Learning Japanese From Zero

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vonPeterhof
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby vonPeterhof » Sun Jan 09, 2022 11:19 am

golyplot wrote:One thing that bugs me is that I assume that 干物妹 is some sort of pun on 妹, but I can't figure out what it could be. Jisho suggests "dried fish" or "young woman who has given up on love", but those don't really make sense. Anyone know what the title really means?

I've always heard it explained as a pun on 干物女. I just assumed that the original word meant something to the effect of "female slob" and, since I don't think I ever encountered this word anywhere else, I never really looked into the meaning beyond that. I'm guessing the connection here is the stereotype of young women who have given up on love no longer bothering to stay "feminine" and being as slovenly and self-indulgent as they want (the irony and contradiction in Umaru's case being that she only really acts that way when at home alone or in the company of her doting brother, while still maintaining a perfectly socially acceptable feminine façade in public).
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sun Jan 09, 2022 6:49 pm

vonPeterhof wrote:I'm guessing the connection here is the stereotype of young women who have given up on love no longer bothering to stay "feminine" and being as slovenly and self-indulgent as they want (the irony and contradiction in Umaru's case being that she only really acts that way when at home alone or in the company of her doting brother, while still maintaining a perfectly socially acceptable feminine façade in public).


Thanks.

I also found this which says it is a pun on 干物妹 but gives a slightly different slang meaning.

"Himōto" is a pun on "imōto" (little sister) and "himono," which means "dried fish," but in slang can refer to a woman who is proper in public but lazy at home.


This article seems to disagree with the above and says it just means "woman who has given up on love", though it confirms your guess about the stereotype meaning they stop bothering with hygiene and so on (except for work, which I guess is close to Umaru).

So, what is a himono onna or dried-fish woman? It means an unmarried woman, usually in her late 29s to 30s or older, who has given up on love and sex, and is content - or resigned to - live on her own. A himono onna generally regards all that lovey-romantic stuff as too much of a bother, or mendokusai (面倒臭い めんどくさい). In fact, mendokusai is her first motivation, or un-motivation, for everything. She's stopped trying to impress the opposite sex, doesn't bother dressing attractively and goes around in the most comfortable clothes possible, including going sans bra or no-bura (ノーブラ). She may also stop paying too much attention to things like personal hygiene, or at least stop bothering with makeup, going more than once or twice a year to the hairdresser, doing her nails, and things like that, except when she goes to work. Anticipating the possibility that she will have no children to take care of her in her old age, she may be saving up a lot of her money, buying her own apartment or house (until recently it was practically unheard of for a single woman to buy her own place) - or she may be spending money on herself at will.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Mon Jan 10, 2022 5:58 am

Last night while watching Himouto Umarachan, I noticed one of the title cards said "Umara's Ambitions" and I was reminded of my favorite Japanese Youtube channel, Hayato's Ambition, and thought it was odd, since it didn't seem like a common phrase. They even both used the same phrasing in Japanese as well, Xの野望. I read once that Hayato's channel was a reference to the videogame Nobunaga's Ambition. I wonder if the Umarachan thing was a deliberate reference to that as well.

Image


Tonight, I watched Stand By Me Doraemon 2. The plot was more cohesive and easier to follow than the first movie, though I of course still didn't understand a lot of the dialog. However, I could usually infer what was going on from context and the visuals and so on even when I was lost in the dialog.

One moment I found interesting was when Nobita was asked to deliver an "aisatsu" at his wedding, and just said "konnichiwa" rather than the prepared speech the guests were expecting. It's funny because I learned from WK that aisatsu just meant "greeting", and had no idea that it could also mean "speech", so I sympathized with Nobita a bit there.

The other interesting bit is when they went to the hospital and there's a rack of slippers by the door which all the customers/guests are wearing. I of course knew about the Japanese custom of taking off one's shoes at the entry to a house and putting on slippers, and also that (going by anime at least) Japanese high schools have shoe lockers by the entrance, but I'd never heard of this being done at commercial establishments. I guess if there's one place that the cleanliness taboo would apply, it would be a hospital!

