This is KAZU?

This is how hard Japanese names are (as if Japanese isn't difficult enough): the character 一 means "one" and can be pronounced different ways. People usually think it's "ichi" or "hitotsu" because that's the most common reading, and if it's combined with other kanji, the pronunciation alters, though it's based on the basic reading of the character, so it's not such a big deal.

But I had to look up this name: 一哉 which is probably very common in Japanese, but I had no idea how it was supposed to be transliterated. After much searching, I found out it is Kazuya. 一哉 is KAZUYA? I know the second character can be pronounced "ya", but 一 is KAZU? What? How the heck are we supposed to learn this language?

Do you see how crazy Japanese can make people, and what headaches it can cause?

This is why my brain goes on over-drive when I try to translate it or make sense of it. This is why French and Portuguese and Spanish seem relatively easy :D

Japanese with Mexican

I just did something quite nerdy: after my Japanese class, I went to a Mexican restaurant with a couple of very smart fellow students, and one of them said we should speak Japanese. So for most of our time there, we did that, until I realized that one of them wasn't paying attention to my badly spoken reflections. So we switched to English towards the end. But it was really nifty to be Japanese-speaking Americans in a Mexican restaurant. At least we got some practice, since I don't get many chances to speak.

This Japanese guy pimped his roomba

(A bit of Japanese entertainment I saw at Mad Minerva)

Japanese government internet TV

The concept is cool: the Japanese government posted a bunch of videos at a government "TV" site though they're not the most interesting on the planet. But still, it's a good idea. Some of the videos are in Chinese, Korean, and English.

The office in Japanese

I work with some folks who watch "The Office" (the American version), but I don't usually watch it because it doesn't seem that funny. This clip is funny, though, not only because they're speaking Japanese with odd accents while maintaining their Americanisms, but because it pokes fun at British humor as well (what Ricky Gervais says at the end). It's also funny to see how Westerners portray Japan (though I bet a well-informed person wrote the sketch, because it has some good Japanese details).

Japanese break

I never thought I'd say this, but I need a Japanese break (instead of the usual French one) because I've been out of the translating and language scene for a bit, due to recent radio bounty. So even though I've been awake since before 2 AM and haven't yet slept, I'm going to go to Japanese class because I need serious Japanese practice and input.

So I guess sometimes Japanese is my friend, after all :D

Is it still popular?

Whenever I see advice about learning kanji, I think about the book Remembering the Kanji. When I was living in Japan, it seemed like everyone who wanted to learn how to read Japanese had that book. I bought it, too, but I didn't finish reading it. I wonder how many people nowadays have that book, or if it's as popular as it used to be. It seems like a book that people buy, but don't finish.

gusset from machi

The more Japanese I read and translate, the less katakana I seem to know. I think it's also because more katakana words have entered the language because of globalization.

I was recently confounded by the word マチ (machi). It didn't originate from English, because it was describing the bottom of a bag. So I did a search, and found out that it means gusset, which is "a usually diamond-shaped or triangular insert in a seam...to provide expansion or reinforcement."

I also found some websites of companies that sell bags with gussets. What's lame is that I'd never heard of a "gusset" before. It sounded like an old word, and I was right about that, since it comes from Middle English (16th century). I'd also never heard anyone use the word "gusset", and I'm sure if I were to ask people if they knew what it was, I'd get different responses.

Now that I know the meaning, I still don't know what language "machi" comes from.

Update: commenter Paul said that "machi" isn't a foreign word (マチ), but is the reading (まち) for 襠! My bad :(

Noodle is complicated

Often in Japanese, we see the word for "noodle" in hiragana: めん (men). But sometimes it appears in its kanji form: 麺

For such a simple word and concept, that kanji is certainly complicated. Though the reading is easy to remember, since the right-hand side has a character that is pronounced "men". So at least we can relax about that.

This is soap?

I had to translate the katakana word シャボン (shabon) from Japanese into English, but I couldn't figure out what it meant. Usually I can figure katakana words out because they usually come from English, but this was baffling, so I went to my beloved Popjisyo (though the online katakana dictionary has it too). It means "soap" and is derived from the Portuguese word "sabão."

Ok, I have some questions: why did they decide to use the Portuguese word for soap instead of the English word, which is ソープ (soupu) in katakana? And why don't they just use the Japanese word for soap 石鹸 (sekken)? And by the way, how does シャボン (shabon) sound like sabão? They sound quite different from each other.

Maybe they wanted to be fancy: by choosing the Portuguese word, they were being a little more "exotic" and "special" since English is often used. As for the katakana representation of "sabao", maybe they were trying to capture the "oa" sound at the end of Portuguese words that sound like "n" to some of us lame Portuguese speakers.

Online katakana dictionary!

I have a katakana dictionary in book form, but I couldn't find a word in it, so I looked online to do the usual "what does this word mean in context" thing, and came upon an online katakana dictionary created by a Japanese guy named Yamada Yosuke (or, in the English version of the name, Yosuke Yamada, since Yamada is his last name). At least that was the name I saw after the Japanese word for "publisher".

What is really great is that he gives you the katakana word, the English meaning, then an example in Japanese! I hope he never takes this site down!

