(2016-06-14, 1:42 pm)ariariari Wrote: But I was also out with a friend recently who just passed the N1. He just started memorizing the 4 kanji phrases (yojijukugo). He reads a lot of novels and now says that he sees them everywhere. So I guess that it happens at all levels!

I've been wondering about these. Wondering how helpful it would be to memorize a few at a sub n3 level. Katsuo has a spreadsheet broken down by frequency. But how common exactly are the most frequent ones?

(2016-06-14, 2:14 pm)yogert909 Wrote:

(2016-06-14, 1:42 pm)ariariari Wrote: But I was also out with a friend recently who just passed the N1. He just started memorizing the 4 kanji phrases (yojijukugo). He reads a lot of novels and now says that he sees them everywhere. So I guess that it happens at all levels!

I've been wondering about these.  Wondering how helpful it would be to memorize a few at a sub n3 level.  Katsuo has a spreadsheet broken down by frequency.  But how common exactly are the most frequent ones?

It's cool to see them all in a list! I am not planning to memorize any now myself, but I do know that I already know 2 of them:

一生懸命

以心伝心


The first one is in textbooks at my level. The second one I learned from coworkers when on JET, and I really liked the phrase, so it stuck!

You'll probably run across the ones you'll need in books dedicated to the JLPT.

They show up all the time in novels, though, so it's worth learning some of them; it's a little easier on me to just pick them up as I go, though, since they're usually either incredibly obvious (一石二鳥), obvious after looking them up, or incredibly vague and based on some old tale.
Can't think of good examples for those latter categories at the moment, almost out of time.

4 kanji? How about 逆行性健忘症? Heard this one yesterday in a visual novel. But of course, 記憶喪失 is more commonly used.

"Of course"... wait a second, why would that be obvious to anyone at N3 level (lol)? Pretty sure I'm an exception. I've heard this word so many times in visual novels - Ever17, Remember11, 999, Virtue's Last Reward, Root Double... yeah.

Oh yeah, the other day I also learned 形態形成場仮説. The full word will only be useful to know while playing Zero Escape, but sometimes the smaller chunks that make up the word are relatively useful to learn. This reminds me of the first time I saw 原子力発電所 on NHK easy news and decided to make a flashcard, but wasn't sure whether to make a single card with several definitions or a main card, one for 原子, another one for 発電, and perhaps even 原子力.

In some cases, you're pretty much just learning collocations, as in 記憶喪失. 仮説 and 症 can be used as suffixes, so it's always good to learn these as well if you don't already know them.

(2016-06-14, 2:09 pm)yogert909 Wrote:

(2016-06-14, 1:20 pm)gaiaslastlaugh Wrote: I swear to God that "word blindness" is a thing. I'll learn a word and be like, "Huh, I wonder why I've never seen that word before" - and then, suddenly, it's everywhere. I guess the brain's noise filter just tosses the word out as random nonsense until you actually commit it to memory.

This. But your brain is also throwing out all of the times you learned about something and never encountered it again.  You only remember the times when the new thing is everywhere.  It's a cognative bias referred to as frequency bias or the baader-meinhoff phenomenon.

Ha, thanks for the details. A sick part of me loves that this is named after the German leftist terrorist group, which I only learned about because the movie about them stars Moritz Bleibtrau (LOLA RENNT, DAS EXPERIMENT). 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0765432/

FYI, if you want to know WAY too much about the RAF, read this book: 

https://www.amazon.com/Baader-Meinhof-In...0195372751

(That's all completely apropos your point, yogert909; I'm just showing off now.)

(2016-06-14, 3:31 pm)FlameseeK Wrote: 4 kanji? How about 逆行性健忘症? Heard this one yesterday in a visual novel. But of course, 記憶喪失 is more commonly used.

Well, that's a 6 kanji word and a 4 kanji word to be sure, but I think the question was really about 四字熟語. A lot of 四字熟語 don't break down into smaller words. (Although I wonder where the line is, some of the terms in that spreadsheet Yogert linked are not very 熟語 ...
Anyway...

(2016-06-14, 2:14 pm)yogert909 Wrote: I've been wondering about these. Wondering how helpful it would be to memorize a few at a sub n3 level. Katsuo has a spreadsheet broken down by frequency. But how common exactly are the most frequent ones?

A lot of the words are quite common, like 行方不明 ... although that's an example as I mentioned above of a word that's more... just a word. It's a pretty straightforward compound word that just happens to be 4 characters because it's a compound of 2 2-character words and isn't very idiomatic. You should know both 行方 and 不明 anyway, and that makes the compound obvious.

