Language Overflow

Anonymous

00:19

@DamkerngT. Compare "LOOOOOOOL" (more than 3 letters)

Catija

00:54

@DamkerngT. I heard this on the radio a few days ago. :)

Anonymous

I never got in the habit of "LOL" in the first place.

Anonymous

But I do type way more smileys than I should.

Damkerng T.

01:09

@Catija Hah! Not sure if it's a good thing. :P

I beat even SmokeDetector. <grin>

@Catija Mine was a few days old new. :-)

Anonymous

I'm on the list too . . .

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I'm considering replacing my LOL with Haha from now on. ;-)

Anonymous

I think I'm only capable of typing "LOL" metalinguistically or ironically.

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

Anonymous

If I tried typing "LOL" when I thought something was funny, I'd feel like some kind of pod person.

Anonymous

01:13

My snails are up and about, even though it's the middle of the day.

Anonymous

I bought new Japanese books today.

Damkerng T.

Nice!

Anonymous

One's called 光の帝国 'Empire of Light', which looks to be the first part of a trilogy about kids with supernatural abilities

Anonymous

Unbelievable feats of memory, seeing the future, and so forth

Damkerng T.

@snailboat We could have something close to both of those with our technologies.

Google is almost like "unbelievable feats of memory" already, actually. :D

Anonymous

01:23

I've recommended Accelerando at some point, haven't I?

Anonymous

It touches on this very topic :-)

Damkerng T.

Yes, I remember that! -- feeling a bit shameful 'cause I still haven't tried it

@snailboat Ahh

Anonymous

Oh, no worries :-)

Damkerng T.

Hehe. I know. I just wish that I had read it. :D

Anonymous

Say, did you end up getting The Princess Bride? I forgot!

Damkerng T.

01:25

@snailboat Yep. Still at about 10%, I think. :P

Then I got my nostalgia and bought another book, which I already have, on Kindle. :D

Anonymous

Ah! :-)

Anonymous

I've re-purchased a number of books in the past.

Anonymous

For various reasons.

Anonymous

Sometimes in a different format.

Anonymous

Sometimes because I want the shiny new collector's edition :-)

Anonymous

01:27

I have a whole bunch of copies of The Hobbit.

Damkerng T.

Hehe! -- Neat! I only have two (one for each language).

Anonymous

I would recommend The Annotated Hobbit in English

Anonymous

In Japanese I'm not sure how many editions there are, but I have the Iwanami ホビットの冒険 in two volumes

Damkerng T.

Lots of maps and illustrations!

(just googled for it)

Anonymous

Damkerng T.

01:31

Oh, The Hobbit in Japanese in two volumes!

Anonymous

Yes

Anonymous

330 and 282 pages

Damkerng T.

The illus. on the cover look a bit Japanese-ish.

Anonymous

Books tend to take more pages in Japanese than in English, although obviously that depends on the format as well

Anonymous

I don't see a credit for the artist

Damkerng T.

01:33

Reminds me of some old Japanese anime, one that the settings were in Europe. They usually came with lots of great looking bread buns. :P

Anonymous

The translation is credited to Teiji Seta

Anonymous

Who also translated LOTR

Damkerng T.

@snailboat I'm not sure, but I think Japanese has a higher density of information per character.

Anonymous

That's quite true. But!

Anonymous

There tend to be fewer characters on a Japanese page than letters on an English page

Damkerng T.

01:35

But I guess translations tend to make it a little more wordy than usual, to preserve the subtleties in original texts.

@snailboat Oh, that, too!

Anonymous

I think that's the main reason, really, rather than wordiness.

Anonymous

I'm sure many things factor into it, though.

Anonymous

Japanese books tend to be physically small, by the way, the sort you can read on a train.

Anonymous

And it's quite common to split them up into multiple volumes.

Anonymous

This translation of The Hobbit is actually larger than your average tankōbon

Damkerng T.

01:38

An interesting word!

I wonder what would be equivalent to tankōbon in English.

Anonymous

Tankobon

Damkerng T.

Hehe!

> A tankōbon (単行本?, "independent/standalone book") is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series or corpus (similar to a monograph), though in modern Japan it is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a single manga, as opposed to magazines (雑誌 zasshi?), which feature multiple series.

"a series of corpus"!?

