Another Japanese book I'm trying to read

I have a few Japanese books that I've been reading over a long period of time, but one day I thought, "I need something else". So I went to a Japanese book store and bought Twitter社会論 - 新たなリアルタイム・ウェブの潮流 [discussing the Twitter society - the new real time wave trend]. It's interesting to see how an instant communication tool is affecting an ancient culture. I'll probably have more to say about it as I work through the book.

Death Note: I met one of the producers

I met an incredibly interesting Japanese guy who spent years working in Japanese TV and movies before doing media stuff for the Consulate. He told me that he worked on this movie, Death Note.

Got paid to do this

I'm very excited because I've been posting stuff here and at Gapersblock, which is a site about Chicago, but now I've actually gotten paid to post something via a "Community News Matters" grant (!): an interview with Chicago recording artist/producer J'mme Love, who's a really great guy.

Click here to read the article and see some of the pictures I took when I hung out in his neighborhood. I had a great time over there and met some really nice people. I definitely love doing interviews.

Now I have to calm down and study Japanese :D

Linguistic Mondegreens

Musical "mondegreens" have long been a source of amusement and laughter, perhaps because many of us have experienced them. A "mondegreen" is a misinterpretation of a phrase or statement, often applied to misheard song lyrics. For instance, Jimi Hendrix's "Scuse me while I kiss the sky" has been misheard as "Scuse me while I kiss this guy," and the line "there's a bad moon on the rise" from Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" has been misconstrued as "there's a bathroom on the right." Incidentally, the word "mondegreen" was coined in 1954 by US writer Sylvia Wright, who had misunderstood the line "They hae slain the Earl O' Moray/And laid him on the green" in the 17th-century ballad "The Ballad of Earl O'Murray" as "They hae slain the Earl O' Moray/And Lady Mondegreen."

Interestingly, there are linguistic "mondegreens" resulting from the mishearing of a word or phrase in a source language, leading to a mistranslation in the target language that is widely adopted, often by speakers who are completely unaware of the mistake.

One of the biggest musical hits in 1956 in the English-speaking world was a tune called "The Poor People of Paris." A version of the song by Les Baxter's Orchestra reached number one on the Billboard Top 100 record singles chart on March 24, 1956 and stayed there for six weeks. A few weeks later, on April 13, West Indian pianist Winifred Atwell hit number one on the UK Singles Chart with her version of "The Poor People of Paris." That would have been perfectly fine, except that this wasn't the correct name of the song.

"The Poor People of Paris" was taken from the French song "La goualante du Pauvre Jean," which has been recorded by such artists as Edith Piaf. The title literally means "The Ballad of Poor Jean." The problem is that "Pauvre Jean" ("Poor Jean") sounds exactly like "Pauvres Gens" ("Poor People"), as "Jean" and "Gens" are homophones, and the plural "s" in "Pauvres" is silent. Supposedly, the original title of the song was conveyed orally over the phone to the English-language adapter, who, without context, simply misinterpreted it and perhaps added the "of Paris" as an homage to the song's French origins. Hence, millions of music lovers have purchased and admired a tune about a big-time hustler that they have perhaps misunderstood as a moving number about the down-and-out masses of the French capital.

A similar misrendering of the English sentence "if I see you a third time, I'll scream" may have taken place in Israel/Palestine during the British occupation of the region, leading to a curious Hebrew idiom for "third time's a charm" or "we meet again," as Jacob Shwirtz explains:

The Hebrew expression for "third time’s a charm" is "pa’am shlishit glida," which translates to "third time is ice cream"; this term comes from the time of the British Mandate when the English would say, "If I see you a third time, I’ll scream." Israelis heard "ice cream" and the phrase stuck.

This theory, however, is somewhat controversial and has been challenged by Balashon. Nevertheless, it might be a sweet idea, when you unexpectedly run into someone on three consecutive occasions, to invite him/her for some ice cream.

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken.)

