Learning Japanese From Zero

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vonPeterhof
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Re: Learning Japanese From Zero

Postby vonPeterhof » Thu May 11, 2023 3:05 pm

golyplot wrote:Apparently, 悪臭 is "akushin". I don't think I've seen the onyomi for 臭 before.

Shouldn't it be あくしゅう?

golyplot wrote:The show also teaches you a lot of old slang for gay people. In episode 4, the word "pitcher" shows up, going by the subtitles.

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However, the Japanese was "seme" (攻め), which they even helpfully show onscreen.

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I looked it up and apparently it means "top" (as in a top/bottom relationship). I guess "pitcher" is slang for the same thing, but it seemed weird to me. Subtitling it as "top" seems like it would make more sense to me, but I guess decisions about translating slang like this are highly subjective.

I'm guessing they tried to translate in a way that makes Haruhi's confusion more understandable, because the most common meaning of 攻め in a non-sexual setting is "attack/attacking side" in a sports setting, with 守り being "defense". I seem to remember a few situation in anime and manga (Lucky Star being the only specific one I can think of) where a character risks getting outed as a BL fan by calling the defense 受け instead of 守り.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese From Zero

Postby golyplot » Fri May 12, 2023 12:42 am

vonPeterhof wrote:
golyplot wrote:Apparently, 悪臭 is "akushin". I don't think I've seen the onyomi for 臭 before.

Shouldn't it be あくしゅう?


Oops, you're right.

In other news, here's another interesting note from Satori Reader explaining あくまでも. I would have never guessed the meaning at all, since it just makes me think of 悪魔 instead.

あくまでも
This expression is used quite a bit, but it can be a little hard to get your arms around precisely what it means from the dictionary definition and the English sentence translations.
The best way to think of aku made mo is to think "through-and-through; completely; thoroughly." Take a look at these examples:

あくまでも僕の予想です。
It's my prediction through-and-through. = It's just my prediction.

Above, the speaker is saying, "Don't read too much into this. Through-and-through, it's my prediction (e.g., and nothing else).
Let's try another one.

この表にある料金はあくまでも例です。
The prices in this chart are examples, through-and-through. = The prices in this chart are only examples.

Here, the speaker is saying, "Don't misunderstand. These aren't necessarily the prices you will actually pay. They are thoroughly and completely examples."
In the episode, the author is telling us that the guesses about organized crime and organ trafficking are completely and thoroughly rumors from the internet and that we should therefore not take them as anything more than that.


Also, I finished reading Closeup: The Zama 9 Murders on Satori Reader today, and plan to start Streetside Interviews tomorrow.

---

For the last week, I've been too busy/distracted to do any further trip planning, but last week (May 4th), I read the English Wikipedia article on Fushimi Inari. I came across the word honden, which I hadn't seen before. Or at least I hadn't seen it before in Japanese...

I used to play Magic: The Gathering, and there's a famous cycle of cards called "Honden" from the original Japan-inspired Kamigawa block twenty years ago:

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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese From Zero

Postby golyplot » Fri May 12, 2023 3:32 pm

This morning, Wanikani announced that they'll be adding kana-only vocabulary, starting next week. It doesn't help me, since I'm already advanced enough at Japanese that I'll already know all the words, and it just means 480 pointless extra reviews to go through on WK, but I do think it is the right move for them overall, since it is a gap in the system and would be really helpful for new Japanese learners using WK.

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Satori Reader:

僕は結婚してますけど、家賃は高いし、生活費も高いです。でも、給料は安いでしょう?共働きで、やっと生活している感じですよ。

I thought やっと meant "finally", but it seems that it can also mean "barely" (as in they could barely make a living on two incomes), which puts a different spin on things.

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Mukosei Seijyo:

I've made amazingly little progress on the story, given the short chapter lengths. Since selecting the story Monday night, I've only made it through the first chapter. This morning, I read the first two paragraphs of chapter 2.

緑が生い茂る地面は、太陽の日差しで温かい。

生い茂る is a word I remembered from studying it on JPDB, so it's cool to see it show up in the wild for the first time. I also managed to correctly figure out that 緑 was "midori", which sounds like a silly boast for such a common word, but I constantly mix it up with 縁 and the like.

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Ouran Host Club

I didn't mention it, but in ep6, they call the new boy "gaki" here, which I previously looked up after seeing it as a furigana joke recently. I can't find it now, but IIRC, it was something like kodomo furigana'd as "gaki".

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Anyway, in episode 7, they go to a tropical theme park, and Haruhi is forced into a swimsuit, and amazingly enough, somehow this doesn't cause her hair to magically grow really long.