Anonymous

or

Anonymous

Here, you can see the normal size on the right, which is only slightly smaller

Damkerng T.

01:41

The cover looks a little scary. :D

Anonymous

I can stack the large majority of my Japanese novels on that book and they'll have the exact same dimensions (apart from some books being thicker than others)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Probably appropriately :-)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Oh, yes. Some of my friends love to stack their (translated) manga on their shelves.

Anonymous

What do you call comics in Thai?

Damkerng T.

การ์ตูน [cartoon] (reads "cartoon") :D

Anonymous

01:43

I love comics.

Anonymous

I don't know why I don't buy comics very much.

Anonymous

It's such a neat art form!

Anonymous

My brother's four years older than me, and he buys a lot of comics :-)

Damkerng T.

The web seems to change comics a little.

Anonymous

Oh, I love web comics.

Anonymous

01:45

There's lots of Japanese ones, too.

Anonymous

Though I guess I read mostly English ones.

Damkerng T.

I think I've read some made by Korean mangaka but in English.

Anonymous

When I was little, for a while, when anyone asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, I'd say "I want to be a cartoonist!"

Anonymous

Meaning an author of comics, not an animator

Damkerng T.

Oh! You should give it a try, then. :D

Anonymous

01:47

Because one of my favorite things in the world was Peanuts by Charles Schulz

Damkerng T.

Peanuts is very famous.

Anonymous

Yes! :-)

Anonymous

Many people refer to the strip as Snoopy, I think :-)

Anonymous

People would say "I love Snoopy!"

Anonymous

And mean they love the comic strip or the animated cartoons Snoopy appears in.

Damkerng T.

01:48

Hey, I had a Snoopy rubber back then!

Anonymous

Rubber = eraser?

Damkerng T.

Ah, yes!

Anonymous

We call them erasers in AmE

Anonymous

And a rubber has another meaning

Anonymous

It's a very strange dialect difference.

Damkerng T.

01:49

I see. I think my 20% BrE was at work. :P

Anonymous

I have little influences from BrE in me.

Anonymous

It's only natural. Many of my favorite authors are British.

Anonymous

Aww, my snails all went to sleep on top of their house.

Damkerng T.

Must be a cute picture. :D

Anonymous

I haven't been taking as many snail pictures lately because I moved them somewhere that doesn't have very good lighting.

Anonymous

01:52

But the snails like it there better. They like the dark :-)

Anonymous

But it's definitely cute.

Anonymous

They've been livelier since I moved them there.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat They like to stay invisible. :D

Anonymous

My comment about comics being a neat art form reminded me of what I said about visual novels the other day.

Anonymous

They're a neat art form, but it's a shame it's so hard to find one that I want to play.

Anonymous

01:54

(I'm not sure whether the correct verb is 'play' or 'read'!)

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Probably we need to find a word that could convey the two meanings at once.

Anonymous

The other day I found a cheap one on Steam which has both Japanese and English text, and you can switch between them at any time with the J or E keys! I thought that was neat, so I grabbed it :-)

Damkerng T.

Ah, that's really cool!

Anonymous

It's kind of fun seeing how they translated stuff. The translation is very "rewritten"

Anonymous

The Japanese has a rather large number of typos.

Damkerng T.

01:55

@snailboat Oh, sometimes a translation here is basically another story. :P

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. I was surprised how often the translation ended up saying something entirely different from the original! I've only gone through the first 3 chapters so far

Damkerng T.

Some voice-over talents also love to do that. It's like they would look at the video, in real-time, and improvise what would make sense as the dialogue.

Anonymous

Oh! That sounds neat!

Anonymous

I don't know much about that sort of thing.

Damkerng T.

Actually, to many of us over here, it makes a lot of Chinese (Hong Kong) movies way better. :D

Anonymous

01:58

Haha!

Anonymous

Plus, they can say anything they want while a character's facing away from the screen.

Anonymous

Even if the original character wasn't talking!

Damkerng T.

Yes. Or even what a character wanted to say but didn't!

Anonymous

Translation fascinates me.

Anonymous

The transformation of (what is hopefully) one work of art into (what is hopefully) another work of art.

Damkerng T.

02:00

Hehe!