Japanese guilt

Ugh--I was consistently studying Japanese since the new year began (since it was my New Year's resolution), and this week I dropped the ball. I think it's because Chicago has finally had some decent weather, and I kept going outside to enjoy the sun instead of sitting around inside trying to figure out kanji. I'm just stating this publicly because I feel bad, and I really have to get my act together again. So tomorrow I will most likely wake up early and study before I go teach ESL (which I've been doing every week for the past few years).

Yes, it's great to see the sun but it doesn't help Japanese study or the development of my nerdiness :D

Interview with successful newspaper columnist

I've been in the blogging world for over five years, and until recently, I hardly knew any professional journalists, though it wasn't like I talked to them often even when I barely knew them. Lately I've met more professionals who have been writing for years, and they've been lucky to make money from writing and still do, even though the Biz is dwindling.

For my podcast, I did an interview with Phil Rosenthal, who's now a columnist with the Chicago Tribune, and who spent years before that writing for the Los Angeles Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times.

He talks about his career, the future of newspapers, and lots of other stuff. It might be interesting because it's usually hard to get such successful people to do a baby pod such as mine for a baby blog such as this :D

Listen to the interview at this link (mp3 file).

Live Music and Painting

I usually post here more frequently, but I've been quite busy this week, and by the time I got home yesterday, I'd been gone all day and night and had done so much, including driving over one hundred miles all around the northern suburbs of Chicago, that I was totally exhausted. I ended up falling asleep immediately, which is why I didn't post anything about the Dutch and American combo of art and music that I saw yesterday: The Mo(ve)ment Effect: Art Without Boundaries.

There are two painters: Royce Deans, who is American, and Tali Farchi, who moved from Israel to the Netherlands over 10 years ago (btw, she speaks Dutch, English, and Hebrew--impressive).

Tonight they're having a show in Chicago at Heaven Gallery at 10 pm. Tali and Royce will be painting to music performed by Wilbert de Joode (bass), Dave Rempis (reeds), and Mike Reed (drums). Wilbert de Joode is Dutch, so he and Tali came over to the US thanks to funding from various places, including The Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Chicago (I posted that name because it's long and fancy).

You can see videos of what they've done at their site.

Why can't you understand me?

It is said that it is possible for a Spanish-speaker to ask a Portuguese speaker for directions in Spanish and be fully understood. However, when the Portuguese speaker replies in Portuguese, the Spanish speaker may be completely lost. This may seem somewhat baffling, but the reason is that the two Romance languages share a degree of mutual intelligibility, but it is not absolute.

Mutual intelligibility is defined by Wikipedia as "a relationship between languages in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort." There are levels of mutual intelligibility ranging from zero to 100%. The only language with which English enjoys a relatively high level of mutual intelligibility is Lowland Scots, which is considered to be a separate language by some linguists and merely a dialect of English by others. This is not to be confused with Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language which is apparently fairly mutually intelligible with Irish Gaelic. There is extremely low mutual intelligibility between English and Scottish Gaelic.

Consequently, The Lowland Scots sentence "D'ye see yon hoose ower yonder" (Do you see that house off in the distance) would be relatively intelligible to an English speaker with no previous exposure to Lowland Scots.

But the Scottish Gaelic sentence "Dè an t-ainm a tha ort?" (What is your name?) would probably mean absolutely nothing to an English speaker with no previous exposure to Scottish Gaelic.

Some language sets enjoy a very high degree of mutual intelligibility. Norwegian and Swedish are, to a large degree, mutually intelligible, as are Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian. Conversely, sometimes different dialects of a particular language will lack a significant degree of mutual intelligibility.

In Mutual Intelligibility in the Romance Languages, Robert Lindsay writes:

What is interesting is that everyone accepts that Spanish, Portuguese and Italian are separate languages, despite 54% intelligibility for Spanish and Portuguese and even higher for Spanish and Italian.

However, in the cases of Austrian/Bavarian, Swabian (spoken around Stuttgart) and Mainfränkisch(Moselle Franconian, close to Luxembourgeois), these three languages are only 40% intelligible with Standard German. Their status as separate languages has infuriated lots of folks who just consider them to be dialects of German, or "cheap slangs" of some type or other. Yet they have a better case for being separate languages than Spanish, Portuguese and Italian do.