Image
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Wed Jan 12, 2022 4:57 am

This evening, I had a headache, so I didn't feel like doing any Japanese study, making this the first day since New Years that I didn't read a single story on Satori Reader. Instead, I watched the first episode of Squid Game (in Korean with English subtitles).

I regret being late to the party. Back when Squid Game was big, I deliberately avoided watching it because I wanted to save it for if I learn Korean some day, but now I've got the worst of both worlds, having months of not understanding all the Squid Game memes and seeing spoilers and so on for nothing.

Anyway, the reason I mention this is that at the part where the guy promises his daughter to get her a nice present next year, it sounded like he said "yokusou". And then this is repeated later and it also sounded like the Squid Game staff said it too when assuring the contestants that they would get the promised prize money if they won. It's notable because it sounded a lot like the Japanese 約束 (yakusoku). I wonder if it is a loanword or shared etymology or if I'm just imagining things.


Also, I forgot to mention this at the time, but I remember a week or two ago hearing Noriko discussing views (i.e. views out the window) and talking about how wonderful it must be to live in Paris and see all the beautiful scenery and landmarks. As someone who actually spent a week at an Airbnb in Paris once, I found it hilariously naive.

Does Noriko think that all the houses in Paris are arranged in a giant circle around the Eiffel Tower or something? Most of (downtown) Paris actually consists of identical 4-5 story apartment complexes, which means that the view out the window will be the apartment courtyard on the backside and from the front side, a view of the street and a similar nondescript building across from you. And that's assuming there's even a view at all - some of the windows just open onto air shafts through the apartment building.
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vonPeterhof
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby vonPeterhof » Wed Jan 12, 2022 7:12 am

golyplot wrote:Anyway, the reason I mention this is that at the part where the guy promises his daughter to get her a nice present next year, it sounded like he said "yokusou". And then this is repeated later and it also sounded like the Squid Game staff said it too when assuring the contestants that they would get the promised prize money if they won. It's notable because it sounded a lot like the Japanese 約束 (yakusoku). I wonder if it is a loanword or shared etymology or if I'm just imagining things.

약속 (yaksok; the last "k" sounds more like a "g" when followed by a vowel) is indeed essentially the same word as the Japanese 約束, although a lot of the time it's used in ways where 予定 would make more sense in Japanese. And yeah a lot of Japanese on'yomi vocabulary also exists in Korean, either as shared borrowings from literary Chinese or as direct borrowings from Japanese. Knowing about the sound correspondences in this vocabulary has allowed me to punch way above my weight in understanding certain texts in Korean, most notably newspaper headlines.

golyplot wrote:Also, I forgot to mention this at the time, but I remember a week or two ago hearing Noriko discussing views (i.e. views out the window) and talking about how wonderful it must be to live in Paris and see all the beautiful scenery and landmarks. As someone who actually spent a week at an Airbnb in Paris once, I found it hilariously naive.
Well there is a whole psychological disorder originating from Japanese people getting disillusioned with Paris.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Wed Jan 12, 2022 2:53 pm

vonPeterhof wrote:Well there is a whole psychological disorder originating from Japanese people getting disillusioned with Paris.


Yeah, I read about that back when I went to Paris, and I think Noriko has also talked about it on her podcast. But I don't think Noriko has actually been, so this is more about the failure to think things through and do the research.
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Aloyse
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby Aloyse » Wed Jan 12, 2022 5:13 pm

golyplot wrote:how wonderful it must be to live in Paris and see all the beautiful scenery and landmarks.

Actually that's what I miss the most about Paris. Ok, not anything visible from my window :mrgreen: , but just a metro ride and/or a walk away. Bridges, islands, cathedrals, ancient and beautiful train stations transformed into museums, libraries (and the Chinese bookstores, and the English bookstores, and librairies open on Sundays!!!!), the metro entrances, the Chinese cultural center, the Cité universitaire internationale, I could list more (and there are certainly even more that I just never knew about). I don't particularly like walking in the small uninteresting town I'm living in right now but I did love walking in Paris and seeing the sights.
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DaveAgain
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby DaveAgain » Wed Jan 12, 2022 5:24 pm

Aloyse wrote:
golyplot wrote:how wonderful it must be to live in Paris and see all the beautiful scenery and landmarks.

