２歳, にさい

[Dublabla]

慰謝料のほか２歳の長男の親権や養育費をめぐってトラブルになっていたという。

Hi!
This time, my question is about one of the toughest challenge in learning Japanese....that is, "how to read chinese character used in Japan"

I'm always mixed up with reading 'chinese character' used in Japan.
My rough attempt to read ２歳 is にさい. But I'm not sure it's right.

 

[Mugi]

That's correct - にさい

 

[Dublabla]

Mugu! Thank you for your verification.

 

[Dublabla]

Then, three-year-old= san sai, four-year-old=shi sai....along this sort of line??

 

[pdmx]

four-year-old=shi saiyon-sai

also 7 years old is ななさい
8 years old はっさい
10 years old じゅっさい
11 years old じゅういっさい
and a few similar phonetic adjustments but the basic rule is this one.

 

[Demurral]

and do not forget the "ateji" 二十歳　はたち　^^.

 

[Dublabla]

and do not forget the "ateji" 二十歳　はたち　^^.

ateji??? はたち??? It's greek to me.

 

[Demurral]

ateji??? はたち??? It's greek to me.

This may be split in a new thread...but I don't know how to do it.

当て字　あてじ . "ateji" is called to a group of kanji's read in a "forced" way, ignoring both Chinese and Japanese readings of the compound's kanji's and using the kanji's only to convey a meaning. 二十歳 should be read "にじゅっさい" but for some causes it is an ateji, and it has a special reading: はたち (nooop! I was wrong. Keep reading down until Flaminius post!)


Hope it helps.

 

[Dublabla]

Thanks Demurral. It really helps me.

 

[Flaminius]

Hello,

二十歳 for hatachi is not an ateji. I am not very conversant with the old Japanese numbering system after ten but hatachi must be related to 十重二十重, where hata means twenty (the expression itself means [to surround something] tenth and twentieth fold).

 

[Aoyama]

The explanation about hatachi is very interesting.
About 10 years old, the common pronounciation is jussai but I think that the correct pronounciation should be jissai.

 

[SpiceMan]

じっさい？

hmmm, why?

 

[Aoyama]

Same as juppun (10 mn) being jippun .
Maybe Flam can answer that.
If I remember well, it is called "soku on bin" in phonetics.

 

[pdmx]

Hello all

I thought jissai and jippun were Tokyo dialect mispronunciations... (such as Shinjiku instead of Shinjuku for 新宿, and the like ???

 

[Aoyama]

Jissai and jippun have a tsu (sorry, no Japanese script here) or geminated consonants (ss, pp), which is not the case with Shinjuku . Shinjiku can be heard, but I don't think it is a matter of dialect (and if somewhere there is something called Edo ben, I'm not sure this can be applied to anything called "Tokyo dialect"). It is more a change of vowel in normal speech (i/u).