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magamo Wrote:Anyway, maybe you got tripped up by the kind of grammar point found in うなぎ文 or こんにゃく文 like this?

ぼくはウナギだ。
こんにゃくは太らない。

These are famous examples in linguistics. Somehow non-native speakers often think they should mean something along the line of "I am an eel" and "Konjak jelly doesn't gain wight," which is funny because native speakers wouldn't take them that way and the intended meanings of the two sentences are quite trivial to anyone who speaks Japanese natively. These might be understood as some kind of omission. But they're not in a linguistic sense.

This is interesting. You are right in that my first interpretations of those sentences as a non-native speaker are "I am an eel" and "Konjak jelly doesn't gain wight". However, I'm fully aware that は used in this way gives them other interpretations (I'm guessing the "correct" interpretations would be "I'll have eel" and "you don't gain weight with Konjak jelly"?). I guess the interesting thing is the difference between the first interpretation that a native and a non-native speaker would have.

I actually think that this is one of the flaws with a lot of the teaching of the Japanese language that I've seen - it's not made clear in the beginning that は is not just for saying that something is something else, i.e. that XはY does not necessarily mean X is Y. It's not made clear that after は, you can say anything you want on what has now become the topic of the sentence. We're just taught that 私はＸです means "I am X". That is why non-native speakers have those initial unnatural interpretations of those sentences, I think.

I actually think that Japanese isn't taught particularly well, from what I've seen. This is one example. I think that too often, it's taught without a view to the students eventually becoming fluent speakers, just for them to be able to say a few phrases if they go to Japan, hence things like this being shortcutted around. Hence ます form being taught before dictionary form. But that's a whole other thread...

As for the word 外人 which you mentioned a bit ago, I always and intentionally refer to myself and other people as 外人 and not 外国人 (when appropriate) , I guess to show my disdain for people who choose to be offended by it.

@Iryoku
Um, if you can't pick up on the foreignness/nonnativeness of your own Japanese yet, I kind of think it just makes your learning harder not to listen to others...

I know it requires really high proficiency to detect nonnativeness in text written in a foreign language. If you could write naturally just like your average native speaker, you may still not be able to catch foreignness in word choice, sentence structure, etc. written or said by advanced learners. I do think it's a whole lot more difficult thing. But if native Japanese speakers read your post, it's obvious that you're still on the way to native or near-native proficiency. I agree that your writing is better than many other learners. But I must say you've still got a long way to go if you want your Japanese to be as good as near-native speakers (whatever that means).

So would you like more corrections or not? If you don't like it getting corrected here any more, you might want to post it on Lang8 so you can get feedback from multiple native speakers and view your current level objectively. I hate to break it to you, but it's just painfully obvious that you haven't reached a good professional E->J translator's level just yet.

Being confident and positive about yourself is important to achieve something. Since language learning is a lifelong journey with no specific end, it's even more important to try to always be positive and motivated. But I also think that it's necessary to see your current level objectively once in a while. You know what? Proficiency of native speakers is astounding. It's literally incredible. A 5 year old kid has better language intuition than me when it comes to English. Maybe even 3 year olds are way better than me when it comes to the grammar intuition department. And these toddlers with grammatical intuition of awesome level are going to spend 24/7 with the language for the rest of their lives. Many of them got parents to ask an awful amount of questions and all of them have peers to hone their languages skills together. They go to school and cram tons of stuff. They do this for years. Scientists even say they've got better brains to learn languages than adults like us. Seriously, how could I reach even a comparable level? It's nearly impossible. It's insane to learn a foreign language as an adult and hope someday I'll be as good as people who have been honing the language their entire lives non-stop. It's too arrogant to think you can make it in a decade or two while being an adult with lots of responsibilities, don't you think?

So, maybe it's a good idea to be a little bit more humble sometimes. I'm pretty sure any elementary school kid has waaaaaay better command of English than me if they're native speakers. I may know some ten-dollar words and have slightly larger sophisticated vocabulary about politics, science, highly abstract notions, and so on. But that's pretty much it. Even a little kid beats me single-handedly. But at the same time, I've spent a humongous amount of time speaking Japanese in my life and pretty confident about my skill when compared with the average advanced non-native speaker. I started learning Japanese when I was still in my mom's uterus, and have since been exposed to the language non-stop. And advanced learners started, like, 20 years ago? While maintaining their mother tongues and having a social life? And they think they can beat me? Well, if you think you can be one of the extremely rare specimens who can pull that off, then be my guest. But before you even challenge any adult native speaker, you might want to stop refusing feedback and know your level.

(Off topic.. just out of interest. What's your native language Iryoku? Would interest me somehow. You censored your mother tongue with little asterix.. I just wondered why.)

Iryoku Wrote:I bet your post is a crowd pleaser. 登場人物 itself is strange when you use って. Normally noone would use it, just as noone would use 聞いて for "hearing" a TV, and you proposed both of them. Like I said, I'm not sure about the distinction between って/で, so I won't argue, but you can never convince me this is natural Japanese, even if it's colloquial. If you, on the other hand, are convinced otherwise, well... good luck!

