I need to watch A New Hope again, I was thinking that was an Alec Guinness line for a moment, or did he prefer Sir Alec Guinness?:p
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I don't know about knighthoods, but I know that when you get awarded your PhD then by law you have to be addressed as "Doctor" in any legal setting. At my previous school I had a colleague who has a PhD in Chemistry -- she's very humble about it and doesn't normally tell people about it and never asks anyone to call her "Dr.", but it just came up in conversation one day. She told me that all legal documents that are mailed to her such as bills, address her as "Dr." because that's a legal requirement. But that's pretty much the only time she gets called Doctor. Likewise in court when she was getting divorced -- the court had to address her as "Doctor [surname]." If anyone calls her "Doctor" in any normal situations, she'll tell you to shut up and stop calling her that. :p She only uses the title when she has to, by law, otherwise she never does. But I've also met another teacher with a PhD who insists on being addressed as "Doctor," especially by students. Incidentally the first teacher teaches at a disadvantaged public school while the latter teaches at a very privileged private school (where teachers actually wear academic gowns like at Hogwarts :rolleyes:).
On the opposite end of the scale, every Karate instructor I've met demand to be addressed as "Sensei," even though a lot of them are just downright incompetent as teachers. (-_-) When I did Karate I refused to address my instructors as "Sensei" because - especially as a teacher myself - I don't believe in just frivolously throwing this title around, especially if you can't bloody teach. I was never rude to them per se, but for example, if my instructor's name was John Smith, I just called him John, and not "Sensei-John." And even if I were to address him as Sensei, I would never address him as "Sensei-John" because that makes no sense. As an honorific title, Sensei can only be used with surnames, not given names. Also, Japanese honorific titles always come after the name, never before. This is why Mr. Miyagi always said, "Daniel-san" and never "San-Daniel." :rolleyes: Saying "Sensei John" is the equivalent of saying "John Mister" in English. It just looks stupid. :rolleyes: Either call him "Mr. Smith," or "Smith-Sensei" or just "John"! I went for the latter option. :o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TofNjIjt0TQ
^Interesting social experiment where 3 non-Japanese people (1 Asian, 1 black, 1 white) walked around and spoke with Japanese people to see if they would treat them the same as anyone else in Japan and respond in Japanese, or if they would attempt to mix with English or use English. The majority of respondents treated them the same as anyone else and exclusively spoke to them in Japanese. :)
In my personal observation, I find that one of the challenges for Anglophones in learning Japanese (or any other foreign language) is that a lot of people in other countries want to learn and/or practise English, and in countries like Japan, people are often more than willing to try and speak English with you (or at least mix some English with Japanese) to try and be helpful. But of course, it's not helpful because it hinders your ability to learn Japanese! But this little social experiment demonstrates that if foreigners are willing to take the initiative and speak in Japanese to Japanese people, then they will respond in kind. Where respondents mixed or used English it was often because the foreigner (the black girl) is speaking Japanese with a notable accent or she outright admits that she doesn't fully understand what is being said or shown to her (in her defence the video does explain that she is still a learner of Japanese whereas the other two are already fluent speakers; and the way that she tells off one guy for touching her hair was actually really good :D).
So yeah, so long as you actually take the initiative to engage with Japanese people in Japanese, then Japanese people will respond in kind. And needless to say that your ability to learn Japanese will then increase exponentially. Anyone who is living in Japan (or has lived or will be going) will have the super added bonus advantage of being surrounded by native speakers and be able to do this on a daily basis. Those of us living outside of Japan obviously have more limited options, but we gotta take any opportunity where we can find it. :o And it's interesting what topics turn up... I managed to have a conversation with a Japanese friend recently and we talked about IVF in Japanese -- I learnt quite a lot of things about IVF (and fertility in general) that I never knew before. :o
P.S.: As I've probably mentioned before, whenever Japanese people speak to me in English, I just reply in Japanese. :p
From this post in the Transformers Questions thread with the MP Cheetor translation request
http://www.otca.com.au/boards/showpo...postcount=8865
Recently I have been using scans like this to try and help me study kanji rather than selectable text (so I can't take the lazy way out and just copy/paste them into a translator :p ) I use a website to search for each kanji by their radicals which is also helping me to learn how each kanji is made up - and makes it a little easier for me to recognise them (I know - its a strange way to do it, but it works for me. :o )
Anyway my question is, What are the two kanji after ”ボディ” at the start of the second line of text? I couldn't for the life of me find them the way I usually do (and I was probably mistaking the radicals when searching. :o )
表面 = ひょうめん = surface :)
Thanks Gok :)
I was mistaking the radicals as it turns out :o haha
What is this radicals site you're using Blaster?
