120 replies to this topic

[Cthulhufish]

どうしてローマ字を使いますか。読みにくい…

I strongly recommend Rikaichan or Rikaikun (addons for Firefox and Chrome, respectively) for anyone interested in Japanese as a second language. I strongly recommend avoiding Google Translate until you can actually write paragraphs and such on your own, on paper. Google Translate is only good for single words or very short phrases in Japanese, and even then it can get kind of iffy.

Edited by Cthulhufish, 23 October 2012 - 07:21 AM.

[Sainamu]

Friend me and I can translate in game for ppl if you need/want it.


私は二年間で日本に住んでいたんです。でも、二年生か四年生まで漢字を読めるんですが。
I lived in japan for two years. However, I can only read 2nd and maybe up to 4th year kanji.

But for in game purposes, I should be fine. Including smack talk.

[Omdra]

Sainamu, on 23 October 2012 - 10:17 AM, said:

Friend me and I can translate in game for ppl if you need/want it.


私は二年間で日本に住んでいたんです。でも、二年生か四年生まで漢字を読めるんですが。
I lived in japan for two years. However, I can only read 2nd and maybe up to 4th year kanji.

But for in game purposes, I should be fine. Including smack talk.

in that case, you might want to consider a career in the DCMS

rgds
Om

[Kestrel150]

Just started reading through this now. thanks very much! im learning japanese too so this may be quite helpful!

[Atlessa]

Cthulhufish, on 23 October 2012 - 07:18 AM, said:

I strongly recommend Rikaichan or Rikaikun (addons for Firefox and Chrome, respectively) for anyone interested in Japanese as a second language.

... well now I got a problem.
English is my second language, japanese would be my fifth.

Does that mean those addons are not for me?

[The Helepolis]

This almost makes me want to work for House Kurita, just give me a Hatamoto Chi :U

Staying a Merc though, wouldn't mind using these in-game if playing with House Kurita. Hope to play with you guys sometime!

Edited by IronWolf Vascus, 26 October 2012 - 11:59 AM.

[Cthulhufish]

Atlessa, on 26 October 2012 - 11:50 AM, said:

... well now I got a problem.
English is my second language, japanese would be my fifth.

Does that mean those addons are not for me?

Well, sadly for you, there is very little market for fifth language support.

[Mister Haha]

you can't say "lock aru?" because there is no LO. it'd be more like ロック "rokku aru?"

and really, nobody's going to know what the hell you're saying, so it doesn't matter

more polite ending would be "arimasuka" or "aruka"

[Draken X]

Mister Haha, on 30 October 2012 - 01:16 AM, said:

more polite ending would be "arimasuka" or "aruka"

Should it be "de arimasu" instead?

Since you guys have open up a Japanese class in here, I wouldn't mind if I could brush up my Japanese in here.

[Rayspace]

The answer is "No" - google translate says Who do you speak Japanese so it might be a little off.

[Sawa963]

Cool post. I was surprised how much of this sounded familiar to me.

anime ftw I guess

[Ohgodtherats]

AceTimberwolf, on 01 March 2012 - 08:33 PM, said:

Well its here if anyone wants to Learn any Japanese Terms or is interested in more of the Ideals or Battletech Japanese as it comes up when you read the Books. I actually thought it was quite interesting seeing how multilingual people were int he BT universe. I wonder if in the 80s of the Japanese Econ Bubble they focus more on that. Perhaps if it were now would they focus more on the Chinese side of things

That's the first time I've seen anyone other than myself have that idea! I think that explains a lot about the blanket asian treatment that the universe portrays.

[AceTimberwolf]

Mister Haha, on 30 October 2012 - 01:16 AM, said:

you can't say "lock aru?" because there is no LO. it'd be more like ロック "rokku aru?"

and really, nobody's going to know what the hell you're saying, so it doesn't matter

more polite ending would be "arimasuka" or "aruka"

I've been working with the Japanese Government and Tokyo University for the last few years and the L is coming back. It was because Portuguese explorers were the first ones to come to Japan that they told everyone when they got back from Japan that the R and L where mixed up because they don't have a solid L or Solid R in their language, it is a half R half L which confuses the Spansih speakers who learn Portugese. As the Centuries went by the half R half L stuck on the western side of things and we think that linguistically they are incapable of distinguishing between the two. Now if you've lived in Japan you know that the Coastal towns that had Portuguese contact or where modern Brazilians live they have trouble with the two. To the North the R rules dominantly to the English R or even a Spanish trilled R. Japanese People study English since kindergarten so even Foreign words are being kept in their foreign setting as of recently without using katakana. so ロック is now really Lock. Black Ops II had the same problem. They did a bad translation of the English equivalents when they should have kept them in English because the generation of Players may not like to speak English Openly but they can at least Write and Read. as for ロックある？is linguistically correct as it is descriptive and with inflections in Japanese a upward inflection on ある means a question. Same goes with other verbs. 病院行く？Go to Hospital?寝る？Sleep？It is casual and more efficient as to is obvious to what you are talking about. Arimasu ka is the formal and Aru ka is casual. also acceptable would be Aru no. And anyways in 3050 Lock Aru? makes sense anyways as it makes sense now. You should live in Japan for awhile see how much its changed. I remember jsut in the early 2000s how different it was. I live about an hour out from Tokyo so that is what i see mroe of but even in Mie or near shizuka and nagashima it has changed by leaps in bounds with language and structure

