Learning Japanese From Zero

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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Wed Aug 24, 2022 6:36 am

I randomly heard Utaco say "yogirimasu" today and looked up yogiru on Jisho, only to find that it is spelled 過ぎる, the same as sugiru. WTF? Although to be fair, Jisho says it is usually written in kana.

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空いている席があったので、そこに向かいました。

I assumed that the 空 here was read "su" as in "onaka ga suita", but the annotations showed it as "a". I went down to the comments and saw that someone else had already asked about the difference as well. Here's the staff response:

あいている means that a particular slot is open:

XXXXXXOXXXXXX
真ん中の椅子が空いている(あいている)。

すいている means that things are "thinned out" / uncrowded:

XOOOOOOXOOOXO
電車は空いている(すいている)。

Perhaps a way to remember this is to think of 空く(あく) as sounding like 開く(あく), "to open up." Therefore, you can think of 椅子が空いた(あいた)as "a chair opened up."


It seems that aku and suku have slightly different meanings and you just have to figure out which one was intended from context. It's annoying that Japanese has lots of homographs as well as homophones.

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I briefly tried reading いつも通りの日常で、、君からすれば again this evening and was surprised when I put the following line into Google Translate:

 正直なところ、美加は健太が好きな人がいないことに対しては、恵梨香や七海が好きじゃないというのは良かったと思ったが反面、私のことも好きではないということも分かり、少し辛かった。

Here's the result. Where on earth did the random "rice field" at the end come from?

To be honest, I thought it was good that Mika didn't like Erika or Nanami for the fact that no one liked Kenta, but on the other hand, I found out that he didn't like me either, so it was a bit painful. rice field.
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kujichagulia
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby kujichagulia » Wed Aug 24, 2022 1:26 pm

I’m just starting to get into your log after being away from this forum for three years. I like the effort you’re putting into your studies. よく頑張っているね!

By the way (and if you already wrote about this, then すみません) what stories have you enjoyed from 小説を読もう? 
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Wed Aug 24, 2022 3:58 pm

kujichagulia wrote:I’m just starting to get into your log after being away from this forum for three years. I like the effort you’re putting into your studies. よく頑張っているね!

By the way (and if you already wrote about this, then すみません) what stories have you enjoyed from 小説を読もう? 


I've never heard of 小説を読もう. I'm assuming you mean 小説家になろう (https://syosetu.com/). In that case, I've read (parts of) several stories, though I'm nowhere near the level of being able to read Japanese for pleasure.

So far, I've read:
くまクマ熊ベアー: 4 chapters (IIRC)
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~: 1 chapter
濁った瞳のリリアンヌ: 8 chapters
いつも通りの日常で、、君からすれば: 7.5 chapters

The last is the only one I'm actively reading, though I've thought about making a deck for 濁った瞳のリリアンヌ on JPDB and going back to reading it someday.

I've also read some short stories on other sites (for the Yoasobi songs).

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In other news, I finished reading Oku-Nikkou on SR Monday and started reading The River Sanzu this morning.

私は、車の運転が少し苦手だった。

Here, SR has a note saying that nigate simultaneously means "bad at" and "something you dislike" and you shouldn't use it for things you enjoy, even if you are bad at them. I had previously learned it from WK as just "bad at' and had no idea about the connotations!


朝の眩しい日差しを受けて、道路脇の林がキラキラと輝いていた。

I've long had trouble with 受かる and 受ける on WK due to never being able to remember which is which. Last week, I came up with a mnemonic to help - ukaru is "to pass a test" because an A is a good grade, while ukeru is the other one (to receive). On Monday, 受かる came up on WK for the first time since I invented the mnemonic, and I actually managed to get it right for once.

Anyway, here 受ける showed up on Satori Reader, but with a completely different meaning! It seems that it can also mean "to be struck by (wind, waves, sunlight, etc.)". I guess you can see this as a metaphorical version of "to receive".

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Also, I think I know why I mistakenly thought 性格 meant "appearance". I must have gotten it mixed up with 格好.
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby vonPeterhof » Wed Aug 24, 2022 4:58 pm

golyplot wrote:I briefly tried reading いつも通りの日常で、、君からすれば again this evening and was surprised when I put the following line into Google Translate:

 正直なところ、美加は健太が好きな人がいないことに対しては、恵梨香や七海が好きじゃないというのは良かったと思ったが反面、私のことも好きではないということも分かり、少し辛かった。

Here's the result. Where on earth did the random "rice field" at the end come from?

To be honest, I thought it was good that Mika didn't like Erika or Nanami for the fact that no one liked Kenta, but on the other hand, I found out that he didn't like me either, so it was a bit painful. rice field.