Mutual intelligibility can vary in degree with respect to the written and spoken varieties of languages. In many cases, written forms are more mutually intelligible than spoken forms as speakers of one language can recognize similar features more readily in spellings than in pronunciations. A simple example is English and Afrikaans. "My pen is in my hand." could be a sentence in English or Afrikaans, with an identical meaning and read correctly by monolingual speakers of both. However, the words are pronounced differently, which could inhibit comprehension. Furthermore, mutual intelligibility may not be equal on both sides. It is apparently easier for a Dutch speaker to understand Afrikaans than vice versa and statistically easier for a Portuguese speaker to understand Spanish than the other way around.

This brings up the point of the disparity between mutual intelligibility and lexical similarity (similarity of related words between languages). Differences in pronunciation and in the related forms themselves are largely responsible for this. An example is the Spanish word "tiempo," which is lexically similar to the French word "temps." Both mean "time" or "weather." Yet the pronunciations are so different that this could easily prevent comprehension. Lindsay writes:

We also learn, here, that no one can understand French except the French. Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, Romanians, no one can understand the damned French. This makes sense to me. I can’t understand a word of the local French-speaking tourists, and I had a semester of French. The always talk like they are holding their noses. This is interesting in light of the fact that Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Romanian have 89%, 75%, 75%, and 75% lexical similarity with French. But all those similar words aren’t worth a hill of beans when it comes to understanding a Frenchman." [no offense, of course, is meant towards the French!]

Mutual intelligibility may also decrease over time. English is very closely related to Frisian, spoken in Friesland in the Netherlands, and at one point, Old English and Old Frisian were thought to be mutually intelligible. Over the centuries, English and Frisian maintained some level of mutual intelligibility, giving rise to the sentence "Butter, bread, and green cheese is good English and good Fries," which is pronounced roughly the same and has the same meaning in both languages (in Frisian, it is "Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk"). Yet the two languages have drifted apart, with English upholding its 1000-year-old Norman French influence, and Frisian being influenced heavily by Dutch, to the extent that monolingual Frisian and English speakers probably could not understand each other today.

Lindsay addresses the subject: "Frisian and English have 61% lexical similarity, but in the Frisian video (featured in a prior post)...I could not make out a single word in five minutes. It appears that 60% lexical similarity and $1.89 will get you a Slurpee at a 7-11, but little in the way of understanding another language."

There is another pitfall with lexical similarity: false cognates. "Ano" exists in both Portuguese and Spanish, but while it means "year" in Portuguese, it means "anus" in Spanish. Similarly, a Spanish-speaking woman may be "embarazada," and an English-speaking woman may be "embarrassed." However, "embarazada" does not mean "embarrassed," but "pregnant."

Curiously, as some dialects of languages are more mutually intelligible than others (for example, some dialects of German and Dutch are more mutually intelligible than Standard German and Standard Dutch), it is thought that, by tracing a chain of mutually intelligible dialects, a "dialect continuum" may be established. In Europe, for example, Continental West Germanic, North Germanic, North Slavic, South Slavic, and Romance dialect continua are said to exist (see Wikipedia about "dialect continuum").

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken.)

Chat with Silas

Language fan and friend Silas McCracken, who's a guest poster here, said that he would do a chat (IM/text chat) with readers of this blog. I'm still waiting for him to give me an available date, but when it happens, which will be this month, I'll announce it here and at his Facebook fan page. So stay tuned!

I met this Elton John superfan

I met this guy and had no idea he was such a huge Elton John fan until I saw this video. His nickname is "Elton Jim", but I didn't know it had to do with his Elton John obsession. Jim is actually a really friendly guy, and he doesn't have a snobby attitude, even though he's on the radio everyday with Garry Meier, who's a well-known Chicago radio personality. So the next time I see him, which might be in a couple of days, I'm going to ask about his love for Elton John and maybe tell him about this post :D

Why is Toyoda Toyota?

Since I have a grasp of Japanese, people keep asking me why Toyota has a CEO named Akio Toyoda (who's the grandson of the founder of the company), because his name is spelled with a "d" instead of a "t". Here's the Japanese version of his name: 豊田章男 (Japan puts last names first, so it reads "Toyoda Akio").

