Japanese Language

Tim

12:27 AM

@Choko Thank you. I have found a few other articles on the net.

@snailboat Thank you for the edits.

Anonymous

1:33 AM

@Tim I'm never entirely sure how I should quote linguistics sources with romanized examples on Stack Exchange.

Anonymous

Usually I write them in kana and kanji instead.

Anonymous

Unless I think there's a relevant point to be made by using romaji. For example, you might say to iu no > to yuu no > t'yuu no

Anonymous

You can describe this in kana

Anonymous

But romanizing lets you make the contraction explicit, I think

非回答者

Great punch line!

►

Anonymous

1:44 AM

Oh, phew, I thought for a moment something I said was accidentally a joke :-)

ogicu8abruok

what's that at the end? 受けてたんです?

非回答者

2:54 AM

@ogicu8abruok The word is written ウケる more often than 受ける because it is a slang. It means "(for a person) to be able to make people laugh" , "(for a joke) to go over well", etc. It is a key word in showbiz. Antonym is スベる.

ogicu8abruok

3:07 AM

thanks

Damkerng T.

5:32 AM

By the way, I just found another good resource on my cable TV. I just realized that I have Red channel which most of its show are Chinese dramas but about 30% of it (I think) are Japanese movies and dorama. It's better than other channel because on this channel the shows will come in dual-language with subtitle. :D

This is much easier than what I've had. All the shows on other channels are in bilingual, but I can watch them in only one language at a time. No subtitles.

Damkerng T.

6:10 AM

@snailboat I think that book would be much easier than a line such as this: 外壁と屋上の空調機に睡眠誘発ガス注入装置の取り付け完了。

Though I learned a lot from that single line.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. If you prioritize learning common elements of the language (vocabulary, grammar, etc.), then you'll be able to recognize a greater percentage of what you hear, and that'll snowball into more practice earlier on, which is a good thing :-)

Anonymous

Of course, if you just learn everything you come across, you'll naturally end up learning a lot of common things.

Anonymous

But you'll also end up learning less common things. It's up to you, of course :-)

Anonymous

Although as an aside, you'd be surprised how often you hear about 睡眠ガス in fiction.

Anonymous

(Not usually 睡眠誘発ガス, I think)

Damkerng T.

6:18 AM

I think I will do all those things alternately. One advantage I have is that I'm not in a hurry. :-) (Though sooner is a good thing. :-)

@snailboat Ahh

During the last week, I reviewed many possible options of listening materials I could have. I think Misaki No. 1 is the most balanced one for me, and I'm gonna work on it through the whole final episode. (Too bad that I could tape only its last episode. They might rerun it soon, but I don't know when.)

The dialogue sounds realistic (not too much anime, though I think it's based on a manga too), the vocab seems not to be too difficult, and it's fun to watch. :-)

Anonymous

What sort of fiction do you like?

Anonymous

Action-y stuff with swords? (Like かたながたり)

Damkerng T.

Like movies, I think I can virtually read most stuff.

かたながたり is special, I think. It's a good story telling. A bit seinen, a bit ecchi, a bit heart touching, a bit like those sentai series, a bit heart-touching. I think you can find a bit of everything in this anime.

Oh, its soundtrack is nice too.

Though the ending is a bit too much about rage, but its true ending is quite nice, everything is unfolded nicely.

Anonymous

A lot of anime has fanservicey stuff. Sometimes it ruins what otherwise seem like pretty good series

Damkerng T.

Oh, I said heart-toughing twice. Must be something I remember about it the most. :D

I like watching good anime, though sometimes I think the dialogues in anime are different from what people really say.

I guess that the dialogues in dorama are closer.

Anonymous

6:51 AM

Well, you should consider anime and drama dialogue "real Japanese", even if it's not exactly the same as what real people say.

Anonymous

It's better practice in that sense than "textbook Japanese", consisting of constructed examples

Anonymous

You can learn later on what a lot of the differences are between real speech and fiction

Anonymous

For now you just need to get a bird's-eye view of the language

Anonymous

It'll be easier to appreciate discussion of things like role words once you can understand the language a little better

Damkerng T.

