Japanese Language

ssb

12:20 AM

it's interesting to me that we aren't able to downvote comments

Shazer2

1:32 AM

おはよう！

Actually... こんにちは

ssb

it's ohayo where i am!

Shazer2

It's 12:34PM here, I think that's konnichiwa?

ssb

yeah

Shazer2

:)

みんな、何をしていますか？

Shazer2

2:25 AM

???

Anonymous

3:58 AM

@Shazer2 いま、プログラミングしています＾＾

Anonymous

@ssb It's always おはよう where I am.

Anonymous

@ssb That goes along with their official purpose

Anonymous

On a couple other SE sites, where they're used more often for answers than they are on JLU, I find myself wanting to vote them down more often

Anonymous

I want to respond to them "Could you please post that as an answer instead so I can vote it down?"

Anonymous

But of course I don't, since that wouldn't actually help anything :-)

Anonymous

4:01 AM

I've tried flagging blatantly wrong comments-as-answers as "not constructive" before on those sites, but I always get declined

Anonymous

So I gave up worrying about it

Anonymous

But I think over here, we can avoid that problem

ssb

4:17 AM

while that is true, I guess there are certain ways of commenting that I wish I could discourage without hijacking comment discussions

Anonymous

But there's nothing severe enough to flag it?

Anonymous

Like for example, it might be ... unpleasant, but not actually uncivil or rude?

Anonymous

We do have a rule here: Be nice.

Anonymous

> Civility is required at all times; rudeness will not be tolerated. Treat others with the same respect you’d want them to treat you because we’re all here to learn, together. Be tolerant of others who may not know everything you know, and bring your sense of humor.

ssb

exactly

Anonymous

4:21 AM

I think I thought the same thing when I saw the same comment.

ssb

there have been several over the past few days. there was one that was particularly bad but it was edited to be less harsh

Anonymous

Feel free to flag something if you think it needs editing or removal to fit the rules.

ssb

i'm just concerned that we could present an image of being unfriendly toward people with lower levels, but i wasn't sure if that was explicitly against the rules

Anonymous

There's no flag weight anymore, so the worst that can happen is that you get LOTS of flags declined, at which point we'll let you know we disagree with the flags ;-)

Anonymous

This might be something worth taking up with a Meta Discussion

Anonymous

4:23 AM

If you take care not to call anyone out specifically

ssb

i will

Anonymous

Today is a sad day.

ssb

why's that?

Anonymous

A hamster passed away :-(

Anonymous

I was watching over my brother's hamster

ssb

4:31 AM

oh no :(

Anonymous

I'll spare you the details, but she was fine until today, then she had a problem and passed away in her sleep

ssb

did she at least live a full hamster life?

Anonymous

She did. She lived to about one year and ten months.

Anonymous

Hamsters on average live about two years

Anonymous

So she was a little younger than average, but it wasn't really unexpected at this point

ssb

4:35 AM

rest in peace, fantastic hamster..

there's no tag on meta for site rules

is there one i should be using instead?

Anonymous

A lot of questions are just tagged discussion

Anonymous

There are tags on larger meta sites (like meta.stackoverflow.com) for etiquette and rules

ssb

ok

we do have an etiquette tag

Anonymous

meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/etiquette

Anonymous

See some sample discussion on etiquette there

ssb

4:47 AM

~posted~

jkerian

5:04 AM

Hmm... we probably should have a rules tag... we certainly discuss them enough :P

Shazer2

@snailboat you're programming?

jkerian

@Shazer2 Until proven otherwise, I assume anyone on the stackexchange system is a programmer in at least some capacity

Shazer2

Oh awesome!

私も！

@jkerian what language(s) for you?

jkerian

5:19 AM

@Shazer2 My day job is C++, tcl, a smattering of perl, python and a handful of custom languages (I'm the maintainer for the compiler for one of those custom languages)

Shazer2

This makes me so excited @jkerian

I'm a student doing Comp. Sci next year

Main language is Python :)

jkerian

At home it's mostly python with a bit of javascript more recently... but I'll probably dro p that... can't stand web programming

Shazer2

Oh I've been doing JS too!

but not for web dev

blog.shannonrothe.com

There's a couple of things I've done on there

Anonymous

I really like python. But it's also really irritating.