Searching for a Kanji I've never come across is the bane of my JP study!
I use www.jisho.org They have a "radicals" search just to the left of the main search box. It's really handy because all you have to do is even just select one of the radicals, and it auto searches and shows all the kanji that include it. And you can choose multiple radicals, to narrow the results. :) It's made searching kanji so much easier for me personally.
I may be going to Japan very soon so I wouldn't mind some Japanese Role playing. My Japanese has become rusted to crap as most of it was learned when I was a little kid and not in a 'fluent' environment where it was frequently spoken.
Let's start with typical tourist scenarios to see if I can bring it back to existence - Please keep in mind that this is more about the spoken language than written. I also would appreciate brief corrections to bad grammar or sentence structure.
*I walk into a store and notice a Transformers toy on the window that I am interested in. I point to it and ask*
Konishiwa, Kore wa Toransufoma desu ka?
Konnichiwa.
Otherwise everything else in your sentence is correct. :)
And just to clarify, you are saying, "Good day, is this a Transformer?"
Now having said that, it's unnatural to start off with good day. You'd be better off saying:
「すみません、これはトランスフォーマーですか。」
sumimasen, kore wa Toransufōmā des ka?
I'm just finishing my first two weeks (ever) in Japan.
I had surprisingly good results by erring on the side of over-politeness and saying
"Sumimasen, Kore onegai shimasu" or "Sumimasen, doko Makurosu/toransufoma desu ka?"
Generally, i got by with a lot of "sumimasen"s and pointing at things... ^^;;;
Correction on this sentence: it should be
「トランスフォーマーはどこですか」
"Toransufōmā wa doko desu ka?"
You basically omitted the topic marker particle "wa" and had adverb "doko" in the wrong position. Remember that adverbs and verbs come towards the end of sentences in Japanese, as opposed to English which typically places them towards the front.
トランスフォーマーはどこですか
Where are the Transformers?
Sorry, yes, I would actually say "XXXX wa doko desu ka?".
Thanks for correcting me :)
(that's what I get for posting late-ish at night)
Thank you for your tips but i an looking for role play conversation to reinforce the ability to communicate. The sumimasen tip is very important and useful. Thank you
Be careful though.
The expression "Knowing just enough Japanese to be dangerous" is actually true.
Again, personal experience, but after I could manage a couple sentences in Japanese, they would fire off in Japanese super fast and point me to signs in Japanese. Once I told them I couldn't read/understand (spoken) Japanese, they would start explaining things in English and giving me the English sign instead :P
I'm sure I've linked to this video before, but it's a social experiment to see how many "Western looking" (i.e. non East Asian) people in Tokyo speak Japanese.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8-YLAKW7DU
The problem with this experiment was that it was done in Shibuya, which is a popular tourist attraction, and I don't know how many of those people were just tourists or actual residents in Japan. Because naturally you wouldn't expect a tourist to speak the local language as they're just passing through. But a person living in Japan should absolutely be able to speak Japanese (to varying degrees of fluency, depending on how long they've been living there). I'm seriously thinking about doing this experiment myself when I'm in Japan, although we're also hitting a lot of tourist places. But I want to explicitly ask people if they're tourists or residents and just disregard all the tourists from my experiment; i.e. I only want to observe residents. Might get some of my senior students involved... hrmm... something we might discuss on the plane trip. ;)
Shibuya is also likely to attract a lo of people who have studies Japanese, so you might be better off going somewhere else to start I guess.
Also if some guy and a kid came up to me with a mic speaking Japanese to me, I'd tell him I didn't speak Japanese to make him go away.
As a whitey, it's sometimes handy pretending to not understand. Like when I was in a shop looking at TFs and this fat angry dude was stomping around rambling on about the lack of selection. Wouldn't mind chatting to some local Tf fans, but not if they are stereotype looking otaku guys.