I think when I'm looking for is realistic and yet simple enough dialogues people actually use to get by their daily activities. Something similar to "Hello, how are you today?" "Do you know where the cafeteria is?". Maybe a bit situational like.

And it's rare to find such dialogues in anime. I mean, they get right into the dialogue at once. Mostly because those characters already know each other, so it's a different kind of dialogues, imo.

Anonymous

6:59 AM

@DamkerngT. There are certain types of real life dialogue you won't learn from fiction, or at least, it'll be a lot less frequent

Damkerng T.

@snailboat Are role words words like and, but, wa, etc.?

Anonymous

Because stuff that's boring doesn't make it into stories :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Those are function words

Damkerng T.

Exactly!

Anonymous

Role words are stereotyped speech patterns and words that give a speaker a particular "role" or characteristic. They're a common device in fiction

Anonymous

7:01 AM

Like if, in English, you made one character The Cowboy and made him say "Pardner" all the time

Damkerng T.

A-ha!

You mean different ways different people talk.

Anonymous

It's common in Japanese fiction to give each character a distinct speech pattern so that, for example, if you saw a quote spoken by one of the characters without saying who it was, you could tell who it was anyway just by how they spoke

Anonymous

This isn't unique to Japanese, of course, but I think it's conventionalized to a greater extent in Japanese

Anonymous

Japanese has a rather large library of ways to say things

Damkerng T.

That's what bothers me a little too. I mean, I have no idea if a character in an anime talked normally, or it's something especially customized for that specific character to make that character more interesting.

Anonymous

7:03 AM

Some of which are practically never used in real life except jokingly, some of which are used commonly, some of which are less common but still used…

Anonymous

Some of which are actually invented for TV series :-)

Damkerng T.

Hah!

So when someone used it, they would sound like a cartoon character! :-)

Damkerng T.

7:24 AM

@snailboat I just bought アリとキリギリス from the White Rabbit. :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Yay!

Damkerng T.

「フフフフフ～～～　♪」

Anonymous

Hee. By the way, get in the habit of not putting spaces in your Japanese :-)

Damkerng T.

Oh! Thank you!

Oh, I misquoted that line, it should be 「ラララララ～～～♪」

Anonymous

Oh! I thought you were laughing :-)

Damkerng T.

7:41 AM

@snailboat Actually, I was when the book said that line, "La la la la la ..." :D

Anonymous

Oh! I don't have the book

Damkerng T.

She was pretending to be the grasshopper. :D

Anonymous

Hey, they have an electronic version of the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Dictionary!

Anonymous

itunes.apple.com/us/app/kodansha-kanji-learners-dictionary/…

Anonymous

I wore out two copies of that book.

Anonymous

7:44 AM

It looks like the electronic version uses kana for readings, which is great. That was my biggest complaint―the paper one used rōmaji.

Damkerng T.

Oh, it's from Kodansha.

Anonymous

Most paper books like that aimed at English speakers, for marketing reasons, used rōmaji. Why? Presumably because they're afraid that people won't buy it if they think they have to learn kana. (Which is ridiculous, but there you go.)

Anonymous

But in this age where the KLD is now an app, that can apparently change. :-)

Anonymous

Learning Japanese in 2014 is a lot better than it used to be, I think.

Damkerng T.

I think I don't understand this, "I wrote out two copies of that book."

Anonymous

7:46 AM

I meant to type wore, but somehow my brain inserted wrote.

Damkerng T.

Ahh, I see. :D

Anonymous

Crossed wires in muscle memory, probably.

Damkerng T.

You made me think that who wrote that dictionary for a few minutes. :D

Anonymous

I have never written a dictionary.

Damkerng T.

And two copies at that. :D

Anonymous

7:47 AM

I have also never uh, written two copies of a book. Whatever that would mean. :-)

Anonymous

My brain balks at the combination of written (meaning "authored") and two copies (not compatible with authoring)

Anonymous

Written out would work for the meaning "copied the book onto paper by hand", in which case two copies would work

Damkerng T.

Maybe two revisions. :-) See, I really was trying to make sense of what you said. :-)

Anonymous

That would mean I used the wrong word.

Anonymous

You know, one of my best friends is a native speaker who puts words together in what I'd swear was a non-native manner on a fairly regular basis.