I have to question where that spreadsheet gets its frequency from too. 一生懸命 is incredibly common, as is 興味津々 (which are B+) while 誹謗中傷 is not that common. It's not that unusual or anything but I certainly wouldn't put it in a top-10 list, or I guess top 25ish list is what the A's amount to.

Maybe half of the A's and B's (not in order) are pretty common.

Standing out to me as incredibly common are the above mentioned 一生懸命、興味津々、行方不明 as well as 無理矢理、気分転換、露天風呂、一般常識、緊急事態、自分自身、正々堂々、中途半端、同一人物、東西南北、一人一人、無茶苦茶、滅茶苦茶 (those two are interchangeable, so neither is -that- common but add them together and they're pretty common), 危機一髪、日常茶飯 (usually seen as 日常茶飯事 which is not 4 characters but still), 意識不明、and 前代未聞.

I guess these all stand out to me because they're used in fiction, non-fiction, and conversation alike across a wide variety of topics. A lot of terms are used a lot more often... but only within a very specific context. A lot of stuff at the top of the spreadsheet is what you'd see in advertisements and labels, for example. Which is quite important if you're living in Japan, but not so much if you're trying to pass a test based on essays on general topics.


While we're on the 四字熟語　topic...

弱肉強食 is one of the first 四字熟語 that I learned, and I see or hear it a few times a year anyway (good ol' Jpod101...). It's usually used where in English we would say 'It's a dog eat dog world.'　The more you are into 'hard boiled' or 'noir' kinds of fiction the more you'll see it. It's not very common in non-fiction or in daily life... unless you live a very rough kind of life I guess!

老若男女 is moderately common and worth studying because otherwise you'll never remember the unusual reading ... ろうにゃくなんにょ is the normal reading. Other readings aren't even in the 国語辞書, so whatever Rikai might say using other readings would seem to be an error.

安全第一 is extremely common, not in your reading, but mostly plastered as a header above safety rules in workplaces. I see it constantly in the background of dramas and movies, and occasionally in Anime or even on book covers. Oh, also in real workplaces on the news or documentaries. Actual use in a sentence is pretty rare, but if you watch any shows at all, you'll want to know it.

Don't forget 焼肉定食...

老若男女 made Trivia no Izumi's list of the top 10 hardest phrases for newscasters to pronounce...

(2016-06-14, 5:56 pm)pm215 Wrote: Don't forget 焼肉定食...

老若男女 made Trivia no Izumi's list of the top 10 hardest phrases for newscasters to pronounce...

トリビアの泉を教えて下さってありがとうございました

Some people here are seriously good at Japanese.

(2016-06-14, 1:42 pm)ariariari Wrote:

(2016-06-14, 1:20 pm)gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

(2016-06-14, 11:58 am)ariariari Wrote: That feeling when you learn a word from a textbook, pick up some native material, and immediately see it plastered all over the native material

In my case that word is 出勤. Just learned it in my kanji book (勤 was obviously the new character). Yotsuba is asking her dad to play with her, but he's working in front of the computer. Totally made me laugh.

I swear to God that "word blindness" is a thing. I'll learn a word and be like, "Huh, I wonder why I've never seen that word before" - and then, suddenly, it's everywhere. I guess the brain's noise filter just tosses the word out as random nonsense until you actually commit it to memory.

That's so funny and true. In this case it was comical because Yotsuba is a kid and literally kept on repeating the word in a way that only a kid can.

But I was also out with a friend recently who just passed the N1. He just started memorizing the 4 kanji phrases (yojijukugo). He reads a lot of novels and now says that he sees them everywhere. So I guess that it happens at all levels!

My Japanese 104 先生 (last class) would always start a lesson by writing a 4 kanji proverb...brings back memories

As for this "word blindness" I actually enjoy it a lot! It's like when you play a game and the map is blank until you encounter that part of the world and then that part of the world is forever revealed to you. LOL that might be a strange analogy but I hope people understand what I mean.

(2016-06-14, 6:40 pm)SomeCallMeChris Wrote:

(2016-06-14, 5:56 pm)pm215 Wrote: Don't forget 焼肉定食...

老若男女 made Trivia no Izumi's list of the top 10 hardest phrases for newscasters to pronounce...

トリビアの泉を教えて下さってありがとうございました

OMG I'm so excited that I understood this entire sentence...not 「老若男女」 though xD

(2016-06-14, 7:32 pm)RawrPk Wrote: =
OMG I'm so excited that I understood this entire sentence...not 「老若男女」 though xD

なんとRawrPkちゃんは滅茶苦茶に可愛いですよね

老若男女 is one of those phrases that occurs over and over again without ever exactly being 'important' or 'decisive' or whatever. It's not really an exciting or interesting term to learn but you'll see it constantly so, ehh, you might as well learn it now as ever.