Draken X, on 30 October 2012 - 06:06 AM, said:

Should it be "de arimasu" instead?

Since you guys have open up a Japanese class in here, I wouldn't mind if I could brush up my Japanese in here.

de arimasu is antiquated. formal would have to be arimasu on its own

Edited by AceTimberwolf, 26 November 2012 - 11:21 AM.

[Hayashi]

De arimasu and arimasu are quite different. De arimasu is 1/2 of desu, the other half being de imasu.

Desu is a contraction used to simplify things. Technically 'watashi wa Hayashi desu' would probably be 'watashi wa Hayashi de imasu', and 'sore wa MechWarrior desu' is 'sore wa MechWarrior de arimasu'.

But the de arimasu and de imasu forms are horribly antiquated. It probably used to be the case that changing form to honorific form would change all de arimasu to de gozaimasu and all de imasu to de irasshaimasu, but as of now de gozaimasu has become formal form while de irasshaimasu has become honorific form, irrespective of whether you're referring to an item or a person, because the de arimasu and de imasu forms they came from were collapsed into a single desu, making the original distinction irrelevant.

It's kind of hard (read: probably impossible) to learn Japanese from an online forum like this. 2 years of formal instruction from native speaker instructors and spending time with native speaker friends later, my Japanese is still nowhere near what a native's proficiency would be. If you're interested to learn I would really advocate finding a language school near you.

Where I study, Japanese is the #1 hardest foreign language (Mandarin Chinese is the #1 hardest language, but it's not considered foreign) that is offered by the university. It has the largest enrollment rate, accounting for 50% of the language school enrollment at level 1, but because of its difficulty has the highest dropout rate, reducing to 20% of the overall enrollment by level 6. The main difficulty is the grammar - which online translation sites are incapable of replicating, resulting in debacles like 'all your base are belong to us'.

There are theoretical grammar considerations and usage grammar considerations as well - and between the two, what is used commonly will be considered as more correct even if it flies in the face of theory. A good example would be denwa - as it is a Mandarin-direct translated word, denwa should be prefaced by go, making it ご電話, but in practice, it is prefaced by o instead of go, for unknown historical reasons.

As such, unless you have a good reason for doing so, deferring to the native speaker while learning is more likely to be correct than not, and learning to accept that what you thought was correct is actually wrong/has exceptions is more or less an everyday thing when you start learning, particularly at higher levels. Humility has a large part in Japanese culture, and you can't learn the language properly without picking up some of the culture as well.

Using one without the other would REALLY annoy the native speakers for one thing.

Edited by Hayashi, 26 November 2012 - 12:20 PM.

[AceTimberwolf]

Hayashi, on 26 November 2012 - 12:07 PM, said:

De arimasu and arimasu are quite different. De arimasu is 1/2 of desu, the other half being de imasu.

Desu is a contraction used to simplify things. Technically 'watashi wa Hayashi desu' would probably be 'watashi wa Hayashi de imasu', and 'sore wa MechWarrior desu' is 'sore wa MechWarrior de arimasu'.

But the de arimasu and de imasu forms are horribly antiquated. It probably used to be the case that changing form to honorific form would change all de arimasu to de gozaimasu and all de imasu to de irasshaimasu, but as of now de gozaimasu has become formal form while de irasshaimasu has become honorific form, irrespective of whether you're referring to an item or a person, because the de arimasu and de imasu forms they came from were collapsed into a single desu, making the original distinction irrelevant.

It's kind of hard (read: probably impossible) to learn Japanese from an online forum like this. 2 years of formal instruction from native speaker instructors and spending time with native speaker friends later, my Japanese is still nowhere near what a native's proficiency would be. If you're interested to learn I would really advocate finding a language school near you.

Where I study, Japanese is the #1 hardest foreign language (Mandarin Chinese is the #1 hardest language, but it's not considered foreign) that is offered by the university. It has the largest enrollment rate, accounting for 50% of the language school enrollment at level 1, but because of its difficulty has the highest dropout rate, reducing to 20% of the overall enrollment by level 6. The main difficulty is the grammar - which online translation sites are incapable of replicating, resulting in debacles like 'all your base are belong to us'.

