Learning Japanese From Zero

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golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sun Nov 13, 2022 6:24 am

Today, I noticed Utaco talking about Marie Kondo and using the word "tokimeku". I first learned ときめく recently after I saw it in a song and looked it up and discovered that it refers to the heart beating (and thus frequently shows up in songs about love, which is most songs). Presumably, it is also the Japanese equivalent of Marie Kondo's famous "spark joy".

I also continued listening to more Japanese songs (in particular, a bunch from Mimi today), but still haven't found any more that really jumped out at me.

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Tonight, I forced myself to read 聖女? いいえ、やったのはこっちのくまです! ~可愛いもふもふくまさんと行く異世界浄化旅~ ch2, though it was a bit of a slog at points..

『あっ、そうだったくまね。ごめんくま』
『ぬいぐるみって何くま? ぼくは神獣のくまなのくまよ』

In this chapter, Sara meets a "divine beast" teddy bear that replaces all its sentence endings with くま for some reason. It's pretty annoying and distracting to read.

「しんじゅう? って神獣? 朱雀とか白虎とかよく聞くあれ?」

Apparently, this is a reference to Chinese mythological creatures. Another cultural reference that we Westerners wouldn't get.

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The Dragon Prince:

When I watched The Dragon Prince s4e1, I went in expecting to be impressed and came away disappointed. With episode 2, the opposite happened. There was one point where the animation was immersion-breakingly-bad, but for the most part, I thought it was pretty good. A bunch of Redditors complained about the childish fart jokes but (as other Redditors pointed out), TDP has *always* had fart jokes. Someone suggested it was a kink of the writers. At least episode 2 had actual plot and character development.

As for episode 3, I thought it was ok, and was surprised to see several comments on Reddit praising it and only one negative assessment, since Reddit tends to be pretty negative.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Mon Nov 14, 2022 6:09 am

As described previously, I occasionally look up troublesome words from JPDB on Satori Reader to see them in context and look at the translations in order to hopefully understand them and have them stick better. However, I was a bit frustrated this morning when I ended up looking up two words that I had already previously looked up (いかに and それどころか). I guess they aren't sticking after all.

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Last night, I forced myself to read 聖女? いいえ、やったのはこっちのくまです! ~可愛いもふもふくまさんと行く異世界浄化旅~ ch2. However, it introduced a character who replaces the end of every sentence with "くま", which is really annoying to read, so I decided to abandon the series and try the *next* easiest rated web novel on JPDB today instead.

Therefore, I started reading 想いは、ただ一つ this evening. I was surprised to see almost no unfamiliar kanji at all this time. I guess that's the difference between a slice-of-life highschool romance and a fantasy isekai. (Of course there still a bunch of unknown words, like 理事長 or やんわり). However, despite having relatively easier vocab, the story actually seemed *more* challenging to read, and I was relying on JPDB heavily to try to understand what was going on. I'm getting a bit suspicious of JPDB's automated difficulty ratings, and am sorely tempted to just go back to trying to read that one story I was reading earlier this year.

Also notable is that 想いは、ただ一つ is the first story I've seen on syosetu.com that used furigana at all (it uses furigana to give the name of one character, as well as one place where it writes 子達 with furigana こいつら.) It didn't even occur to me that stories could use furigana there since none of the several I'd read before ever did. Interestingly, いつも通りの日常で、、君からすれば gave the readings for character names with unusual readings by putting it in parenthesis next to the name. I guess there are multiple methods for this.

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I've been very slowly going through the Youtube channel I mentioned before where someone uploaded a bunch of old Disney songs dubbed in Japanese. I was surprised when I got to the video of "Little April Shower" from Bambi today and saw that it had comments enabled. Previously, every single video had comments disabled, as do even the official Vevo videos for the Japenese dubs of the modern Disney songs. I wonder why it is. Clearly the Disney Japanese rightsholder must have down some sort of ContentId thing that automatically disables comments and they just missed Bambi somehow. It's especially weird because it seems Japanese specific. The other language dubs that I've seen do have comments enabled, even for the official Vevo videos.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Wed Nov 16, 2022 3:19 pm

Yesterday, I tried reading 想いは、ただ一つ again, but it was too frustrating and I gave up and decided to instead try reading ふわふわ日記, another web novel rated 2/10 difficulty by JPDB, for whatever good those difficulty ratings do. Fortunately, this one was a lot easier. It's also interesting that the first chapter is set at a university. Going by Japanese media, you'd think that universities don't actually exist. They're just a mythological place for high school seniors to take tests for and talk about going in the epilogue.

