nest0r Wrote:Are you just referring to the って thing, not the listening/seeing Iryoku insisted on, or the で?

Also, could you give examples of where って登場人物 (with or without が) is not used to refer to the medium/title/etc.? I was willing to give this perspective a chance, but I can't seem to find any examples. They all turn up stuff like [title]って and don't use a comma or what people were suggesting.

I don't know what he was saying about listening/seeing or で

I just googled って登場人物 and found a lot of [title]って examples, so yeah, it's fine. I haven't really encountered it in the wild, so I'm not sure about it...but what i was thinking with the comma would be like
ヒーローズってさ、(Hey, you know Heroes?) 登場人物〜〜(rest of the sentence)
kind of thing.

But って is often used as a shortened [name]っていう[noun]
2ちゃん生活！ 高橋葉介って人の漫画がおもしろかった
原明日美って人の日記
for just a few examples. Probably more spoken than written.
Also look into ってこと. Also pretty widespread.

Thanks for the quick response, this is interesting to me.

As for your not knowing what they were saying about the other stuff, probably for the best. ^_^ (Something like, “if you're talking about listening to the Japanese used in a show, that's grammatically incorrect, and that ヒーローズ日本語 has to have a で particle between it”. [I would've thought there was a colloquially and acceptably omitted の or something, myself.])

As for って, Iryoku said: ‘って is a topic marker, but I don't remember a person named "Heroes" in "Heroes"’ Edit: And before that, ‘I do know that 「ヒーローズって登場人物」 would imply that the character is called "Heroes."’

As a topic marker, how could you read or hear this as anything but the common construction referring to the medium/title, and then talking about the characters within it?

If you say って here means something like ‘according to’ (rather than ‘as for’), then it would be a person saying something about the characters in an unnamed show/text/etc., right? So even then, 登場人物 wouldn't mean a character is saying something.

But if [title/medium]って登場人物 is common, as the countless Google results suggest, then that means [person]って登場人物 is specifically used to say something like ‘according to so-and-so, the characters... ’ and would be rarer, require a more specific context, and might not even use って anyway since quoting a person discussing characters seems like it'd have a more formal feel.

So to me it wasn't just the tone, I felt like when I was reading Iryoku's comments, it was like “Yes, no! Blue! Elephant! Learn Japanese and pay attention properly, stupid!” so I kind of wanted to cackle nervously in bewilderment. But then my insecurity about Japanese made me want to set that aside and see if I couldn't still learn something, but I feel more confused now. ;p

I think I'll just wait for magamo to respond before considering this topic further.

I haven't really looked at the [media title]って登場人物 much, so I don't know much about it. I'll take a look later...mabye.

I'm not saying it means 'according to.' I'm saying more like a "topic setter-upper."
I'm saying it'd be like "You know (that show) Heroes, yeah? The characters sometimes speak Japanese...."
That'd be where the ヒーローズって would be like...have a pause (comma) in between, signaling nothing more than "What I say next is about Heroes, so you better change into that mindset." The ヒーローズって would basically be separate from the rest.

But if it was [person name]って登場人物, then it would be a shortened version of [name]っていう登場人物. A character named [so and so].

I'm also pretty insecure about my Japanese when dealing with crack-the-whip always-right types.

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Yeah, that was out of line.
And I thought you were taking your profession to proclaim a 'holier than thou' position.

I still don't think that って *pause* would be completely wrong. Yeah, adding a その might be better or more natural. I feel like it's a construct I've heard quite often.

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@Asriel - Doesn't it have to be AっていうB in order to mean B called/named A? Otherwise って is either a topic marker or describing stuff? I'm just going by what I've learned and just refreshed via JMW. Edit: JMW says ‘sometimes just って’ can also mean this, but I've never seen it. I checked those links but couldn't find AってB as person B named A.

And wouldn't the pause make the って more into ‘according to’ (which I guess normally would be at the end of a sentence)? Seems like って as a topic marker without a (written, at least) pause is much more common.

It also seems that word 登場人物 is interesting to me: Can it refer to a single/specific character?

Edit: Rather than speculate over what's allowed, perhaps I should just go by usage and what makes sense.

I didn't think this thread would get derailed like this after my post. I just wrote what I'd say in a normal conversation with friends I know well or write on an internet forum. So they're pretty much like English you're writing here or speaking everyday. If you'd like to talk about Japanese lines in an American TV drama with people you should use politer and more formal Japanese or write a bit formal essay for your Japanese class, I wouldn't recommend you use that kind of Japanese.

