Nihongojouzu

Making Love in Japanese

Continuing one of the themes from my presentation at the JET Recontracting Conference in Kobe (I'll post my revised notes when I have a spare moment longer than this one....) - that of language learning in the context of close personal relationships - I offer this article entitled "making love in japanese" from Everything2.com. There's a good explanation of why saying 好き　is probably a better bet than 愛している　and a great lowdown on what Japanese people actually say when talking about matters of the flesh. The follow-up, "Having sex in Japanese" offers a more earthy array of expressions and body-part descriptors.

Tags learning Japanese | speaking Japanese

Star Wars Japanese

I stumbled upon the Star Wars in English blog (英語でスターウォーズ） while checking up on some movie quotes for a presentation. Learning Japanese via movies like Star Wars has always been a fun way to pick up juicy new vocabulary without ever feeling like you are studying, but having the quotes on the web makes for a great chance to cut and paste your way to a Star Wars based repertoire of phrases:

ヨーダ「集中しろ！」
ルーク「なんてこった。これじゃあもう取り出せないよ。」
ヨーダ「そんなことはない。おまえはいつも弱音を吐く。わしの言ったことを聞いておらん。」
ルーク「マスター、石を動かすこととはわけが違います。」
ヨーダ「違わん。おまえが違うと思い込んでおるだけじゃ。固定観念を捨てろ。」
ルーク「わかりました。やってみます。」
ヨーダ「やってみるではない。やるか、やらぬかだ。試すなどない。」

Y: Concentrate!
Luke: Oh no. We’ll never get it out now.
Y: So certain are you. Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say?
L: Master, moving stones around is one thing. This is totally different.
Y: No. No different. Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned.　
L: All right, I'll give it a try.
Y: Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.

Interestingly, unlike in English, Yoda's syntax in Japanese is regular, but he is given a distinctive wizened-old-man accent:
「わしの言ったことを聞いておらん.」
「...思い込んでおるだけじゃ」
「やるか、やらぬかだ」
Given his English is not so much ungrammatical as archaic 「Hear you nothing that I say? 」this seems to be an excellent way or rendering Yoda-speech.

May the フォース  be with you!

Tags learning Japanese | studying Japanese | star wars

Japanese Legal Terms

From Peter Durfee via the CIR Homepage:

The Japanese government's official English translations of certain (about 230 pages worth) Japanese legal terms is available online. The following url links to a (3 MB) pdf on the Japanese Cabinet Secretariat's site that contains the dictionary (the 法令用語日英標準対訳辞書):
 
http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/hourei/dictionary.pdf

I took a quick squiz at the file and it looks like a major resource for anyone who translates in the legal field, whether for terms of art:

推定する　
shall be presumed

みなす　
shall be deemed

遅滞なく　
without delay

standard notations:

目次 Table of Contents
編    Part
章    Chapter
節    Section
款    Subsection
目    Division
条    Article (Art.)

 

or simply the official names of laws:

基本法　
Basic Act

【例】原子力基本法                 Atomic Energy Basic Act
　　　環境基本法                   Environment Basic Act
　　　男女共同参画社会基本法    Basic Act for Gender-Equal Society

Just because the translation is official doesn't mean it couldn't be improved - "Environment Basic Act" is nothing if not forced. Both ALC and Glova give "The Basic Environment Law" for 環境基本法 (かんきょうきほんほう）which does roll off the tongue a little better. Nevertheless, a handy document to have in one's (basic) possession.

JEDict 4.0.5

Sergey Kurkin has revamped his JEDict dictionary  and  produced version 4.0.5, for people running  Mac OS 10.4 and up. The old JEDict 3.8.1 is still available for download and works a treat on Mac OS 8.1 through 10.3.9.

Version 4.0.5 has a number of major changes:

1. It looks different - Version 4.0.5 has the look of a simple web browser. I think 3.8.1 was a better looking interface, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

2. Version 4.0.5 can use a whole plethora of dictionaries including monsters like Eijiro which would have caused Version 3.8.1 to choke to death:

• all Japanese-English dictionaries from the Monash University FTP Archive.
  
