Learning Japanese From Zero

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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby golyplot » Thu Mar 25, 2021 2:06 pm

I've been worrying about burnout a lot recently. One thing I noticed is that despite understanding K-On! better than before, it's not as enjoyable to watch. I wonder if it's just a matter of season 2 not being as good as season 1, or something else.

Anyway, on to ch12: Youtsuba and the Pool. For some reason this chapter uses a different font than before which is harder to read. I have no idea how that could happen, since you'd expect the site to just use a single font for everything, but oh well.

Story thoughts: Fuuka hitting on Jumbo was almost as creepy as Jumbo hitting on Asagi. I'm not sure if it's the art style, or the fact that Jumbo is a billion feet tall, but he always seemed a lot older than the girls. But I guess they're supposed to be around the same age. Incidentally, it occurred to me that Jumbo taking everyone to the local public pool instead of Waterworld as promised isn't quite the dick move it seemed. He only had four tickets, which means that they couldn't have gone anyway since Youtsuba invited both Fuuka and Ena. It's also odd that Asagi is shown on the cover when she doesn't appear in the story at all. I guess that was done to avoid "spoilers".

さそってきたー
くるっていった
I ASKED, SHE SAID YES.

Is this another one of those cases where the translation from Japanese to English unintentionally makes people sound deceptive? As we find out later, it wasn't Asagi who said yes, but Fuuka and Ena. The English translation of Youtsuba's line is straight out wrong, but it looks like the Japanese doesn't specify who said yes, so it may have been an honest miscommunication. Or am I misunderstanding things?

It's interesting seeing how different language conventions make certain things possible or not. I've heard that sometimes English written to conceal a character's gender will be impossible to translate properly to languages like Spanish which require genders on everything, and the same thing happens when translating from Japanese to English.

We already saw this in Sword Art Online with Zekken, who is revealed to be female. The people talking about her knew she was female, but just didn't bother mentioning that, leading Asuna to assume she was a guy. However, this is ruined by the English subtitles, where they couldn't leave it ambiguous and thus used male pronouns, making the characters seem actively deceptive.


Anyway, back to Youtsuba:

あーホントだ
キレーに
なってる

Why do they keep putting random words in katakana for no apparent reason?

立逅立派
言うな
STOP SAYING THAT! PERVERTS

It seems like the Japanese literally translates as "Don't say "rippa"". I guess the "perverts" part was implied? Or just added for flavor while translating? Also, I'm not sure why she uses two different kanji at the beginning.

小岩井さん!
ジャンポさんて
カナヅチなんじゃ

Apparently, カナヅチ can mean either "hammer" or "person who's bad at swimming". Apparently, it's similar to the English idea of "sink like a stone" except that in Japanese, I guess you sink like a hammer instead. Also, the English translation decided to leave カナヅチ untranslated for some weird reason.
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vonPeterhof
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby vonPeterhof » Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:13 pm

golyplot wrote:I wonder if it's just a matter of season 2 not being as good as season 1

Now there's a hot take if I've ever seen one :lol:

golyplot wrote:Why do they keep putting random words in katakana for no apparent reason?

That's just something you get used to eventually. Sometimes there is a reason, like emphasis, marking a character's foreign accent or reducing the number of kanji as a marker of a more casual tone, but a lot of the time it just seems to be artistic choice.


golyplot wrote:立逅立派
言うな
STOP SAYING THAT! PERVERTS

It seems like the Japanese literally translates as "Don't say "rippa"". I guess the "perverts" part was implied? Or just added for flavor while translating? Also, I'm not sure why she uses two different kanji at the beginning.
I'm guessing they added "perverts" to emphasise that the tone Fuuka uses is noticeably ruder than how you'd normally expect a schoolgirl to address adults, even younger ones. And all the instances of 逅 are definitely mistakes, most likely a computer misidentifying the character 派 in a scan (which also sounds like a likely explanation for the typos in previous chapters, now that I think about it).
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby golyplot » Fri Mar 26, 2021 2:33 am

Ch 13: In which the bird scaring bullseye balloons from the department store chapter show up again. Are those common in Japan? I've never seen them before.

あいつが…あいっが
こっちみてる

I think this is another transcription error. Looks like they turned a big tsu into a small tsu.