(2016-06-14, 6:40 pm)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: トリビアの泉を教えて下さってありがとうございました

I actually think Trivia no Izumi's pretty good material for Japanese learners:
* there's a fair amount of repetition of the key points within each segment
* some subtitling to assist
* the meat of the content is factual information illustrated with images and video
* the format is pretty fixed (right down to some phrases being word for word in each segment)
* each bit is only 5 to 10 minutes so if you get lost then another item on something else will be along in a bit
* it's funny and interesting

I watched it back when it was on TV when I was at a pre-jlpt2 level, but there's a lot on youtube now.

(2016-06-14, 11:46 pm)SomeCallMeChris Wrote:

(2016-06-14, 7:32 pm)RawrPk Wrote: =
OMG I'm so excited that I understood this entire sentence...not 「老若男女」 though xD

なんとRawrPkちゃんは滅茶苦茶に可愛いですよね

その言い回し、なんか変な感じね。

英語で「なんと300万円！」という「なんと」はなんというのですか？
スラングだと"It's 300 f**king dollar!"（なんと300ドル！）なんて言えますが・・・
http://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/6229334.html

すいません、ちょっと訂正です。
RawrPkってやっぱりめちゃくちゃ可愛いですね。

Oh...Japanese slang o(^◇^)o



Saving all of these into my Onenote for reference The last Japanese internet slang/meme thing I recall was　「そこじゃないッ！」It's a simple thing that no one really thinks about. A pandemic. Except the makers of 妖怪ウォッチ www



[EDIT]

(2016-06-15, 3:35 am)pm215 Wrote:

(2016-06-14, 6:40 pm)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: トリビアの泉を教えて下さってありがとうございました

I actually think Trivia no Izumi's pretty good material for Japanese learners:
* there's a fair amount of repetition of the key points within each segment
* some subtitling to assist
* the meat of the content is factual information illustrated with images and video
* the format is pretty fixed (right down to some phrases being word for word in each segment)
* each bit is only 5 to 10 minutes so if you get lost then another item on something else will be along in a bit
* it's funny and interesting

I watched it back when it was on TV when I was at a pre-jlpt2 level, but there's a lot on youtube now.

The most repetitive Japanese thing I've ever watched was QVC Japan live stream. It's pretty damn boring but you will for sure learn something. I watched for an hour once about a Roomba.

(2016-06-15, 10:56 pm)RawrPk Wrote: Oh...Japanese slang o(^◇^)o

Saving all of these into my Onenote for reference The last Japanese internet slang/meme thing I recall was　「そこじゃないッ！」It's a simple thing that no one really thinks about. A pandemic. Except the makers of 妖怪ウォッチ www

オモロイすぎる  
妖怪ウォッチ was very アツアツ (popular) with the kids in Japan last year, one cannot miss them, they are everywhere!

But I went crazy over Ted 1 and 2. (大爆笑)
テッドの耳そこじゃないよ


If anyone is interested in some Kansai-ben......
大阪弁完全マスター講座
https://www.osaka-info.jp/ja/model/osaka.../0052.html

(2016-06-14, 2:14 pm)yogert909 Wrote:

(2016-06-14, 1:42 pm)ariariari Wrote: But I was also out with a friend recently who just passed the N1. He just started memorizing the 4 kanji phrases (yojijukugo). He reads a lot of novels and now says that he sees them everywhere. So I guess that it happens at all levels!

I've been wondering about these.  Wondering how helpful it would be to memorize a few at a sub n3 level.  Katsuo has a spreadsheet broken down by frequency.  But how common exactly are the most frequent ones?

Maybe "benchmark" it against the 四字熟語 小学生 level and
or
Google search for よく使う四字熟語/ 良く使う四字熟語 / 四字熟語 ランキング

Examples:
小学生向け四字熟語一覧 - 対義語・反対語辞典
http://hanntaigo.main.jp/yojijyukugo/shougakusei.html

皆さんがどんな四字熟語をよく使うか教えて下さい。
http://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/2473387.html

Just my two-yen thoughts.

