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'Close reading' for languages - albion - 2009-08-28

I was talking with someone who said that the hardest part about enjoying Japanese media was understanding the dialogue, so I wanted to try something to do with that. The idea was based on close reading except more focused on language learning, and the format of the old 'Mangajin' magazine when I realised it was similar in style as what I was thinking about, and probably a dozen of other books and sites doing the same. I don't tend to study/look very closing at the stuff I watch or read, so I wanted to try it for myself as well.

The concept (from the close reading idea) is to just take a small part of something, rather than the whole lot, so it's a bit easier and not too longer to get through. I only included things I had either looked up, or asked people about first, so nothing I've just thought was right. But even so, I might have messed up somewhere since explaining things was a lot more difficult than I had thought it would be. But this is what I came up with, and any comments or corrections are welcome:

http://wan-scene.blogspot.com/2009/08/persona-4_28.html

It's still a bit trial-and-error on the format, which I already changed twice just today before posting (and once afterwards).

While making it, I got interested to see what other people might come up with. My idea was to just take an early scene (beginning of an episode, etc.) from a variety of things, but it could work in other ways (or other languages; I'd like to find something like that in Spanish). Focusing on one series, doing a news article a week, etc.

'Close reading' for languages - albion - 2009-08-29

I don't know if it was quite the same, but there was the 'Manga Study Group/MSG' here which involved translating manga chapters. There hasn't been one in a while, but I don't see why anyone couldn't start a new one if there's interest, or even in something different like books/novels [or at least parts of them].

IceCream Wrote:When i read the sentences translated into english in Japanese order, my brain kind of freezes. Which is kind of weird when i understand the Japanese and the english sentence....
That was one of the things I added later, which I thought might help with understanding what each part is doing. I thought that was the format the Mangajin magazine used, but looking at it again they just translated normally then broke down the words afterwards. I thought the idea came from there but maybe not, or they just only did it occationally. I found it a bit hard to do, since I can read the sentences and just skip past stuff, so things that might need clarifying for some I could just skip straight past.

But it's still early and I might drop that later. It (the whole thing, really) was only meant as a kind of first step to try and help get used to reading/hearing Japanese, then as you go on that's going to build up, understanding more and more while seeing the stuff you've seen being used elsewhere. I'm not a teacher and never really intended it to be complete or anything, hence skipping basic grammar and particles, etc., but I have wondered about including those as well. It would just be a lot more work, and it was already quite a lot of work already. (Though that might have been my way of working through it, I'm hoping it'll go more smoothly next time.) I guess it depends on reactions to it. Which isn't very much so far, but it's only been a day and I've not really whored it out except this post and a couple of friends.

'Close reading' for languages - ruiner - 2009-08-29

Lots of good ideas here that I'm going to process and work out alongside the custom ecology/semantic domain/exegesis stuff I've been thinking about lately, but I doubt I've any currently functional ideas here especially as regarding a group effort. Still, *something* involving deconstruction/annotation between Manga Way and Read Real Japanese, and beyond, &c., would be good.

'Close reading' for languages - bombpersons - 2009-08-29

How about we have a group discussions about a manga series? (not bothering to translate, but could bring up sentences that you aren't too sure of) Do we have a common manga we all read? The only manga I'm reading regulary is One Piece and ToLoveる (though toloveru just finished =()

'Close reading' for languages - travis - 2009-08-29

This format is similar to the Assimil method. In Assimil on the left page you have kanji with furigana and romaji, on the right page a correct translation as well as word for word. Something like:

Left:
見ましたか。
何を。
ピカソ展。
まだです。
いいですよ。
そうですか。
あした行きます。

Right:
Did you see it? have seen / [question]
What? what / [object]
The Picasso Exhibition. Picasso - exhibition
Not yet. not yet / it is
It's really good! really good / it is / [engagement]
Really? so / it is / [question]
I'll go tomorrow. tomorrow / go

'Close reading' for languages - albion - 2009-08-30

Thanks for your comments.