Unleashed a Dad's Joke onto a girl working at Tokyo Disneyland, making her laugh. :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EwZETnP1_4
They have a dessert called "Space Sundaes" which are just called スペースサンデー (Supeesu Sandee) in Japanese, but I literally (mis)translated it as 宇宙の日曜日 (Uchuu no Nichiyoubi; "Space Sunday") when I went to order one. ;)
One topic that I was talking about with some of my friends in Japan are words used by Japanese people in Australia which are not used back in Japan. In other words, Japanese-Australian exclusive words. How many can we think of?
The most obvious ones are contractions for place names like エコポ (Echo Point), クロネ (Crow's Nest) etc., but let's exclude those for obvious reasons. So here are a few words Japanese-Australian words which I unleashed on some of my friends in Japan which actually stumped them!
スクホ
School Holidays (スクール・ホリデー)! In Japan it's 学校の休み .
ジャパレス
Japanese restaurant (ジャパニーズ・レストラン). The Japanese themselves don't often use the word for "Japanese restaurant," because Japanese restaurants there tend to be specialised, like a Ramenyasan or Sushiyasan, Ryoutei etc. But if they want to be specific then they would more likely use words like 和食店、和食レストラン、日本料理レストラン etc. - but it's often not necessary to specifically identify a restaurant as being Japanese when you're in Japan, as it's pretty much the social default setting. :p It's similar to how in Australia we don't often explicitly state that a restaurant serves Western food - it's just the default unless specified otherwise.
七年生~十二年生
Years 7-12. Obviously because it reflects the Australian school year system. Japan doesn't use this system, their junior high school is Middle School Forms 1-3 (中学1~3) and their senior high school is simply High School Forms 1~3 (高校1~3).
幼稚園 and キンディー生
Again, reflecting differences in education system. When my daughter was in her final year of day care, we simply called it 幼稚園 and I referred to her as a 幼稚園児. I would translate as "preschool" and "preschooler" respectively, but in Japan they translate it as "kindergarten." An ex student of mine is currently living and working in Japan as a 幼稚園の先生 and when she introduced herself to my non-Japanese speaking colleagues, she told them that she's a "Kindergarten teacher." キンディー生 obviously refers to what we would call Kindergarten or just Kindy - the first year of primary school. So when my daughter started school she was a キンディー生. When it comes to early childhood care before preschool, then I find both sides simply refer to it as 保育園 and 保育園児 respectively.
エイチ・エス・シー試験
Higher School Certificate Examinations. This obviously doesn't exist in Japan, their nearest equivalent would be 大学入試 (university entrance exams) - which isn't quite the same thing as the HSC though.
Heh, maybe we should refer to Australianised Japanese as 豪州弁. :p That's all I can think of for now. :)
RE: This discussion about original vs loanwords in English
Japanese is also quite similar in this regard, with many native Japanese words continuing to co-exist with foreign loanwords, especially from Chinese. This is one thing that learners of Japanese can find perplexing is how there are synonyms, which are also represented by the various readings of the same Kanji. But this isn't too different from how English is also has different words meaning the same thing, often from different origins, as discussed in more detail in the link above. But for this thread I'd like to focus on Japanese.
Just as loanwords in English often evoke a greater air of sophistication, Chinese loanwords similarly tend to evoke more sophistication compared to native Japanese words. Not surprisingly this is because Japanese writing originated from Chinese writing, and initially the Japanese only wrote in Chinese but later developed their own forms of script to better suit their language (as Japanese isn't even in the same language family as Chinese, just as English isn't in the same family as Latin-descendant Romance languages).
Some examples. Native Japanese words are in Hiragana while Chinese loanwords are in Katakana.
YEAR: とし ネン - e.g. ことし = "this year", キネンビ = "anniversary"
COW: うし ギュウ - e.g. うしどし = "Year of the Cow, ワギュウ = "Japanese beef"
LOOK: みる ハイケン - latter is more formal, similar to how "look" is English but "spectate" is Latin
MEDICINE: くすり ヤク - e.g. ヤッキョク = "pharmacy"
FOOD: たべもの ショクジ - the former means 'food,' whereas the latter is often translated as 'meal.' When I run both words through Google Images たべもの gives me this whereas ショクジ gives me this
WELCOME: いらっしゃい(ませ) カンゲイ - again, when running both words through Google Images, the former gave me this while the latter gave me this. Welcome vs reception, same meaning, but different moods!