Damkerng T.

7:49 AM

lol

Anonymous

This friend is also a writer.

Damkerng T.

Hah!

I think I could improve the app a little. (If I were them.)

Anonymous

Yeah?

Damkerng T.

Yes. :-)

I would include English translation as an option.

Though their philosophy seems to be exactly the opposite of what I'm thinking. :-)

Anonymous

That would probably be useful at level 0 or whatever the starting point is.

Anonymous

7:53 AM

But the goal should be to try to understand in Japanese and not to translate, whenever this is possible.

Damkerng T.

> We encourage you not to reach for a dictionary while reading Japanese Graded Readers. Try to skip words and phrases that you don't understand and simply keep on reading. Their meanings will become apparent eventually from the context and illustrations. Finally, if the going gets tough, simply stop reading and try a different one. Don't try too hard to finish! If you do, you might begin to hate reading in Japanese.

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. That's the "virtuous circle" concept of extensive reading.

Anonymous

The idea is that readers who target literature that's easy for them keep reading and reading and reading, and they improve faster, while people who target things that are very hard for them get discouraged

Damkerng T.

I think having the translation as an option would be nice.

Kinda like training wheels. :-)

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. It would definitely be helpful for you at this point.

Damkerng T.

7:56 AM

nods :-)

Anonymous

Is the app nice?

Damkerng T.

It's quite nice! It has almost everything I need.

Oh, but it has one quirk.

It doesn't work every way I rotate my iPad.

In fact, it works only in one particular way. :D

Anonymous

Oh!

Anonymous

A-ha! It looks like the electronic version of the KLD lets you pick kana or rōmaji for readings as an option

Anonymous

I think at $25, it's cheaper than the paper version, too. (Seems to be the trend with apps.)

Anonymous

8:05 AM

My paper copy says $39.95.

Damkerng T.

Oh!

Anonymous

Actually, I think it was even possible to get an electronic version of the KLD on my EX-WORD. I didn't get it, though. (Since I don't use it as much anymore)

Damkerng T.

Gotta go. ありがとうございました！

Anonymous

Later!

Anonymous

8:47 AM

Anime.SE question about language:

Anonymous

4

Q: What is the joke behind "fork" and "spoon" keywords?

Christina decides a keyword which will make her believe Hououin Kyouma's story in the next time-line. That password is: 私が今一番欲しい物はMy-Forkであり。 My-Spoonはもうもってるし。 The thing I most want at the moment is "my fork". I already have "my spoon". She blushes as soon as she says it. And when Kyo...

steins-gate

Anonymous

9:34 AM

This book is too expensive. But I suppose it was never intended to sell very many copies

Anonymous

amazon.co.jp/Numeral-Classifier-Systems-Japanese-Discourse/dp/…

Anonymous

That's okay, though. Library's got it :-)

Damkerng T.

10:55 AM

I've a feeling that the Japanese language itself allows Siri to work better then when she works with English.

Anonymous

Could be :-)

Anonymous

I'd believe it!

Anonymous

I've been going through papers on quantifier float and it's just devastating to my poor brain.

Damkerng T.

Oh, no!

Anonymous

I read something this evening which I can only assume was an act of comedy.

Damkerng T.

11:05 AM

About English or Japanese?

Anonymous

Locality and Floating Quantifiers (Yoshio Endo, 2007)

Anonymous

Turn to page 7 of the PDF

Anonymous

> Let me first introduce some basic concepts to be utilized in our discussion to follow.

Anonymous

My concept of "basic" is sadly not so advanced. :-)

Anonymous

Really interesting paper, though. I don't mean to imply that I'm ungrateful to the author.

Damkerng T.

11:07 AM

:-)

Anonymous

It does seem to have a couple typos in the examples, though.

Anonymous

That's dangerous for folks like me, who might not recognize those typos ;-)

Anonymous

The section on quantifier float in my notes is now about 20 pages long

Anonymous

Apparently it's easy to describe 99% of cases, and the other 1% are complicated to come up with rules for.

Damkerng T.

Do you know about JLPT?

Anonymous

11:13 AM

Yeah.

Damkerng T.

Is it only for non-native speakers?