There are theoretical grammar considerations and usage grammar considerations as well - and between the two, what is used commonly will be considered as more correct even if it flies in the face of theory. A good example would be denwa - as it is a Mandarin-direct translated word, denwa should be prefaced by go, making it ご電話, but in practice, it is prefaced by o instead of go, for unknown historical reasons.

As such, unless you have a good reason for doing so, deferring to the native speaker while learning is more likely to be correct than not, and learning to accept that what you thought was correct is actually wrong/has exceptions is more or less an everyday thing when you start learning, particularly at higher levels. Humility has a large part in Japanese culture, and you can't learn the language properly without picking up some of the culture as well.

Using one without the other would REALLY annoy the native speakers for one thing.

I don't think i've ever seen de imasu in any setting. I think the de iru wasn't used for more time before de aru was stopped being used. probably before the ゑ Stopped being used.

Edited by AceTimberwolf, 26 November 2012 - 12:57 PM.

[Hayashi]

De aru is still being used in some very limited settings. I think it's commonplace in sumo, IIRC. De iru, or de imasu, is very antiquated.

[AceTimberwolf]

Hayashi, on 26 November 2012 - 12:56 PM, said:

De aru is still being used in some very limited settings. I think it's commonplace in sumo, IIRC. De iru, or de imasu, is very antiquated.

De Aru and Aru and Desu are equivalent in literature with De Aru and Aru are both existent in their temporal forms with respect to something being there. De Aru and Desu are Equivalent when talking about a State of being. Somewhat confusing but not important if you are trying to learn Japanese. The Japanese Version of the The Dhammapada was a good example fo the De Aru form and various uses.

[Grissnap]

AceTimberwolf, on 26 November 2012 - 01:02 PM, said:

De Aru and Aru and Desu are equivalent in literature with De Aru and Aru are both existent in their temporal forms with respect to something being there. De Aru and Desu are Equivalent when talking about a State of being. Somewhat confusing but not important if you are trying to learn Japanese. The Japanese Version of the The Dhammapada was a good example fo the De Aru form and various uses.

横から失礼します。

Or you could end everything with であります just to sound like the main character from Keroro Gunso.

ではでは、

[Karosma]

Tengo Kawana, on 08 May 2012 - 06:37 AM, said:

Thank you, AceTimberwolf! I saved your post for all the suggestions. I'd love to try the Okonomiyaki, considering authentic Japanese food is scarce on the East Coast and especially so in my city. My friends have already warned me to stay away from Rappongi and, as I understand it, it's pretty much the center for foreigners looking to party but not a great place to immerse yourself in the culture. I prefer to stay off the beaten path when I travel, even in large, international cities. I can't wait for the food!

Like Timberwolf-sama said, Hiroshima has great Okonomiyaki, considering it's the city where the food was created. The Peace Park is also a neat place to visit. I miss the JR rides up from Iwakuni to Hiroshima to go to the Mall or have a drink at Molly Molone's (Can't remember the correct romaji for that). Heh, and the Chu-hi Challenges while on the train rides. And for another slightly off-the-beaten path, I'd suggest visiting the island of Miyajima. It's a small island with large Buddhist shrine that takes hours to see completely. It's about another 15 minute train-ride southwest of Hiroshima. Also, make sure you hand-feed the deer there!

[Karosma]

AceTimberwolf, on 07 May 2012 - 10:22 PM, said:

If you are in Tokyo you should stay away from Roppongi, Don't need a big black guy pushing you into a random elevator and end up in a random hostess bar. Hit up Odaiba and go to the Malla nd the Sega Arcade. All the Toyota Museum is kinda fun. I don't go to Tokyo too often but there are a few things you can do. Tokyo Tower and SkyTree, Horumonyaki if you can find one (delicious!). if you stop by Kasukabe 2nd Best Fried Chicken and Best Chasu Ramen in Japan. and the Robinsons. You can also go to Saitama Prefecture Mall. Try not to buy anything in Akihabara too expensive. If you end up in Hiroshima north of peace park (or even in Kyoto) some bad *** Okonomiyaki. You can hit up Fujiwara if u want to see the underbelly of Tokyo. Kinda interesting not too many American Tourist (Some Koreans and Chinese). If anything for something really awesome go to Nikko on a Day Trip taking the Train. Some great scenery and hiking and exploring. Maybe HIt up Omiya for Shopping. Most people go to Asakusa but try not to be tempted on buying stuff you can usually find stuff cheaper somewhere else.

Isn't that what Roppongi was meant for? But seriously, Hiroshima has amazing okonomiyaki. In Iwakuni, I'd always go to Coco Ichiban, or a yakiniku place called Jan Jakka. I also miss having matcha ice cream after a hike at Miyajima or the cherry blossom festival near Kintai-kyo. Nostalgia is a *****.... :\