Everything is art, in the eye of the beholder. :P

Anonymous

It's always different. It can be worse sometimes. It can be better sometimes! But always different :-)

Anonymous

The writer who translated The Hobbit into Japanese was a haiku poet and a classicist, and his translations of Tolkien's work are held in fairly high regard.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anonymous

geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-SanJose/9606/teiji_seta.htm

Damkerng T.

Oh, yes. Tolkien's The Hobbit is not entirely in prose.

Hobbit-Shou!

It may depend on whether you spell color 'color' or 'colour'. Some style manuals may recommend using single quotation marks quotations in headlines (which, in my humble opinion, looks cleaner). See also: grammarphobia.com/blog/2014/06/scare-quotes.html, quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/…. — Damkerng T. 6 hours ago

I think I said basically the same thing as StoneyB, except for the note about 'customary' and 'conventions'.

Somehow StoneyB's comment reached the OP better.

@LucianSava Note that your second source is the BBC. And note the disclaimer at the head of the page at your first source: 'The rules set forth in this section are customary in the United States. Great Britain and other countries in the Commonwealth of Nations are governed by quite different conventions.' Note, finally, that even this 'authoritative' source characterizes its 'rules' as 'customary' and as 'conventions'. — StoneyB 5 hours ago

(pasted here for further analysis)

Anonymous

02:07

@DamkerngT. ホビット庄！

Damkerng T.

Hobitto Shou!

Hmm... 庄 is village in Chinese.

It looks like it's obsolete in Japanese.

Anonymous

Mandarin zhuāng, says the dictionary

Anonymous

But the character 荘 is still used.

Damkerng T.

Ahh

Anonymous

(which is a variant of the same character)

Anonymous

02:11

In words like 別荘 and 荘厳

Damkerng T.

別荘 ~ villa?

Anonymous

Yes, that's the dictionary translation

Anonymous

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what a villa is in English

Anonymous

But 別荘 is lit. 'other estate'

Damkerng T.

(There are so many villas over here, especially in Pattaya and Phuket.)

Anonymous

02:12

Like if you picture a summer home that you don't live at normally, but which is quite spacious and luxurious

Anonymous

Is that what a villa is?

Anonymous

I never looked it up.

Damkerng T.

Over here, a villa is sort of like a luxurious resort.

But some villas are not that luxurious, so-- I don't know!

Anonymous

Having a 別荘 is a characteristic of the お嬢様 archetype (rich girl character) that shows up so often in Japanese fiction :-)

Damkerng T.

A-ha!

Anonymous

02:14

I suppose in real life they don't have to be quite as luxurious, but I don't know―I've never had a 別荘 or visited one :-)

Anonymous

Or a villa!

Damkerng T.

@snailboat There are a lot of villas over here. :D

Anonymous

Villa

A villa is a luxurious house for the upper class. Villas were originally ancient Roman upper-class country houses. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity, sometimes transferred to the Church for reuse as a monastery. Then they gradually re-evolved through the Middle Ages, into elegant upper-class country homes. In modern parlance 'villa' can refer to various types and sizes of residences, ranging from the suburban...

Anonymous

It says on Wikipedia that many of them are rented

Anonymous

That makes sense!

Anonymous

02:17

There are lots of English words I probably recognize without really knowing the whole story behind them.

Anonymous

I think learning other languages has made me more aware of that than I otherwise would be.

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure if villa is an Old English word.

It doesn't sound like one.

Ahh... it's from Latin, via Italian.

Anonymous

Yes, it appears to have entered English in the Early Modern period

Anonymous

Judging by what EtymOnline says.

Damkerng T.

02:42

-1

Q: We decided to leave early

We decided to leave early. How to change this into passive form? Are they ? We decided that we should leave early. Or We decided early should be left. Please help me teachers.

active-voice

Another active-passive voice transformation question!

I guess in Wren & Martin, it probably is It was decided that we left early.

I wonder if To leave early was decided by us can be considered a passive voice of We decided to leave early.

If it can be considered so, we will have another problem: what is to leave early?

Anonymous

Wow. "We decided early should be left." Creative!

Anonymous

But yeah. People ask about how to make passives of things with no passive equivalents all the time.

Anonymous

It's weird, isn't it?

Damkerng T.

Yes! :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. My guess is It was decided that we should leave early.

Damkerng T.

02:48

Oh, yes. That would be better.