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Here, I noticed them say "mujyaki" (naive). This is a word I actually learned from seeing it come up in the web novels I was reading, but it recently came up as a new lesson on Wanikani as well.

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After single-handedly defeating the army sent to rescue him, Honey says that messing with his friends is a no-no. The interesting part is that he says "めっ!", but in the tone where you'd expect something like "dame". I'm guessing that this is some sort of cutesy abbreviation of "dame", but I've never seen anything like it before. Anyone know?

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Last edited by golyplot on Sat May 13, 2023 5:32 am, edited 1 time in total.
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vonPeterhof
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Re: Learning Japanese From Zero

Postby vonPeterhof » Fri May 12, 2023 6:44 pm

golyplot wrote:After single-handedly defeating the army sent to rescue him, Honey says that messing with his friends is a no-no. The interesting part is that he says "めっ!", but in the tone where you'd expect something like "dame". I'm guessing that this is some sort of cutesy abbreviation of "dame", but I've never seen anything like it before. Anyone know?

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Apparently the one isn't directly derived from the other, though they may or may not be related via the proposed "eye" etymology. As the Japanese Wiktionary mentions, this use of め(っ) on its own, rather than as a suffix or a particle, is generally reserved for scolding children (and also pets, from what I've seen).
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese From Zero

Postby golyplot » Sat May 13, 2023 5:38 am

Last week, I discovered that my office has a Street Fighter II machine, which holds new meaning for me now after watching Hi Score Girl. I gave it a try out of curiosity, but of course I didn't even have any idea what the controls were. I tried to select Guile, but somehow accidentally picked Zangief instead, ironically enough. However, I immediately died to the AI due to not knowing how to play. Akira Ono, I am not.

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Mukosei Seijyo:

I finally finished reaching Mukosei Seijoy ch2 tonight. Fortunately, it gets a little easier once she meets another character halfway through and the exposition gives way to dialog.


「はい。私はレナリタリー・ペルルです」

One annoying thing with katakana names in Japanese is that when it is a fantasy name, it is nearly impossible to guess what the name is actually supposed to be. There's no way to even know whether Rs are supposed to be Ls or not. Google Translate renders this as "Yes. I'm Lena Literally Pelulu.", but I'm guessing that's not the character's real name.


「ああ。いつもここで剣の稽古をしてるんだ」

稽 is by no means the only new kanji I've run into in this story, but it stuck out because unlike 穢れ or 祓い, Jisho lists 稽古 as a common word and N2 level, and it is not listed as "usually written in kana" either. It's amazing to me that I've been studying Japanese for 3.5 years, gone through WK and also done a fair bit of vocab study outside of WK, and I've still never encountered a common word kanji like this. I just checked and 稽 is not on WK at all either, not even at level 60.


「別に謝らなくても。さっきの光は聖女の力?」
「でも、剣の稽古なら相手がいたほうが」

I think these are abbreviations of the ... mo ii and ... hou ga ii patterns respectively. I was pretty proud that I managed to automatically realize that without much thought. I think it's a good sign of how far I've come in learning Japanese. I'm not sure I would have been able to do that a year ago.

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Ouran Host Club:

I noticed mutto (sullen), a word I've studied on JPDB, come up here:

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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese From Zero

Postby golyplot » Sun May 14, 2023 6:08 am

Mukosei Seijyo:

Today, I read ch3, which took me 40 minutes to get through despite the short chapter lengths. Hopefully it will get easier over time.

Initially, I used Google Translate to translate each paragraph or two after reading it, and noticed it yet again completely ignore part of the input.

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I was pretty frustrated that GT is still so bad, and decided to try ChatGPT instead. At first, ChatGPT seemed to work better, but after a couple of messages, I noticed it hallucinate a plausible continuation to the story that wasn't part of the input!

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After admonishing ChatGPT to only translate the input, a couple of messages later it decided to only translate a tiny part of the input instead:

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Ouran Host Club:

In episode 9, the Zuka Club performs the Hitler salute, which was startling to see, as you would never see something like this in Western media. I guess maybe it doesn't have quite the same connotations in Japan.

Also, I was confused about the meaning behind the name "Zuka Club" or why it was supposed to be so funny and Jisho only turned up 図化, which didn't make sense. Fortunately, a quick Google search revealed that the name is a reference to The Tarazuka Revue. Also, their alternate name of The White Lily is a reference to the fact that "lily" is slang for Girl's Love in Japanese.

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Wanikani:

IIRC, I had 356 reviews due this morning out of which there were four unguru’d kanji (one Apprentice 4, two Apprentice 3 and one Apprentice 2). I planned to just do a maximum of 100 reviews like normal, but decided to keep going until I hit the first level kanji in order to ensure that I at least continued to make progress towards leveling up.

