Learning Japanese From Zero

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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Tue Dec 06, 2022 4:45 am

I was feeling bored and demotivated yesterday, so I watched the first episode of My Little Pony: Make Your Mark (the 45m special), dubbed in Japanese with no subtitles. Obviously, I missed a lot and there were a couple scenes where I was completely lost, but it was cool to actually watch something in Japanese and be able to follow along for the most part.

Also, does anyone else think that the new multicolored streak in Sunny's hair looks stupid? I wish they'd just stuck with the original plain purple hair.

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Also yesterday, I came across references to the ESAT-J. What really surprised me was that I was unable to find any English language Google results for it. (Per the top Japanese result, it seems to be an English test given to Japanese middle school students.)

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Also, I finally finished reading ふわふわ日記 ch8 tonight. I've been trying to read it for a while, but I can only take a little bit at a time, so it took me several days to get through just one chapter.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Wed Dec 07, 2022 6:20 am

Tonight, I watched Bullet Train (in English), not for any Japanese-related reasons, but just because I was bored and couldn't focus on anything else.

Obviously, all the important dialogue is subtitled, but there are three Japanese songs (and one Spanish) that play during the movie (including one incongruous sequence near the climax where a flashback montage of a water bottle plays to "Ue o muite arukou"), so it is useful to be able to partially understand the music. There are also small amounts of unsubtitled Japanese in the movie, including a barely-audible train announcement and the scene where a server woman interrupts the Ladybug-Tangerine fight and offers them drinks (which also made it into the trailers).

Anyway, the movie is just what it looks like. It's a silly action movie, but still a fun way to kill two hours.


Also, I was surprised to discover just now that it stars Brad Pitt. While watching the movie, I thought it was Jeff Bridges, which shows just how bad I am at recognizing actors :lol: . The character bears a striking resemblance to The Big Lebowski, and I forgot about the fact that that was 24 years ago and he is way too old now.


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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sat Dec 10, 2022 6:36 am

A couple days ago, I learned the word 三連休 from Satori Reader. Obviously, it's not the first time I'd heard it, since it's such a common word, but I never paid much attention to it before due to not knowing or remembering it. Anyway, today, I heard Utaco say "kyuurenkyuu" when talking about Thanksgiving on her podcast, and I was proud that I managed to recognize it and figure out that it probably meant "nine day break".

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I often go to the Youtube homepage to look for suggestions of things to watch when I'm bored, which is pretty frequent. Unfortunately, Youtube always just recommends the same irrelevant trash I have no interest in watching, every time, and thus every time, I scroll through for a while and then click away disappointed.

Tonight however, one Japanese video caught my eye. I had no idea what it was, but decided to try watching it anyway. It turned out to be a sort of travelogue, starting with the abandoned ghost town of Futaba and then visiting a random aquarium, a playground, a Hawaii-themed spa resort/water park, etc,

The narration was weirdly monotone and I could barely understand the Japanese anyway, but it was still mildly interesting to see some of the different things shown in the video, especially the scenes of Futaba at the beginning.



I also learned that the pokemon Chansey is just "Lucky" in Japanese, which sounds kind of silly.

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Wednesday night, I finished watching Children of the Whales, still a rather strange show. Thursday night, I didn't watch anything, so I planned to start a new anime tonight, specifically, March Comes Like a Lion. Unfortunately, that is no longer on Netflix. First Anohana and now this. It's a bit frustrating how anime disappear without warning, though I guess it is inevitable given the business model.

Instead, I started watching Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai tonight, which is a very unusual anime in that the English title is longer than the Japanese title! Usually, things go the opposite way. Japanese shows sometimes have a long title which then gets abbreviated in English (Bofuri, Anohana, etc.) but I can't think of any cases where they made up a lengthy title for the English release of a show that didn't already have one.

Anyway, I'd already read about the show a year or two back and thus vaguely remembered some spoilers. Specifically A) it isn't actually about fanservice, despite what the title makes it sound like, and B) the little sister lost her memory and becomes a completely different person once eventually cured (I guess this is the only major spoiler I can remember).

I first learned that "read the room" is "read the atmosphere" in Japanese from watching Orbital Children, and that phrase shows up again here. It actually shows up twice in the first episode, and in the second scene, they talk about it repeatedly.

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Yonrenkyuu also shows up, another example of the 連休 thing I just learned.

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Lastly, there's a scene where Kaede (the main character's little sister) sees Mai in his room and asks him if he's forcing her to buy a vase, or forcing him to buy English learning materials. Presumably, this must be a thing in Japan, but without knowledge of the culture, it just comes across as some weird nonsequiturs. I wish I knew more about the context behind this. Also, I can't help but think of Bofuri whenever I see the name "Kaede".

