Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

[golyplot]

Yesterday, I read ch4 of Yotsubato! and watched ep 5-6 of Carmen Sandiego. There was one scene in the former where Jumbo jokes that he's so tall because his father's ancestors were giraffes. But in Japanese it was written kirin. I always thought that kirin was just a mythological creature and had no idea that it could also mean "giraffe" in Japanese. Another interesting point was when they said "よつばちゃんち", translated as "Yotsuba-chan's family". I eventually figured out that the ち was probably 血 (blood), but I'd never seen it used to mean "family" before. I'm also not sure where there's no "no" in there. Is it a bit like "-tachi"?


I finished listening to Japanese with Shun yesterday morning (it's very short, especially if you skip through the ads and word lists like I did), and started Noriko again. In ep17, she says something like "kaishouhouhou" a lot that I wasn't able to figure out. Also, in the あいづち episode, she said something like "fira", which I couldn't figure out either.

[vonPeterhof]

Yesterday, I read ch4 of Yotsubato! and watched ep 5-6 of Carmen Sandiego. There was one scene in the former where Jumbo jokes that he's so tall because his father's ancestors were giraffes. But in Japanese it was written kirin. I always thought that kirin was just a mythological creature and had no idea that it could also mean "giraffe" in Japanese. Another interesting point was when they said "よつばちゃんち", translated as "Yotsuba-chan's family". I eventually figured out that the ち was probably 血 (blood), but I'd never seen it used to mean "family" before. I'm also not sure where there's no "no" in there. Is it a bit like "-tachi"?

The suffix "んち" is a very colloquial clipping of "のうち", so it means "X's place" and/or "X's family". There's quite a few manga and anime with it in the title - あたしンち, オレん家のフロ事情, 小林さんちのメイドラゴン, etc. In the case of よつばちゃん it just appears as "ち" since there's already an ん present.

[golyplot]

The suffix "んち" is a very colloquial clipping of "のうち", so it means "X's place" and/or "X's family". There's quite a few manga and anime with it in the title - あたしンち, オレん家のフロ事情, 小林さんちのメイドラゴン, etc. In the case of よつばちゃん it just appears as "ち" since there's already an ん present.

Thanks, I would have never guessed that.

[golyplot]

Inspired by the video Crush posted, I decided to try some intensive reading with ch5 of Yotsubato, looking up all the words and grammar. Of course, I predictably got sidetracked on the very first sentence, reading about imperative forms and so on.

But what annoys me is the lack of furigana in the example sentences on Tofugu's page. I can try to read them, but without at least optional furigana, there's no way to know if I was actually right. I looked up a couple of the sentences on ichi.moe, and it's a good thing I did, because it turns out that I misremembered the reading of 熊 as "kuruma" rather than "kuma". That was kind of embarrassing. At least I managed to get 逃げろ right. I remember back in my Wanikani days, I really struggled keeping straight the "ni" and "noga" readings.

Another sentence had the word 強盗, which was completely unfamiliar to me. Naturally, the 強 uses a weird reading. I was going to say I haven't seen it before, but it turns out that it's actually on Wanikani and I'd just forgotten it.

I guess the solution to that is to install Yomichan, which I've been resisting, but maybe I'll have to give in and do that after all.

Speaking of the command form, -ro for normal verbs is reasonable enough to remember, but then it uses -e instead of -o for other verbs. Also, a conjugated non-te form that ends in -te is just evil. Why Japanese people, why?

P.S. Tae Kim's guide, which I read before, just said that the command form is really rude and rarely used. It's a good thing I landed on Tofugu's page this time, which is much more informative.

[crush]

I guess the solution to that is to install Yomichan, which I've been resisting, but maybe I'll have to give in and do that after all.

Any reason you've been holding off? I use it all the time, i use it + an mpv script to mine cards from TV/anime shows quickly and easily, i also use Yomichan on my phone where i do all my reading (i find it's easier to tap on new words than to find them with the mouse). It's one of my favorite Japanese-learning tools.

[golyplot]

On Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, I took it easy, but tonight I returned to Japanese again. I got a couple pages further into Yotsubato ch5, but got stuck on the line ならねーよ 泣かねーし, which I couldn't figure out, even with ichi.moe, Google, etc. Does anyone know what kind of grammar that is?

One other notable bit: At the beginning of the chapter, Yotsuba's dad says to her "はやくしろーおいてくぞー". From what I've read, this form is considered a bit rude, but is often used by parents towards their children, so that makes sense. Therefore, I was surprised later on when Yotsuba says the same thing back "とーちゃーんはやくしろーおいてくぞー". I figured that's just Yotsuba being Yotsuba, but it was still odd to see.