As it turned out, I hit the first kanji after 116 reviews (so 126 in total including the wrap-up), and the first one I hit just happened to be the one Apprentice 4 kanji, and thus the one item that would level me up immediately.


Thus I hit level 51 this morning, and as with last time, decided to do two additional sessions of 100 each later in order to get a head start on the next level. This means I did a total of 326 reviews today, the most since June 15th, 2022, and the 10th most over the course of this entire challenge.

Also something weird happened when I leveled up - one kanji was already guru’d! 又 used to be very low level, like lvl3 IIRC, and so I presumably already had it guru’d when they moved it up to level 51. It’s pretty funny to see something already guru’d before you even start the level though.

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Anyway, here's the level-up chart. This time, it took me 24 days, breaking the previous pattern. Previously, I'd been leveling up in under half the time as the previous level each time, but it seems that now it will decrease more slowly.

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Sat May 13 2023:
Time spent: 64m L12
Reviews completed: 326
Reviews remaining: 125
Reviews in next week: 589 (+464)
Reviews in next month: 1070 (+481)
Level: 51

Current item counts:
Apprentice: 178
Guru: 334
Master: 380
Enlightened: 908
Burned: 6055
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese From Zero

Postby golyplot » Mon May 15, 2023 1:54 pm

Satori Reader:

A useful note about the "X-naikagiri" pattern this morning:

A negative verb plus kagiri is a pattern that literally means "as long as <negative verb>." Therefore, the above means "as long as it doesn't change, the declining birth rate will continue."
This is a standard way of linking two actions, where one is a prerequisite for some sort of change to the second to occur.
It feels exactly the same as an English expression like "X will happen unless Y." In Japanese, we flip it around and say "As long as Y doesn't happen, X." For example:
Ame ga furanai kagiri, hana ga sakanai, "As long as it doesn't rain, the flowers won't bloom" = "Unless it rains, the flowers won't bloom" = "The flowers won't bloom unless it rains."


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Mukosei Seijyo:

I encountered a new word, 手綱 (reins), which is apparently read as tazuna for some reason, rather than tezuna like you might think.

目指すは辺境の小さな町アトランタ。

At the end of ch4, they set out for the small town of "アトランタ". As usual with katakana names, it's hard to be sure what they were going for, but I'm going to pretend that they're going to Atlanta, because the incongruity is hilarious.

I also continued experimenting with ChatGPT. It has better translation quality than Google Translate when it works, but it requires constant supervision and reminders of what it's supposed to be doing or it goes off the rails.

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Last night, Youtube recommended this video to me, where someone apparently made a level in Super Mario Maker based on the fight with Sans in Undertale. It's not that relevant from a Japanese perspective (though I did learn "kaimaku" (opening curtain) after hearing it and looking it up), but I wanted to share it since I found the Megalovania level really impressive looking.



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Ouran Host Club:

When the club visits Haruhi's house, Honey is surprised that they have to take off their shoes before entering "like a dojo", which confused me, since I would have assumed that that custom would apply to rich people's mansions too. What's up with that?

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Also, there was a weird gag I didn't get where Tamaki was covered in mushrooms for no apparent reason. Does anyone know what was going on here and what the joke was supposed to be?

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vonPeterhof
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Re: Learning Japanese From Zero

Postby vonPeterhof » Mon May 15, 2023 4:52 pm

golyplot wrote:I encountered a new word, 手綱 (reins), which is apparently read as tazuna for some reason, rather than tezuna like you might think.

This sort of e/a alteration happens in quite a few compound words inherited from Old Japanese. Here's more detail about it.

golyplot wrote:When the club visits Haruhi's house, Honey is surprised that they have to take off their shoes before entering "like a dojo", which confused me, since I would have assumed that that custom would apply to rich people's mansions too. What's up with that?

A common stereotype about rich people in Japan is that they live in Western-style mansions and so follow the "Western" (read "American") custom of wearing shoes indoors.

golyplot wrote:Also, there was a weird gag I didn't get where Tamaki was covered in mushrooms for no apparent reason. Does anyone know what was going on here and what the joke was supposed to be?

I think it's just that mushrooms and other fungi tend to thrive in dark and damp places, so it's a visual metaphor for his gloomy mood.
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Re: Learning Japanese From Zero

Postby golyplot » Thu May 18, 2023 2:18 pm

I've been busy/distracted this week and haven't attempted to read Mukosei Seijyo at all since Sunday and haven't tried to do any further trip planning research since May 4th (over two weeks ago!).

However, last night, I did spend a few minutes reading about The Ghibli Museum. I'd been thinking about going since everyone says that you have to get tickets way in advance, and it must be popular for a reason, right? However, a quick search turned up people saying it's actually very crowded and not that interesting, so I guess I'll skip it after all.