Shazer2

@snailboat why's that?

Anonymous

5:30 AM

Well, they could properly support fp, drop the function-expression distinction, allow anonymous functions, etc

Anonymous

But they don't, because they don't feel like it.

Anonymous

On the other hand, in some ways it's a nice perl substitute.

Shazer2

they do support anonymous functions

Anonymous

Python has lambda, which is approximately terrible.

Shazer2

It's great!

For code golf at least :)

They should allow multiline lambda, but whatever

Anonymous

5:32 AM

Rather, there should be no distinction between regular functions and lambda

Shazer2

I guess

Anonymous

I still use perl for a lot of things just because it's more convenient

Anonymous

But perl has so many warts that python doesn't correspondingly have

Anonymous

Like the reference syntax

Shazer2

@snailboat what have you been working on?

Anonymous

5:33 AM

Stuff! :-)

Shazer2

Not allowed to say? :/

Anonymous

I'm allowed, I'm just dodging the question

Anonymous

Stuff is a perfectly cromulent target.

Shazer2

Aww :(

I need inspiration

Anonymous

What for?

Anonymous

5:34 AM

A certain cliche would have you believe that you instead need perspiration.

Shazer2

I need programming inspiration, I need something to do, to code.

jkerian

Personally I think python is the best option for application programming at the moment (probably tied with C# if you prefer that platform)

Anonymous

What problem do you want to solve?

Anonymous

Isn't there a great big pile of things you want but don't have? Make those

Anonymous

@jkerian I agree that python is pretty good. I just like to grumble while I use it

Shazer2

5:36 AM

I'm not sure what problem I want to solve haha

jkerian

My home apps used to be mostly game focused. After I built a rather extensive program for managing market trading in Eve Online... I realized that I wanted some of the same features in a real-world-market-trading app, so that's the current project :)

Shazer2

Hmm...

How long does a project for you guys usually take, or how long before your motivation runs low haha?

jkerian

I've never finished a program

Shazer2

Good call

:D

jkerian

A more pessimistic reading is "all projects are eventually abandoned"

Shazer2

5:42 AM

Yeah too right

I should set myself up with a project

Anonymous

When I was little, I wrote hundreds of tiny programs

Shazer2

Yeah I've written heaps

Anonymous

I "finished" some, even ones that I thought were "big" at the time

Shazer2

Yeah I've done tic-tac-toe and stuff

Anonymous

Ahh, I did that too! :-)

Anonymous

5:48 AM

Good times.

Anonymous

I miss my C64.

Anonymous

I got it when I was 3.

Shazer2

Woah! Young!

Anonymous

Yuh-huh. My dad was a mainframe programmer, OS/360 stuff, etc.

Anonymous

He got me and my brother started on programming when we were little :-)

Shazer2

5:50 AM

Awesome!

That's such a good thing to do

Anonymous

Yeah, I think it should be considered a basic part of literacy, along with learning to read and write

jkerian

@snailboat Eh... I was with you until that point :)

Shazer2

Exactly! Me too

jkerian

I actually disagree somewhat... it's a problem solving tool, more akin to "using a slide rule" than "learning to read"

Anonymous

Oh, I don't see it as a tool. I think of it as the skill of problem solving. Solve problem, solve next problem, solve next problem, solve next problem...

Anonymous

5:52 AM

Programming is a great way to train yourself to do that.

jkerian

@snailboat But nearly any field will do that. Heck... "painting" can claim that

Anonymous

And it's better to teach you when you're a kid and haven't yet learned that programming is hard :-)

jkerian

@snailboat Well... programming is "hard" in the same way everything technical is 'hard'

Mostly that just comes around because technical subjects tend to have absolute criteria

Sure... it's a great skill to have (and like you, I started rather young), but I'm very much NOT convinced it belongs in the elementary school classroom

Every argument I've seen for it, applies equally to basically all other technical subjects

Anonymous

Poor hamster girl.