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P.S. I just read about Children of the Whales on TvTropes and learned that the names of the characters on the Mud Whale are all based on Japanese color names. It's a bit embarrassing that I didn't recognize any of them despite studying Japanese for three years.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sun Dec 11, 2022 6:05 am

I watched the next episode of My Little Pony: Make Your Mark today, Izzy Does It. It seems like a good way to practice Japanese comprehension. I wonder if dubbed shows might be easier to understand than native Japanese shows because even though everything is translated into Japanese, the underlying phrasing might be more English-like.

I also found it amusing that at the end when Opaline mocks Misty for not having a cutie mark, she looks to her left, even though in G5, the cutie marks only appear on the right (unlike in G4, where ponies had identical cutie marks on both sides). I understand why they did it (because her left side was the side that happened to be on camera in that shot, so it was more convenient visually), but it still looks silly. It also doesn't explain why the animators did it that way. They could have just as easily had the scene framed the other way so that she could look naturally towards her right at the appropriate moment.

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I was looking for Japanese music recommendations on the WK forums today and came across this song (布団の中から出たくない). I'm not adding it to my own playlist, but it does have very simple and relatively understandable lyrics. I've never used a Japanese futon myself, but I do sleep in a sleeping bag on top of a regular bag, and when it gets cold in the winter, it is hard for me to get out of bed in the morning due to the cold, so I found the song very relatable.



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I haven't gotten to ふわふわ日記 in a while, since even the basic routine of JPDB/SR/WK takes up all my time on weekdays. This afternoon, I finally started reading it again and finished all of ch9 in one day.

「しかも、漢字に全部ふりがなが振ってあってさ…こんなのプレゼントしたら、さすがの明奈ちゃんも呆れちゃうんじゃないかって心配で…俺、翔が悲しむ顔見たくないんだよ」

I find it interesting that adding furigana uses the verb 振る, rather than 置く or 書く like I would have expected. I guess that explains why they're called furigana.

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I got curious about the name Erica today and looked it up. According to Wikipedia, the Western name derives from Old Norse, but it is also a popular name in Japanese with an independent origin. I had wondered whether the name was a borrowing, but nope, it's just complete coincidence.

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Rascal Bunny ep2: I noticed that when the subtitles said "And thanks for carrying the groceries", the dialog just said "nimotsu arigatou". It's not the first time I've seen 荷物 applied to something other than luggage, but it is still surprising to me, especially with something as non-luggage-like as a bag of groceries.

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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Tue Dec 13, 2022 6:06 am

Yesterday, I started reading ふわふわ日記 ch10, though I got through the first section. In the first scene, Akina has met up with a group of old friends from highschool who claimed they just wanted to catch up, but instead, it turned out to secretly be a group blind date event with a bunch of guys. Her friends were always pressuring her to get a boyfriend, even though she wasn't interested, and wouldn't respect her wishes. Ironically, at the time of the story, Akina does now have a boyfriend, but decides not to tell them because she thinks they wouldn't actually be happy to find out, even though they're constantly telling her to get one.

I recently read Loveless and How to Be Ace: A Memoir of Growing Up Asexual, and while Akina obviously isn't asexual, it reminded me of the stories of girls being pressured to get boyfriends in highschool. Of course they would highlight stuff like that when the focus of the book is asexuality, but I still found it interesting, since I never really experienced anything like that. I wonder whether it is because I am male, or because I was socially clueless and a bit of a loner.

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Rascal Bunny ep3:

In this episode, "atmosphere" is a constant motif of conversation throughout the episode (judging by the subtitles), although it's a bit confusing what exactly it is supposed to mean - something about how Mai got ignored by the atmosphere in school and started disappearing? - it didn't make much sense, even as metaphor. The actual "read the atmosphere" phrase showed up twice in the episode - the first time it was subtitled as "read the room", but the second time it was actually subtitled as "read the atmosphere".

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Also in this episode, Sakuta has to study for school exams and is shown studying the difference between 保証 and 保障. It is funny to think about the fact that Japanese people have to study Japanese as well, though those are more advanced and subtle problems than the kind we learners contend with.

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This morning, I watched Nobuyoshi Takeuchi's upload of Belle's Song from Beauty in the Beast.



I was annoyed that this video doesn't include the beginning of the song. On the other hand, it does include the reprise at the end, which I had never heard of before, because none of the other versions of the song I've seen online (in other languages, even English), included the reprise.

