Printable View
Hello,
Does anybody speak Japanese? I was thinking of the kanban strategy to work. I didn't know it was a Japanese word because it doesn't look so. I heard that Japanese syllables didn't have consonants after the vowel as the -n and that foreign names are adapted to follow this structure. Now, why is there an exception with kanban?
I know some Japanese, and it really does look like a Japanese word! o(*≧□≦)o
It is true that most syllables do not end in consonants. The Japanese alphabet is actually made of Kanji and a couple of syllabaries. Each syllable is called a kana. The only "loose consonant" is the n. That is why you can have syllables ending in -n.
It's not that "kanban" is an exception, it's just how the "n" is used.
There is a game called shiritori where you have to say a word that starts with the final kana of the previous word. For example,
ka-o (face)
o-ka-ne (money)
ne-ko (cat)
kou-en (park)。
If you say a word ending in -n, you lose, since there are no words starting with "n". Remember that na, ni, nu, ne and no are syllables.
Thanks, solg! I didn't know that n had a different condition.
Is that why the example of the game has "okane" and then "neko"?
Exactly! Those are syllables, so they do not "start with n", since n is a different kana.Quote:
Originally Posted by danielr
You probably don't know kana, but it's easier to visualize:
kao かお
okane おかね
neko ねこ
kouen こうえん
Nothing starts with ん, so you loose.
Oh, I see. Thank you. It's true the syllabaries work in that way.
Kanban methodology in Chinese is called 看板管理, and it is also pronounced as /kan'ban/.
you can find this pronunciation at Japanese search engine audio speak...
I heard it in forvo before asking here and it didn't solve my doubt until I got the explanations.
That is wonderful!