Iryoku Wrote:People usually don't know grammar in their native language, and all they care about it is just conveying information. I'm 100% sure I know less grammar than anyone actually studying my mother tongue. @magamo claimed everyone would understand him, which I am sure of, but that doesn't mean he's correct in the translation.

i guess the problem in this discussion is what exactly your definition of "correct" Japanese is... it seems a bit ambiguous. Are you just talking about speaking "BBC Japanese"? Because at other times, it seems like you're saying Magamo isn't a native, or speaking "natural" japanese. I think that's what people are finding pretty rude...

Obviously, it is natural Japanese since Magamo's a native. Language isn't an on / off thing like you seem to think it is... consider the variety of ways people speak naturally in english. i guess it's like a bell curve. It's also pretty common that recent language you've heard "primes" you to speak in a certain way, using certain vocabulary. (there are plenty of studies on this if you want to look them up) But this is totally natural!!! So, maybe you have a problem with Magamo using a certain word, but it doesn't mean it's not natural, or incorrect in some way. Perhaps he'd also use other words at a different point in time. It doesn't matter... it's just one way of saying it.

What kind of thing do you translate btw? At a guess, i'd go with some kind of business or technical stuff. Because, part of being a good translator for something more creative like movies or fiction should also be to capture the character and mood of the person expressing whatever it is. If someone speaking in a slightly different way than the people around you annoys you this much, i'm guessing you don't do any creative translation...?

.

Iryoku Wrote:I never said I don't accept feedback...

lol
お前は随分しつこい奴だな。

The reason I gave you that petty little translation exercise was to demonstrate to everyone, including yourself, that you're not at a level high enough to be making such bold authoritative statements. Time to bow out gracefully perhaps?

@Iryoku
Your Japanese doesn't flow well. It just sounds foreign. And there are many definite grammatical errors.

Did you show it to your Japanese friends? What I'm talking about is not personal presences, minor idiosyncrasies or dialects. It's not proper vs. colloquial either. It sounds foreign and nonnative. Why don't you ask your friends what your translation sounds like? I think you already asked Japanese friends more than a couple questions in this thread. Honestly I was having a hard time believing that you actually asked educated native speakers because of the answers you claim you got from them. I couldn't understand what you were talking about even a bit when you were babbling about something about って and で. It just didn't make any sense, and you say you got some kind of feedback from native speakers. I gave you a benefit of doubt and took it that you misinterpreted what they said. But why don't you ask them if if your Japanese is correct or proper or whatever you call it?

Ahhhhh, where are Aijin, kiki and masaman when I need you?! They're also native Japanese speakers helping others on this forum. I forgot if they have their email addresses shown under their avatars. But if they do, maybe you can ask them if your Japanese post is in proper Japanese. It's ok you don't believe me. But I do recommend you get feedback from them or your Japanese friends.

.

Magamo's the man, and has always been super-helpful.

Peace out, Iryoku.

I always think its' a shame when people leave this forum. If they are unintelligent, trolls, or just plain idiots, well then good riddance.

Iryoku just has the kind of personality where he can't accept things that don't fit into his world view. He goes from:
”Just learn Japanese properly. Ask every native speaker, and he will tell you that this sentence means that it implies that there is a person named "Heroes". Over."
to
"I got tired trying to reason with nationalists, haters and so on, so you can all take a very deep breath, spread all the gossip you want and go to sleep."

I don't think 'reason' means what he thinks it means. It's good to be confident, but he's just got too much pride he can't accept being wrong.
Was he wrong? I don't know, and frankly...I don't care.
But the fact that he wouldn't consider it...that's what really got me.

/eulogy

Somehow don't see the reason keeping this topic alive, as the main question was nicely answered and covered by (mostly) magamo and co. Thanks for that again! This goes extremely off topic and yes, Iryoku, it's extremely ashaming to see your arguing against magamo. Don't make a troll out of yourself. Cheers.

Man, this has been a darn good popcorn thread, good old fashioned entertainment.

thecite Wrote:Man, this has been a darn good popcorn thread, good old fashioned entertainment.

Not to me. It made me cringe and left me feeling kind of bummed actually. Your constant flaming, in particular, struck me as pointless and sad. There must be a better way to try to get someone to be more mindful of their manner of communication.

I'd like to see Iryoku's continued participation, but with less friction. I think their knowledge of translation and interest in formal grammar would be a welcome contribution at times. It was a helpful gesture to drop in to caution that the use of 聞く with TV is limited (since it had been used in every sentence.) That point was overstated, imho, but not totally invalid. But things quickly went sideways. The tone had rubbed some folks the wrong way. I was hoping Iryoku would walk away earlier.

So, no, I'd be surprised if many found the thread entertaining. More likely frustrating.

Well, it was the most drama since the IceCream incident.