3

Q: swag (slang) -- meaning?

Usage example with a context: In his State of the Union address, Obama displayed similar swag and bluster against both the Kremlin and congressional Republicans, seemingly without regard for any recent events. As the president explained: What does that word actually mean?

meaning slang

Swag became a controversial subject!

Anonymous

Looks like a braino.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

Shouldn't it be swagger and bluster?

Anonymous

It's certainly not the slang swag I'm familiar with.

Damkerng T.

I guess so.

I'm not really sure what swag (used by rappers) can mean.

'Cause it seems to mean a lot of things.

Anonymous

02:57

Swag does have multiple meanings, I think.

Anonymous

There's a nifty backronym for one meaning: Stuff We All Get

Damkerng T.

Oh! Yes!

Anonymous

etymonline.com/…

Anonymous

> Colloquial sense of "promotional material" (from recording companies, etc.) was in use by 2001

Anonymous

I'm certain it was in use before 2001!

Damkerng T.

03:00

Huh? Only just by 2001!?

Anonymous

Well, I can't push it back much further.

Anonymous

But I remember hearing it in 2000 at least.

Anonymous

It's not a word I knew growing up.

Damkerng T.

Oh, only for "promotional material".

Anonymous

Although I wouldn't be surprised to hear it was used in that sense before that.

Damkerng T.

03:04

0

A: Should I say "She is in the park" or "She is at the park"?

She is the park is the right answer. for more information about the use of prepositions I invite to consult this webpage: http://www.prolancom.com/grammar-lessons/294-prepositions

She is the park is the right answer. (^v^)

Anonymous

Oh! What an informative spam!

Damkerng T.

I wish they would've been more careful with their answer post, though. :D

0

A: Should I use comma or not before "wearing"?

"Did a guy just go by here wearing a hat?" This is correct English although you probably don't need 'here'. The phrase "wearing a hat" is adverbial to the verb "go". It has the same structure as: "Did a guy just go by here slowly?" You would not put a comma before "slowly" and you do not...

Hmm...

> "Did a guy just go by here wearing a hat?" ... The phrase "wearing a hat" is adverbial to the verb "go". It has the same structure as: "Did a guy just go by here slowly?"

What?!

Anonymous

I think wearing a hat predicates on a guy.

Damkerng T.

Yes!

In a more basic word order, it would be Did a guy wearing a hat go by here?, I think.

Anonymous

Let's try to test that hypothesis.

Anonymous

03:14

If it's a relative clause, we should be able to add some sort of marking, like that or a relative pronoun

Anonymous

Oh wait, it says wearing.

Anonymous

I almost stepped into the waters of the Reduced Relative thingy.

Anonymous

Okay, it's a postmodifier in NP structure.

Anonymous

But let's just pretend for a moment it's a Reduced Relative.

Anonymous

> Did [a guy ~~who was~~ wearing a hat] go by here?

Anonymous

03:16

Now we have a relative clause, and we know we can extrapose those, right? (Postpose in CGEL's terms)

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

> Did [a guy ＿＿ ] go by here ~~who was~~ wearing a hat?

Anonymous

Hmm.

Anonymous

My messages didn't make anything any clearer.

Anonymous

Oh well. I tried :-)

Anonymous

03:17

Let's see what CGEL says about this stuff . . .

Anonymous

I think it's confusing, by the way, that we have postposing and postposition, both of which mean different things.

Damkerng T.

We can blame it on preposition, hehe! :D

Anonymous

Of course, CGEL doesn't call them Reduced Relatives. Or even thingies, for that matter. Thingy is my own personal technical term.

Anonymous

It would just call this a clausal post-head internal dependent, I think.

Anonymous

Doesn't matter whether it takes the form of an -ing clause ("gerund-participial clause") or a relative clause. It's still that same sort of thingy.

Anonymous

03:20

And that same sort of thingy can be postposed.

Damkerng T.

@snailboat trying to understand that term...

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Well, it's clausal in form. An -ing clause is a clause. A type of non-finite one.

Anonymous

It's post-head in that it comes after the head (of the noun phrase), which is a noun.

Anonymous

It's a dependent, which is the other kind of thingy besides a head.

Anonymous

Noun phrases can have three kinds of dependents (in CGEL's analysis): complements, modifiers, and determiners.