Also an interesting note from SR that seems like it would be useful in normal conversation:

知ってるというか
This pattern is super useful in daily, real-life casual conversation. The to iu ka (often also tte iu ka or among men ttsuu ka) marks a description of a situation that isn't quite right, followed immediately by a correction. It can be either an amendment of what someone else said, or what you yourself have just said.
Here, Kouhei exactly repeats what Saitou says, which is half-correct. Kouhei does know the woman in a manner of speaking, but not in the way that Saitou means.


P.S. As of yesterday, the post above this one was at the top of the page. But now it is second from the top of the page. I guess this means they deleted someone else's account again, like what happened to Lotus. I wonder who got the axe this time. The link to my 2.5 year update still works though, so it must have been someone who only posted after that.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Thu Nov 17, 2022 6:42 am

This evening, I read ふわふわ日記 ch2, which is fortunately very short. Of course, I still rely on DeepL a lot to understand everything.

明奈は農学部の1年生。現在は親元を離れて一人暮らしをしている。

I'd never seen 親元 before, but was proud that I managed to guess that it was read oyamoto without looking. At first I thought it might be shingen until I got to the を離れて part, which made me think location. I've previously seen words like 耳元、足元、胸元, etc. so it made sense that it would be kunyomi when referring to a location.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sat Nov 19, 2022 6:07 am

Yesterday, I attended the old virtual Japanese practice meetup for the first time in over a year (IIRC). As usual, I mostly spectated, but I did try saying a few sentences.

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As I've been doing for years, I listen to podcasts a lot in the background every day, and usually completely tune it out. However, occasionally a bit or phrase will jump to my attention. Today, I noticed Utaco say 腐女子, which is not the first time. However, this time, I also noticed her say "himono no onna" (IIRC), which I only know as the pun behind Himouto Umaru-chan.

This evening, I read ふわふわ日記 ch3. It was more challenging and I relied on DeepL for a lot of it.

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京子の手には、望遠レンズの付いた、コンパクトカメラがあった。

"望遠" is interesting since 望 means "hope", and I wouldn't expect it to show up in "telephoto lens".
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bolaobo
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby bolaobo » Sat Nov 19, 2022 12:09 pm

golyplot wrote:Yesterday, I attended the old virtual Japanese practice meetup for the first time in over a year (IIRC). As usual, I mostly spectated, but I did try saying a few sentences.

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As I've been doing for years, I listen to podcasts a lot in the background every day, and usually completely tune it out. However, occasionally a bit or phrase will jump to my attention. Today, I noticed Utaco say 腐女子, which is not the first time. However, this time, I also noticed her say "himono no onna" (IIRC), which I only know as the pun behind Himouto Umaru-chan.

This evening, I read ふわふわ日記 ch3. It was more challenging and I relied on DeepL for a lot of it.

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京子の手には、望遠レンズの付いた、コンパクトカメラがあった。

"望遠" is interesting since 望 means "hope", and I wouldn't expect it to show up in "telephoto lens".


望 has many meanings, and can also express the meaning of "towards" or "to" in Chinese compounds. It seems that Japanese inherited the "hope" meaning as the primary definition but in Chinese this wasn't actually its original meaning and it was used more often to express gazing from a distance or as a preposition.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sun Nov 20, 2022 6:08 am

I finished watching The Dragon Prince (in English) tonight. At least the second half of s4 is better than the first. I hope it improves in s5.

I struggled through ふわふわ日記 ch4 this evening. I'm tempted to just give up on reading stories JPDB considers easy and try going back to Lilianne instead, but ふわふわ日記 is pretty short, so I intend to finish it first.

I came across a song from Naruto called Samidare today. Apparently, the word is written 五月雨, which has got to be one of the most bizarre readings I've seen.


Also, I read about Shogi on (English) Wikipedia yesterday and was surprised to see some piece names using unusual readings. Maybe that's one of those old Chinese things as well?
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Mon Nov 21, 2022 6:02 am

I read ふわふわ日記 ch5 today. I also started watching Children of the Whales. Unusually, I went into it completely blind. I was just browsing Netflix for a new anime to watch and decided to give it a try without knowing anything about it.

One thing I find interesting is the distinctive art style. The characters and props are drawn in the same art style as any other anime, but unlike other anime, the scenery is all drawn in a completely different style.

Image
Image
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Tue Nov 22, 2022 6:15 am

I'd sometimes seen Japanese people say "X getto!" before, and I've seen "X get" in English as well, but only as internet slang. I got curious about the later and tried to look it up tonight. At least according to TvTropes, the English version is actually derived from Japanese, as it appears in the Japanese versions of games like Super Mario Sunshine. If that's true, then it means that this is a Japanese phrase built from English loanwords that then got reborrowed back into English!