Google Translate has a limit on the length of sentences it can process, and the part of the sentence beyond that limit gets interpreted as a separate sentence. In this case it apparently cut off right before the last た, reinterpreting it as a hiragana spelling of 田. I'm afraid the only way to work around this limit is to split the sentence into smaller chunks or to delete words or clauses until it fits. In my experience DeepL can handle longer sentences better, but whenever it does fail it may cut out parts of the original sentence on its own, which can be harder to catch since the result ends up looking grammatical.
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kujichagulia
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby kujichagulia » Thu Aug 25, 2022 4:51 am

golyplot wrote:I've never heard of 小説を読もう. I'm assuming you mean 小説家になろう (https://syosetu.com/). In that case, I've read (parts of) several stories, though I'm nowhere near the level of being able to read Japanese for pleasure.

So far, I've read:
くまクマ熊ベアー: 4 chapters (IIRC)
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~: 1 chapter
濁った瞳のリリアンヌ: 8 chapters
いつも通りの日常で、、君からすれば: 7.5 chapters

The last is the only one I'm actively reading, though I've thought about making a deck for 濁った瞳のリリアンヌ on JPDB and going back to reading it someday.

Thank you for the list. I might check out some of those stories.

小説を読もう(https://yomou.syosetu.com/) is, for all intents and purposes, the same site as 小説家になろう (https://syosetu.com). There is really not much difference between the two, except on the front page of 小説を読もう there is a detailed search box. In fact, if you click on 小説検索 on the 小説家になろう front page, it will take you to the 小説を読もう front page. You can tell because the page becomes brown.

I think originally 小説家になろう was geared toward people who want to be writers, hence the name, whereas 小説を読もう is for people who want to read the finished products of the aspiring writers. But it's all the same site.

My comfort level in reading Japanese depends on the material. I found one good book last year at that site that I like that I can recommend: 隣の席のモンスター社員. I found it really accessible and easy to read.

If I remember correctly, I was close to downloading 聖女? いいえ、やったのはこっちのくまです! earlier this year, but decided on it because it had an adult rating, which means there is usually coarse language in it. I don't wanna be parroting any coarse Japanese without knowing it.

I love that I can go to that site and download any story as a PDF, which I can take and read on my phone or anywhere. However, finding interesting stories is always a challenge for me.

golyplot wrote:朝の眩しい日差しを受けて、道路脇の林がキラキラと輝いていた。

I've long had trouble with 受かる and 受ける on WK due to never being able to remember which is which. Last week, I came up with a mnemonic to help - ukaru is "to pass a test" because an A is a good grade, while ukeru is the other one (to receive). On Monday, 受かる came up on WK for the first time since I invented the mnemonic, and I actually managed to get it right for once.

Anyway, here 受ける showed up on Satori Reader, but with a completely different meaning! It seems that it can also mean "to be struck by (wind, waves, sunlight, etc.)". I guess you can see this as a metaphorical version of "to receive".

Ooh, I just learned 受かる today. Thank you, golyplot!

About the 受けて in that sentence, I always saw it in my mind as "to receive":

朝の眩しい日差しを受けて、道路脇の林がキラキラと輝いていた。
MY TRANSLATION:
(We/the world) got/received some bright morning sunshine, and the trees on the side of the roads were sparkling.

Seems like the same meaning to me, anyways.

vonPeterhof wrote:Google Translate has a limit on the length of sentences it can process, and the part of the sentence beyond that limit gets interpreted as a separate sentence. In this case it apparently cut off right before the last た, reinterpreting it as a hiragana spelling of 田. I'm afraid the only way to work around this limit is to split the sentence into smaller chunks or to delete words or clauses until it fits. In my experience DeepL can handle longer sentences better, but whenever it does fail it may cut out parts of the original sentence on its own, which can be harder to catch since the result ends up looking grammatical.

I second vonPeterhof's recommendation of DeepL for translating Japanese. It seems to do a better job most of the time. It also gives you several English translations, which helps to get a better understanding of the Japanese text.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Thu Aug 25, 2022 3:08 pm

kujichagulia wrote:Ooh, I just learned 受かる today. Thank you, golyplot!


Well I learned a new word yesterday from your log (任侠, meaning "chivalrous", but actually "Yakuza"). I've been reading your log a lot lately to try to catch up, but I'm still on 2018.

Anyway, I'll try Deepl the next time I'm reading things to see if it works better than Google Translate.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Fri Aug 26, 2022 5:04 am

In Orbital Children ep3, there's one point where (per the English subtitles) they say "I'm not good at reading the room" - "There are no rooms in space, so you'll be fine." Which makes sense, but seems kind of odd. However, I heard them say kuuki during the later part, and sure enough, it seems that the equivalent Japanese expression uses 空気, which also means "air", and so the "no air in space thing" makes a lot more sense.

