No laughing matter...

ベルギー「デスノート」殺人、捜査難航か

　ベルギーのブリュッセルで、男性がバラバラの遺体で見つかり、そばに日本の漫画から取ったとみられるメッセージが見つかった事件で、検察当局は４日、記者会見で捜査が難航していることを示唆しました。

　「新しい情報は何もない。『何週間も新しい情報がないかもしれない』と思ってもらう必要がある」（ベルギー検察広報官）

　この事件は先月２８日の夕方、ブリュッセルの公園で白人男性の胴体の一部が見つかり、そのそばに赤と緑のローマ字で「私はキラです（ＷＡＴＡＳＨＩ ＷＡ ＫＩＲＡ ＤＥＳＳ）」と書かれた２枚の紙が見つかったものです。

　「キラ」は、ベルギーでも人気の日本の漫画「デスノート」の中に出てくる、犯罪者らを大量に殺害する主人公の名前で、漫画が犯行のヒントになった可能性もあるとされています。

　しかし、いまだ遺体の身元がわからず目撃情報もないことから、捜査は難航するとみられています。

http://news.tbs.co.jp/newseye/tbs_newseye3674189.html

yes, i was quite surprised to read that デスノート is that popular in the country i live in...

hey synewave---

I'm going to have to work on your message over the weekend, but before our baby came I was reading Death Note...I bought the Japanese version at the New York branch of Book Off and then bought the English version at a Kinokuniya....I was putting in every sentence into Anki....I think I did about 30 pages....muzukashi.....Death Note is great to me because it has furigana and its story is a little nuanced....plus I saw the first movie at the Japan Society...from the first line I get that someone in Belgium may have done something crazy and got "inspiration" from Death Note

whoa, 怖い。。。

Death Note is quite popular, ne? Even my friends know about it. Well I hope they find the crazy killer.

Thats spooky.. To leave such a note..

Written in romaji sounds.. naive! I bet it's some depressed school kid that watched too much that anime.

..

Why in romaji!! o_O

alantin Wrote:Why in romaji!! o_O

I know, seriously: if you're going to take the honest effort to do something like this, you should have enough time to look up the kanji and kana.

But, yeah, it's surprising that Death Note is popular to warrant something like that, especially in Belgium. By the way, is Belgium pronounced drastically different in its own language? I fail to see the similarities between "Belgium" and "ベルギー", my apologies.

[ファブリス]

True true. ベルジャム would have been closer, but then again Belgium will soon disappear of the map ^_^ (just kidding!).

Come to think of it, I quite like ベルギー, I guess it's based on the french pronunciation "Belgique" rather than the english "Belgium".

Actually, "Belgique" would be best pronunced ベルッジク.

Pronunciations are fun! ^^

If someone had out of the blue asked me to write Belgium in katakana if would have been: ベルギア.

So to me Belgium (or Belgia in Finnish) is very similar to ベルギー.

Even thought Japanese pronunciation is very close to my own language, the way they write foreign names and words never ceases to amaze me!
This is one of the rare occasions when it's something that "makes sense"! =P

ADD: Just to make clear: I'm not from Belgium!

It appears the Dutch word for Belgium is Koninkrijk Belgie, and Dutch is one of the main languages of Belgium as well as the source of many katakana words.

Be always cautious to assume that a katakana word is English, otherwise you will be sorely disappointed when you buy a house made of ブリキ.

片仮名は不思議だな

my name is john, but I get stuck with ジョン　even though I think ジャン　would be a closer approximation. My name isn't Joan after all. (>_<) But I guess Joan would be ジョーン.

another country I wonder about is Kazakhstan (which comes up surprisingly frequently for me since my brother lived there.) In katakana it's カザフスタン　but according to wikipedia in either russian or kazakh it is the following: (Kazakh: Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, IPA: [qɑzɑqˈstɑn]; Russian: Казахстан, Kazakhst?n, IPA: [kazəxˈstan]) So the フ in there is a little strange.

More off-topic katakana:

the word フリーター is pretty wacky. Since it comes from half English and German...freelance + arbeiter (same root word as アルバイト)

johnzep Wrote:片仮名は不思議だな

my name is john, but I get stuck with ジョン　even though I think ジャン　would be a closer approximation. My name isn't Joan after all. (>_<) But I guess Joan would be ジョーン.

I quess in UK they pronounce John with more "o" in it: ジョン while in the states it's with more "a". ジャン.. (correct me if I'm wrong). I would read ジャン like "jahn" though.. (if I was able to keep the English pronunciations straight in my head.. >.< )

Wouldn't Joan be written ジョアン and ジョーン be a long Joooohn ?



