Singularity on the Plane

We will learn 3 shapes this time!

First is the plant shape. Observe the blue shapes in these kanji:

草 is the kanji for grass (kusa), 花 is the kanji for flower (hana), and 菜 is the kanji for vegetables (na). I call the blue shape the “plant” shape. Here’s an image of two plants:

For decoration, I made the flowers bloom :). Note that you can see the roots underground. The superimposed image should make it clear why it is called the plant shape:

Of course the discussion wouldn’t be complete without the stroke order:

OK, the plant shape… I’ll guarantee that you will meet it often (and many times in a plant-related kanji). The other two shapes are less common but I bring it here because they are similar to the plant shape.

Next is the bridge shape. See the blue shapes in the following kanji:

算 is the kanji for calculation (san), 鼻 is the kanji for nose (hana), and 械 is the kanji for machine (kai). This shape is devilish because it is so similar to the previous one. Having a completely different mnemonic is a must if you don’t want things mixed up. Look at the image below:

It is a nice bridge that allows you to cross the river! The image fits well with the shape:

Hence it is called the “bridge” shape. Remember, the key point is the bend on the left vertical stroke. Plant roots don’t bend sideways because, well… probably because gravity. Or is it because they can “smell” more water below and try to dig downwards as far as they could? Whatever, here’s the stroke order:

Now for the last one, the fence shape. Take a good look at the blue shapes below:

黄 means yellow (ki), 散 means to scatter (chi.ru), and 昔 means olden days (mukashi). It’s the plant shape with an extra stroke! But I use a different mnemonic, not related to plants, so that those two aren’t mixed up. Look at my drawing below:

Why, it’s a nice fence that protects the garden… Focus on the two vertical woods, and superimpose the kanji shape:

It fits perfectly! Therefore I call it the “fence” shape. The stroke order:

I hope with those mnemonics, your kanji quest can be made easier. Happy kanji hunting!

The first release of HtmlKanjiMarker

HtmlKanjiMarker is a program that reads a local HTML file and then marks all unknown kanji red. If you’re studying kanji, this program might be interesting and useful.

Because the program is written in C#, you first need to install .NET Framework 2.0. After that you can download HtmlKanjiMarker 0.01 (487 KB) itself. To run the program, just extract the contents somewhere and run “HtmlKanjiMarker.exe”. Instruction on using the program can be found on the included “readme.txt”

PS: If my university server borks, you can try downloading from http://www.sendspace.com/file/p8n6sj

PS2: The program doesn’t run yet on Mono 1.2.3 because they haven’t implemented the web browser control.

This time there’s a scanner around so I can show off my Picasso-like drawing ability…

First of all, observe the kanji in these words:

• 指 (ゆび): finger
• 摘む (つむ): to pick
• 抱く (だく): to hug

Notice that the left shape of all the kanji is same! It’s a shape that occurs in hundreds of kanji, so it is wothy of a name. I call it the hockey player.

This is what a hockey player looks like:

If we change the camera a bit, here’s what he looks like from above:

Can you see it already? The next picture should make it clear:

Therefore, the shape is called the hockey player. QED.

As a closing, here’s the stroke order, taken from Wikimedia Commons:

PS: Be careful not to confuse this shape with devil’s hand. (they look kind of similar)

This program was actually made quite some time ago, but I haven’t blogged about it.

HtmlKanjiMarker reads a local HTML file and then marks all unknown kanji red. The list of known kanji is taken from two sources. First is from the “Max grade” textbox on the upper right. I entered 4 because I’ve studied all Jouyou kanji grade 4 and below. The second is from a text file, “ExtraKnownKanji.txt”. The file should contain all kanji you’ve learned, outside from the textbox range.

Using this program, I can visually see how effective my current kanji knowledge is for a certain page. It also makes hunting new kanji easy. Last, It can answer questions such as “what if I learn all grade 5 kanji?”. (just change the “Max grade” textbox)

Programming the algorithm naively yielded a very slow marking. This is because a HTML page contains tons of characters, and there are ten thousands of kanji to check againts. I actually benchmarked and overhauled the algorithm several times. I originally wanted to write about the algorithm changes, but lost the interest by now :).

So, here’s some generated Wikipedia pages viewed from my eyes of 1249 kanji: Newton, September 11 2001 attacks, Wikipedia. Rest assured, I’m still quite far for literacy…

Keep running, and if tired, walking. A small rest is also fine, just don’t surrender!

The plan for my final project is a web-based application. Because I don’t usually play with web technologies, there are many things that I have to learn. I chose Javascript as my first subject.

So, I’ve been reading w3school’s tutorial on Javascript. It’s great that the syntax is C-ish, so I could skim most of the syntatic stuffs.

Please don’t misundertand the title of this post. It doesn’t mean that “Learning Javascript is a simple game”. It means that “after learning some Javascript, I made a simple game” :). Here’s the game, please test it. (That’s the beauty of web apps, people can run your programs in any platform without the hassle of installing extra programs)

About the game itself, there were 3 major rewrites. The initial version could actually produce starting points that could not be solved! I rewrote it so that the initial state of the puzzle is generated from the completed state through a series of LEGAL moves. Second, the generator could produce an initial state that could be solved very easily. That sucks, so I added a check to keep shuffling if the initial state is too easy. Third, the “empty” cell is changed from the lower right to the middle. The reason is obvious, so that there is more incentive to solve the puzzle

様 (sama) is a honorific personal suffix. You attach it to the end of a name/pronoun of someone you respect very much. Here are some examples:

• God is oftenly called 神様 (kami-sama). [Fullmetal Alchemist]
• Hokage is the leader of the Konoha ninja village. People use 火影様 (hokage-sama) to address the hokage. [Naruto]
• Sapphire, a prince, calls his father (a king) お父様 (otou-sama) and his mother (a queen) お母様 (okaa-sama). [Ribbon no Kishi the Musical]
• A daughter of a yakuza (Japanese mafia) also calls her father お父様 (otou-sama). [Full Metal Panic Fumoffu]
• Midori is a daugther of a high-class family. The maid in her house calls her お嬢様 (ojou-sama). [Midori no Hibi]
• A maid refers to her mistress as 奥様 (oku-sama). [Mini Moni Brementown Musicians]
• Customer is referred as お得意様 (otokui-sama). [Chokkan 2 ~Nogashita Sakana wa Ookiizo!~]

However, I was surprised to find this:

It was from a backstage interview of Momusu’s 2nd concert in 1999 (Fukuda Asuka’s graduation concert). There you can see Nakazawa Yuko standing outside Momusu’s dressing room. The room label reads モーニング娘。　様 (Morning Musume-sama)!!! I never knew the staffs honored them THAT much…

However that was in 1999, and we know that culture changes in a blink of eye. I, for one, have never encountered “Morning Musume-sama” in a more modern setting.

Pay attention to these kanji:

• 猫 (ねこ, cat)
• 獄 (used in 地獄 (じごく), hell)
• 狗 (used in 天狗 (てんぐ), a long-nosed demon)
• 狂う (くるう, to go crazy)

All those kanji have the same shape on its left side. I call that shape “devil’s hand”. Here’s the illustration.

Imagine a devil wanting to kidnap a baby. First, he opens a portal that goes to the baby’s cradle:

After that, he can take the baby using his hand through the magical portal:

Notice the shape similarity. Here’s the superimposed image:

Thus, the mnemonic for that shape is “devil’s hand”, or alternatively just “devil”.

In Japanese, number is 数 (かず, kazu). In compounds, the on-reading すう (suu) is used. Here are some compounds which denotes number types:

In the Mechaike Bakajo Test, one of the math question asks to name “integers which are divisible by 2 and integers which are indivisible by 2″. Niigaki Risa answered “divisible numbers” and “indivisible numbers”.

"私達、タカミザワさんの事、後悔してたんじゃないでしょうか？" (listen, 44 KB)
"Watashi-tachi… Takamizawa-san no koto… koukai shitetan ja nai deshou ka?"

達 (tachi) is an oftenly used suffix to indicate plurality of person. For example, 私 (watashi) means "I" so 私達 (watashi-tachi) means "we". Some other examples are 子供達 (kodomo-tachi) which means "children", あなた達 (anata-tachi) which means "you guys/girls", and 田中さん達 (Tanaka-san-tachi, Tanaka-san’s group).

There is one glaring exception. While 友 (tomo) means "friend", 友達 (tomodachi) still means "friend" (yes, still singular)! I’ve encountered tomodachi-tachi (friends), but the kanji used is 友人達. It’s from Matsuura Aya’s song Zutto Suki de Ii desu ka:

眺める友人達 (listen, 61 KB)
nagameru tomodachi-tachi
(My friends gaze)

I’ve heard 娘達 (musume-tachi) used to refer to the girls of Morning Musume. Probably the weirdest use of tachi I’ve met is 思い出達 (omoide-tachi) which means "memories" (actually 思い出 (omoide) alone already has a plural sense). Because the other tachis I’ve encountered were suffixes for a living entity, the use of tachi in omoide-tachi makes the "memories" feel alive for me. It’s from Goto Maki’s song Suppin to Namida:

涙拭いたら 思い出達と「バイバイ」して帰郷るね (listen, 131 KB)
namida fuitara omoide-tachi to "baibai" shite kaeru ne
(After I wipe away my tears, I’ll say "bye bye" with the memories and go home)

In Japanese, the kana が (ga) can be read either “ga” (obviously) or “nga”. The most prominent example is when が is used as a particle. Some examples from songs:

(ga) Furusato (Morning Musume): tanoshii hi ga atta (楽しい日があった)
(ga) Namida ga Tomaranai Houkago (Morning Musume): shiawase ga sugiru kara (幸せがすぎるから)
(nga) Melodies of Life (FFIX): wakareru toki ga kanarazu kuru no ni (別れる時が必ず来るのに)
(nga) Suteki da ne (FFX): kaze ga yoseta kotoba ni (風が寄せた言葉に)

And two examples from a TV show (Hello! Morning 2006-11-19, World Children Games segment):

(ga) Ishikawa Rika: Kyou mo ne… e… tanoshii otomodachi ga.. asobi bla bla bla… (something like: Today we will also play with a fun friend)
(nga) Narrator: Soshite, Ishikawa-sensei ga “tonda tonda maru maru” to bla bla bla… (something like: And then Ishikawa-sensei will say “It flies! It flies! [insert-anything-here]“)

How about が not as a particle? It can also be read as “nga”! Compare these two songs:

(nga) Sougen no Hito (Matsuura Aya): shiroku nagareru (白く流れる（ながれる）)
(ga) Sougen no Hito (Tsunku): shiroku nagareru (白く流れる（ながれる）)

A person doesn’t even have to be consistent. For example, Matsuura Aya pronounces the が in “nagare” as “ga” in another song:

(ga) Watarasebashi (Matsuura Aya): zutto nagare miteta wa (ずっと流れ（ながれ)見てたわ)

Other cases where I’ve heard が sounded as “nga” is in “onegaishimasu”. I don’t know whether there is a (unwritten) rule about the words where が can be read as “nga” so be careful or you might sound totally weird.

As a bonus, I’ve compiled all of those examples into a neat ogg file. The examples appear as they are ordered in this post. Download and listen! (491 KB, duration 1:08) Made with the open source audio editor Audacity.

(Your Windows can’t open ogg files? Download the codecs here.)