As for using みる/きく for TVs, movies and whatnot, the most common and neutral verb would be みる. There are many kanjifications for it, (e.g., 見る, 観る, and 視る) and you might make distinctions between them if it's your writing style. The use of きく in the three sentences are more like an omission of "セリフを" before the verb, though I wouldn't say ヒーローズって、聞いてて面白い and ヒーローズって、セリフを聞いてて面白い are the same; the former is wider and bit looser in meaning and allows more interpretations.

About って, I don't think it's absolutely necessary to put a comma after it. There aren't fixed rules for when to put commas. I may not make any pause after it in conversation in the first place. If anything, considering the popularity of the show in Japan, especially among people who regularly talk with foreigners, and the fact that ヒーロー is a bona fide Japanese loan word every native speaker knows, I'd say it's unlikely that the listener interprets it as ヒーローズという登場人物, especially in conversation where you have control over your inflection/tone/body language/whatever.

With that said, Iryoku does have a point that a comma would get rid of grammatical ambiguity from a written sentence like that. Usually って isn't used in formal writing, but if you have to use it in a rare situation such as quoting a spoken sentence, it's good practice to always make your sentence less ambiguous and more precise. You have to make a tough decision if the quoted speaker didn't make a pause though.

The same goes for the third sentence. It's way better to put a comma after 日本語 if such ambiguity is a concern. But it may lose the brevity and momentum in spoken language. Also, this kind of zero particle grammar often sounds more colloquial and informal than って. So, if you're in doubt, you might want to avoid it in written form.

One of the reasons I often leave out particles in my example sentences on this forum is that non-native speakers tend to overuse particles. Also, it seems quite difficult for learners to pick up the subtle differences. In fact, zero-particle grammar isn't a simple omission because there are many cases where using a particle, whatever it is, would change the meaning of a sentence. If you want such examples in a grammar reference, 現代日本語文法概説 has some illustrative sentences. (Sorry I'm too lazy to find the exact page, but I do remember it has.)

Also, I wouldn't say ヒーローズで日本語が時々出てくるから聞いてて面白い (で is inserted) unless, for example, I'm talking about listening to dialogue of a certain kind of foreign TV drama. The original sentence is closer to ヒーローズは日本語が. This is also similar to ヒーローズって日本語が. In other words, the で version would imply there is a topic or focus other than ヒーローズ, which isn't what the OP wanted to mean.

No particle, は, and って are similar in this case but are slightly different in nuance. Translation doesn't help much when it comes to this kind of subtlety. But if you know how は is explained as a particle with a comparison sense, って is more neutral in this regard while working like は as a topic marker. Informality is also an important difference here. Maybe it's a good explanation that the zero particle version is a more colloquial version of って at least in this example.

Edit: Ah, I must say I do believe the usage of って like in the first example is uber-common in colloquial Japanese. I think I heard it used this way gazillions of times when I was living in a place 15 minutes away from Shibuya. I'm sure you can hear it on TV any day of the week. I use it like everyday, and people don't get confused either.

Edit 2: I mixed up Iryoku and tokyostyle in my post. Sorry!

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nest0r Wrote:@Asriel - Doesn't it have to be AっていうB in order to mean B called/named A? ... I checked those links but couldn't find AってB as person B named A.

I'm not sure where the discrepancy is...原明日美って人の日記 = The diary of a person named Hara Asumi. (Who apparently is a 漫画家)
[Hara Asumi]って人　= 人 called Hara Asumi...?

nest0r Wrote:And wouldn't the pause make the って more into ‘according to’ (which I guess normally would be at the end of a sentence)? Seems like って as a topic marker without a (written, at least) pause is much more common.

This could be true. The way it sounded in my head had a pause. I can't really explain it. If I ever find an example, I'll get back to you.

magamo Wrote:Ah, I must say I do believe the usage of って like in the first example is uber-common in colloquial Japanese.

I'm not quite sure which usage you're talking about -- are you talking about the topic marker?

Iryoku Wrote:That's why I said I would apply the 観る rule (I like to make a distinction) to the second example (and 50/50 about the 3rd one).

Hmm. I might not have used 聞く in either of the three cases if the OP's original English was different. I thought he wanted to emphasize the "hearing" or "listening." For instance, if you want to say, "I like watching TV," that'd be something along the line of テレビを見るのが好きです.