...and so on and so on... ;)
Also, I've made a video where I'm narrating a Chinese fairy tale in Japanese here. The video contains my narration with Japanese subtitles and an English translation in the description, although the thread itself shows individual images with English translations beneath each one. :)
Having a chat w/ our Japanese ALT in the staffroom, she showed me a photo of her cousin's son as 従兄弟の息子 ("My cousin's son"). I then said, 「従兄弟の子供は甥じゃないか?」("Wouldn't your cousin's son by your nephew?"), and she said no, it's not... but she didn't know what the correct kinship term for it is either. :o
I don't know for sure, but I think that it'd be 従甥(じゅうせい) for a boy and 従姪(じゅうてつ) for a girl. It then reminded me that I don't use the proper kinship terms either, because in English your cousin's child is your 'cousin once removed.' But I've always called them 'nephew' or 'niece' as that's my own family's tradition.
There's an app called Duolingo that teaches you a foreign language, but it's limited to Roman and Greek alphabet languages. Anyone know of an app to learn the basics of Japanese?
Edit: never mind, apparently they have just added Japanese. I now know 1 = ichi and 2 = ni.
This site has some good tips on learning Japanese, as well as links to some useful apps and resources. Also useful for anyone wanting to master native pronunciation, particularly the pitch accent. This guy has some useful videos on that which explains it in meticulous detail.
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/japa...g-stack-dogen/
Thanks for sharing. I always wanted to learn Japanese, but couldn't find enough books in romaji or anyone patient enough to teach me.
I know it's the convention to learn to write and speak basic words and phrases when starting out. However, when learning languages, I seem to find it easier to learn to listen and speak first (common everyday phrases first), then start learning the alphabets and characters later. But that's just me. Maybe I learn differently compared to others. Although I think it makes sense because when I was a baby first learning to communicate, I listened and spoke first, then only started to learn to read and write when I was in pre-school... Foood for thought.
Speaking and listening are natural language skills which the brain is has evolved to use. As you've accurately pointed out, all babies/infants begin with speaking and listening and often don't learn to read or write until they start school. Reading and writing are artificial language skills, which is why they must be taught (either by a teacher or self-instructed) and cannot simply be naturally picked up like speaking and listening can.
I strongly advise against using Romaji if you actually want to learn Japanese. It may seem easy at first, but it causes other problems, including:
- Greater risk of phonemic interference. This is always a tell-tale sign as to which of my students have bothered to learn Hiragana and which ones haven't. Those who are still relying on Romaji are far more likely to transfer English phonemes over to Japanese. e.g. mispronouncing まえ (mae) as "may" instead of "mah-eh" -- students are misreading the "ae" as in "maelstrom." The fact is that the Japanese /ae/ vowel set does not exist in English phonology, and also, Japanese generally doesn't slur vowels as English does. Learning via Hiragana helps you to better master basic pronunciation better than Romaji does.
- It is often difficult to wean off dependency on Romanisation and become competent in reading/writing Japanese script. I once met a guy who'd been living in Japan for over a decade but was utterly illiterate in Japanese because he'd learnt using Romaji and couldn't wean himself off it. He could speak the language fluently, but was useless at reading/writing - so even for simple things like reading signs, menus etc. -- forget it.
Imagine if a Japanese person tried learning English using purely Katakana-ised イングリッシュ (Ingurisshu). :o
I think when learning a language, it definitely helps to be surrounded by native speakers of that language (if the goal is to learn to listen and speak). I've lived in Malaysia and Australia; and I can speak English, Malay and Mandarin (actually, my Mandarin sucks, but I understand enough to know when I'm being laughed at. Lol). I was able to pick up basic English and Malay easily enough without formal lessons, because I was surrounded by people who spoke those languages. Not an hour went by without me over-hearing conversations in Malay, English or some other Chinese dialect. The nice thing about Malay and English is that they both use Roman letters, so I could easily look up new words I might hear or read, and find their meaning. With Mandarin, it's trickier because it's written and read in Chinese characters - which I found intimidating to look at when I was a kid. I needed to ask people what certain words meant when I heard them for the first time.
Yeah, if I decide to learn Japanese properly, it'd be good to learn Hiragana too. That way I'll be able to read texts, and reading helps build vocabulary. It's a shame they don't play more Japanese films on SBS. It always helps to be able to listen to and pick up common speech patterns and nuances. If you hear the word "hajimette" often enough, you soon realise that it means 'new' or 'first time' (or something along those lines).
