Hey @Flaw. :)

Hi =D

元気ですか？

はい

By the way, お元気ですか is not an everyday greeting

Yeah I know, but I don't know what else to say. :(

It's more like after not seeing the person for quite some time

(although the length of "quite some time" is rather subjective)

Yeah, I get you. :P

What do you usually say instead?

Depends on the situation/time of day I guess. (I'm not good at conversation yet)

Fluency is going to take forever. :(

おはようございます・こんにちは・こんばんは etc.

I'd usually greet with one of those first.

Also 失礼します・ごめんください

Not sure what the first is, I can read next to no kanji. :(

Sadly.

失礼します＝しつれいします

What does that mean? Also what does ごめんください mean/

?

失礼 means a "rudeness"

it's used to excuse yourself, like if you have to leave in the middle of something

you admit that your action is rude

(I use it when I enter the classroom and I'm late)(not sure if it's a correct usage though)

Where do you live, @Flaw?

ごめんください＝ご免ください. Taken literally, it means to ask for 免 which means "dismiss". It asks for the listener to dismiss your behavior as it could be rude.

I understand. :)

Used when entering a place but no one is seen to be around

(I live in Singapore)

So you speak which language?

A variant of Chinese?

English(primarily) and Chinese

I can understand 2 more dialects, Cantonese and Hokkien, to a very limited extent.

I only speak English and a TINY bit of Japanese. :P

I'd like to go to Singapore, my mum has been there.

Said it's wonderful and clean.

@Shazer2. This site may interest you grammar.nihongoresources.com/doku.php?id=set_phrases

@Flaw, checking it out right now. :)

@jkerian I thought you might approve of the fun I've been having today: gist.github.com/3813601 :D Started out with people solving the first Project Euler problem in different languages to show what it might look like, then of course one guy just had to enter the realm of templates.. I wasn't satisfied with just beating his compile time, I had to make a solution for more general input.

I've got a question that's dangerously close to a pure translation question

ask here first?

if I gave you this little snippet, what does it mean "ぱっと、跳ねあがっていた" what exactly does it mean?

@jkerian ha! that's my plan ;)

@gibbon hehe... very nice. Of course, the game with templates is how long can you make compiling take?

I want to say it means he jumped straight into the air

@silvermaple do you know the kanji for that あがって?

no, it's written in hiragana

That would be my guess as well, "[he] had suddenly leapt up".

hmm that's a tough one then. For me anyways

I assume it's "上がって" but I could not tell you

跳ね上がる at goo.ne.jp

It just seems like an odd place in the book I'm reading that he would suddenly jump (meaning he pushes his body of the ground with his feet/legs), but it would make more sense in the "startled" way, like how you jump if you hear gunfire

Hey math people, this is totally unrelated to Japanese, but worth sharing nonetheless

io9.com/5947852/…