Japanese Language

3:27 AM

thank you everyone!

@snailboat lol

speaking of this, プログラマーとプログラミングに熱心の人の質問と回答のサイトです。 sounds really bad

"question and answer site for professional and enthusiast programmers" should be プログラマーとプログラミング愛好者(or プログラミングが大好きな人たち)のためのQ&Aサイトです。

Darius Jahandarie

I am a little confused why they didn't get a professional translator for it. There are odd bits of Japanese scattered all over the site.

broccoli forest

I admit that "professional programmer" is something hard to translate into Japanese neatly.

but プログラマー usually means "programmer by work"

in work? as work? I'm confusing

Darius Jahandarie

Hah. That's actually a bit confusing for me too. "by work" is definitely closer than "in work" or "as work", but I'm not sure it's right... hmm... I think "by trade" is the usual expression.

broccoli forest

and of course I'm confused X(

ssb

I've noticed a lot of the strange Japanese but assumed it was just me being ignorant

broccoli forest

3:41 AM

yeah, and the looming translationese I sense.

Darius Jahandarie

Well, anyways, the site seems to be starting off nicely so I assume most of that will be fixed in time, especially since there seems to be a number of native Japanese speakers involved in the moderation of the site.

There still aren't any Haskell questions though. （泣）

broccoli forest

That's gladsome. After all, they use Twitter and Facebook regardless of weird translations.

Darius Jahandarie

Hmm... I've never seen "gladsome" used predicatively before.

(And even adnominally it's pretty rare IMO.)

I didn't realize Twitter and Facebook had weird Japanese translations

broccoli forest

they were bad a little while ago

Darius Jahandarie

I have always wondered why they translated "Tweet" into つぶやく.

broccoli forest

3:49 AM

I guess that is what Twitter intend to make people use

It's not uncommon that Japanese use 外来語 for narrowed specific usage

資格 is 取る but ポケモン is ゲットする

what Twitter intended, I mean

ahh, you mean つぶやく inadequate for "tweet"?

Darius Jahandarie

Right. I wonder why they decided to use つぶやく instead of ツイート(する) (which I think would be the obvious thing to do).

Because つぶやく kind of gives it a different meaning.

Like talking to yourself.

broccoli forest

well, at least people cannot さえずる, only animals with nib can :)

Darius Jahandarie

Hehe. People weren't able to "tweet" in English either, until the site. :)

broccoli forest

つぶやく could mean "soliloquize"

which is a verb I found at 英辞郎

Darius Jahandarie

I guess さえずる is kind of negative though, which might be why it wasn't used.

https://twitter.com/akane1708/status/544791611486400513

痛っ

broccoli forest

4:00 AM

痛々しい…

@DariusJahandarie I just can't imagine people さえずる, no matter good or bad

but it really has the meaning dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/86120/m0u

I never used or heard this kind of usage, maybe obsolete in my generation

Darius Jahandarie

It is saddening to me that I will probably never get a native-level grasp of nuance in Japanese unless I go live in Japan for a decade or something (and even then who knows).

Especially in terms of writing good prose.

broccoli forest

@DariusJahandarie by the way, I'd like to ask someone some time how to change directory of cabal's package repository in Windows installment... for some reason it doesn't work for me

Darius Jahandarie

I guess I might be able to get it by reading for a decade.

@broccoliforest Hmm, I personally have no idea about running Haskell on Windows, but that does seem like a nice question to post. :-)

broccoli forest

I know it's really difficult to grasp nuances only through text information

It's only a small excerpt from real world

Darius Jahandarie

The thing that still gives me hope is that my Dad is not a native English speaker, and his English vocabulary is still way better than mine.

broccoli forest

4:11 AM

@DariusJahandarie OK I'll ask them when I decide to retry Haskell...

Are your parents from Iran or somewhere?

Darius Jahandarie

Yup!

But, my Dad has been reading English books (fiction and non-fiction) since he was a teenager, and he also went to graduate school here and then has been a professor for multiple decades, so I'm not sure my Japanese will ever be as good as his English, heh.

broccoli forest

That sounds almost a English immersion program :)

Darius Jahandarie

Haha, I would hope that would qualify.

broccoli forest

sadly Japanese language education isn't much mature than English

so you still have to learn many things in site, I think

Darius Jahandarie

I have had very bad experiences with "Japanese language education".

Hmm, actually now I'm not sure if you're talking about English classes in Japanese, or Japanese classes in English. :-)

But either way, I've had bad experience with Japanese classes in America. I managed to get a very smart linguist as my teacher in college, which made it fun for me, but the sort of class I usually see really would not work for me.

broccoli forest

4:19 AM

lol, how to say the act of "teaching someone Japanese language"?

ssb

I did one year of Japanese in university before realizing I would get nowhere if I just stuck to the class

i continued with the classes but moved on by myself very quickly

the classes were mostly to satisfy foreign language requirements and allow me to study abroad

Darius Jahandarie

@broccoliforest I can't think of anything better than "Japanese language education", lol. The problem is the usual ambiguity of "Japanese" between "the Japanese language" and "of Japanese origin".