Anonymous

It's sad that hamsters have such short life spans.

jkerian

6:01 AM

Except biology... biology can burn... if I wanted to memorize a massive list of random words with only tenuous logic connecting them I'd study Japanese... oh wait...

ssb

6:54 AM

a lot of technical subjects can be taught in elementary school!

and should be imo

and a strong advocate of teaching programming from a young age

i had to discover all that by myself

Shazer2

7:13 AM

what degrees do you guys have?

gibbon

Programming talk! Then let me just show case my hobby project which I got compiling for the web last week! :P mathall.github.io/hobo-js (otherwise originally made for android, also been running on linux for a few months)

I'm still kinda blown away by how cool Emscripten is

ssb

what is emscripten?

spare me a google

gibbon

(and ps. it's one of a million self made game engines made purely for fun and learning - I don't aspire to make games.. but some of you may recognize this one as a clone/tribute to the brilliant old japanese flash game "nanaca crash")

"Emscripten is an LLVM-to-JavaScript compiler"

My project is written in C++ - now it's running on the web. (mind == blown)

I never thought that would be the case when I started it out.

ssb

wow

i was just about to say I wanted to explore javascript/browser game development but

that's crazy

gibbon

And it only took like two nights too.. to get it running in a browser. Had to add the option to make the whole thing single threaded, but otherwise it was pretty straight forward.

ssb

7:22 AM

lately i'm putting my energy into learning unity

Shazer2

woah that's cool gibbon

gibbon

I haven't tried Unity but it seems to have a lot going for it.

ssb

i really like using c# and I wanted something good after xna fizzled out

Shazer2

C# is nice :)

gibbon

I and a couple of guys (and girl) made a car game sort of as a bachelor's project in uni, using XNA/C#... can't say I miss it :P (google "lloyd car game", there's a report and everything.. though embarrassing in every possible way)

ssb

7:34 AM

unity takes care of a lot of the annoyances

Shazer2

haha

@gibbon - are you Swedish?

:D

I am

That's awesome

How so? :P

Because Sweden is awesome!

Sweden produced Notch

;)

gibbon sounds familiar, from another place...

LWJGL?

java-gaming.org?

gibbon

7:38 AM

Must be another gibbon

Ah ok, not sure

GibbonといえばSlackline

@ちょこれーと hello!

はろー！

i can only think of gutsy gibbon

Shazer2

7:48 AM

is it true you shouldn't say 元気ですか？ often?

ちょこれーと

ええ～

言うよ～

Shazer2

?

ちょこれーと

『元気～？」（casual）って。『お元気～？」(politer)とか

Shazer2

no but I heard you shouldn't say it all the time

like you only say it if you haven't seen someone in a while

ちょこれーと

へ～

I often say it

Shazer2

7:50 AM

Oh ok!

ehehe

uhuhuhu

ohohoho

hawhawhaw

hyuk hyuk

7:51 AM

hahahaahasjhsjd

?

This got weird

www

kkkkk

そうだね

How is そうだね different to そうだよ?

ちょこれーと

7:54 AM

そうだね is like "yeah, it is" like "I agree with you", maybe?

or "you're right"?

そうだよ is...

ssb

it's

yeah!

ちょこれーと

うむむ

ssb

maybe?

ne is agreement and yo is affirmation

ちょこれーと

あ、そうか

ssb

that might not be any clearer though..

sorry you can explain as you want to!

ちょこれーと

7:57 AM

I'm writing it down

Shazer2

:D

ちょこれーと

_〆(ﾟ▽ﾟ*)

φ(.. )

ssb

せっせ！せっせ！

Anonymous

8:24 AM

@ちょこれーと Thank you for correcting my Lang-8 entry! :-)

Anonymous

@ssb よ and ね are sometimes called "discourse particles", because they have discourse functions but don't directly carry any meaning themselves

Anonymous

And they have multiple functions, which depend in part on tone... Like for よ, there is rising-tone, and non-rising tone

Anonymous

But you can simplify it a lot and make some generalizations

Anonymous

I think that an accurate explanation needs to be a kind of long explanation

ssb

yeah I gave up very early in the attempt to describe the difference between そうだね and そうだよ

although i wasn't commenting on the particles alone and just shorthanding the sentences

Anonymous

8:31 AM

What I was told is that よ indicates that the speaker is saying something you don't think the listener knows. You're providing them with information, or correcting them