English pronunciation is much harder than Japanese! ^^;

a quick google search found an album on amazon.co.jp by ジョーン・ジェット&ザ・ブラックハーツ so Joan Jett likes ジョーン　^_^

And your right...I say John with an American accent so it sounds sorta like "dawn".

johnzep Wrote:a quick google search found an album on amazon.co.jp by ジョーン・ジェット&ザ・ブラックハーツ so Joan Jett likes ジョーン　^_^

So that seems to be one of those things that don't make sense! >_<

alantin Wrote:Wouldn't Joan be written ジョアン and ジョーン be a long Joooohn ?

Writing Joan as ジョアン would be imitating the spelling, not the pronunciation. Joan is pronounced /jo:n/, not /jo-an/.

Back on topic, Hingis has been doing too many 線s

ヒンギス選手、コカイン陽性で引退発表

女子テニスの元世界チャンピオン、マルチナ・ヒンギス選手がウィンブルドン選手権のドーピング検査でコカインの陽性反応が出たことを明らかにし、引退を発表しました。

　ヒンギス選手は１日、スイスのチューリッヒで記者会見し、今年６月から７月にかけて開催されたウィンブルドン選手権のドーピング検査でコカインの陽性反応が出ていたことを明らかにしました。

　一方で、「別の検査では陰性だった」「私は麻薬に手を出したことはない。１００％無実だ」と、使用を全面的に否認しました。ドーピングの検査機関と法廷で争う構えも見せています。そのうえで、コカインの使用疑惑に加え、年齢やけがを理由に引退を発表しました。

　ヒンギス選手は、９７年の全豪オープンで世界４大大会での史上最年少記録となる１６歳で優勝し、その後も４大大会で４回優勝しています。（02日11:25）

Wow, romaji, just wow, I've never watched death note, but I'm familiar with the plot.

If only he had given himself a few weeks to learn one kanji and the syllabaries he could have made less of a fool of himself.

I only got to the second line before i had to use rikaichan, crazy katakana pronunciations.

Uhm... could someone please give me a better understanding of what the article is about? I know that Death Note is a Manga, but that's about it... Also being able to pick out "Woman", "Child", "Beginning" and such does not really help me to understand the text, since I just started to learn Japanese (Meaning we learned the Hiragana and how to introduce oneself...). :/

@Biene

Get the rikaichan plugin, although dont become too dependent on it or you'll learn nothing, it's basically a pluging for firefox (you're using FF right?) that gives the meaning of Japanese kanji compounds on mouse over.

Even without i most words can be worked out by context.

You can get rikaichan at: http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/

@meolox

Yes, I'm using FF. Thanks for the link, I'll get the plugin, though I don't think it would have helped me much with above text.

I googled death note and Belgium and have now a fair idea what the text is talking about. Hope they'll catch that guy soon! Damn!

How to deal with the youth of today...

電車内で男に蹴られ１７歳少女が重傷

２０日夜、横浜市のＪＲ根岸線の車内で、ドアの近くにしゃがみ込んでいた１７歳の少女が、男に突然、背中を蹴られました。少女はドアに顔を打ちつけて前歯を折る重傷です。男は駆けつけた警察官に現行犯逮捕されました。

　傷害の現行犯で逮捕されたのは、横浜市の会社員・森本幸弘容疑者（３５）です。

　調べによりますと、森本容疑者は２０日午後８時前、横浜市のＪＲ根岸線の桜木町駅から関内駅へと向かう車内で、ドアの近くにしゃがみ込み友人と話していた１７歳の無職の少女の背中を突然、蹴り、けがをさせました。少女は金属製のドアに顔面をうちつけ、前歯を折る重傷です。

　森本容疑者は次に停車した関内駅で、通報を受けて駆けつけた警察官に取り押さえられました。森本容疑者は調べに対して容疑を認め、「邪魔だと注意したが、無視されたので頭に来た」と供述しているということです。

http://news.tbs.co.jp/newseye/tbs_newseye3712865.html

nice one.
just cos she's in the way she gets a boot in the back of the head and loses some teeth.
awesome!

It'll teach her to get lippy with salarymen! That guy meant business.

Japanesewise I picked up しゃがみ - mnemonic "shag me". I'll even use the image of a dirty 17 year old crouching down on a train telling a salaryman to do just that!

good stuff.

I learned 頭に来る

That guy sounds like a major jerk. What is the penalty for that sort of thing in japan? In addition to whatever criminal penalties, I'm guessing he can kiss his job with Yokohama goodbye.