IceCream Wrote:hey, i finally got time to read through your whole thing... i just learned a ton of grammar from it Wink ty!

here's some things i would explain differently, but they could be wrong, i'm not at as high a level as you, so don't take them too seriously.... for some reason it didn't let me post on your blog...
Trying it just now, it didn't work for me either. Maybe it was something in the template code, but I changed it to a different sort of comment format instead. I haven't tried making a comment but managed to get the comment screen up, at least.

Quote:
albion Wrote:とする is used with adverbs to describe characteristics. For example:
きちんとした部屋 ＝ a tidy [neat] room
I'm not sure that this is an example of it. Isn't it: きちんと　した　部屋. as in, きちんと neat, きちんとする neatly done.
I thought that きちんと was a separate adverb on its own, but thinking on it now that was a bit I wasn't quite sure about at first that seems to have slipped through. Naming grammar isn't really something I have much experience with. I'll have to look into that some more.

Quote:
albion Wrote:「けど夢にしても面白い話だね、それ。」
“But – a dream – even for – interesting – talk/story – is, isn't it – that.”
(CHIE: That'd be one interesting dream, though.)
About this, has the translation made it different then? I'd read it like, even if it was (only) a dream, it's (still) an interesting story. Am i getting something wrong?
That was the translation from the English release of the game, but looking at it now it might be worth changing. I had included another more literal translation I had done before, but took it out after adding the broken-down version because I thought it was getting too crowded.

I remember now I meant to include a note for にしても, which I why I didn't think much about changing the translation (since the note should have covered for the difference). Even though it's in English, I wanted to try to not always just go for word-for-word substitutions ('Japanese X means English Y') when talking about grammar, although that might be simpler. But having a go at an explanation anyway (translated from the book 「日本語文型辞典」)：

…にしても
「たとえ失敗作であるにしても十分に人を引き付ける魅力がある」
「子供のいたずらにしても笑って済ませられる問題ではない」
（５）「いくら貧しいにしても人から施しは受けたくない」
"Even if the work is a failure, it [still] has plenty of appeal which draws people in."
"Even if it was a child's prank, it's not a matter that can be laughed off."
5) "No matter how poor I am, I don't want people's charity."

「…で述べられているような事態であることをかりに認めた場合でも」という意味を表す。後ろには、そこから当然予測されることとは食い違うことがらが述べられる。（５）のように「いくら」「どんなに」などの疑問詞と共に用いられることも多い。
Expresses the meaning "even assuming that [one] acknowledges ...". What follows is a statement which differs from what would naturally be assumed from the former comment. As in (5), it is often used with interrogative words such as いくら and どんなに.

Does that sound all right?

Quote:
albion Wrote:ら しい shows that the speaker believes what they had said to be very certain. These are objective views based on information from other sources or their own observations, and not what they suppose or guess.
hmm, i kind of thought らしい was still a type of seems, but kind of more like, the academic "seems" that they use to soften a statement from criticism. As in, it's an inference or conclusion they have come to from some kind of (objective) evidence, but it still is just an inference, and not certain.
That definition came from the book mentioned above. That's the only definition it had fitting this usage (the other was for 子供らしい, etc.), but perhaps it just didn't include other definitions. The full explanation was:

（１）「天気予報によると明日（あす）は雨らしい」
（５）「兄はどうも試験がうまくいかなかったらしく、帰ってくるなり部屋に閉じ込もってしまった」
(1) "According to the weather forecast it will rain tomorrow."
(5) "I don't think my brother did well in his exam; he's locked himself away in his room as soon as he got home."

文末に付いて、話し手がその内容をかなり確実度の高いことがらであると思っていることを表す。その判断の根拠は外部からの情報や観察可能なことがらなど客観的なものであり、単なる想像ではない。例えば（１）は、「雨らしい」と判断したのは、天気予報という情報によるものだということ。（５）は、「試験がうまくいかなかったらしい」と判断したのは「帰ってくるなり部屋に閉じ込もってしまった」という状況からだということ。

Attaches to the end of a sentence, and expresses the speaker's belief that what they have said has a high certainty. The basis of their conclusion lies in objective sources such as information from outside sources and observable things, and is not mere guessing. For example, in (1), the reason they concluded it would rain is due to information from the weather report. In (5), the conclusion that 'his exam didn't do well' comes from situation of his brother 'locking himself up in his room as soon as he got home'.