Anonymous

Or it can indicate you feel a heightened emotion about what you're saying

Anonymous

The person who first tried to explain it to me said that "よ is a verbal exclamation point" :-)

Tokyo Nagoya

ね is affirming a common knowledge between speaker and listener. よ is affirming what only the speaker knows firsthand.

may be too simplistic an explanatin, though

Anonymous

That's an interesting point--there was a study of Japanese native speakers talking to themselves, and they often used ね

Anonymous

But almost never used よ

Anonymous

8:35 AM

@TokyoNagoya It's probably good to begin with a simplistic explanation, though, isn't it? Someone like me, who's just learning, probably needs that stuff to start with :-)

Anonymous

It's fun discussing this stuff, but it's also a little frustrating because people who study language academically all seem to disagree on this stuff :-(

Anonymous

So I end up just having to talk in Japanese and get corrected when I'm saying stuff wrong, and learn that way...

Anonymous

@TokyoNagoya I'm going to add your explanation to my notes, too

Tokyo Nagoya

never even thought about this until a J-learner asked me to do an anaysis a few years ago. I thought of a few dozen situations where we would use ne and yo and the distiction became 100& clear at least within those examles. I just could not guarantee that this works in all cases. As a native speaker, I just seem to know which one to use without even thinking about it. And this is one thing that will be noticed by us when a J-learner uses the wrong one.

Mistakes with particle choices sound/look much bigger to us than the learner may think.

ちょこれーと

「よね」もあるんだよね・・・

よ＋ね？

Tokyo Nagoya

8:44 AM

そうなんだよね。だからこまっちゃう。

ちょこれーと

ｗｗｗ

Anonymous

Actually, linguists disagree on that, too. Some say よね＝よ＋ね, others say よね should be analyzed as a single particle

ちょこれーと

そうよね sounds similar to そうね

rather than そうよ

Tokyo Nagoya

「ねよ」っつったら別の意味になっちゃうしね。

Anonymous

Just a moment, I have a good reference...

ssb

8:46 AM

one thing that made me reconsider my understanding of よ was hearing it used as a sentence final particle in a question

What is ねよ！？

寝よう

はあ・・・

すんまへん！

ｗｗ

Anonymous

8:47 AM

A Discourse Function of the Japanese Sentence-Final Particle Yone and its Implications. （日本語の終助詞「よね」の談話機能とその含意）

ちょこれーと

許さん

ssb

mr. yuru?

Anonymous

Heheheh.

ssb

許ちゃん

とも言えるよ？

ちょこれーと

ｗｗ

Tokyo Nagoya

8:48 AM

中国の名前で「許」って実際あるよ。

ちょこれーと

I meant to say ゆるさぬ

ssb

i wouldn't trust that person because it's too close to 詐

ちょこれーと

詐欺ww

ssb

on an unrelated note, how common are myoji that combine kun and on readings?

Tokyo Nagoya

very rare

ssb

8:51 AM

I know someone named Tozaka and I always assumed it was とおざか but it's 東坂

and written とう

ちょこれーと

人の修士論文が、ネットで全部読めてしまうなんて・・・？

全部公開されてるんだろうか・・・？

ssb

全部後悔されてる・・

Anonymous

@ssb Hehehe :-(

Anonymous

@ちょこれーと There are a lot of papers that are open access, including a lot of masters' theses, but I think a lot still isn't open

Anonymous

I always assume it's up to the people who are sharing it publicly

Anonymous

8:57 AM

You can get more if you have access to jstor etc.

ちょこれーと

本人じゃなくて、大学がアップしてるんですよね

jstor?

ssb

it's a database of academic papers

Anonymous

Actually, as of 2012 some papers that aren't open access can be read freely through jstor's Register and Read program

Anonymous

Yeah, and databases like that are mostly available only to people enrolled at universities

ちょこれーと

日本語がない！en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSTOR

Anonymous

9:00 AM

In Japanese, there's CiNii and JapanKnowledge

Anonymous

I guess JapanKnowledge doesn't really carry periodicals. I thought it did

Anonymous

I don't know. There's a bunch of for-pay academic databases and such

ssb

i wonder..

i think i'm still technically listed as an employee of my old university because of beauraucracy

so i wonder if that means i can still access the library databases..

