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My name is Justin. I studied Japanese at university in Australia before spending 5 years in South Korea teaching English. Currently, I live and work in Hong Kong. Nice to meet you!
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Japanese
Korean
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EnglishNative
Chinese (Cantonese)
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  • Answered
    When you are writing, all syllables in Korean must start with a consonant. ㅇ is pronounced 'ng' when it goes on the bottom (like in 공, which is pronounced "kong") but it's silent when it comes at the front of a syllable, like in 오, 아, and 우 (oh, ah, and oo). It's used as a silent placeholder when you are writing words that start with a vowel sound. As for the keyboards, they are all just different methods for typing Korean. The standard keyboard and the method all Korean computers use by default is 2-set Korean (which is often referred to as 두벌식, dubeolshik). It's the only one I ever learned how to use, I've never tried any of the others.
    0 voted
    August 11, 2016
    1
  • Answered
    In my opinion, Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese (www.guidetojapanese.org) is the best free resource available on the entire internet. It is significantly better than many paid resources I've come across, too. The complete guide is very comprehensive and I kept a printout of the grammar guide by my side all through university.
    0 voted
    April 23, 2015
    0
  • Commented

    Traditional Chinese is the official standard in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau and is what is taught in schools in all of those places. 

    I lived in Korea (which uses traditional forms too, when using Chinese characters) for a long time so I didn't really have a choice as to which kind I learned but it worked out since I live in HK now. I think even if I was given the choice I'd choose to learn traditional first- it's much easier to learn simplified after you can read and write a lot of traditional characters, but even if you can read simplified characters learning traditional is a major pain. I work with many mainland Chinese and very few of them can write more than a handful of traditional characters. 

    0 voted
    April 17, 2015
    0
  • Answered
    "When I was in high school" is correct The first example ("When I was high school") is not correct English.
    0 voted
    March 24, 2015
    0
  • Answered
    No, because 小さい refers to size only. The correct word in this case is ちょっと - 'a little'. You can combine it with だけ (only) to make it ちょっとだけ - 'just a little' or 'only a little' 今日はちょっと寒いです。　It's a little cold today 雨がちょっとだけ降っています。It's only raining a little.
    0 voted
    March 22, 2015
    2
  • Commented

    Cricket for me! The 2015 World Cup is almost finished and my country (Australia) has made it almost to the final. Very exciting!

    0 voted
    March 22, 2015
    0
  • Answered
    When a woman gets married in Korea she does not change her name. When she has children, they will have the name of their father. Most given names in Korean are 2 syllables. It is very common for siblings to share a syllable, just like 승조 and 은조.
    0 voted
    March 18, 2015
    1
  • Answered
    Yes, and no at the same time! Many Japanese and Chinese characters have the same meaning in both languages. However, Japanese uses some characters that do not exist in Chinese. For example, the Japanese verb 'to work' is 働く (はたらく). The character in that word (働) is Japanese-only. Some characters are used in both Chinese and Japanese, but have completely different meanings. The most famous example is probably 大丈夫 (だいじょうぶ) which means 'OK' or 'alright' in Japanese, but means 'gentleman' in Chinese. 湯 (ゆ) means 'hot water' in Japanese, but 'soup' in Chinese. The Japanese word for soup is 汁（しる), but it means 'juice' in Chinese. Confusing! Some characters are written differently in both languages. For example, the word for 'dragon' in Japanese is 竜 (りゅう), but the same character in Chinese is 龍 or 龙 depending on which kind of Chinese you are using (traditional in Hong Kong and Taiwan or simplified in the Mainland) I think somebody who can read Chinese would have an easier time learning Japanese than people with no experience, but they have to be careful not to get confused.
    0 voted
    March 16, 2015
    1
  • Answered
    You are 100% correct! "an old friend" refers to a friend you have known for a long time, not a friend who is actually old.
    0 voted
    March 14, 2015
    1
  • Answered
    I have a (pretty neutral) Australian English accent, and I pronounce it exactly like your first example. My wife has a standard American English accent and she pronounces it just like the second one.
    0 voted
    March 14, 2015
    0