month ago

Neither. Japanese has two tones, high and low (for comparison Mandarin has 4 and Cantonese has I think 7), and each vowel/vowel+consonant in a word takes one of these two. For example there are a bunch of words pronounced koukai in Japanese and they're split 50/50 on whether their tone is high low low low or low high high high, and the words oyster and persimmon (both kaki) are famous for having opposite tones, one low high and the other high low.

By the way Japanese straight up doesn't have stressed syllables so the idea of a tonic syllable doesn't really translate to the language.

[–] loppy@fedia.io 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You are correct (for standard Japanese 標準語 hyoujungo; other dialects can be quite different). NoneOfUrBusiness's response is not a great take. Every word has an accented syllable or no accent at all (and it really is based on syllables, not mora). The accent is realized as a relatively sudden drop in pitch after the accented syllable with no (necessary) change in length or loudness. The drop can complete within the next syllable or after. Usually at the beginning of an utterance you start low, climb up in pitch to a certain point, and then either hit an accent and drop suddenly or gradually drop across a longer period of time if there's no accent.

The precise pitch does not matter, and it's definitely possible to have two accents close together resulting in a high-mid-low kind of pitch pattern.

Things are also complicated by the fact that Japanese likes devoicing certain syllables. Devoiced syllables can still be accented even though they can't carry pitch in the same way as voiced syllables.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

(and it really is based on syllables, not mora)

It's not though? Pitch can and does change (either rise or drop) mid-syllable no?

[–] loppy@fedia.io 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Pitch does, but accent placement counts mora but only assigns to syllables. For example, if an accent pattern will put an accent mid-syllable, the accent will move further back to the beginning of the syllable. This is also why accents only occur on the first mora of a long vowel. You can also see this in action in accent placement for compound nouns.

Another good thing to know is that adjacent vowels within the same morpheme (typically one kanji) are part of the same syllable. So 帰る is an accented verb, so the accent goes one mora back from the end like with all accented verbs. But this would put the accent on the え in かえる, and かえ is one syllable here, so in fact the か gets the accent.

Edit: I was looking over my main source[*] for this, and was reminded of one really good example of the role of syllables in accent assignment: genitive の. Nouns can lose their accent if followed by の, and when this occurs is exactly when (1) the noun is at least bisyllabic, and (2) the noun's accent is on the final syllable. Thus monosyllabic 本 (ほ\ん) stays accented ほ\んの, but bisyllabic 日本 (にほ\ん) becomes unaccented にほんの, and 男 (おとこ\) becomes unaccented おとこの.

[*] The Handbook of Japanese Linguistics (1999), edited by Natsuko Tsujimura, published by Blackwell Publishers, Ltd.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

TIL. I apparently picked it up naturally but I feel for people who have to actually learn this.

[–] loppy@fedia.io 1 points 1 month ago

Uhhh... ok dude. I really doubt anyone "has to" learn this, as long as they learn to hear pitch accent I'm sure anyone can pick it up "naturally". I spend my time learning this sort of stuff because it's cool and interesting.