What I found especially interesting however, was that the subtitles said 娘 several times while the singers sang "ko".

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Satori Reader:

康平が、「ひどい話だよな」と言うと、舞が、「え~、でもこれって、いじめられる方も悪いんじゃないの。嫌なら嫌って言えばいいのにさ」と言ったのだ。

Today's chapter has a note about -eba ii noni, a grammar construction I hadn't seen before meaning "Why don't you just X?". However, just as interesting was a bit of the sentence that didn't have a note at all: 悪い. I always thought 悪い just meant "bad" or "evil". I didn't realize it can also mean "at fault/to blame".

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Rascal Bunny ep4:

This episode begins with a news announcement about the Japanese team winning a game, which I found a bit of an amusing coincidence in light of their surprise win over Spain at the World Cup recently.

The show also seems to really love pseudo-scientific BS to tie in to the fantasy scenario of the day. In the first three episodes, it was all about Schrodinger's Cat, but this time, they turn to Laplace's Demon. The episode explains Laplace's Demon as a thought experiment about determinism, which really confused me, since I thought it was about manipulating a tiny door between two gases to reverse entropy. But it seems that there are multiple demonic thought experiments in physics and I was thinking of Maxwell's Demon.

I also noticed that Sakuta said "もったいない" at the end of this line, a word I'd recently been failing at on JPDB.

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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Thu Dec 15, 2022 5:42 am

Recently, I've been going through a thread of music recommendations on the WK forums and watching lots of Japanese music videos to try to find more good Japanese songs to add to my list. I've looked at nearly 50 in just the last five days, and probably a lot more before that, but Youtube's watch history is spotty before then for some bizarre reason.

Unfortunately, I still haven't found any new songs I liked. You would expect that limiting the search specifically to other people recommending their favorites would at least have a non-negligible hit rate, but no such luck. What is wrong with people?!.

The only ones that were even decent were the "It's too cold to get out of my futon" song I posted earlier and this one. The music for this song is very catchy, and I feel like it would have been a winner if it were just a bit better. But it seems like the instruments are too loud in relation to the singing and it really grates on the ear by the end. Oh well, at least the tune is nice, and it's a bit of a unique sound.



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Rascal Bunny ep5:

I remember noticing an interesting word or phrase or something in this line and going back and taking a screenshot to post about later, but unfortunately that was a day ago and I can't remember at all what it was now. Oh well.

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ep6:

I noticed the "kuuki yomu" thing again twice in this episode, but interestingly, it was subtitled as "take a hint" rather than the usual "read the room".

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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sun Dec 18, 2022 6:35 am

Tonight, I read the rest of ふわふわ日記 ch10. As usual, I put bits into DeepL after reading them. It's not exactly the first time DeepL has made major mistakes, but I noticed a couple notable mistakes in the translation this time, and not just the trivial expected stuff like incorrect pronouns or subject inference.

It's kind of cool to think that I can sometimes actually understand the text better than DeepL, because it makes it feel like my study of Japanese is actually useful for something for once, in the sense that someone who hasn't studied Japanese and is relying on machine translation would not have as good an experience. Of course, with the rate that AI is progressing, that's not likely to be the case for long.

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I finished 4989 American Life and started Noriko yet again yesterday.

Speaking of which, a couple weeks ago, there was an event at work which included an activity where people could make "hot toddy" mix. I hadn't heard of it before, but looked it up - per Wikipedia, it is basically just hot water + whiskey with optional honey and various spices (the later being what they were giving out at work.)

Anyway, today, I noticed Noriko talked about what sounded like "hottotori". Obviously, I've listened to Noriko's podcast dozens of times through before, but I never paid that bit much mind, but it stuck out to be today, and it suddenly occurred to me that she might actually be talking about "hot toddy", despite the weird pronunciation difference. I checked the transcript, and sure enough, it was.

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Rascal Bunny:

One thing I've found interesting while watching Japanese anime is the seeming nonchalance with which highschoolers go to school when it isn't in session. In ep7, there's an explicit reference to going to school during the summer break. As an American, it seems odd because over here, the schools are locked when not in use and noone would ever think of going there. But apparently Japan does things differently. It's not the first time I've noticed this either (for instance, they seemed to go to school during break a lot in Blue Period).

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Ep8 was especially notable because there's a scene where Futaba goes to school alone, at night, during a storm, and just hangs out in the middle of her classroom. Do they not lock schools in Japan?