ちょこれーと

へええ・・・

Anonymous

@ssb You diabolical fiend!

ssb

9:06 AM

oh wow i can

ちょこれーと

すげえｗｗ

ssb

maybe i should email them..

Anonymous

@ssb If television has taught me anything, it's that you must now say "I'm in."

ssb

but it IS their fault so

oh, am I ever in.

I just had to reroute the encryption on the mainframe

Anonymous

Haha

Anonymous

9:08 AM

Don't forget bouncing off six firewalls

ssb

►

ちょこれーと

ジュラシックパーク1や～

Anonymous

That is exactly how real life hacking goes.

Anonymous

Jurassic Park is the source of the memorable line, "It's a UNIX system! I know this!"

ちょこれーと

@TokyoNagoya ご飯ですか！？

ssb

9:12 AM

reminds me i need to go to the store..

ちょこれーと

@snailboat 最後のほう？

女の子が。

Anonymous

►

Anonymous

:-D

ちょこれーと

あ、そうそう、それ！

それだけの短いビデオがアップされてるなんて

ssb

it's a classic line

Anonymous

9:15 AM

It's because we all love TV hackers and movie hackers :-)

ssb

reminds me that i saw this video again by chance recently

►

Anonymous

(Yes, it is a UNIX system, but that's not really the salient point when describing the interface she's presented with, which few UNIX users at the time or today would recognize)

Anonymous

I love explaining jokes. It makes them funnier.

Anonymous

@ssb 私は見たことがなかった

Anonymous

Every time I put 私は in a sentence I feel like I'm committing a crime

ssb

9:19 AM

why

Anonymous

'Cause! Everyone drills it into you how often you don't have to say it :-)

Anonymous

"Uh oh. Do I really need that 私は? Will the 私は police force me to surrender it at gunpoint?"

Anonymous

It turns out there aren't actually 私は police.

ssb

you've already gone through november's 私は quota

be careful

Anonymous

always careful! never insert references to myself into sentences, not even in English!

Anonymous

9:21 AM

Oh, crap--

Anonymous

Now the 自分自身 police are going to get me.

ssb

you really blew it this time.

Anonymous

I just need one more chance, Occifer!

ちょこれーと

漫才？

ssb

じゃじゃーん

Anonymous

9:25 AM

Hehehe

Shazer2

@snailboat, @ssb - you guys got blogs?

or sites?

ssb

i don't.. if i had a blog it would just languish

Shazer2

ahhhh

Anonymous

Hey, do some dialects say 〜だか at the end of a sentence?

Anonymous

(I'm trying to Google up an answer to that question.)

Shazer2

9:37 AM

I should start making Lang-8 entries again

Anonymous

Yeah! You can do it! :-) がんばってくださいね〜〜

Shazer2

ありがとう！

I struggle with lots of content

Anonymous

Me too. I'm terrible at Japanese :-)

Anonymous

れんしゅうあるのみですね＾＾

Shazer2

No way!

You're really good, much better than I.

Anonymous

9:40 AM

You're just saying that 'cause you can't see my many and profound errors!

ssb

I think Japanese has a very wide spectrum of skill levels

Anonymous

I make them daily. I have a collection

ssb

maybe more so than other languages

Anonymous

My goal is to make new errors every day, instead of making the same ones again and again.

3

Anonymous

If I can do that, I'm content :-)

Shazer2

9:41 AM

:D

Do you guys, when writing, envision it in English then try directly translate in Japanese?

Anonymous

No, start with Japanese

Shazer2

Alright.

Anonymous

Of course, you can't always do that. But you should try to avoid mentally translating as much as you can

Anonymous

Try to think the words directly in Japanese. Even if you only know a few of them, you know what those words mean, right? You know what ください means without having to think about what English word expresses something similar

Anonymous

If you're always translating in your head, you'll never be able to say stuff fast enough, or understand people fast enough.

ssb

9:46 AM

and quite often the Japanese you DO produce will sound awkward and unnatural

Shazer2

Hmmm..

I've been using anki guys!

I learnt a new word :D

Anonymous

Oh, good for you!

Shazer2