I need mnemonics

I was at Japanese class tonight, and saw a kanji that I should have known. So I used a mnemonic to remember it, and when I saw it again, I remembered what the reading was.

When I first studied Japanese, I always used mnemonics because that was the only way I was going to make sense of that very different language. But as I learned more kanji, I thought there wasn't a "need" to use mnemonics anymore. I guess I figured I could manage to memorize them without such a "crutch", but mnemonics really are helpful. I knew that, but I thought I was stronger than that. Well, there's nothing weak or wimpy about mnemonics, so I'm going to resume using them. They're not just for beginners.

Sometimes Japanese is relaxing

Japanese is very hard to translate because it requires maximum brain energy to convert such different expressions into natural English, but lately, it's been relaxing. I think it's because I've been spending many hours working and doing intellectual-type of work, and when I translate Japanese, it's a break from all that. It's still intellectual, but it requires different mental efforts. Mental efforts. Now that sounds like Japanese-English (Japlish). Which means I need to take a break from Japanese as well.

Swedish Meguro

Sometimes I have to write Japanese addresses in English, and the prefectures aren't hard to figure out because such lists are everywhere. But the more detailed the addresses get, the more difficult it becomes to get correct readings of the words because the combination of kanji can lead to numerous readings. Even Japanese people don't always know the readings when they hear an address--they spend time on the phone or in conversations explaining which kanji represent which sounds to describe where they live or want to send a package.

So when I had to find out about sections of the Meguro area of Tokyo, I did a search online. Wikipedia does a great job of breaking down the sounds of various districts, so I looked for such an entry in a google search, and interestingly, I came upon the Swedish Wikipedia. It had what I was looking for--a list of areas of Meguro, and the task was made even more enjoyable because it was cool to see Swedish surrounding what I needed in Japanese.

Goo

Here's a little victory I had today, which may seem insignificant to people who don't have to battle kanji or other difficult Japanese stuff: I was able to find out the meaning of a word by reading it in context--in Japanese. I feel like a grown-up.

In trying to find out the meaning of the word, which didn't exist in my large kanji dictionary, my even larger Japanese-English dictionary, or my beloved Popjisyo, I discovered Goo. It has lots of stuff, including a Japanese (kokugo) dictionary, English-Japanese dictionary, Japanese-English dictionary, and searches in Japanese Wikipedia.

I haven't tested out a lot of words there, but the name is totally cute.

One of the things that's annoying about Japanese

Japanese is enjoyable to study, but there are some things that are annoying about it, especially for a Westerner like me.

If I have a question about French, I can type in the word or phrase that I'm looking for in a Google search, and can come upon online discussions or dictionaries or whatever pretty easily--someone somewhere knows what the words are in English. Or I can read French text that provides context for what I'm looking for.

But with Japanese, it's not very easy to find discussions online or use dictionaries quickly, because if you're reading Japanese on paper, you can't just quickly type in the word or phrase on the computer to do a search. You have to go through a lot of steps to find out what the heck anything means. First you have to change your computer's settings to Japanese, then type in the reading using the English keyboard which then pops up a box with a bunch of kanji in it. Then you have to look through the kanji to choose what you need, then you can paste it in the Google search box or use one of the online text readers such as Popjisyo. And there aren't a lot of Westerners discussing meanings of Japanese online--perhaps they represent a fraction of the number of French-speaking/reading folks.

It obviously takes a while, so it's easier to use a book. Unlike French, which you can research more conveniently online.

I need to be friends with kanji

To prepare for the translating that I've resumed, I started to brush up on my kanji with some flashcards that I made a while ago. There are many kanji that I've forgotten, which means many headaches are in store for me. But I already feel invigorated, stimulated, and challenged enough to keep my brain fully occupied.

I remember writing "friends" on the front of a kanji notebook that I created a while ago because I figured that was the only way I was going to be able to memorize them--if I considered them my "friends" instead of "foes" that I had to try to stuff in my brain.

If you're wondering why all this Japanese-related whining is occuring, it's because Japanese is hard. But it's worth the pain :D

Today is under construction

Somebody sent me this picture of a Japanese sign--it's an odd translation that actually has a philosophical message. So maybe the translator is an aspiring poet :)

Are Japanese snacks scary?

I'm planning to have people over for Japanese snacks and drinks, and I think some people are sort of scared about it. Why, I don't know, because Japanese snacks don't bite. I've noticed varying reactions, from "cool!" to "oh...why?" to "yeah, I'm uh busy." Living abroad made me see things differently, to the point of changing my definitions of what "normal" and "odd" are. But I think some people aren't as, well, adventurous. Maybe it's weird and possibly nerdy to have a Japanese snack party, but life is bland enough to necessitate weirdly harmless things.

Erroneous characters

Somebody sent me a link to an article that's no longer new news, but some people may not know about it: the wrong Japanese on the Wikipedia logo. What's funny is that it's written in katakana, which is a script that even people who can't read Japanese well usually learn quite decently because it is usually used for foreign (non-Japanese) words, and people learn at least how to write their names with it.