• Wadoku JT (Japanisch-Deutsches elektronisches Wörterbuch)
• .DIC and .DZ dictionaries from BEDIC project.
• EIJIRO files (not free)

Importing new dictionaries is a breeze and if you fork out the money for Eijiro you have all the power of the ALC dictionary even when you don't have online access.

3. You can set Vers 4.0.5 to "search on clipboard change" which means that when you select text in a document and then "Copy" it, JEDict 4.0.5 automatically searches for and translates it.  (Note - when I tried the right-click function "Search JEDict" it opened version 3.8.1!)

4. A whole new Japanese Language Proficiency Test menu option which allows you to test yourself on vocab from each of the 4 test levels. Nifty.

5. Vers 4.0.5 not only looks like Safari's poor starving cousin, it incorporates a browser function too. Highlighting a kanji while surfing will causes a sidebar menu to appear and display readings, examples etc.

6. The kanji search menu has remained almost the same (ie excellent) except for the fact that the new input space for entering kanji via  a touchpad or stylus is not as easy as Vers 3.8.1.

7. Saving search results to the User Dict is now just a matter of a right-click (it used to be Command-click)

8. Allows romaji use. Although some people might like this I find it annoying, and even with the romaji preference turned off, any search for a Japanese word will still produce a romaji reading at the top of the word search screen.

Version 4.0.5 can be downloaded from the JEDict site. The free version comes with the EDICT and KANJIDICT dictionaries - more than enough for most people's needs. The $25 registered version lets you add unlimited numbers of dictionaries and is well worth the investment for anyone doing more than simple searches.

BTW I have referred to version 4.0.5 throughout, but the version listed on the JEDict site is version 4.0.4 - as an owner of the registered version I received the 4.0.5 update direct from Sergey and I imagine it will be on his site in due course.

Overall, not as pretty as 3.8.1, but far more capable.

Tags study Japanese | Japanese dictionary

Albis

Via Japanese for Life: Albis is a website designed to help you increase your vocabulary in a whole swag of languages, including Japanese. The site covers 1500 words divided into levels - each level comprises a number of modules containing 20 words each. The interface is a little counterintuitive - the first page I was directed to displayed both the English word and the Japanese equivalent, underneath which was a button marked "OK". When I  clicked on "OK" I expected the quiz to start, but instead another English/Japanese word pair appeared. Some fumbling about later I had worked out the deal - clicking the "OK" button takes you through all 20 words for that level. Once you have reviewed these words the button becomes a "Start" button, which when clicked begins the quiz.

When doing the quiz you are presented with an English word, and you have to write the Japanese equivalent in the space provided. You can write in anything from kanji to romaji (both Hepburn and Kunren are OK). Do sufficiently well and you finish the module and move to the next. Screw up too many times and the test halts and sends you back to the review exercises. I did a couple of modules and whilst they were straightforward I did learn the word for petal (はなびら). The number of levels you have completed  is displayed on the site, making it easy to track your progress.

The FAQs are found under 'News" - again, counterintuitive. The 1500 words are selected on the basis of how common they were and whether they covered concepts familiar to everyone, eg snow is NOT INCLUDED because people in some tropical countries don't have a word for it.

My favourite part of the site -  this explanation:

"We did not include the word "beer" even though this is a wonderful substance, because it sounds very similar  in the majority of languages"

In short - a fun way to boost your vocab, 20 words at a time, whether beginner or pro.

Tag  study Japanese

Flash listening practice

Great listening practice for beginners - Richard Graham, of GenkiEnglish.com, has just uploaded some Flash animations dealing with amounts of money, left/right/up/down and north/south/east/west. Very simple stuff and amusing too - listen for all the different ways the chirpy female Japanese voice tells you off for getting an answer wrong! (I picked the wrong answer a dozen times just to hear her tell me "dame!")

Tags learning Japanese | Japanese for beginners

Fun with kanji: ategi (当て字）

I had a lot of phone calls and email to deal with yesterday so to make life more interesting I played around with the kanji in some of the emails to people I knew well (ie those people who wouldn't freak when out-of-the-ordinary messages arrived in their inbox).