According to the book, the expressions in this group (?) go something like this:
- みたいだ for your suppositions based on things you've seen/heard/smelt but aren't certain of
- らしい for things you've heard from directly from others
- そうだ for what someone has told you personally

Quote:
albion Wrote:「処刑・とか・そういう・アピール？　怖すぎ～」
Sitting girl student: “Execution – or such – that kind of – appeal? Too scary~”
(SITTING GIRL: Is it supposed to be like, mimicking an execution? It's messed up...)
ア ピール means to show off something, such as the good points of something. In this case, the girl is asking if the killing was showing off that this was an execution (as opposed to just a murder) by doing that to the body.
Using とか and そういう like this shows she’s uncertain and just guessing.
Well, i don't exactly get the context for this, but, why wouldn't it be more like,
"Executions and things have that kind of appeal?!? Too scary!!!" as in, someone likes those kind of executions?
That bit was hard, since I wasn't really sure what the word meant myself and haven't finished the game myself so I don't know if there's other scenes which would help explain it.

From asking people, the general sense I got from it was that the 'appeal' here was to show or let people know about the killing, like an public execution, rather than just killing them and hiding it or something. (At least in the character's view of it.) 'Drawing attention to it' might be a better explanation? Perhaps I'll have to look into this one again as well.

'Close reading' for languages - albion - 2009-09-01

IceCream Wrote:"expresses the speaker's belief that what they have said has a high certainty."
these two things, to me, are totally seperate. In the 1st case, it's a matter of either how reliable your source is, or how good your inference is. For instance, not using らしい for certain types of gossip (unless you wanted to make it sound like you had some kind of inside knowledge about it, or something). And, the fact that it is a conclusion that has been inferred from something also, i thought was important.
For instance, saying that, according to the weather forecast, it will rain tomorrow. It's from some data taken about weather conditions that the conclusion that it will rain has been inferred.
Looking it up some more, it's a conclusion based on information you're received. According to the answers here:

http://oshiete.coneco.net/qa5003709.html

「明日雨が降るそうだ」 would mean you're putting your full faith in the weather report.
「明日雨が降るらしい」 would mean that you'd decided that the weather report is correct and to trust it.

http://oshiete.sponichi.co.jp/qa4999575.html

But according to a comment here, らしい is inference and not hearsay (but inference based on hearsay/etc., a roundabout conclusion). It doesn't have to be based on what you're heard.

　「明日雨が降るらしい」: you've concluded yourself based on the movements of the clouds.
　「彼女結婚したらしい」: you've noticed that she's wearing a ring he hadn't been wearing before.

And that while そうだ is strictly quoting someone and putting you under no responsibility for it being correct or not, with らしい it's your conclusion and you had some responsibility if it turns out to be wrong.

http://repository.aichi-edu.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/10424/1412/1/shuron-20-35.pdf
http://dspace.wul.waseda.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2065/3499/1/34015.pdf

I've not read these yet, so I don't know if it goes into detail about the differences.

Quote:However, with the second bit, it seems to address the personal beliefs of the speaker.
So, for instance, i thought it would be possible to say, "It seems that the crime rate has gone down recently" because you've heard a report about crime rates going down. But, couldn't you also still use らしい if you didn't really believe it had gone down, but that the figures were made up?
hmm, do you, or anyone, know how the sentence should differ in a case where you don't believe it? Would you just add って or something maybe? Or can you not use らしい in this case at all?
I think, since it's って, she's relaying what someone else has said? So it's someone else who came to the conclusion (after hearing something/seeing Konishi with the police), and she's just telling her friend what someone else as said?

I think I'll definitely look more into this.

Edit; looking at the line, of course it is her quoting someone else (先輩が言ってて).