Here's what's interesting: The first kanji 豊 is "toyo", which is one of the Japanese (kun) readings (as opposed to the Chinese "on" readings). But the second kanji is 田 "ta". It becomes "da" in the name because of lenition. An English version of such a sound change is when we say "waiter" like "waider": we pronounce the "t" like a "d" before the "er". So in Japanese the same thing happens: after certain sounds, the "t" becomes a "d".

So really, the name "Toyota" is a raw pronunciation of the founder's name. And what's even more interesting is what the Washington Post found out:

Writing "Toyoda" in Japanese requires 10 brush strokes...but writing "Toyota" requires eight..."Ten" consists of two strokes crossed against each other and resembles the "plus" symbol, or even a crossroads or an uncertain path. Not a good omen for a company.

And, according to the Detroit Free Press:

The number eight is considered good luck in Japan because of the way it is written: two strokes side by side, placed so that the character resembles an open mountain top.

So let's compare: this is 10 in Japanese: 十 and this is 8 in Japanese: 八

In Japanese, they decided to write the company's name in katakana instead of kanji, so "Toyoda" looks like トヨダ (10 strokes) and "Toyota looks like トヨタ (8 strokes). They decided on the latter.

What the Free Press gets wrong, however, is saying that the hard "t" sound is "softer" than the "d" sound. Even in English, "d" is softer than "t".

Well after I wrote all this, I decided to check out the popular Language Log (where linguists post, not simple language lovers like me), and saw that they discussed the topic in way more depth, including refuting what the newspapers reported.

So here's my obvious conclusion: it's ironic that they went to all that trouble to switch from "Toyoda" to "Toyota" because Americans pronounce it "Toyoda" anyway!

What I'm trying to read

In Japanese class, we were reading part of the book 盛田昭夫語録 [Morita Akio Sayings], which is about Akio Morita, who cofounded Sony. We read part of the sixth chapter 父を語る(盛田英夫) [Talking about Father (Morita Hideo)], where his son, Hideo, talks about growing up with his dad. Now I'm re-reading what we studied in class so that I can translate part of it to post here. So stay tuned...you'll find out in English what Akio Morita was like, at least from the perspective of his son.

Is Corporatese Truly "Value-Added"?

"Vision-Makers specializes in developing strategic solutions that take your company to the next level. Our mission is to become your turnkey partner for all your business performance and incentive needs; thereby helping you realize success. The focus on integrated business strategies that promote organizational growth through maximizing customer and employee performance. Through the power of incentives, we strive to create positive & measurable results. We offer a portfolio of quality products and services, which are distinguished by integrity, innovation and differentiation through teamwork. In today's increasingly complex marketplace, we understand that one principal stands apart from the rest. RELATIONSHIPS DRIVE BUSINESS."

This mission statement is the first page of a brochure issued by Vision-Makers of Marietta, Georgia, USA. Upon reading that, can you pinpoint exactly what Vision-Makers does or offers? I was not familiar with the company before reading that statement and, after reading that, had no idea as to what the company actually does. A "strategic solution" could be anything from the acquisition of new computer equipment to the acquisition of a new type of office toilet paper. "Integrated business strategies" could refer to scheduling meetings or choosing the best sandwich shop when ordering lunch for office staff. "Incentives" could be raises, opportunities for career development, days off, in-office massages, or gourmet coffee. "Quality products and services" does not specify the type of products or services (Whoopie cushions? Singing telegrams? Computer software? Employee placement?), the level of quality, or the standards for determining "good" or "bad quality." "RELATIONSHIPS DRIVE BUSINESS"? That states nothing but the obvious, since it would be difficult to transact business without a professional relationship of some sort with another party unless you enjoy doing business with yourself. And what exactly is a "turnkey partner"?