Anonymous

03:22

This one is a modifier.

Damkerng T.

What about the "internal" part?

Anonymous

And it's internal―its basic position is inside the noun phrase (even though it can be postposed out of that position, which is to say, moved later in the sentence)

Damkerng T.

Ahh... thanks!

Anonymous

A lot of this stuff is covered in the very important Chapter One.

Anonymous

Which you are likely to find yourself flipping back to from time to time :-)

Anonymous

03:25

I should really spend more time trying to internalize some of this stuff.

Anonymous

It's just that, well, I want to work on Japanese.

Damkerng T.

Which uses a different set of grammar terms.

I suppose.

Anonymous

Yes.

Anonymous

Well, I'm mostly okay with the terms in CGEL.

Anonymous

It's some of the ideas I don't have as firmly planted in my head as I'd like.

Anonymous

03:28

And I'd actually like to apply a number of those ideas to Japanese :-)

Damkerng T.

That's perfectly understandable. :D

Anonymous

It takes grammar in a direction Japanese grammar has traditionally not been taken.

Anonymous

Japanese is a fairly well-studied language, actually. There've been a lot of linguists, both in Japan and outside, who've applied all sorts of ideas to it.

Anonymous

Even if you look at a particular segment of Japanese linguistics, say, the traditional grammar taught in schools, you find that the linguists who are largely responsible for its formation often disagreed quite vehemently with one another, used different terminology and made different conceptual distinctions . . .

Damkerng T.

Even in schools?

That would be confusing for the students, wouldn't it?

Anonymous

03:31

Nah, schools are pretty consistent, as I understand it. (I grew up in America and did not study 学校文法 in a Japanese school.)

Anonymous

The system of grammar taught in Japan is based in large part on Shinkichi Hashimoto's grammar

Anonymous

Along with Yamada, Matsushita, and Tokieda

Damkerng T.

That's from over 100 years ago.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Japanese school grammar is more or less frozen in time.

Anonymous

Linguists have continued studying the language, proposing new theories and analyses, and linguistics has come a long way over the last century both inside Japan and out

Anonymous

03:35

But that stuff isn't really reflected in what's taught in school.

Damkerng T.

BTW, breads and buns in classic Japanese anime...

@snailboat CGEL doesn't seem to reflect traditional grammar either.

Anonymous

I've actually heard one native speaker of Japanese say that they have the feeling Japanese grammar is thought of as a part of traditional Japanese culture that shouldn't be changed, and that they feel there's resistance to new ideas being taught

Anonymous

Although in the scheme of things, traditional Japanese grammar isn't that old.

Damkerng T.

Though there are a lot of things shared between the two. It think it's the adverb and preposition parts that are different the most.

Anonymous

It's not like it's been in a fixed form for centuries.

Anonymous

03:37

@DamkerngT. I think the part of speech thing is actually a somewhat minor consequence of a larger set of changes.

Anonymous

First, a rigorous category-function distinction.

Anonymous

Second, the analysis of category based on range of function (and not range of complementation)

Anonymous

But the preposition thing is a major mistake in traditional grammar which Jespersen identified at least 80 years ago

Anonymous

CGEL is strongly influenced by Jespersen's work

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

03:40

The traditional Japanese parts of speech are widely used, although people don't all agree on the details.

Anonymous

They're used by almost all Japanese dictionaries. Anyone learning Japanese needs to be familiar with the traditional system, if for no other reason, so they can use dictionaries

Anonymous

But if you pay attention, you'll notice that individual dictionary authors have subtly tweaked the system :-)

Anonymous

Or not so subtly―the authors of 広辞苑 don't acknowledge 形容動詞 (na-adjectives) as a part of speech

Anonymous

So they just list them all as nouns :-)

Damkerng T.

Lately, I've been using romajidesu.com to look up Japanese words I want to know more about.

Anonymous

03:43

Oh! They spammed Japanese.SE.

Anonymous

So I steer people away from them.

Damkerng T.

Ah!

Anonymous

jisho.org ← This is a popular interface to the same dictionary, but they keep it more up-to-date

Anonymous

They grab the latest version of Jim Breen's dictionaries on a daily basis.

Anonymous

romajidesu is another site that is built on Jim Breen's freely available files.

Anonymous

03:44

This is the original site: edrdg.org/cgi-bin/wwwjdic/wwwjdic?1C

Damkerng T.