I can't believe with all the people who use and write Wikipedia, they couldn't get such a simple thing right. As the image says, the correct characters spell "wi" but the ones that Wikipedia originally used spell "kwi". And that's something else I'm wondering about: why didn't the New York Times, which published the story and the image, say what Wikipedia used? All they said is that it "contains two erroneous characters."

WRONG.

It contains ONE erroneous character because "wi" and "kwi" use the SAME second character イ which is "i".

Update: komfo pointed out that the second erroneous character is the Devanagari one--I was just focusing on the Japanese ones.

Midwest Japan site

A guy in my Japanese class who works at the Japanese Consulate created the Japan Media Midwest blog.

JMM covers traditional and modern Japan-related events, fine arts, film, dining, and music in a ten-state area. States include Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.

If you live or work in those states and have anything to announce, you can contact them at japanmediamidwest at gmail. Or you can just read it to find out what's going on :)

Westernized bows

I lived in Japan for a few years, and learned some bowing rules, including the fact that you are NOT supposed to make eye contact when you bow.

But if you look at some commercials in the U.S. (and probably Canada too and other parts of the Western world), the Japanese people do not bow that way. They maintain eye contact with the people they're bowing to. The latest example is in the Wii commercials. The Japanese guys who go to people's houses, telling them they'd "like to play", are maintaining eye contact while they're bowing towards the homeowners, which would be considered quite inappropriate in Japan. But obviously, they're doing it for non-Japanese people, and it's quite dramatic, so it works for us.

Those commercials are great, by the way, and include some awesome shamisen playing by the Yoshida Brothers.

Way to go, Japan.

Update: some Japanophiles were telling me that in the martial arts, you HAVE to look at your opponent when you bow. So they suggested that the Japanese guys in the Wii commercials are acting as if they're bowing towards their opponent in martial arts. That makes sense.

Popjisyo to the rescue!

A long time ago (it seems) I mentioned Popjisyo, which is an excellent resource for reading Japanese (and Korean and Chinese, but I don't know them). Today I had to read an article for class, and didn't want to sit down with a dictionary, so decided to "cheat" by using Popjisyo. It made my reading enjoyable, and I was able to understand the article quite easily and quickly! It is just the best!

So if you have any online Japanese (or a few other) texts that you need to read, I highly recommend it!

(And you can tell I'm quite serious about my enthusiasm because I've used a lot of exclamation points in this post.)

The way of sushi

Mad Minerva (a very smart chick) sent me the link to this video. It's quite thorough--maybe too much. But if you wanted to know almost everything about sushi eating and etiquette, then this is for you.

Japanese comfort

When I hear people speaking Japanese, I like to practice my listening skills by eavesdropping on them. Sorry, but I'm going to be rude about it and not respect people's privacy because I've put way too many hours into studying Japanese to not do it.

Last week I was in a cafe, watching the rain and taking a break from writing, when two Japanese people sat down at a table near mine and started talking about different stuff. Even though I had work to do (well, "work" that may never see the light of day because it's a pipe dream), I managed to catch the gist of what they were saying.

If I eavesdrop on Spanish conversations or another language I've studied, I have to concentrate more to figure out what they're saying, even to understand where the words separate into comprehensible units. But with Japanese, I can relax. Sure, I don't know all the words, but because I lived there and have continued to study it, I feel comfortable, so my mind can settle on the sounds of the language. Even if I'm watching a movie where Japanese is spoken and I don't totally understand what they're saying, I still feel "at home" with it. I still have a long way to go until I'm awesome in that language, but at least it doesn't scare me.

Not kiyoto

Here's something I've noticed but have never mentioned here: how English speakers say "Kiyoto" [kee-yoto] instead of "Kyoto." Even the Japanese characters 京都 do not allow for the "ki" sound because the first one is "kyo" (or more precisely, "kyou" because the vowel sound is long).

I think it's because the "kyo" sound isn't common in English, or really exists in English words (I don't think--I haven't done a word study on it), so to say "Kyoto" is strange for English speakers. "Kiyoto" allows for alternating the consonant and vowel sounds and is more comfortable, it seems.

Proves my point

Yesterday I talked about the lack of enthusiasm I encounter when I speak Japanese to Japanese people whose English isn't great. Well, I experienced an example of that today.

I was at a Japanese store, and asked a guy, in English, where the fruit was. He was speaking Japanese with a female coworker, and I haven't seen him speak English with people before, so I didn't know if his English was good. But I used it anyway. He looked at me blankly, and so did his coworker, so I asked them in Japanese. The woman said in muddy English, "You speak Japanese" with a nervous smile, and spoke no Japanese with me, but pointed in the direction of the fruit, then told me in broken English that it was elsewhere as well.

If I had walked into a store in a Mexican neighborhood, they would've spoken Spanish once they discovered I could speak it. And a similar thing would happen in Chinatown, I'm sure. It wasn't as if I had asked the Japanese workers incorrectly where the fruit was, they just didn't want to continue in the language because, I think, I'm not Japanese, so broken English is better than me entering their language world.

So it's both ironic and convenient that such an incidence occurred the day after I had a post about it, lest anyone think I was making such an observation up.