A perusal of the company website reveals further mystifying turns of phrase, such as "EmployeeExcite™ can do it all …with measurable results." The first part of the phrase, "can do it all" is simply false advertising, unless EmployeeExcite™ can fly to Jupiter, cure all ills, and develop calorie-free chocolate. And the second part, "with measurable results" is essentially meaningless since all, or at least nearly all, results of any kind are measurable, even if the measurement is zero. The same page exuberantly boasts "Customizable Turnkey Solutions…Right out of the Box!!!!!" Huh? What does this mean in concrete terms?

Many of us who have worked in nearly any capacity with a variety of corporations have encountered this impressive-sounding, but essentially vacuous lingo. Ambiguous phrases such as "leverage," "forward-thinking," and "value-added," which sound focused, professional, and assertive but are far from specific when deconstructed, are widely used these days in white-collar industries. There is, in fact, a name for this phenomenon: "Corporatese." Wikipedia defines Corporatese rather disturbingly as such: "Closely related to Politically correct phraseology and George Orwell's concept of Newspeak, Corporatese is corporate jargon characterized by sometimes unwieldy elaborations of common English phrases. It may dramatize or conceal the real meaning of what is being said."

Not everyone has been hoodwinked by Corporatese. For instance, the poll What's the Most Annoying Corporate Catchphrase shows "Give it 110%" winning so far (for the record, I voted for "leverage"). And I suspect that, the more these empty terms and phrases are used, the more cliched they will become and perhaps actually backfire, reflecting negatively upon the professionals who use them.

Wikipedia has compiled a list of examples of Corporatese and other illustrations of Corporate Jargon. I suspect that you will recognize a number of these terms.

My thanks to Ms. Liz Hunyadi for suggesting the topic of this post.

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken.)

Video of Queen Elizabeth about Diana's death

I just watched the movie The Queen on TV, which I already saw in the theater when it first came out, and I still think it's excellent. If you haven't seen it, you should. In the movie, there is a dramatization of the Queen speaking about Diana's death on TV, and below is the original broadcast of that speech.

Do not buy a video or DVD player from JVC!

In case you're looking for a video and DVD player and recorder, do NOT buy anything from JVC. Just after the one-year warranty expired, our video/DVD player/recorder broke, and when we called JVC, they didn't care. They just told us to pay to get it repaired.

No wonder they don't offer any extended warranties: they probably figure it's better to sell inferior quality products, have them break down, and then make us pay to get them fixed, which means more money for them. Some people don't think it's worth it to pay to get something fixed, so they just buy a new one. But it would mean hundreds of dollars wasted for us, so we have to unfortunately pay to keep the product going, which we regret buying.

Curiously, some JVC offices are in Illinois, which is where I live, but the products are made in Indonesia, so they probably don't have much control or care about how they're produced thousands of miles away.

Contrast JVC's response to the nice response I got from Sony. We still have a Sony TV from the mid-1990's, and it works perfectly.

The JVC model we have that's now useless is DR-MV100B. I'm just posting it here so that you don't make the same mistake we did.

Paris in a Box

A coworker who knows I'm really into language and international stuff gave me a cute gift: Paris in a Box. I love it!

This kit comes with mementos to add French ambiance to your space, including a mini Eiffel Tower, a French flag with stand, three Parisian magnets with French sayings, and a 32-page book containing the top twenty-five reasons to love Paris.

Now I just have to go to Paris--I still have never been there, and have read and heard so much about it!

ハッピー・バレンタインデー

To continue my new year's resolution to consistently study Japanese, I've decided to title my Valentine's Day post in Japanese (though it's of course in katakana since China nor Japan invented it).

There's an article about Valentine's Day in easy-to-read Japanese (they provide all the furigana for any kanji you might not know) at the Yomiuri online. It seems like the articles are for people to learn Japanese, but they are part of a series of English learning articles. Maybe they're for both English and Japanese speakers, since the information is in easy Japanese with some English phrases thrown in. There's also a cute video that will help you practice English with Japanese accents.