Image


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Today, I read ふわふわ日記 ch6. Fortunately, it was not quite as hard as the previous chapters.

アームが下りてピカチュウの後方を掠める。

It's pretty rare for me to see unknown kanji nowadays, at least in normal non-technical writing, but here's one: 掠.

「あ~、惜しかったのに…」

And then just a couple sentences later, a second unknown kanji. Jisho says this one (惜) is from WK level 57 though, so I guess I technically have seen it before, it's just that I never properly learned the high level kanji and don't remember them.

「ほら、僕にはこれがあるから」
冗談めかした笑顔でそう言う翔はピカチュウの着ぐるみを着ていた。

I'd seen ぬいぐるみ before (I thought it meant "teddy bear", but apparently refers to any stuffed toy), so I figured he was somehow wearing a teddy bear here, but 着ぐるみ actually means stuffed animal costume.

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Speaking of unknown kanji, the Koibito chapter I read yesterday had two as well:

しかし、話してみると意外に真面目なところもあり、康平も次第に舞にかれていった。
いつも地味なグレーのスーツを着て、きながらこちらをチラチラと見ていた。

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I've always struggled with わけ, so it was nice to see that the chapter of Koibito that I read this morning had a note explaining some uses of it. Hopefully this will help a bit.

友達といたわけでもなく
There are several good examples of wake in this episode, illustrating two different uses.
In the usage we see here, wake is like a heavy-duty version of "explainer no." It takes a full sentence ending in an informal verb ahead of it, and it will usually be followed up with some form of da.
When the sentence ends with a negative final verb (that is, dewa nai, etc), it means "it's not that (the foregoing)" and implies that, although one might have thought that, just to make things clear, it is not that way. For example:

お金がないわけじゃないよ。買いたくないだけだ。
It's not that I don't have money. I just don't want to buy it.

In this example, the implication is that the listener might think based on what they observe that the speaker doesn't have money, and the speaker wishes to correct that impression.
In natural English, we might say "it's not like..." or "it's not as if..."
In the story, we have:

友達といたわけでもない。
It's not even like she was with friends.

取り立てて害があるわけでもない。
It's not as if there is injury in particular either.



Tonight, Youtube recommended this music video to me, which appears to be a song about COVID-era social distancing. It's interesting how much of a time capsule it feels like, even just two and a half years later.




As far as Children of the Whales goes, two episodes in and I'm still not sure where the story is going or what it's about.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Fri Dec 02, 2022 6:12 am

Obviously, it's been a long time since I posted. I went on vacation for nearly a week for Thanksgiving. But even after getting back, while I have continued my Japanese study routine, more or less, it just feels like going through the motions. I haven't been able to find any motivation for Japanese recently. Oh well, hopefully that will change again soon.

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Recently, someone linked to a Japanese article on a subreddit I follow (r/buttcoin). I thought maybe my Japanese skills would finally be useful for once, but I only got a sentence or two in before giving up and switching to Google Translate. To be fair, it is formal legal writing so it's not surprising that it would be impossible to read, but it was still disappointing. Incidentally, I discovered a new word, 暗号資産交換. I'd never even seen "暗号" (code) before, let alone cryptocurrency exchange.

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Children of the Whales: Besides the distinctive art style, one thing that is really unusual about CotW is the sheer number of characters. There's just so many minor characters, it is impossible to keep track. In this episode alone, I think there were like eight different new characters with names and speaking lines introduced in difference scenes over the course of the episode. There were literally so many I lost count. I wouldn't be surprised if the total number of named characters in the show ends up well over a hundred.

Image

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Yesterday, I watched "Be Prepared" from The Lion King in Japanese. What I find interesting is that at the end of the song two of the lines end in a heavily emphasized three syllables, the "be prepared" of the original, but in Japanese, the emphasized parts fall on random words (燃えて and 出来た respectively) which leads to a bit of an odd effect.

Obviously, I understand why it happens, when translating songs between different languages, you often run into issues where you have to compromise on rhythm and/or meaning, and that does triple for a distant language like Japanese, but I was still surprised that the translators didn't find some way to have those beats end up on the 準備だ of the title like in English.

There were also a couple spots in the song where it sounded like they were trying to awkwardly cram in an extra syllable that didn't fit the original meter, but that is more understandable, and sometimes it just can't be helped.



Also, I finally read (or "read") the last part of ふわふわ日記 ch7.
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