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Satori Reader:

あの、揚げ立てのサクサクの衣とジューシーな豚肉のおいしさに勝てる食べ物はないですよ~。

Wanikani teaches 衣 (koromo) as "clothes", but apparently it can mean "glaze" as well. To be fair, while I did know the word, I assumed I'd mistaken the kanji here, since "clothes" didn't make sense, and guessed that it might be the similar-looking 表 (omote) instead.

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I watched Hayato's video for Viewfinder, a short demo game which has a very unique gameplay style. I couldn't believe it the first time he materialized a photo.



I also watched the beginning of Hayato playing Tears of the Kingdom. It's a long game and not that interesting, but I did notice a new kanji at the beginning, in 瘴気 (miasma).

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Also, sword is read "tsurugi" instead of "ken" for some reason, which I hadn't seen before:

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Also, here's katadoru, a reading for 象 that I'd never seen before:

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Ouran Host Club:

The plot of episode 12 is utterly bizarre to me. The premise is that Honey gets a cavity from constantly eating sweets all the time, and has to refrain from eating sweets for three days until his cavity heals. Is this really a thing in Japan? I'd never heard of cavities healing on their own before, much less so quickly. Over here, the reaction to finding a cavity at the dentist is always to get it filled immediately.

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The plot of episode 13 is also bizarre, but that one is intentional. It's just a dumb Alice in Wonderland Whole Plot Reference, basically boring filler even by the usual standards of the show.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese From Zero

Postby golyplot » Mon May 22, 2023 3:13 pm

I've continued struggling with ChatGPT, and still haven't found a really good way to use it. I finally bit the bullet and paid $20 for the premium subscription which gives access got GPT4. GPT4 is better, but I still haven't had that much luck.

I decided to try to get ChatGPT to translate the entire chapter at once, instead of just pasting it in paragraph by paragraph, in order to save time and avoid having to repeat the prompt. Instead, I just prompted it with "Please translate the following Japanese story into English. For each three lines output the original text before the translation." followed by the chapter.

GPT3.5 (the free version) couldn't follow instructions like this at all, but GPT4 at least manages to follow the instructions (I had to specify "three lines" since it doesn't understand "paragraphs" though.) Unfortunately, halfway through, it always sneakily stops translating the original story and just hallucinates a continuation of the story and translates that instead. It seems that the ChatGPT web UI uses a really short context window for some reason, so after a relatively short amount of text, the original story will fall outside of the context window and ChatGPT will just start guessing about what it was supposed to be translating instead.

It's really frustrating that the web version is crippled like this, despite the fact that I'm paying a lot of money for it, and it's also really frustrating that there's no warning at all about the prompt falling outside of the context window, and also no indication of how long the context window even is. I also tried asking it to remind itself to "stop translating when you can no longer see the original prompt", but that didn't work either.

Another big problem is that GPT takes forever to generate the output and you have to keep clicking "continue generating" as well, which is pretty annoying. I've heard there's an API, which would presumably solve that issue as well as the context window problem, but I haven't looked into how to use it yet.

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I finished reading "Streetside Interviews" on Satori Reader on Saturday and started reading "Dialogs: Airport". The dialogs seem to be shorter than normal story chapters though, so I'll probably go through them relatively quickly.

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Last week I watched a Youtube video and noticed a new word with a new kanji come up that I couldn't figure out. I tried searching Jisho repeatedly with variations on how I thought they pronounced it, but I couldn't find anything.

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I also tried a free online OCR tool, but it just produced gibberish. Fortunately, the Google Translate app lets you translate things via the camera, and when I zoomed in and pointed the camera at this image on my screen, it immediately translated it as "monk". I then looked up "monk" on Jisho and was able to find the original word, 僧侶 (souryo).

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Here, Kyoya says "Haruhi, how much money do you have on you?" per the subtitles, but the Japanese dialog was just "shoujiki wa ikura da?". I found it interesting that the Japanese just said "how much" without saying anything about money explicitly, although after thinking about it more, I realized the same thing can be done in English. You can just say "How much 've you got?" and it will be understood that you're talking about money unless otherwise specified.

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It's also interesting how in Tamaki's imagination, Haruhi refers to herself by name, even though she doesn't do that in real life. I know this is normally done by children (especially girls) and older girls will sometimes do it to seem cutesy, but it is amusing that Tamaki's imagination imposes that on Haruhi as well.

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Also notable is the word "tranny" showing up in the English subtitles, which is considered offensive nowadays. Of course, this show came out back in 2006 when things were different. I wonder what the corresponding Japanese word here was and whether it is also offensive.

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