日本語会話: The Japanese Conversation Thread

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

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.

[GoktimusPrime]

Unleashed a Dad's Joke onto a girl working at Tokyo Disneyland, making her laugh.
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.

[GoktimusPrime]

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. 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. That's all I can think of for now.

[GoktimusPrime]

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.

[GoktimusPrime]

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.

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.

[DELTAprime]

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.

[GoktimusPrime]

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/