Apart from that, I watched the last two episodes of Carmen Sandiego season 4 (and the show in general, apparently - I wasn't expecting the show to end already).

[kelvin921019]

On Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, I took it easy, but tonight I returned to Japanese again. I got a couple pages further into Yotsubato ch5, but got stuck on the line ならねーよ 泣かねーし, which I couldn't figure out, even with ichi.moe, Google, etc. Does anyone know what kind of grammar that is?

I don't know if it's type of colloquialism or dialect, but it means ない
One famous japanese comedy group called 我が家 and their famous catch phrase is "言わせねーよ" (I won't let you say that!)

[vonPeterhof]

At the beginning of the chapter, Yotsuba's dad says to her "はやくしろーおいてくぞー". From what I've read, this form is considered a bit rude, but is often used by parents towards their children, so that makes sense. Therefore, I was surprised later on when Yotsuba says the same thing back "とーちゃーんはやくしろーおいてくぞー". I figured that's just Yotsuba being Yotsuba, but it was still odd to see.

Pretty much, a big part of her character is her inability to wrap her head around various norms of speech and behavior due to being a small and hyperactive child.

I don't know if it's type of colloquialism or dialect, but it means ない

It's a typical feature of Eastern Japanese dialects, but since it happens to be present in the traditional dialect of the Tokyo area it's often seen as a general colloquialism rather than a dialectal feature. The stereotypical working class Tokyo (Shitamachi) dialect even has this vowel shift appear word-internally rather than just in endings (for example, pronouncing 帰る as けぇる or 大丈夫 as でぇじょうぶ), but it seems like pretty much nobody who grew up in Tokyo after the 1940s pronounces those words like that anymore unless they're deliberately putting on a performance.

[golyplot]

I read a bit more of Yotsubato! today. There was a lot of grammar I couldn't figure out, even with both Jisho and ichi.moe.

For example, the dad says "ハラへってんのか", translated as "Are you hungry?" I'm familiar with the expression "はらへった" to mean I'm hungry, but I haven't seen it with the -te version before, and I have no idea what the んのか part is for. My guess is that てん is some sort of contraction, but I can't remember the details.

I was also stumped by the line "おおー？でけーな おい！" (OHH!? THAT'S HUGE!!).

When Yotsuba said "たべものやさん", it took me a while, but I managed to figure it out on my own. The ya means shop, and she added "-san" for some reason. Is that just her being silly again?


One last thing is that often even when I can identify all the words and grammar used, that doesn't necessarily make it easy to understand! For example, the Dad's line here is translated as "Yeah, that's where all the little shops would be", but as far as I can tell, the Japanese literally translates as something more like "That's a place where shops come out". It's interesting that the English is written as a conditional, while the Japanese isn't.

[vonPeterhof]

For example, the dad says "ハラへってんのか", translated as "Are you hungry?" I'm familiar with the expression "はらへった" to mean I'm hungry, but I haven't seen it with the -te version before, and I have no idea what the んのか part is for. My guess is that てん is some sort of contraction, but I can't remember the details.

-てんの is a colloquial simplification of -てるの, which is itself a colloquial contraction of -ているの.

I was also stumped by the line "おおー？でけーな おい！" (OHH!? THAT'S HUGE!!).

でけー is another example of the vowel shift we were talking last time, the original verb form is でかい.

When Yotsuba said "たべものやさん", it took me a while, but I managed to figure it out on my own. The ya means shop, and she added "-san" for some reason. Is that just her being silly again?

No, adding "-san" to the names of organizations and establishments is actually pretty common (although in this case it can be ambiguous because the suffix や can refer to both the establishment and the person running it). If anything I assumed that it's the "たべものや" part where Yotsuba is being silly by thinking you can add や to any sort of produce to make the name of the establishment selling it, but turns out it actually is a real word. Guess I learned something today.

For example, the Dad's line here is translated as "Yeah, that's where all the little shops would be", but as far as I can tell, the Japanese literally translates as something more like "That's a place where shops come out". It's interesting that the English is written as a conditional, while the Japanese isn't.

I think I talked about this recently in someone else's log, but technically "would" is a subjunctive, not a conditional. Japanese verbs have at least three different conditional forms but no real equivalent to subjunctive ones. A conditional sentence describing a hypothetical situation, like （もし）おまつりに行けば（きっと）楽しかった（のに） (the bits in the brackets aren't really necessary, but they make it more obvious that the situation described is hypothetical instead of what had actually happened), would require the subjunctive if translated into English (Surely it would have been fun if we had gone to the festival), but the sentence in Yotsuba is a more ambiguous case where different translation choices were possible.