Actually that's what I miss the most about Paris. Ok, not anything visible from my window :mrgreen: , but just a metro ride and/or a walk away. Bridges, islands, cathedrals, ancient and beautiful train stations transformed into museums, libraries (and the Chinese bookstores, and the English bookstores, and librairies open on Sundays!!!!), the metro entrances, the Chinese cultural center, the Cité universitaire internationale, I could list more (and there are certainly even more that I just never knew about). I don't particularly like walking in the small uninteresting town I'm living in right now but I did love walking in Paris and seeing the sights.
I often watch concerts on Arte Concert's channel. The French concerts are sometimes set in stunning venues, I think the Sainte Chapelle was the loveliest, but there's no end to them!

e.g. the recent Paris sur Mesure series.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sat Jan 15, 2022 7:04 pm

One thing that is cool is when you see words you recently studied come up in the wild.

Yesterday morning, I noticed Noriko use the words sunahama and arai when talking about wanting to go visit the ocean and it being hard to surf in rough waves, and a bit later, odayaka (calm), a word I recently forgot the reading for when it came up for review.

荒い (arai-rough) is also a word that has given me trouble in the past on WK, mainly due to the difficult of keeping it straight with 嵐 (arashi-storm) and so on. I unconsciously just put them both in the "stormy ara" bucket, so I've often gotten them wrong in review.

Sunahama is one of the words that initially caught my intention and when I heard it, I immediately thought "sand dune" and was happy that I immediately understood it, until a little while later when I thought about it and realized that sand dune is sakyuu and it must actually mean "sand beach" instead. Still, I got the "sand" part right, and the two kanji are even written almost the same! (砂丘 vs 砂浜)

Occasionally, I'll even manage to learn new words purely from context. For example, I noticed that in her recent episodes, Noriko said "ochikomu" and variants many times, and deduced its approximate meaning from context.

I rarely actually pay attention to podcasts, but sometimes a word will jump out and get my attention. For example, last night, I thought I heard Noriko say "patto", a word that I had previously only ever known from the refrain to the Fireworks song. However, I looked up the transcript and it turned out she just said パターン instead. :( This was a "season 2" episode (17) so looking up the transcript was a bit involved. Unlike the earlier "season 1" episodes, the transcripts aren't public. Instead, you have to go to her Patreon to get the password, and then put it into her site to see the transcripts.


SR:

「コナ、起きて!」リリーの声にびっくりして飛び起きた
「リリー、一体何が起きてるの⁉」

起 is confusing because it normally means "wake up", but it sometimes means "to occur" as well. I thought I had that down, and it was 起こる that meant "to occur" instead of "to wake up", only to get blindsided by this. I actually went back and checked both sentences carefully to look for the difference, but it turns out they were using the exact same verb! Apparently, 起きる can mean both "to wake up" and "to occur" (in addition to 起こる, which just means "to occur"). Arrrgh!

僕は後ろを振り返ってみた

Here's another example of a confusion that really bugs me. How do you tell when -temiru means "to try" versus "to see"? I initially interpreted this sentence as "I tried to turn around", but the translation says "I turned and looked behind me." Arrrgh x2 combo!
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dampingwire
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby dampingwire » Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:25 am

golyplot wrote:For example, last night, I thought I heard Noriko say "patto", a word that I had previously only ever known from the refrain to the Fireworks song. However, I looked up the transcript and it turned out she just said パターン instead. :( This was a "season 2" episode (17) so looking up the transcript was a bit involved. Unlike the earlier "season 1" episodes, the transcripts aren't public. Instead, you have to go to her Patreon to get the password, and then put it into her site to see the transcripts.


I think Norkio definitely deserves support, so don't let me stop you, but you can turn on subtitles on Youtube (and you get a choice of "Japanese" or "Japanese (auto-generated)", so there's that way of skinning that particular cat too. I didn't play far enough into that episode to reach パターン (or I missed it, since I was running through at x2 ... it was strangely understandable even at that speed ... at least with subtitles it was).
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新完全マスター N2聴解 : 94 / 103新完全マスター N2読解 : 99 / 177
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