TIL: Human Japanese Ch:8

Home Vocabulary:

いえ – house
(アパート) – Apartment (This one isn’t actually in the chapter, because apparently everyone lives in a house).
へや – room. Is described as meaning a general room, but also a bedroom.
いま – living room
だいどころ – kitchen
れいぞうこ – refrigerator
おてあらい – bathroom (polite) literally is “hand washing place”
トイレ – toilet (it seems that this is the same as Australia… where the bathroom is simply called a toilet). Toilet rooms don’t tend to have bathtubs.
ながしだい – sink (this has me mildly confused as Influent suggests that the word for sink is simply “ながし”. Google is recommending the katakana “シンク”
おふろ – bath. Interestingly, I can’t seem to di
おふろば – bath-room. Interestingly, I can’t find this anywhere online other than google translate, which describes it as bathing facilities. I believe that the kanji is used more frequently for this word, which appears to be: お風呂 rather than おふろ. ば means “place” which means that this is literally “bath-room”, where you would bathe.
やね – roof
てんじょう – ceiling (already learned in Influent)
かべ – wall (already learned in Influent)
ゆか – hardwood floor (interesting nuance that wasn’t clear from Influent)

I think the learnjapanese sub-reddit is going to be one of my favourite places on the internet! Not even 20 minutes after asking about sink, I’ve already got a few answers to help clear up the confusion.

ながし is first thing I think of and it is properly 流し. It’s the place you wash things away. Water runs, down the basin.

ながしだい is just 流し台 you see the extra 台 it’s like a… stand, piece of furniture, or what. So it’s like the sink, but also conceptualizing the cabinet or stand it’s part of, the thing, as a standalone piece of furniture. As opposed to just thinking of the basin part with the water running.

But in usage not so different.

シンク is obviously from English maybe I’m old or what but that’s not remotely the word I’d think of.

It’s hard to know at what point I should start learning kanji. It seems like there’s a good number of words that I’m learning to write in hiragana that are more likely to be read in kanji. Human Japanese is still spelling katakana words in hiragana at this point too… which adds a little bit of confusion as well. I’m not sure why they’re doing that exactly, as it seems like it’s just going to create confusion.

ドア – door (already learned in Influent)
まど – window (already learned in Influent)
ほん – book (already learned in Influent)
いす – chair (already learned in Influent)
ベッド – bed (already learned in Influent)
エアコン – air conditioner (already learned in Influent) ((additionally: エアコン is short for エアコンヂショニング)
テレビ – TV (just as TV is short for Television, テルビ is short for テレビジョン。)
ラジオ – radio
とけい – clock
ほんだな – bookshelf
テエブル – table
たたみ – tatami (rooms tend to be measured based on mat size in Japan, so keep in mind that tatami are 90cmx180cm. A small room might be 4.5畳 “jou” in size.)
しょうじ – sliding paper door
ふとん – futon
さら – plate
ちゃわん – bowl
おはし – chopsticks
コップ – cup (even though it sounds like cup, it actually comes from Portuguese copo and refers to a small drinking class.)
ホーク – fork
スプーン – spoon
ナイフ – knife
カウチ – couch
コンピューター – computer (already learned in Influent)

And of course, while I’ve been making an effort to put words properly into katakana… by this stage in HJ, we haven’t actually learned all the katakana. So here’s the few we actually cover in the chapter: the s’s.

サ – 3 stroke : similar to a more rigid り with a horizontal through it.
シ – 3 stroke : the last stroke must be written from bottom up. It’s also not quite as steep as in ソ. The first two marks are also more horizontal than in so.
ス – 2 stroke : this is one of the few katakana I remember since it’s used in my name. Heaps of people draw that downward stroke, straight.
セ – 2 stroke : think of it as a half-assed せ. The font actually does a better job of indicating the upward horizontal motion that the hiragana should have.
ソ – 2 stroke : both elements move fairly steeply to the ground. The second stroke must start at the top.

and we add ten-ten to get the z sounds

サ　シ　ス　セ　ソ
ザ　ジ　ズ　ゼ　ゾ

I definitely need practice with the katakana still. I’m having difficulty remembering the ones from the previous chapter right now. I’ll have to practice drawing them tomorrow night.

the t’s:

タ – 3 stroke : the two downward angles should be mostly parallel and perpendicular to one another
チ – 3 stroke : the first stroke starts from right, then goes down and hard to the left which is apparently unusual.
ツ – 3 stroke : frighteningly similar to シ. It’s important with shi to go bottom up, and for tsu to go top down. The downward motion on all three strokes should be angled down steeply as in so.
テ – 3 stroke : te has very straight horizontal lines, and the bottom stroke doesn’t extend above the second.
ト – 2 stroke : this one I’ve seen enough now that I remember. Use straight lines.

and then the ten-ten for the d sounds

タ　チ　ツ　テ　ト
ダ　ヂ　ヅ　デ　ド

as with the Hiragana つ, the Katakana　ツ can be written half-size to double consonant sounds.

It’s pretty damned hard to tell the difference between ツ and シ. The Chapter Quiz asks you to tell the romaji for シジキ and ツヅキ. Kind of shit, since according to a couple of different dictionaries, neither are even words.