About similar words

ninjacatman · 29 Jan 2009

Hi all,
I am learning a little Japanese in my free time, and I have some
questions about words with similar meanings in Japanese. I forgot
some of them, so I'll just ask about one for now.
I noticed on the term 'wow' sometimes people use sigoi and sometimes
sigai, I noticed that sigai is used more often when the person is being
sarcastic, so is one stronger then the other? or is it just two ways
to pronounce the same word?

nekojita · 29 Jan 2009

Not 'sigoi' or 'sigai'.

sugoi = a lot of meanings, but could be something like 'wow' in the right context.
sugee or something similar = a slurring of sugoi, more a guy thing.

This is quite a common pattern - i.e. urusai! --> urusee!

Japanese does have a lot of genuine homophones - i.e. momo = peach, or thigh. Usually they're distinguishable in context.

ninjacatman · 29 Jan 2009

IC, I guess it almost like that in Chinese. Chinese is extremely context sensitive. Like the spoken word for snake and tongue is exactly the same, only context
can differentiate.
(snake and tongue are homophones? ironic ain't it!?)

ninjacatman · 30 Jan 2009

well, I suppose you could add 'tou' at the end to clarify that your talking
about a tongue, but that is sometimes grammatically incorrect.

Toritoribe · 30 Jan 2009

nekojita said:
Japanese does have a lot of genuine homophones - i.e. momo = peach, or thigh. Usually they're distinguishable in context.

Or, in many cases, homophones(e.g. peach, thigh) are distinguishable also by kanji (桃, 腿) in written words, pitch accent (平板型[heiban-gata], 頭高型[atama-daka-gata]) in spoken words.

Damicci · 30 Jan 2009

Ugh Pitch accent. I still can't say hashi and hashi, but context and kanji will make the difference.

Unless momo is being referred to as something sweet in a particular "video". you could get confused.

ninjacatman · 1 Feb 2009

I realize 'slang' or other ways to pronounce words should be avoided when one is
first learning a language. Most people when using their native language while talking
to someone who's L1 is a different language, will slow down and speak more
clearly unless the second person knows slang; in which case, they tend to loosen up
and speak normally.

FinancialWar · 1 Feb 2009

japanese is far more harder to decipher in a spoken situation, in mandarin there are 4 tones to help you to distinguish the words with the same sound, while in japanese there only "accent nucleus", similar to english's emphasis on the different syllable of the word. so 火 and 日 is pronounced differently while they both are ひ. dont know if anyone know if there is a comprehensive dictionary that indicate this. i know Webster jap - eng indicated this.
plus chinese has far more vowels and consonants to be confused. when you talking about snake and tougue in chinese, yes they are the same, that because they are single kanji, compound kanji in chinese that are homophones with another compound kanji are rare due to the 4 tones. but in japanese they are everywhere.

Imposter253 · 2 Feb 2009

Turns out, japanese's a really hard language. Like warakawa said, not really much in terms of tone differentiation to help one decipher so it's mainly a contextual thing. Sugoi I've been told is like the english word "awesome" and "awful" in one, so mainly it's something that makes an extreme of something (a situation can be "Awesome", "Terrific", "Great", or something can be "Awful", "Terrifying", "Great") Also, just a note about transliteration. sigoi = shigoi but sugoi = sugoi in the system you're using. Not really criticizing you just wanted to point it out to avoid future confusion.

FrustratedDave · 2 Feb 2009

Imposter253 said:
Turns out, japanese's a really hard language. Like warakawa said, not really much in terms of tone differentiation to help one decipher so it's mainly a contextual thing. Sugoi I've been told is like the english word "awesome" and "awful" in one, so mainly it's something that makes an extreme of something (a situation can be "Awesome", "Terrific", "Great", or something can be "Awful", "Terrifying", "Great") Also, just a note about transliteration. sigoi = shigoi but sugoi = sugoi in the system you're using. Not really criticizing you just wanted to point it out to avoid future confusion.

You have to take the word in context.

ninjacatman · 2 Feb 2009

Yes, I know that Japanese is indeed a difficult language. When you guys metioned
homophones it reminded me of this. I don't know if it is a homophone or not, but
in an anime, I heard 'beautiful' and 'ugly' used in the same episode, and they sounded
quite similar.

About similar words

ninjacatman

先輩

nekojita

先輩

ninjacatman

先輩

ninjacatman

先輩

Toritoribe

松葉解禁

Damicci

先輩

ninjacatman

先輩

FinancialWar

Sempai

Imposter253

先輩

FrustratedDave

先輩

ninjacatman

先輩

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