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Re: Overscore's log

Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 9:15 am
by overscore
Quick question, in
毎年世界エスペラント大会(UK)を開催し、1500人から3000人の参加者がある。

is it not clear that エスペランティスト大会参加者 are animate 人間?? I'm wondering why you'd use ある and not おります. Would that be because you're declaring the existence of the conference, and not commenting on the participants themselves in particular.

Re: Overscore's log

Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 10:23 am
by vonPeterhof
There's a number of cases where ある can be used with animate subjects. The most common such case is when talking about a person having (a certain number of) family members, friends or guests - 私は兄弟が五人ある (I have five siblings). According to the book Essential Japanese Vocabulary, ある can be used to signify the existence of animate beings, especially a) if the subject is not a specific person or animal, b) if it's irrelevant where the subject exists, and c) if the noun signaling the subject is preceded by a relative clause. While b and c don't really apply in your example, it's true that specific participants aren't relevant for that sentence, and conference participants can be considered a type of guest, so I guess it's a permissible case.

BTW, since おる/おります is a humble word (謙譲語), you would only use it to talk about yourself or your in-group (people from your own family, company, organization, etc.) when addressing people from outside the group. I'm not sure how participation in the World Esperanto Congress works, but おります would only be used in official communications by the organizers about the participants if they are all formal members of the same organization. Otherwise, the neutral verb to use is いる/います.

Re: Overscore's log

Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2017 11:37 am
by overscore
Ah I see. I'm aware of that difference, but I see 「〜ております」 written everywhere for some reason. Doesn't matter, it will make enough sense with context eventually.

In any case, I'm not too concerned with correct 敬語 usage. I don't know proper Vous/Tu rules in my native tongue either and I don't need to not get fired.

Re: Overscore's log

Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2017 1:40 am
by overscore
I've bought a few books and manga. I've begun reading a bit of keroro.
I've adopted a zero boredom policy. Anything artificial like lists or textbook wooden language that's a threat to my motivation goes out the window.
Started gathering information on devices I could use for extensive reading. Mangas are hard to read on my computer, the explanatory characters next to the main text end up being super small. iPad seems just great, if not too restricted / walled garden. Android or Linux devices should be cheaper and more suitable.

Re: Overscore's log

Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2017 6:03 pm
by overscore
Golden Kamuy 第1巻 page 56/191

Re: Overscore's log

Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2017 6:12 am
by overscore
Not much today. Looking at war-time propaganda posters. Looking up vocabulary: 昭和天皇の代。this poster is from 昭和二十一年, so that would place it in 1946. The language is challenging, lots of words I've never seen before. 海軍志願兵徴募. I had heard before in a Korean log on a language learning forum that a long time ago Korean would be written right to left horizontally, so it was pretty cool to see the same on these propaganda posters. It's written like this: 集募兵願志軍海 (navy volunteer army recruitment).
Another one has カタカナ words written right-to-left, which is pretty confusing to read. I see also there's been kanji changes since then.

Re: Overscore's log

Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2017 6:17 pm
by dampingwire
overscore wrote:Another one has カタカナ words written right-to-left, which is pretty confusing to read. I see also there's been kanji changes since then.


I've seen chapter titles written vertically, one character per column, spanning multiple columns, so it ends up looking like right-to-left text. I assume they did it just to confuse me :-)

Re: Overscore's log

Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2017 12:05 am
by overscore
dampingwire wrote:
overscore wrote:Another one has カタカナ words written right-to-left, which is pretty confusing to read. I see also there's been kanji changes since then.


I've seen chapter titles written vertically, one character per column, spanning multiple columns, so it ends up looking like right-to-left text. I assume they did it just to confuse me :-)

It's good the script can accommodate both styles, considering the amount of success I've had with getting browsers to display Mongolian :lol:

Today not much happening. Going to the Manga cafe. *musters energy*

Re: Overscore's log

Posted: Thu Oct 05, 2017 8:48 am
by overscore
Golden Kamuy 第1巻 page 93/191

Re: Overscore's log

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 9:31 pm
by overscore
Golden Kamuy 第1巻 page 94/191

I am reading more carefully and writing down words. This series is really great, I'm enjoying it a lot.
Apparently the Ainu language bits have been checked by an expert in the field.

My comprehension of the text varies, sometimes fairly high, often times a bit uncertain. But that's because I come across a lot of vocab like "羆の胆嚢".