@ssb Yeah, no kidding.

broccoli forest

so... I'd say Japanese education as second language, was hardly linguistic-based until late-80's

even now, I guess

Darius Jahandarie

Yeah, I would not say it's at all based on linguistics.

Unless you end up with a linguist teaching the class, I guess.

broccoli forest

yeah, I mean, they only follow traditional grammar we use to learn classical Japanese

Darius Jahandarie

4:23 AM

Some don't even bother mentioning that.

I have a dream to make a good website for linguistics-based Japanese learning. Right now all I have is a massive list of papers I plan on using for it though :-).

I don't actually trust myself to make a website like that for at least another a few years I think.

broccoli forest

That's much of public benefit, why don't you try some humanities grant? :D

Darius Jahandarie

Haha. Unfortunately a grant won't help my Japanese get better any faster.

Personally speaking, I feel that at this point I'd really benefit from something like the English classes I took in high school, where I write and the writing gets marked up to be better by someone I can trust (namely, someone who is a good writer and very critical of me). I really have no idea what to make of some of the Lang-8 corrections I get...

broccoli forest

Japanese people nearly never have critical writing class in high school, they just rely on their 経験と勘

Darius Jahandarie

One thing that I really haven't mastered is my "talking style" in Japanese. I prefer a really 硬い style of talking in English, but I can never pull it off in Japanese. The main thing is that I can never quite tell who to copy to get it right.

One technique I've used to find the right style is looking for Japanese people with really good English in the style I prefer, and then go and read their Japanese text.

(But it's hard to find such people.)

broccoli forest

your last line is the punch line :D

Darius Jahandarie

4:37 AM

かもね。（笑）

broccoli forest

ahh, I'm so sad that Polish language proposal was closed area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/59729/polish-language

Darius Jahandarie

Gotta run, TTYL.

broccoli forest

see you

Troyen

7:44 AM

The Japanese culture proposal seems to be petering out: area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/59039/japanese-culture

2

Anonymous

11:07 AM

@broccoliforest The Korean language proposal also got closed

Anonymous

It's been restarted, though:

Anonymous

72

Korean Language and Usage

Proposed Q&A site for enthusiasts and experts of Korean Language, expats,and anyone interested in learning about Korean language, grammar and culture. 한국어와 이용 한국 열혈팬, 한국어 전문가 한국어 또는 한국어 문법, 한국 문화를 배우고 싶어 하는 누구나를 위하여 Q&A site에 제안되었습니다. 좋아하는 질문들에 upvote 해 주시기 바랍니다.

Currently in definition.

Anonymous

I think a number of language sites are having trouble getting off the ground

Anonymous

11:56 AM

Would we like to re-open this question?

Anonymous

3

Q: What is the difference between all the weather words: 気象{きしょう}, 天気{てんき} and 天候{てんこう}?

Dictionary (at least Jisho and WWWJDIC) defines them as: 気象{きしょう} = weather, climate 天気{てんき} = weather, the elements 天候{てんこう} = weather They all have quite similar definitions, so I don't quite understand the difference. I would appreciate if someone could shed some light into this (in Englis...

Anonymous

I don't think the previous duplicate answer japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/1569/… explained it well enough. I'm ready to provide more understandable information about their differences. — broccoli forest 7 hours ago

ssb

well, if the other answer didn't explain it well, should he just answer the old question?

Anonymous

Hmm...

Anonymous

I see one problem here.

Anonymous

12:05 PM

The question it's a duplicate of doesn't mention 気象, does it?

Anonymous

Maybe it would make more sense to reopen it for now, and then close the other question as a duplicate if this gets a good answer

Anonymous

Because an answer about all 3 words should also answer the other question

Anonymous

I think I'll leave that as a comment explaining why I'm reopening it

Andrew Grimm

@Troyen I wonder what the solution is. Do we need to promote the proposal more? Create a different proposal? Introduce more people who would be interested in this topic to the Stack Exchange network?

@snailboat I thought languages were reasonably popular on Stack Exchange.

Anonymous

@AndrewGrimm Well, popular languages are popular :-)

Anonymous

12:19 PM

There are seven thousand living languages out there, most of which will never even see proposals on Stack Exchange

Anonymous

Even some relatively major languages like Korean are having trouble making it through the proposal phase, though

Anonymous

My mom's been studying Korean for the past decade. I think if the site ever goes live, we'll finally have snailboat mom on Stack Exchange :-)

Anonymous

3:36 PM

1

Q: Japanese grammar structure order

Everything I have known about Japanese grammar structure till now is S-O-V. Japanese is S-O-V language. But what's about adj? Adverb?... Something like that. Of couse that I did some research about this. But all I found is this: Sentence Topic, Time, Location, Subject, Indirect Object, Direct...

grammar

Anonymous

From the 20,000-foot view, "S-O-V" is useful

Anonymous

At ground level, you've actually got syntax and morphology and all that stuff―and there's a lot of details to learn...

Anonymous

I don't know what exactly the asker expects for an answer

Anonymous

Something in between?