I didn't know that! Thanks for the sharing!

Anonymous

But many people prefer to use other sites because they have nicer interfaces, and that's okay :-)

Anonymous

The files are released for free and it's allowed for people to make their own sites like that.

Anonymous

The kanji lookup tool on jisho.org has a nice interface :-)

Anonymous

They have an older interface available too, which uses less JavaScript: classic.jisho.org

Anonymous

03:45

It might be easier on your wearying browser :-)

Anonymous

This is the kanji tool: classic.jisho.org/kanji/radicals

Anonymous

Try clicking some stuff. It's fun!

Damkerng T.

Ah, it actually looks better than romajidesu.

Anonymous

Yay

Anonymous

I made a little list of online dictionaries: meta.japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/756/…

Damkerng T.

03:47

Wow, that's quite a lot.

Anonymous

Most of the free online dictionaries are based on EDICT. I only put two there (wwwjdic and jisho.org) because I figured people didn't need a million sites with the same information.

Anonymous

I organized it by which set of data is used, not by site.

Anonymous

So 大辞林 (Daijirin), which is one of the best Japanese monolingual dictionaries, is listed once, even though it's available at three sites.

Anonymous

(A linguist friend of mine who is a native speaker of Japanese recommends Daijirin)

Damkerng T.

Neat!

Anonymous

03:50

My favorite is 明鏡国語辞典, but it's not available for free online

Damkerng T.

I like the way the dictionaries are listed there.

Anonymous

It was my first attempt to redo a resources list.

Anonymous

I was considering doing something like that for ELL's list, but with the "Learner's Dictionaries" category at the top

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

I really think we should be doing our best to direct learners to learner's dictionaries when possible, although sometimes we'll obviously want to refer to other dictionaries if they meet a particular need better (more relevant definition available, historical information, etc.)

Damkerng T.

03:52

A funny thing is Macmillan seems to be designed with the learners in mind, but never includes the word "Learner's" in their dictionary title.

Anonymous

That's true. Do they go in the learner's dictionary list? Or don't they?

Anonymous

They have some features specifically for learners.

Anonymous

The most common 7500 words are highlighted in red. That's a prioritization feature.

Anonymous

I've seen it in other dictionaries, too.

Anonymous

The Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary (KLD) puts kanji in red if they're among the most common kanji.

Anonymous

03:53

As a learner I found that feature very helpful at one point.

Anonymous

It also has more detailed frequency information.

Anonymous

The KLD was a great tool for me! :-)

Anonymous

Being able to read more relevant kanji early on is a big help.

Damkerng T.

I've heard the name Kodansha every once in a while.

Anonymous

It's a very large Japanese publisher.

Anonymous

03:54

The biggest.

Damkerng T.

nods -- Probably like Oxford or something.

Anonymous

They also produce a fair amount of material for learners of Japanese.

Anonymous

Or otherwise bilingual material, like the 新和英大辞典

Anonymous

(I think the 新和英大辞典 was targeted toward English speakers originally, but the latest edition is more targeted toward Japanese speakers)

Anonymous

When I was at Kinokuniya today I looked at all the books for learners they had. Even though I'm just a learner, I've outgrown all of those books . . .

Anonymous

03:56

I felt a little nostalgia :-)

Anonymous

I used to go to the bookstore and buy every book on Japanese I didn't already have.

Damkerng T.

Aww

Anonymous

That was when I went to a bookstore that didn't have a huge selection.

Anonymous

These days, the very idea seems ridiculous because the selection available to me is so large . . . :-)

Anonymous

But I buy all my books on Japanese online.

Damkerng T.

03:58

The biggest textbook bookstore in my university days was gone. -- a little sad

Anonymous

Aw!

Anonymous

Well.

Damkerng T.

In a way, it was like being at a fun park for me. :D

Anonymous

In the US, university bookstores are a bit of a racket.

Anonymous

"Hey, I just wrote this new book! It's like last year's book, but you know, I changed some stuff. Anyway, you have to buy a new one because it has a workbook, and the workbook is different, and you can only buy it as a packaged set. If you don't buy it, you can't take my class. It's $240."

Damkerng T.

03:59

Hah!

Anonymous

My college chemistry books were like $300+ for one class.

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