今日も
元気アマリリスだねー

What on earth is アマリリス? Neither Jisho no ichi.moe know.

えっと 隣り…
綾瀬さんちに

I found it interesting that he adds "tonari" before the name here.

あとでたんぼに
返しに行こ

At first, I thought that 行こ was the -mashou form, but ichi.moe didn't recognize it. Apparently, it's actually supposed to be 行こう. I wonder why they left off the last u.
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kelvin921019
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby kelvin921019 » Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:13 am

golyplot wrote:今日も
元気アマリリスだねー

What on earth is アマリリス? Neither Jisho no ichi.moe know.

It should be a play of word using 元気あまり (lots of energy) and アマリリス(Amaryllis)

golyplot wrote:あとでたんぼに
返しに行こ

At first, I thought that 行こ was the -mashou form, but ichi.moe didn't recognize it. Apparently, it's actually supposed to be 行こう. I wonder why they left off the last u.

I think it's contraction again. Japanese sometimes are lazy here and there in their speech.
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Sizen
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby Sizen » Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:10 am

golyplot wrote:あいつが…あいっが
こっちみてる

I think this is another transcription error. Looks like they turned a big tsu into a small tsu.

I finally checked out this website today. There are plenty of transcription errors, especially with the size of certain kana. I think I saw something like いゃいゃ with small やs while I was quickly looking at a few chapters.

golyplot wrote:今日も
元気アマリリスだねー

What on earth is アマリリス? Neither Jisho no ichi.moe know.

アマリリス is a kind of flower. Wordplay and "puns" are common in Japanese, sometimes even when the link between the words is tenuous at best. I think that アマリリス is here because it resembles the verb 有り余る (ありあまる) which means to have an excess of something. 元気がありあまる -> to have more than enough energy. 元気ありあまり(すぎ) does get said, and that does sound a bit like アマリリス. That's at least my interpretation.


golyplot wrote:えっと 隣り…
綾瀬さんちに

I found it interesting that he adds "tonari" before the name here.

tonari can mean the house next-door or just straight-up someone's neighbour. There's also the more polite お隣さん.
"She's next-door... At the Ayases."


golyplot wrote:あとでたんぼに
返しに行こ

At first, I thought that 行こ was the -mashou form, but ichi.moe didn't recognize it. Apparently, it's actually supposed to be 行こう. I wonder why they left off the last u.

It's fairly common for some words ending in a long -ou sound to be shortened to simply -o , 本当(ほんとう) being the prime example as it is frequently pronounced and even written as ホント. Another common couple of words are でしょう and だろう being shortened to でしょ and だろ. Another word that comes to mind is 愛想(あいそう) which often gets pronounced あいそ like in 愛想が尽きる (to get fed up with someone). It's also pretty common for the speculative そう (e.g. 痛そう: that looks like it would hurt) to get shortened in this way as well: 痛そ, 大丈夫そ and even 行ってそ (行っていそう: probably goes to ~~, seems like the kind of person who would go to ~~, e.g. 1人でディズニーランド行ってそ [they look like the kind of person who'd go to Disneyland on their own]).

Verbs in the volitional often get shortened like this as well, as you've seen. A particularity about this form is that it takes a っ when you tack か onto it: 行こっか, 手伝おっか, 寝よっか... Except of course in parts of western Japan where 行こか, 手伝おか, 寝よか are the norm... In fact, the railway operator JR West has a rechargeable fare card called ICOCA that stands for IC Operating CArd but also plays on that pronunciation: 行こか.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby golyplot » Sun Mar 28, 2021 6:24 pm

Youtsuba ch14: The One In Which Youtsuba Doesn't Actually Appear (until the final page anyway).

I noticed two mistakes in this chapter: Asagi's name is spelled Osagi at one point, and お父さん is given the furigana "you" instead of "tou" at one point. Learning that bilingualmanga.com is full of mistakes was pretty disappointing. One of the challenges of learning Japanese is making sure you actually have something correct to learn from. Especially with kanji readings. One of the problems with reading stuff that doesn't have furigana is that even if you recognize the kanji, you can't be sure if you actually got the reading right or not, so there's no way to self-correct.

Anyway, does anyone know what そんなテキトーな means? It's translated as "YOU JUST GRABBED WHATEVER WAS IN FRONT OF YOU".