I recommend watching Japanese films/shows on DVD rather than on TV for the purposes of language learning. One thing that I recommend to my students is to alternate between watching the same episode with the subtitles on and off, preferably starting without subtitles on the first viewing. Because if you only ever watch shows with subtitles on, while your brain may pick up a few words or detect some patterns here and there, on the whole, your brain's actually NOT doing much work at all. But yeah, I recommend watching it in raw Japanese first, then watching it with subtitles on, then watch it again raw.
Another interesting case of convergent evolution in language - how four has been rendered in Kanji and Roman numerals.
KANJI: 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十
ROMAN: I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X
When first learning these numbers, the first thing that jumps to mind is why four bucks the trend. Why isn't "Quattuor" written as four vertical lines, and why isn't "yon" written as four horizontal lines? :confused:
Well, as it turns out, they used to be written as four lines!
Thus...
一二三亖
I II III IIII
But it's believed that 三/亖 and III/IIII became tricky to discern when written in small writing and/or when read at a distance. Thus bucking the trend and changing the characters just alleviated initial confusion between three and four.
Now the Roman numeral for Quattuor makes sense, it's 1 before 5: IV. And the trend continues with other numbers like 9 being 1 before 8 (IX) etc. But what about Kanji? As it turns out, the character 四 didn't originally mean "four." It originally meant "breath" and evolved from an image of a mouth (口) with teeth and tongue inside.
目目...目目
.鼻......鼻
.口......四 ...... Kanji: the ancient world's answer to Emoji
"So how did "breath" come to mean "four"?!"
Homophones. Apparently in Old or Middle Chinese and Japanese, the word for breath was pronounced in the exact same way as the word for four. Thus people just started writing "breath" as a written synonym for four, and it eventually replaced the word entirely, and a new Kanji had to be devised for "breath" (息).
#themoreyouknow
So I've been stuck at home all week with glandular fever :( and I made a video presentation so that I could remotely "teach" some new grammar structures without physically being in the class. Anyway, here's a copy of my video in case anyone else might find it useful. The password is 11JAC2017
https://vimeo.com/227228567
Topics covered are:
* Describing things with relative clauses
* The conditional たら
* Conditional hope (たらいい)
* Talking about past experiences
* Saying something is easy or hard to do
* Using と to say "if" or "when"
* Saying what you can see or hear (a very brief introduction to the potential form)
* Saying whether or not using かどうか
My voice isn't the greatest... I spent a lot of time editing out sounds of me sneezing and coughing. :rolleyes: And I know there's one part of the video where I made a grammatical mistake. Those of you who've had glandular fever will know how hard it is to think or speak straight.
Anyway, for those of you still learning Japanese please LMK what you thought of this video. Was it useful? Cos I'm wondering if I should make more. They might come in handy as a general teaching resource because I can just chuck the video on at the start of each new unit. Because in teaching we often just repeat the same thing over and over again, and these videos would save me from doing that. And instead I could focus on answering specific questions that students have. I know that other teachers in other subjects are already doing this.
LOL :D
https://www.facebook.com/chonewsoku/...Or_Fz8I4sfAk6M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVZ9xk5A6l4
(certainly aren't overusing that bar from the soundtrack of Akira, are they? :D)
Awww snap, I fell for this! :D
https://i.ibb.co/xS5k4Tk/temp.jpg
There's going to be a proposed law that requires foreigners living in Japan to learn Japanese. I think this makes total sense. Living in Japan without speaking Japanese makes about as much sense as living in Australia without speaking English. It's just common sense (and general respect to the country that you're living in). It's sad that it should have to be a law, but I've encountered my fair share of people who never bothered to really learn the language of the country that they're living in.
And it's really of benefit to that immigrant. If you're living in Japan and you don't speak Japanese, then it mostly sucks for you. Although it can suck for others around you, like when government services need to spend public funds hiring interpreters (e.g. court interpreters; I've been told by someone who used to work in a court that trials take way longer when interpreters are required because everything has to be presented in multiple languages).
https://resources.realestate.co.jp/n...or-foreigners/
For those who may not have seen the news, with the Emperor soon abdicating his throne, from next month Japan will leave the Heisei Era (平成時代) and enter the Reiwa Era (令和時代).
I totally agree. However there are children of foreign workers who are not getting sufficient social and learning support. I read that there are around 40k in this cohort and around 10k do not even attend school.
For adults planning to go there, yeah it is quite useful to learn though there are expats who cocoon themselves up.
lol, I see what you did there with your new avatar, Raptormesh. ;) #お尻探偵