Learning Japanese From Zero

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vonPeterhof
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby vonPeterhof » Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:27 am

golyplot wrote:The main thing I noticed was the elaborate bell chiming sequence at school early in the episode, presumably to signal the end of the school day. It's been many years since I played Katawa Shoujo, but I recall a similar sound effect used there. Is this a common thing in Japanese schools? Or is it just coincidence (or my memory playing tricks on me)?
Yeah it's the standard chime in Japanese schools.

golyplot wrote:Also, does anyone know what hitoribochi means? I haven't had any luck trying to look it up.

It's ひとりぼっち, and it can refer to both the state of being completely alone or to a person who is a loner. Colloquially it's often shortened to just ぼっち in both meanings.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby golyplot » Sat Apr 10, 2021 2:40 pm

Last night, I watched the final episode of K-On!, in which the characters go to a travel agency to decide where to visit after they graduate. I was shocked that travel agencies are still a thing in Japan (or was in 2010 when it came out anyway). I thought they were all killed by the internet in the 2000s.

Also in ep108 of Noriko this morning, (I think) she talked about being humble and responding to praise of her English skills with "e mada mada desu", but strangely, she pronounced the "su" in desu. I know there are some dialects that do it, but I don't recall her doing it before. Anyone know why? Maybe my memory is just bad.

Also some comments on Yotsubato ch19:

Does anyone know why they repeatedly used kuu in this episode rather than taberu? It showed up when the dad said he's eaten goats before, and again when they talk about eating lunch.

Anyway, there's one part where the translators seem to have screwed up badly, leaving my confused for a while.

オスは大体
よそにあげちゃうん
ですよ幼稚園とか
小学校とか

got translated as just

TO
SCHOOLS
OR
KINDER-
GARTENS

Which is obviously a non-sequitur. It took me a while to realize that they must have left off half the dialog in the translation and that it probably actually said something like "We usually give away the male ones to kindergardens and schools". I know that bilingualmanga.com makes frequent transcription mistakes in both the Japanese and English, but I can't recall them straight out leaving out the dialog before.

There was another point where English and Japanese appear to be very different, making it impossible for me to tell who's supposed to have said what. There's three dialog bits in this panel, but the order seems to have been swapped in the translation, changing the message. Or was the Japanese supposed to be read right to left, regardless of the placement of the characters? It seems weird that they would put To-chan's dialog next to Yotsuba and vice versa. Either way it's very confusing. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Image
Image
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vonPeterhof
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby vonPeterhof » Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:31 pm

golyplot wrote:Last night, I watched the final episode of K-On!, in which the characters go to a travel agency to decide where to visit after they graduate. I was shocked that travel agencies are still a thing in Japan (or was in 2010 when it came out anyway). I thought they were all killed by the internet in the 2000s.
Doesn't look at all shocking from Russia, given the popularity of package tours and all-inclusive resorts among families and older travellers. Granted, in Russia travel agencies also justify their existence by taking on some of the paperwork for obtaining tourist visas, since for us the range of available visa-free destinations is much smaller than for people from developed countries . Japanese citizens don't have this problem, but they also have a bigger share of retirees among international travellers, not to mention people who simply don't feel like planning their whole trip from scratch.

golyplot wrote:Also in ep108 of Noriko this morning, (I think) she talked about being humble and responding to praise of her English skills with "e mada mada desu", but strangely, she pronounced the "su" in desu. I know there are some dialects that do it, but I don't recall her doing it before. Anyone know why? Maybe my memory is just bad.

I wouldn't worry too much about it, vowel reduction isn't really something most Japanese speakers are consciously aware of, so there's bound to be some variance even in a single individual's speech.

Also some comments on Yotsubato ch19:

golyplot wrote:Does anyone know why they repeatedly used kuu in this episode rather than taberu? It showed up when the dad said he's eaten goats before, and again when they talk about eating lunch.

It's just a really casual, some would even say "vulgar" way of saying "to eat". There are some similarities to the German "fressen" in how it's used.

golyplot wrote:There was another point where English and Japanese appear to be very different, making it impossible for me to tell who's supposed to have said what. There's three dialog bits in this panel, but the order seems to have been swapped in the translation, changing the message. Or was the Japanese supposed to be read right to left, regardless of the placement of the characters? It seems weird that they would put To-chan's dialog next to Yotsuba and vice versa. Either way it's very confusing. Can anyone shed some light on this?

The images don't show on my end, but I'm assuming you're talking about the bit with the elephant's trunk?[Edit: They became visible right after I posted my response] I think the interpretation that makes the most sense is that all three of the lines are actually by Yotsuba, although I can't be certain without seeing the original fonts in the manga.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby golyplot » Sun Apr 11, 2021 5:16 am

Tonight, I watched K-On! the Movie. Sadly, all good things must come to an end. As an aspiring polyglot, I can definitely identify with Yui's vow to only speak English during the trip, only to fold instantly as soon as the flight attendant gets to her. I've gone through the same thing many times.