Also, who on earth drinks coffee in a glass with ice? If it weren't for the dialogue, I would have thought they were drinking Coke or something.

Image
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Nogon
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby Nogon » Sun Mar 28, 2021 8:45 pm

golyplot wrote:Also, who on earth drinks coffee in a glass with ice?

I do sometimes, when it's really hot in summer. Cold coffee is even better with icecream and whipped cream on top, instead of just ice though. Delicious but not very healthy. ;)
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Sizen
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby Sizen » Mon Mar 29, 2021 3:47 am

golyplot wrote:Anyway, does anyone know what そんなテキトーな means? It's translated as "YOU JUST GRABBED WHATEVER WAS IN FRONT OF YOU".

適当(てきとう) is kind of a funny word. It means "appropriate" (e.g. on a test: 適当な答えを選びなさい "Please choose the best answer"), but through some wonky semantic shift, it has come to mean basically the opposite depending on the context. Now, it's often used to mean something done lazily or without much thought (e.g. これ?テキトーに選んだよ "This? I just picked whatever"). When it's used in this meaning, it tends to be written in katakana, perhaps because it's more テキトー to write it that way. In a sense, the writing reflects the new meaning. The semantic shift sort of makes sense if you think about how the most appropriate thing might just be whatever's on hand or whatever first comes to mind if you want something to be done quickly.

With that said, the next important bit is the hanging な at the end. 適当 is a な-adjective, and the な here is that very same な. It's just that nothing follows it. Usually this means that there is a sort of implied phrase that follows. For example, そんなテキトーな選び方じゃダメでしょ "You can't just choose whatever (like that)." The そんな also adds a bit of judgement (e.g. "You're really going to wear that?), although it's more like some doubt about the suitability of the choice being made in this context.

Implied sentences like this are fairly common, especially with ような(気がする) "I feel like...": 前にも行ったような… (I feel like I've gone before). It's sometimes also paired with ないような(気がする): 見たような…ないような… "I'm not sure if I've seen it..."

These implied sentences aren't necessarily restricted to な-adjectives, though. For example, something you'll often hear and see is sentences ending with っていう. I once came across this sentence in reference to a game: すごいよな パッと見は書き込まれたドット絵っぽいんだけど動くとちゃんと3Dの箱庭になってるっていう "That's amazing. At first glance, it looks like detailed pixel art, but it actually looks like an isometric 3D game when you move." This is another implied sentence where you can assume something like 技術 or even just a nominalizer like の is implied after っていう and that the すごいな applies to that implied noun or the nominalized sentence, e.g. パッと見は書き込まれたドット絵っぽいんだけど動くとちゃんと3Dの箱庭になってるっていう、すごいよな "It's amazing that at first glance, it looks like detailed pixel art, but then it actually looks like an isometric 3D game when you move."
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby golyplot » Mon Mar 29, 2021 5:31 am

Wow, I would have never guessed all that.

I read about Youtsubato on TvTropes today and was shocked to discover that Miura is a girl, not a boy like I assumed. But apparently a lot of readers had the same confusion.

Also, before I watch each episode of K-On!, I read the detailed episode summary on the fan wiki. Knowing what is happening beforehand makes the episodes a lot easier to follow. However, tonight while watching the episode "Leading Role!", I was very proud that I managed to notice and understand a line that wasn't even mentioned in the summary when Mio is looking at Ton's tank and says "わたしとんちゃんになりたい" (I wish I could become Ton).
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby golyplot » Mon Mar 29, 2021 7:12 pm

On to Youtsuba & Gifts. One thing odd about this chapter is that they stopped translating the Japanese tendency to refer to yourself by name, even though they should be replaced by "I" in English, e.g. "IF DADDY DOESN'T LIKE IT, SHOULD YOTSUBA EAT IT FOR YOU?".

いった!
もめすごく
いった
I DID! I SUPER-SAID IT

I can see how sugoku might mean super, but what does the mome mean?

わかった!
とーちゃんの
こだわりな
GOT IT! THAT'S DADDY'S OBSESSION, RIGHT?
お前変な言葉
知ってんなぁ
YOU KNOW THE WEIRDEST WORDS

I was a bit puzzled by this exchange. Is こだわり supposed to be a "weird word"? Jisho lists 拘る as a "common word", so I'm not sure why it would be considered weird.
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