Anonymous

I've never taken it, but my study buddy wants me to :-)

Anonymous

As far as I know, yes.

Damkerng T.

nods -- I see. Thanks!

I think I'm at the N6 level now. :-)

Anonymous

There might be edge cases where that isn't true (bilingual speakers born outside Japan who should be considered native speakers, perhaps?), but I don't know the details

Anonymous

11:15 AM

@DamkerngT. Keep in mind the JLPT only tests listening and reading

Damkerng T.

Eh?

Oh! I think you're right!

Hmm... Interesting.

Anonymous

So your JLPT level may not be a complete description of your Japanese skills.

Damkerng T.

That is what I feel. (Now that I know.)

Earthliŋ

You can do the 漢検 to test your 漢字 writing skills: kanken.or.jp

Anonymous

Writing and speaking aren't tested. By "writing" I mean "composing written sentences" but there is also the skill of actually writing beautiful kana and kanji (or remembering how to write them at all :-)

Damkerng T.

11:17 AM

You mean calligraphy, I think. :D

Anonymous

@DamkerngT. Or just ペン字 if you like!

Anonymous

You can get a 筆ペン, though, and practice writing with that!

Anonymous

Or an actual brush

Damkerng T.

Ahh...

Anonymous

Actually they sell brush sets, like multiple sizes of brush

Anonymous

11:19 AM

I think most people start out writing big

Damkerng T.

But why doesn't JLPT test the writing (as in composition) and speaking skills?

@snailboat I could use a broom. :)

Anonymous

I don't know. Because it would be hard? Because it would cost more money? Because everyone would fail? :-)

Anonymous

I think there might be other tests for that sort of thing.

Anonymous

Like, I know translation agencies have their own tests.

Damkerng T.

nods

Anonymous

11:21 AM

I can't remember much about tests. I've never been a tests person.

Anonymous

I just sort of do stuff my way, and then I eventually know some stuff. Hopefully. :-)

Damkerng T.

Hmm... Is it possible that they just assume that reading/writing, listening/speaking skills would go together?

Anonymous

I don't have any insight into the thought processes behind the JLPT.

Anonymous

So, do you think of 注目の as one entity meaning "which is the center of attention" or "the attention is on..." or is it a usual function of の meaning "which is"? Because I still don't get how let's say 皆の注目の試合 can mean "The match which is the attention of everybody..." I would get how 皆の注目である試合 could mean that, but someone pointed out it was incorrect.... — Alox 1 hour ago

Anonymous

I'm not sure how to answer this. To me it seems like the regular genitive の, but it doesn't seem to work in English when you rephrase it as a genitive

Damkerng T.

11:24 AM

It looks like a regular genitive to me too. It works perfectly fine when I think in Thai.

Anonymous

注目の的 works ("center of attention") but 注目の〜 for other 〜 doesn't translate cleanly into English

Damkerng T.

I'm not sure if this 試合 means "match" or "game" though. (Game seems to make more sense to me.)

Anonymous

11:36 AM

The best way for you to understand how it's used would be to look through examples.

Anonymous

dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/je2/30228/m0u/%E8%A9%A6%E5%90%88

Anonymous

This is the Progressive J-E again. (You'll note it says that down in the lower right: 提供元：「プログレッシブ和英中辞典」)

Anonymous

If you wanted, you could set up a search shortcut so you can quickly check the Progressive dictionary for examples. Larger bilingual dictionaries are helpful for this sort of thing :-)

Anonymous

(ALC and Weblio EJJE are also things you can search for examples.)

ogicu8abruok

9:44 PM

you there snail?

Anonymous

I am!

Anonymous

Thanks for leaving a comment for me :-)

ogicu8abruok

does my comment on your answer make sense to you

Anonymous

Yeah

ogicu8abruok

ok because sometimes stuff makes 120% sense to me and no sense to other people so i was just wondering

i think the asker just isn't being loose enough with his interpretation of の

there's a lot of wiggle room

Anonymous

9:52 PM

In most languages the genitive can be used for a lot of different relationships

ogicu8abruok

how about english?

Anonymous

Yep.

Anonymous

English has two thingies people call genitive: one is apostrophe-s, the other is of.