Iryoku Wrote:So you say that "Heroes" is a popular show and you would still use 登場人物 instead of anything else? I find it intriguing. So where are you from?

I don't follow you here. What does using 登場人物 have to do with Heroes being fairly popular?

Anyway, I was born in Osaka and had lived there for 20 years. I had also lived near Tokyo (a few minutes by walk to Tokyo) for 7 years and change. I was living in Nagoya once too. All my education, from entering elementary school to getting a Ph.D., was in Japan.

Iryoku Wrote:

magamo Wrote:Also, I wouldn't say ヒーローズで日本語が時々出てくるから聞いてて面白い (で is inserted) unless, for example, I'm talking about listening to dialogue of a certain kind of foreign TV drama.

That's the point.

Ahh, what I mean is that the sentence would appear when, for example, there is a type of TV super boring drama and that is the topic of the conversation. For instance, you're forced to marathon dramas/movies of a certain kind (which you don't like very much so you think they're all boring) for several hours in a raw because your girlfriend likes them. So the conversation was like how you thought it was gonna be a waste of time. But somehow Heroes has got funny dialogue, which kind of made up for it. So you go, ヒーローズで日本語が時々出てくるから聞いてて面白い.

This で version is very different from ヒーローズって日本語が時々出てくるから聞いてて面白い. Also, if you think this is bad because this is ambiguous if it's ヒーローズという日本語 or ヒーローズって、日本語, you might keep getting confused by real Japanese in the wild.

@Asriel
Both は-ish use and という-ish use are so common I'm sure every native speaker knows them.

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I like that you contrast how people in Osaka speak with what's correct.

Screw Tokyo, Osaka FTW.

Hrm. I still don't get what the problem is with 聞く or 登場人物 because they don't sound wrong to me.

Anyway, I was on a US$-Yen foreign exchange market thread on 2ch and posed my sentences (The thread has tons of educated native speakers from various regions so it moves super fast and always allows off-topic conversations.). And pretty much everyone responded said they don't understand why the three sentences sounded strange to you. One guy just said てにおは is wrong, which I don't understand. And that's the only guy who didn't agree they were natural. If anything, some said they were probably too advanced for non-native speakers or maybe non-native speakers are too strict about proper grammar.

This doesn't mean anything because, although the average age is older and education level is higher than your average thread, it's 2ch after all. But I'm ok if you think they're wrong because I'm sure pretty much everyone I talk to in person and on the internet would think they're just natural.

Iryoku Wrote:「ヒーローズを見ていて日本語が時々出てくるから面白い」. No confusion, sounds natural, it's daily Japanese.

I think Magamo was trying to make 「ヒーローズ」 stand out more in the sentence →「ヒーローズ、日本語が時々出てくるから、見てて面白い」 There's nothing confusing about doing this.

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Iryoku Wrote:What @magano was using, @iSoron, is 聞いてて, which, of course, they said was wrong.

I was explaining the lack of particle in the original sentence. The 聞く×観る question comes from the OP using "hear Heroes" instead of "watch Heroes". It's as strange in English as it is in Japanese.

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Man, this has been an awfully long conversation over a few basic grammar points.

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Iryoku Wrote:the translation's still off

It's as off as the source text. Isn't that desirable?

@Iryoku
If you want that bad, here you go:

http://kamome.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/live...297792279/

My ID is P834otEP. If you want to read their replies agreeing with me, 447, 455, and 553 are good examples, I think. 521 is the guy saying てにをは is wrong. My post sparked a conversation about how foreigners sometimes complain about strange things like "外人 is a derogatory term!". What this means is up to your interpretation.

Edit: About the original English, like I said, I tried to take into account what I thought the OP was trying to convey as much as possible while keeping my translation within the range of normal Japanese. I don't think using きく that way is "off" if there is enough context to make sense. No one in the linked thread mentioned that point either.

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Iryoku Wrote:Why would other native speakers agree that 聞いて is correct when even you say it's not?

Like I said, it's sort of like omitting セリフを. This is pretty normal in Japanese as long as there is enough context. Your mother tongue may not allow such grammar though.

I'm writing a paper and the deadline is today's midnight EST. If you want some more explanation, I'll come back and post something here.

Also, if you read the whole thread carefully, you'll find several more people who don't think they're wrong. Read the posts carefully taking the context into account, like, did you notice another guy is making fun of typical foreigners not understanding a highly context dependent sentence?

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