Incidentally, it seems that Chrome's IME is broken. Now I can't type in Japanese at all. That's going to be pretty annoying. I had to paste in 空気 there manually. I hope they fix it soon.
Edit: It is working again. Yay!

Image

For some reason in ep4, "trajectory" is prominently spelled "tarjectory" on the displays. Presumably, nobody on the staff noticed this due to poor English skills.

Image

Another bit that confused me - the subtitles randomly show "FAKE?" at one point. I'd have assumed that it was a translation of Mina's livestream comments that are shown onscreen, especially because text is always translated in ALL CAPS in the subtitles to distinguish it from dialog. However, I looked through the comments and couldn't find anything that seemed like "fake", so I am just confused now.

Image
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Sat Aug 27, 2022 4:57 am

Tonight, I finally read the last part of いつも通りの日常で、、君からすれば ch8, and I tried using DeepL rather than Google Translate for the first time. It does seem to make fewer mistakes. It also appears to be less literal in the translation. Thanks for the suggestion, everyone.

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Another interesting grammar explanation Brian Rak wrote in the comments on SR. I wasn't familiar with uchini before, but it seems like a common and useful grammar point I'll have to remember.

~ながら is for two actions that *the same person performs simultaneously*. For example:

ラジオを聞きながら、家を掃除した。
While listening to the radio, I cleaned the house.

If we graph these activities, they look like this:

|ーーーーーーーーーーーー| Listening to radio
|ーーーーーーーーーーーー| Cleaning the house

They overlap and are continuous in nature.

うちに is a way to say that while some (usually limited-time) state is in effect, some other thing occurs. For example:

日本にいるうちに、京都に行ってみたい。
While I'm in Japan, I want to go and see Kyoto.

If we graph these activities, they look like this:

|ーーーーーーーーーーーー| In Japan
        x    | Go to Kyoto

The two actions are not continuously overlapping. The second one just happens *within* the first state. (Note that うち literally means "inside." So it's Action 2 occurring sometime inside Action 1.)
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby kujichagulia » Sat Aug 27, 2022 12:16 pm

golyplot wrote:In Orbital Children ep3, there's one point where (per the English subtitles) they say "I'm not good at reading the room" - "There are no rooms in space, so you'll be fine." Which makes sense, but seems kind of odd. However, I heard them say kuuki during the later part, and sure enough, it seems that the equivalent Japanese expression uses 空気, which also means "air", and so the "no air in space thing" makes a lot more sense.

My goodness. If my guess on what they said is correct, the Japanese joke works a lot better than the English one in those subtitles.

Did it go something like this?
- 空気を読めない。
- 宇宙には空気がないから大丈夫。
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening

Postby golyplot » Mon Aug 29, 2022 5:47 am

Not JP related, but recently, I've been reading The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (in English), and it is really awesome and you all should all read it. I've only halfway through, but it is difficult to put down.

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しかし、母は私に、一人で生活していくために必要なことを、辛抱強く教えてくれた。

I've heard "shinbouzuyoku" countless times while listening to podcasts. It's cool to see it in print and finally learn what it means.

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僕は、授業中も隣の席には恵梨香。斜め前には七海。いろいろなことを思い出す。本当に自分が好きなのは七海なはずなのに、恵梨香のこともどうしても、君を見てしまう。既に自分でも気づいていた。気づかないように自分を騙していただけなのかもしれない。何もない僕を変えてくれた2人。いや、僕は変われたような気がするだけなのかもしれない。

DeepL is probably a bit better than Google Translate, but it still often gets confused. Here, neither DeepL nor Google Translate was able to help me. In particular, I was confused by the sentence "何もない僕を変えてくれた2人。" and neither was able to make sense of it.

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I finished The Orbital Children tonight. I think the first half was better than the back half, when it was about the challenges of surviving the space station, rather than just people floating in a trippy void while arguing philosophy with AIs. But at least the last episode got better again in the second half when the void-floating ended and the epilogue started.

Anyway:

In the flashback to Mina's stream, I wondered why the comments suddenly started saying ちょうちん, so I looked it up. Apparently, it means "lantern", presumably referring to the lanterns decorating the spacestation.
Image


Last year, WK added the vocab 居候 (isourou), which took me a long time to learn due to the unusual reading. When I saw "freeloading" in the subtitles here, I listened closely to see if it would show up, and sure enough, it did. It's cool to finally see it in the wild.
Image
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