(2016-06-15, 5:39 am)eslang Wrote: その言い回し、なんか変な感じね。

英語で「なんと300万円！」という「なんと」はなんというのですか？
スラングだと"It's 300 f**king dollar!"（なんと300ドル！）なんて言えますが・・・
http://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/6229334.html

僕は変な奴だから、僕の文も変かもしれないんですが、「なんと」はね、「how very」、「what a」、「such a」とかの意味があります。
たしかに、その意味はある場合で「*****」にもありますが、結局「なんと」を「*****」に翻訳するのは（稀な場合を除く）正しくないと思います。「http://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/6229334.html」の中で「*****」の翻訳は賛成の人がなくて、「「*****」が頂けません」という投稿もあります。

そういっても、「なんと」は間違ったかもしれません。他の感嘆文ならもっと自然になるかもしれません。これから感嘆文の正しい使い方を勉強して頑張りますからね。

This reminds me of how Filipino pastries are bad words in Spanish.

Puto
Mamon

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(2016-06-16, 11:52 pm)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: 僕は変な奴だから、僕の文も変かもしれないんですが、「なんと」はね、「how very」、「what a」、「such a」とかの意味があります。
たしかに、その意味はある場合で「*****」にもありますが、結局「なんと」を「*****」に翻訳するのは（稀な場合を除く）正しくないと思います。「http://oshiete.goo.ne.jp/qa/6229334.html」の中で「*****」の翻訳は賛成の人がなくて、「「*****」が頂けません」という投稿もあります。

そういっても、「なんと」は間違ったかもしれません。他の感嘆文ならもっと自然になるかもしれません。これから感嘆文の正しい使い方を勉強して頑張りますからね。

そんな気にしないで下さい。　貴重なご意見を頂きありがとうございました。

なんと is used as an introductory word before a statement that the speaker thinks will surprise or astonish the listener. The closest literal equivalent for it is "say what?!"
http://www.reajer.com/blog/category/all/2

いろいろな意味（ニュアンス）で勉強になりました。 ちなみに、「教えてgoo」や「yahoo知恵袋」のようなサイトは誰でも（悪戯者、留学生を含めて）投稿できますから、あまり真剣に考え過ぎないでくださいね。　

”言葉は時代によって変化しますので、どんな言葉も広まってしまえばそれが正しい形なのかもしれません。ですが、言葉の一番大切な役割は「相手に正しく情報を伝えること」ですので、それができるのが一番と言えるでしょう。”
http://www.kiji-check.com/japanese/utterly/

これからもよろしくお願い致します～♪

山猫　「もっとバカになれよ、いい意味で」
#怪盗山猫 #亀梨和也

(2016-06-14, 1:20 pm)gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

(2016-06-14, 11:58 am)ariariari Wrote: That feeling when you learn a word from a textbook, pick up some native material, and immediately see it plastered all over the native material

In my case that word is 出勤. Just learned it in my kanji book (勤 was obviously the new character). Yotsuba is asking her dad to play with her, but he's working in front of the computer. Totally made me laugh.

I swear to God that "word blindness" is a thing. I'll learn a word and be like, "Huh, I wonder why I've never seen that word before" - and then, suddenly, it's everywhere. I guess the brain's noise filter just tosses the word out as random nonsense until you actually commit it to memory.

Concrete example: I swear to God I've never heard 洒落にならない in four years of studying Japanese. Now it's not only in everything I seem to read, but my wife just used it last night. Baader-Meinhoff, you bastard.

(2016-06-17, 9:55 am)eslang Wrote:  ちなみに、「教えてgoo」や「yahoo知恵袋」のようなサイトは誰でも（悪戯者、留学生を含めて）投稿できますから、あまり真剣に考え過ぎないでくださいね。

それどころか、恐ろしい話が沢山あるようです。

http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/...1287866527

Yay - just finished kanji chapter 15. Feels like a slog recently, so it's nice to have the milestone.

here's another one regarding word blindness.

I just went back to yotsubato to finish the first issue. (I read the first half a few days ago, and posted about reading "出勤").

Well, this time I noticed 遊園地, which I also first learned about in my recent month of intensive vocab.

I confess: I really didn't enjoy that month too much, but clearly it worked! The first manga I pick up after that intensive month and I already spot two words.

Here's to hard work <clinks glasses>

That's awesome! Actually I feel my vocab has improved when I actually don't worry so much about my progress. Extensive reading  + Anki has definitely helped. Also I don't really worry too much anymore if I don't understand something or if I forget as long as I know there is always another encounter of the word. The reinforcement helps a lot! So right now my learning is very laissez faire.

I still have ways to go but I'm sure I'm better than I was when I decided to jump back into learning Japanese.

I've been getting a lot of 遊園地 lately too.  Maybe it's global phenomenon involving comet dust and magnetic storms.