When Yui encounters the Occult Club at the beginning, it sounded like they addressed her as "Keionbu-san", which seemed odd to me. Do you really call people by their club membership? Incidentally, I find it odd how there's only ever two members of the Occult Club shown, despite the fact that the Light Music Club needing four members to avoid disbanding is a major plot point in the first episode. Oh well.


I'm also continuously in awe of the fandom. Not only did they write incredibly detailed plot summaries of the movie and all the episodes, but someone wrote a trivia note on the movie, talking about how the plane portrayed is a real plane serving that route in real life, etc. but the livery depicted is inaccurate, as it was newly introduced at the time the movie was being made but the actual plane shown wasn't repainted until several years later, and they speculated that Japan Air insisted on the anachronistic use of the new livery as a condition for appearing in the movie.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby golyplot » Mon Apr 12, 2021 2:47 pm

Now that I've finished K-On!, I tried watching Saiki K. for the first time in months last night. I picked up with ep21, which by pure coincidence, features the characters going on vacation to London, just like the K-On movie. I think that Saiki K is way too fast paced to be helpful to beginners though, so I probably won't continue it.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby golyplot » Tue Apr 13, 2021 3:56 am

Tonight, I tried watching Teasing Master Takagi-San since it was recommended on @genini1's log. Specifically, I watched s2e1, since Netflix only has season 2 for some reason.

It was my first time watching an anime blind. With K-On!, the fan wiki contained extremely detailed summaries of each episode, which I read before watching the episode in order to make it easier to follow. However, nothing like that seems to be available for TMT, sadly. I suppose on the bright side, the slice of life shorts nature of the show means there's little plot to follow in the first place.

The main issue though is just that I didn't like it that much. I do not understand what the appeal of watching a boy just get repeatedly flustered is supposed to be. Oh well, time to continue hunting for shows to watch.

Incidentally, before reading about the show, I always assumed that the title meant "the act of teasing someone named Master Takagi", rather than "Takagi is a master at teasing people". It's kind of funny that the English title sounds like the exact opposite of what it actually means.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby golyplot » Wed Apr 14, 2021 5:27 am

In ep200, Noriko says something like today's topic is "zenzen chigau", which left me very confused for a moment because zenzen normally means "not at all", so it sounded like she was saying that the topic was "not at all different" but you would obviously never actually say that (instead you'd just say they're the same or something). I guess this is one of those rare cases of a positive zenzen, or perhaps it's used in negative contexts even if there are other negative words in the sentence, (thus being a double negative from an English perspective).


Also tonight, I decided to try something different - watching anime with English subtitles, specifically Violet Evergarden. Obviously, watching with subtitles is not true immersion, but I figured I might still pick up a bit of Japanese here and there and at least I don't have to worry about missing things or not being able to follow the plot.
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vonPeterhof
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby vonPeterhof » Wed Apr 14, 2021 4:55 pm

golyplot wrote:In ep200, Noriko says something like today's topic is "zenzen chigau", which left me very confused for a moment because zenzen normally means "not at all", so it sounded like she was saying that the topic was "not at all different" but you would obviously never actually say that (instead you'd just say they're the same or something). I guess this is one of those rare cases of a positive zenzen, or perhaps it's used in negative contexts even if there are other negative words in the sentence, (thus being a double negative from an English perspective).

Well ちがう isn't grammatically negative but it is semantically negative (it's even used as a way of saying "no"), so there's nothing unusual about using 全然 with it. I'd say the underlying implication of 全然 isn't so much negation as contradiction, hence its use in phrases like 全然大丈夫 with the nuance of "what are you talking about, it's totally fine".
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby golyplot » Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:08 am

Tonight, I watched Violet Evergarden ep2 (with English subs). There was one part which was very strange in English.

It went something like "Do you know what Doll means?" "It's an abbreviation for Auto Memory Doll, right? I figured it out yesterday."

In Japanese, the words are ドール and 自動手記人形, which are completely different, so it would make sense that someone might not understand where the term ドール comes from. But in the English version, that's barely even an "abbreviation", so it makes them all come across as braindead.

Also, @kelvin921019 recommended Bofuri to me. I read a bit about it, and it does sound like a fun series, but sadly it's not on Netflix in the US. Oh well.
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golyplot
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Re: Learning Japanese from zero by listening: 2021 Log

Postby golyplot » Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:46 pm

I watched Hanae's video playing Tom and Jerry Chase last night, and I found it interesting how they kept referring to Jerry as "nezumi". I guess Japanese doesn't make a distinction between rats and mice like English does.

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