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Ep9:

I laughed when it was mentioned that Mai's seat is by the window, second from back, the Stock Anime Protagonist Seat (except of course she's not the protagonist and is in fact never shown in class.) Since she's not actually shown in the classroom here, they could have put any seat position they wanted here. I wonder if this line was a deliberate reference to the Stock Anime Protagonist Seat trope.

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Also notable was this line, where I noticed the use of 見習う, a tricky word I recently started learning on JPDB.

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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Mon Dec 19, 2022 4:27 pm

I used to watch Hayato's videos a lot, but I haven't watched many in the last several months because lately, he spends most of his time playing really boring and samey games (though the recent Frostpunk video was decent). Today, I decided to try going to the "popular" tab instead of the "recently uploaded" tab and watched this older video.

I thought this one was pretty good. It's also relatively easy to understand, and I unusually managed to understand most of it. I think it helps that he is just narrating the actions onscreen and it is relatively simple everyday language.



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I also read ふわふわ日記 ch11, which was fortunately relatively short.

「私、たまに翔の頭には脳みそじゃなくてカニみそが詰まってるんじゃないかって思ったりするんだ。」

I was confused by the カニみそ here. In English, we would normally just say that someone has cotton for brains. I looked up "miso" on Jisho, and apparently it can refer to the innards of a crab, so I guess saying カニみそ here is a weird Japanese pun on 脳みそ.


「ハハハッ、あながち間違ってないかもな。そう言えば、カニみそってカニの脳みそだっけ?」
「違うと思う。確か内臓じゃなかったかな。」

And the characters themselves also discuss it a bit, confirming my guess that kanimiso is an established term (just one I'd never heard of), apparently referring to crab meat.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Wed Dec 21, 2022 6:43 am

Last night, I learned a new word from Noriko's podcast, reikyuusha (hearse), when she talked about superstitions. Apparently there is a superstition that you should hide your thumb when you see a hearse. But the most surprising part is that there are still parts I've never noticed before like that (or at least don't remember), despite the fact that I'd listened to them all 22 times already.

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Rascal Bunny 12:

This episode has a flashback to when Kaede first lost her memory. Sakuta asks her about writing her name and she says she knows how to write it just fine - flower+maple (花楓, I guess?) but Sakuta says that they should just write it in hiragana instead to represent the fact that she's a new Kaede now.

P.S. I just googled "花楓", and sure enough the results were all about this character. I guess that means it isn't a common name spelling either, but one specific to the show.

However, what was interesting is that the English subtitles translated this as "without the characters", when the Japanese is clearly saying "hiragana". I guess they assumed English speakers wouldn't understand what hiragana is?

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Back during the Rio arc, I marveled at the scene where Futaba runs off in the middle of a big storm and goes to school at night. I wondered whether Japanese schools just aren't locked at night or something. However, in ep12, Sakuta and Kaede go to school at night and they are explicitly shown having to climb over a fence. So I guess not.

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I noticed the word "sankaku" during this line. I assume that the Japanese use triangles somewhat like we use asterisks, to mark incompleteness or caveats. I remember in the Nihongo no Mori videos, she would use circles for correct sentences, Xs for incorrect sentences, and triangles for sentences which are acceptable but require caution. Presumably in this scene, Kaede was talking about using a triangle to mark off the task and this just got translated as "half-checked" in the subtitles. In fact, I bet they're just using circles rather than checkmarks, and all the talk of checkmarks earlier was just translation as well.

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Also, I'll be going on vacation for a week and a half starting tomorrow, so I may not be doing much Japanese study for a while.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sat Dec 24, 2022 5:40 pm

As I mentioned, I watched Rascal Bunny episode 12 on Tuesday night. Of course I would just get to the second to last episode the night before I leave on a week-and-a-half vacation and would have to wait till the new year to finish the series.

What I didn't mention is that the ending of ep12 reminds me of an incident in my own life. Many years ago on another forum I frequented, there was a poster who showed up and posted occasionally for four months. Then one day, someone posted to her account and informed everyone that she had committed suicide. I remember looking through her previous posts afterwards and noticing one where she talked about going to China and getting to see pandas and said "my life is now complete". I'm pretty sure that that was just an innocent comment and it is coincidence, but it's hard not to wonder about remarks like that in hindsight.

Anyway, in ep12, new!Kaede crosses the final goals off her list of goals, including seeing pandas at the zoo and wakes up the following morning with her old personality and no memories of her post-amnesia life, so new!Kaede basically died, and it almost comes across like suicide after seeing the pandas (and going to school).


In other news, I finally finished reading Koibito on Satori Reader Wednesday and started reading The Neighbor. This one is only eight chapters, so it won't take long to finish, even at my usual one-chapter a day pace.
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