Was in a way shocked to read these posts as I personally experienced this community as rather peaceful and supportive in every way as Thora also mentioned. Would like to see this closed therefore Not a flame board afterall..

Hehe, drama. There's been a lot of it lately, hasn't it? Some people really ought to get some self-perspective...

Well, in fairness, it's difficult to be helpful with someone who refuses help.
Magamo put in all that effort, with his paper due and all, and didn't get a lot of love in return.
But, let's let bygones be bygones.

tokyostyle Wrote:It's not limited at all. Japanese is not some special language where the concept of listening to a TV does not make sense.

hmm, that's not what I said/meant. My sense is that Japanese is not much different than English which has similar limitations. There are factual circumstances in which it makes sense to say "listen to TV", which otherwise would sound a bit odd. The register, context and medium affect how much information is required and how much can be inferred. When people say テレビを聞く　it's understood that what is meant is テレビ音声を聞く, but it's not necessary to spell it out like that. Do you think I should revise my take on it?


More generally, I agree Iryoku is trying to apply written grammar concepts to spontaneous casual speech which will prove to be frustrating. Something I learned recently (which others may also find interesting) is that analysis of spontaneous speech reveals that native speakers (even linguists) underestimate the amount that is omitted in speech (particles especially). When asked if a sentence would sound natural, many reply that speakers would not omit so many particles. But the evidence of actual use shows that not to be the case. For example, I was surprised to read that speakers almost never use が, but there are patterns to when it is included/required. (Interestingly, according to this data, it's not necessary in speech as a grammatical (subject) marker.) Native speakers aren't conscious of what these 'rules' are; it's just part of their language intuition.

This kind of thing might be worth keeping in mind when we try to apply any kind of grammar analysis to speech and when we ask our Japanese friends to tell us whether a certain isolated transcription of a spoken utterance is "correct".

About Magamo, our resident BIG GUNS*:

I suspect that Magamo is more perceptive than many when it comes to language usage and comparison. I think it takes a certain sensitivity or attention to detail to become as fluent as he is in his second language. He's also taken the time to read the literature on his own language, from beginner texts to academic goobledygook. (Who does that?) This doesn't mean he's our infallable grammar guru, but he is someone I feel comfortable relying on to guage and describe usage. (I would say this applies to Aijin as well, but I discovered that they are one and the same. pssst ...check out the join date.)

I'd like Iryoku at least to know that Magamo has been part of several constructive grammar debate threads, so this isn't a place where disagreeing with our Resident Native Speakers is verboten. :-)

*Bravely Improper Grammar Guru and Uber-Native Speaker

edit: fixed 聞く

Actually, I cannot think of any good contextual reason to say "listening to TV" in English, or Japanese.

A TV is a device made for watching, not listening...

If you are listening FOR a TV, that would make more sense, but when on earth would you be looking for a TV that is somehow on but you don't know where it is so therefore you are listening for it?

Or something like that...

What I think it basically comes down to, is a language belongs to it's native speakers. They speak it the most, the bulk of the media and literature is produced and consumed by them. There is no such thing as 'proper Japanese'. All there is is the group concensus (not always agreement) of native speakers who have been collectively 'winging it' everyday of their lives since the day they were born. It's just comically hilarious that Iryoku was so confidently suggesting how others should speak 'properly' when it was clear even to many of us non-natives that he was talking out his arse. That's why I challanged him to translate my posts, to demonstrate that his level is even anywhere near native, and of course it was not.

@zachandhobbes: How about doing dishes in the kitchen while listening to the TV in another room or something? This is hardly stretching the imagination...

I listen to the TV all the time. I'll put it on in the background when I'm doing homework or something. I'm not sure where all this debate is coming from, but I totally listen to TV. And I definitely say so in my normal speech as well. Maybe I'm just weird

Nah, you still wouldn't say listening to the TV.

You'd say listening to the the conversation coming from the TV I think.

Maybe I'm just not native enough at English, but I have never heard the term "listening to TV"

Or, even better, you'd just say it differently:

"I was listening to TV when I found out about cigarettes being bad for your health."
"I heard on CNN that cigarettes are bad for your health."

I don't know, there's so many BETTER ways to say it.

"I was listening to TV" sounds... just wrong to me. Maybe I'm just stupid.

zachandhobbes Wrote:Nah, you still wouldn't say listening to the TV.

You'd say listening to the the conversation coming from the TV I think.

Maybe I'm just not native enough at English, but I have never heard the term "listening to TV"

I think I'd write "listening to the conversation", but chatting with other people I'd definitely say "listening to TV". In fact, I do it all the time. xD

Edit: Ehhh. I don't use it for discovering info - I use "listening to TV" more when the TV is on but I'm not actively watching to it.

I guess another way you could say it is "listening to TV audio" but that changes the meaning of the sentence so it wouldn't work.

AGH MY HEAD HURTS. Just reading the phrase "listening to TV" is like nails on a chalkboard to me for some reason.