This book delivers

I just read Kathy Griffin's new book, and while it has her typical vulgarity, which I'm not a fan of (and would never tell her because she derides people who think that way), it really delivers. This is why: she gives good info about various people in the entertainment biz, talks about her personal struggles with guys and food, reveals secrets about her family including her criminal brother, and even gives good advice for becoming successful. Well, I think I saw just a couple of cases of direct advice, but through her story you learn about how tenacity and hard work can open doors. And meeting the right people, of course. I also like how she expresses her honest envy of people who achieve fame from barely doing anything. Check out the preview below (many pages of the book are included).

When a French kiss is not a kiss

As Valentine's Day is approaching, many individuals are discussing (or avoiding discussions of) kisses, hugs, and love. Explaining these concepts in certain languages may sometimes be more difficult than expected if a non-native speaker is relying on first-language logic and cognates. 
 
In Spanish, the logic generally follows English. A kiss/to kiss is "un beso"/"besar," and a hug/to hug is "un abrazo"/"abrazar." Similarly, in Portuguese, the same distinction is made: "um beijo"/"beijar" vs. "um abraço"/"abraçar." Moving across the Romance-language spectrum, we find the same logic in Italian with "bacio"/"baciare" vs. "abbraccio"/"abbracciar." We run into major and potentially VERY embarrassing snags when we get to French. 
 
At one point, French followed its Latin brethren, with cognates "un baiser"/"baiser" vs. "une embrassade"/"embrasser" referring to smooching and embracing.  But then something changed. Radically. Confusingly.  
 
A thread on wordreference.com describes the situation:

 
As I see it, the confusion about kissing and hugging got started in the 17th century. The exquisite preciosity (and hypocrisy) of the Versailles courtisans - who called teeth "the furnishings of the mouth", for example - made it popular among them to describe having sex with someone as "kissing" them. It was less crude, but more ambiguous too, and it soon lost its euphemistic sense and became a word just as rude as f---. The result is that, until today, if you say that a couple is baise-ing, it means they are f***ing, et point final!

This expropriation, however, created a need for a substitute to describe the simple act of kissing someone, now that “baiser” had been irretrievably expropriated for another purpose. The solution created even more confusion - the verb "embrasser", to embrace, began to be used (or misused) instead.

The result of all this is that in current French one has to find all sorts of round-about ways of describing these simple acts. For example, to say "I want to kiss you", you can choose between "Je veux t'embrasser" or – curiously - "Je veux te donner un baiser", since the noun did not meet the same fate as the verb.

“I want to hug you” is even worse, since this gesture is not very French and, what with “embrasser” now meaning “to kiss”, has to be described in detail: "Je veux t'entourer des bras", "Je veux t'enlacer", or still "Je veux te serrer dans mes bras". Curiously again, the noun retains its original meaning – the seldom used “une embrassade” still means “an embrace”.

Talk about a potential minefield of traps for non-native speakers! Consequently, "Je veux te donner un baiser" is a perfectly innocent way to say "I want to give you a kiss," yet "Je veux te baiser" means something far more intimate. And "I want to give you a hug" comes across more like an instruction manual than a simple desire, as constructions such as "I want to squeeze you with my arms" or "I want to wrap you in my arms" are generally used.   
 
As for what English-speakers call a French kiss (i.e. a tongue kiss), in France it is often called (politely) as "un baiser amoureux" ("a love kiss"), with the verb "to French kiss" being "embrasser avec la langue" ("to kiss with the tongue"). In Quebec (Canada), however, the anglicism "frencher" is sometimes used as the verb-in French. Now that's ironic! 

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken.)

Facebook in Japanese is fun!

I've been using Facebook in British English, but today I decided to mix it up and use it in Japanese. It's really great! Since I've already seen a lot of the stuff in English, I can figure out what the Japanese is, but if I want to understand all the kanji, then I go to my beloved Popjisyo to get the exact reading.

There are many cool things about the Japanese version, including: the use of さん (san) after everyone's name, the politeness of the Facebookチーム because in English they usually say nothing in an email alert, but in Japanese they have the formal closing phrase よろしくお願いいたします. And if you "like" someone's status or link, it becomes "いいね！" in Japanese. And of course, it's neato to see all the Japanese everywhere. Very cool and I highly recommend using Facebook in a language that you're learning because it's good practice. And nerdy fun!