I sent out this: 蟻蛾等　to one person.
In reply I received: 銅板縞して

Then a small variation: 蟻蛾頭
The reply: 怒兎痛死魔死手

Some others:
麻田値
者音！

See if you can work out what the actual Japanese words are and post your guess in the comments. Not too hard - judicious use of rikaichan etc will do it. I'll post a follow up discussing ateji 当て字　later this week.　

Tags learning Japanese | kanji | ateji　| 漢字　| 当て字

Kanji Daily Startup (Home) Page

Go to Charles Kelly's saliva-inducing Online Japanese Language Study Materials and click on the Daily Startup (Home) Page for Students of Japanese. Then go to the preferences menu of your browser and make this page your start up page. Assuming you don't just leave your computer on all the time (and my PowerBook does seem rather happy with its polyphasic sleep cycle) when you launch your browser in the morning you will be greeted by 36 kanji, sorted into 9 levels, from easy-as-pie to fiendishly difficult. There are 2414 kanji altogether, so bright sparks will notice that there are 467 extra fellows who aren't part of the 1945 Jōyō  (general use) kanji　常用漢字. Kelly explains that he made up the list by reference to whether the kanji was marked as an EDICT Priority Word  or appeared at least 3 times in a newspaper word frequency list he maintains. Move the cursor over a kanji to reveal the reading, meaning and a sample kanji compound. Click on the kanji for a more comprehensive list of compounds plus some external links to sites with flashcard resources etc. The page is perfect for any level - beginners can stick with just doing the  4 kanji from the easiest level each day while keen beans can do battle with all 36 characters, confident that by going above and beyond the Jōyō kanji they will be covering a lot of the discretionary JLPT Level 1 kanji. 67 days and you can go through them all again!

Tags kanji | learning Japanese | study Japanese

The JLPT Level 4 Study Page

Attention beginners! Peter van der Woude has done people a big favour and typed up a mass of grammar points, vocab and grammar for Level 4 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (the easiest level). The JLPT Level 4 Study Page has the grammar points for the years 1992 to 2002 - it doesn't have 2003, 2004 and 2005 but the past papers for these are available anyway. There are also Level 3 and Level 2 pages but Level 4 is the most complete.

Tags Japanese Language Proficiency Test | study Japanese | JLPT

Sakura nabe

Sakura is the Japanese for cherry blossom, but if I offered you sakura nabe and you expected a big bowl of petals you might be a tad surprised to find chunks of horse meat in your bowl. In the world of nabe 鍋 - the Japanese hot pot - sakura  is the term for horseflesh. Many people will attempt to explain that this is because horse meat is the same colour as cherry blossoms, or that horse is tastiest in cherry blossom season, but the reason for the horse-sakura connection is much simpler. It stems from the prohibition on the eating of meat, decreed and enforced to various degrees from the 6th century. As the Yamasa Institute explains:

During the 6th century, Buddhism became the official religion of the country and the eating of meat and fish were prohibited. The first recorded decree prohibiting the eating of cattle, horses, dogs, monkeys, and chickens was issued by Emperor Temmu in A.D. 675. Similar decrees, based on the Buddhist prohibition of killing, were issued repeatedly by emperors during the eighth and ninth centuries. The number of regulated meats increased to the point that all mammals were included except whales, which were categorized as fish.

Being a practical people, the country folk simply developed their own nomenclature to disguise their consumption of meat. (see JapaneseJapanese for a related discussion on eating rabbits). The classification of whale as fish is masterful - wild boars were called yamakujira ('mountain whales') 山鯨 which means you have:

wild boar----->  whale--------->fish

(If only the Japanese whaling industry had thought of this.....)

Just in case,  boar meat was referred to as botan (peony) 牡丹 and venison became momiji (maple leaves) 紅葉

These days there is no need for such subterfuge and 牡丹鍋　is more likely to be called inoshishi nabe 猪鍋　- inoshishi means wild boar. Horse is still called sakura - I guess people still shy away from acknowledging that they may have once placed a bet on their dinner.

Tags learn Japanese nabe