Anonymous

Both of those thingies have a wide range of usage.

Anonymous

People think of the possessive usage first.

ogicu8abruok

9:54 PM

it doesn't seem as wide as の though. as you mentioned, it's difficult to translate 注目の

Anonymous

alt-usage-english.org/genitive_and_possessive.html

Anonymous

Well, they express things の doesn't. They have wide ranges but they're different wide ranges :-)

Anonymous

The anecdote at the end of this is funny, though.

Anonymous

> A classic story in linguistics lore tells of the grammarian who tried to classify all of the ways the genitive can be used. He eventually threw up his hands and said that the genitive is the case that shows any relationship between two substantives.

Anonymous

"Substantive" is old-fashioned grammarian speak for "noun"

Anonymous

9:55 PM

In case that was mysterious :-)

ogicu8abruok

haha

Anonymous

This page has a fun list: qstuff.blogspot.com/2009/07/genitive.html

Anonymous

> Physical possession: "my computer"
Abstract possession: "your happiness"
Relational: "his wife"
Compositional: "bottle of water", "box of nails"
Quantitative: "half of them"
Subjective: "her snoring"
Objective: "its destruction"
Purpose: "sledgehammer of castration"
Location: "citizens of America"
Origin: "Kazuhiro Sasaki of Japan" (for those who don't know, he's a Japanese baseball player that was recruited to play professionally in America)
Affiliation: "Apple's Steve Jobs"
Attributive: "thing of beauty"

ogicu8abruok

10:13 PM

i like attributive

is that what people mean when they refer to "の adjectives", i wonder?

Anonymous

10:35 PM

Attributive has a bunch of meanings, but in English the main meaning is:

Anonymous

Chicken soup, tasty soup

Anonymous

In both of those phrases, you have an attributive modifier. One is an attributive noun (chicken), the other an attributive adjective (tasty)

Anonymous

Some people use attributive as a translation for Japanese 連体.

Anonymous

Others use adnominal

Anonymous

When people say の-adjective, they're referring to the class of words which are just like な-adjectives, except they take の.

Anonymous

10:36 PM

They aren't recognized by traditional grammar, which just calls them nouns

Anonymous

Martin calls them "precopular nouns"

Anonymous

Using terms like we do for English, we could say:

Anonymous

> 赤い林檎　　←　attributive adjective
> 林檎が赤い　←　predicative adjective

Tim

10:56 PM

@Choko (or anybody else who is interested) If have understood you correctly then:
In both 24 and 25, the 2nd sentence represents perspective of main character (not mention in 24, Sanshiro in 25). It is not their actual but written from their point of view, which is I suppose the same as much English writing.
I read that Harry Potter is written from Harry’s point of view – reader (kind of) sees things through Harry’s eyes.

What is the meaning of ?? in 24 and 25: Although this style of writing can be done in English using past tense, in Japanese, if ta-form is continuously used then the main characters point of view is lost. The writing assumes author’s point of view.

Indirect free speech/ free indirect style: The difference between 24(2) and 25(2) is that although both are from the main characters perspective, 25(2) reflect Sanshiro’s opinion, and that is the reason the translator used “That”(?)

(Although we have present-narrative and indirect free speech in English too (eg He laid down his bundle and t…

Anonymous

11:49 PM

The historical present is also mentioned in the 日本語文法ハンドブック series

Anonymous

In that section on 〜ている I linked to

Anonymous

> ◆もう一つの用法は「歴史的現在」とも言うべき用法です。これは次のように何らかの証拠（手帳などの記述、記憶etc.）に基づいて述べる場合です。
>
> 　(5)　証拠によると、犯人は３日前ここで食事をしている。
>
> この場合、出来事が起こったのは過去ですが、その記録は発話時に存在するため、タ形やテイタ形ではなくテイル形が使われるのです。
>
> 　(5)' ？証拠によると、犯人は３日前ここで食事をした。

Anonymous

From page 82 of 中上級を教える人のための日本語文法ハンドブック

Anonymous

It's talking about experiential uses of 〜ている.

Anonymous

I wonder how often "etc." is used in Japanese.

Anonymous

11:57 PM

I wonder if in this case it was used because など had already been used

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