Anonymous

I guess they ask specifically where adjectives and adverbs go and how adjectives are coordinated

Anonymous

3:38 PM

Oh well. I dunno.

broccoli forest

ok, I just got rid of a (maybe poisonous) spider

Anonymous

Eep!

broccoli forest

I returned home, and saw a strange spider climbing wall

Anonymous

Although native speakers of English often use poisonous and venomous interchangeably, in technical terms spiders are venomous

Anonymous

I'm scared of spiders

broccoli forest

3:50 PM

and according to google, it was pretty similar to this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus_geometricus

Anonymous

Ooh, that's a scary one...

broccoli forest

I was not sure, but as a prevention...

Anonymous

Better safe than sorry

broccoli forest

I killed it and going to send it to public health center

usually I don't touch spiders because they are beneficial insects

Anonymous

I try to leave spiders alone, too

ssb

3:54 PM

If we want to continue being technical, then they are arachnids and not insects ;)

Anonymous

Yes :-)

broccoli forest

@ssb in Japanese too :)

Anonymous

Some people use the English term bug very loosely

Anonymous

Some people even call snails "bugs"

broccoli forest

@snailboat what's the difference between poison and venom?

Japanese has a convenient word: 虫

Anonymous

3:56 PM

Venom is injected with a bite or sting

broccoli forest

insects, arachnids, land molluscs, and sometimes even snakes...

Anonymous

Poor land mollusks.

broccoli forest

@snailboat then a lot of things I assumed to be poison was actually venom

Anonymous

@broccoliforest You can go on saying poisonous if you like. Lots of people do :-)

broccoli forest

you can launch a mollusc lib association :D

some people say reptiles are all 虫

because they're 爬虫類

Anonymous

4:01 PM

Snails are でんでんむし！ :-)

Anonymous

I guess that's 虫-y

Anonymous

Wasn't the original meaning of 虫 something more like 'crawls on the ground'?

broccoli forest

there's a legendary dialectological thesis about snail's name ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%9D%B8%E7%89%9B%E8%80%83

Anonymous

Oh, I read about that on Wikipedia once!

Anonymous

Center versus periphery

Center versus periphery 方言周圏論 (Hōgen-Shūken-Ron, lit. "Surrounding-zones dialect theory") is a linguistic theory put forward by Japanese folklorist Yanagita Kunio explaining the usage of certain words of a language in some regions while not in others. The theory may also explain the existence of other cultural features, or lack thereof, in differing regions; though it was specifically created to address linguistic differences. == Overview == In general, the theory states that new words, often synonyms, are created in influential areas and cultural centers. Over time, these words gradually move...

Anonymous

4:04 PM

On English Wikipedia

broccoli forest

I didn't expect it on English WP :)

I thought they have a similar term in European linguistic geography

maybe just imagination though

Anonymous

Hmm, I don't know which term that would be

broccoli forest

something like that the oldest form remains in the most remote area

@snailboat by the way, how would you pronounce it?

ssb

むしい

Anonymous

@broccoliforest 虫-y? :-) Probably [mɯɕiʔiː] with a glottal consonant separating the Japanese from the English

broccoli forest

4:18 PM

@ssb むしぃ :)

ssb

Yeah maybe that's closer!

むしゐ

broccoli forest

@snailboat well, I wonder how do you manage the accent...

ssb

ゐ even looks like a little snail

Anonymous

@ssb Every time I see that question about ＿っ＿り adverbs, I think it's a picture of a snail

broccoli forest

I heard that Italians use ゆゅ for picture of fish

Anonymous

4:21 PM

When I first started learning kana, I had to make up mnemonics to remember a couple of them

Anonymous

I made up the mnemonic "You are a fish!" = "ゆ are a fish!"

Anonymous

Because I thought it looked like a fish :-)

broccoli forest

that's great!

Anonymous

That's the only mnemonic I remember

broccoli forest

ゆのみ → you know me

Anonymous

4:22 PM

Hee

broccoli forest

well, it's a traditional one

掘ったイモいじるな → What time is it now?

掘ったイモいじんな

Anonymous

Oh my gosh, that made my brain explode

broccoli forest

almost all Japanese know

it supposes that wh- sound is /hw/, though

Anonymous

There are still some speakers who retain /hw/, though they're in a minority

broccoli forest

huffingtonpost.jp/2014/06/17/soramimi-english_n_5505790.html

Anonymous

4:28 PM

books.google.com/books?id=UJQwf05yzqYC&hl=ja&pg=PA228

Anonymous

@broccoliforest Oh, my poor brain... :-)

Anonymous

Haha, they're all stumped by the potato one.

broccoli forest

@snailboat do they really sound English-y?

to you?

Daniel

I just received an e-mail from a Japanese friend and she says, among other things, 日本はますます寒くなっています。 I understand it as 'It's getting increasingly colder in Japan, but I don't get the 寒くなっている conjugation. Shouldn't it be 寒くなくている?

broccoli forest

4:44 PM

Hmm... why do you think so? Can you break it down into words?

broccoli forest

5:02 PM

ah, I seem to run out of time to answer the weather one today

Daniel

5:14 PM

I'll put it in other words: i've no idea what 寒くなっている is. I think it could be the negative te form mispellt

or maybe a colloquialism I don't know about

but that's just me drawing straws in the dark

broccoli forest