Thread for fun discussion about what we learned today.

I'll go first

・ That the Arakawa river doesn't pass through Arakawa-ku in Tokyo
・ There is no Kabuki theater in Kabuki-cho

・ 拍車をかける - To spur something on
発展に拍車をかける - To spur (economic) growth (development)

One thing I learned today is the usage of ほど like this:

高さが高くなるほど寒くなる。
The higher the altitude, the colder it will be.

I'm starting to get a better grasp of the extent of the use of relative clauses in Japanese. E.g., in this phrase:

ところが、逗子に戻ったＦ子さん、しっかり、一個足りないのに気がついたから大変。

If I had tried to produce that sentence myself, I might have gone for と or 時. It wouldn't have occurred to me to think of "the F-ko who had returned to Zushi".

根負け - to be outlasted by your opponent.

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:I'm starting to get a better grasp of the extent of the use of relative clauses in Japanese. E.g., in this phrase:

ところが、逗子に戻ったＦ子さん、しっかり、一個足りないのに気がついたから大変。

If I had tried to produce that sentence myself, I might have gone for と or 時. It wouldn't have occurred to me to think of "the F-ko who had returned to Zushi".

根負け - to be outlasted by your opponent.

Oh, I recognize this Good choice of learning material

Nuriko Wrote:Oh, I recognize this Good choice of learning material

LOL, I figured someone would. Thanks! I got both READING JAPANESE WITH A SMILE and BREAKING INTO JAPANESE LITERATURE as birthday presents. Loving SMILE so far. I actually laughed out loud at that first essay. Haven't dug into BREAKING yet, but just reading at the intro and glancing at the format, it looks awesome.

I never heard of that book so I just ordered it

Looks really nice.

I learned 悠々自適 which translates to "Living a life of leisure with dignity; living quietly and comfortably free from worldly cares; otium cum dignitate" so I had to look up "otium cum dignitate" and educate myself a bit in philosophy.

love this kind of threads.

I bought a movie today and since its japanese title is so interesting, I learned it (ongaeshi): 「猫の恩返し」

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347618/

I learned that no matter what, I keep coming back to Japanese, so I might as well work it into my daily routine. It's more a gradual realization, but I've also learned the wisdom of only doing one thing at once when you're ridiculously busy!

Oh, and learned a bunch of (English) vocabulary words since I can't really take my GREs in Japanese.

Related kind of.

Also, I picked up 禁断症状　from watching 謎の彼女X. Can't wait to weave that into polite conversation...

I learned about keigo from chiebukuro. i read this and then i was like oh no wonder i never picked it up (by pick up i mean use it without a shadow of a doubt that what i'm saying isn't wrong or accidentally offensive rather than respectful) just from watching/immersing myself. I tthink if I "study" keigo AND encounter in the wild then i'll really remember/get it but i don't want to study lol.

解説　自分側の動作やものごとなどにも、「お」や「御」を付けることはある。自分の動作やものごとでも、それが＜向かう先＞を立てる場合であれば、謙譲語Ⅰ〔動作が向かう相手を立てる謙譲語。聞き手（読み手）に対する敬意を表す謙譲語Ⅱに対する用語〕として、「（先生を）お待ちする。」「（山田さんに）御説明をしたい。」など、「お」や「御」を付けることには全く問題がない。また、「私のお帽子」など、美化語〔丁寧語から分離した概念。敬意の向かう対象に対する敬語ではなく、物事や動作を丁寧に美化して表す敬語〕として用いることもある。
「お」や「御」を自分のことに付けてはいけないのは、例えば、「私のお考え」「私の御理解」など、自分側の動作やものごとが相手側や第三者に直接かかわらない場合で、自分側の動作やものごとを立ててしまう場合である。この場合は、結果として、自分側に尊敬語を用いてしまう誤用となる。】

ご質問の場合、「連絡（する）」は、自分側から相手側（敬意の対象）へ直接かかわる動作であり、謙譲語Ⅰにあたるので、「御」を付けて「ご連絡いたします」としても何ら問題ないということになります。

but i've never heard anyone say watashi no o kangae or anything so maybe i sorta get it ?

I guess this counts as learning...

Today I looked at a card that has been on my fridge for a few months and I read out loud "ご予約下さい" and know it means to make a reservation please.

It's only a small thing, but I didn't know what it said before and had not purposefully looked up the words to read it, it's just a side effect of my studies.

Feels good man.

[Zgarbas]

I discovered that there are a few verbs which end in ~ます　in plain form. It was very confusing and I'm slightly amused at their conjugation in the ~ます form.
膨らますー膨らまします-ふくらましました
すますーすましますーすましました

Kinda lame, but I find it funny .

Zgarbas Wrote:I discovered that there are a few verbs which end in ~ます　in plain form. It was very confusing and I'm slightly amused at their conjugation in the ~ます form.
膨らますー膨らまします-ふくらましました
すますーすましますーすましました

Kinda lame, but I find it funny .

And of course the ever-useful 目を覚ます. Yeah, it threw me too when I first stumbled across them. A bit of a tongue-twist for me in polite form, though not nearly as bad (for me) as trying to pronounce 煩わしい.

I've just found out that 柴又 is a real place. And I thought it was pure fiction.
Nulla dies sine linea.
By the way, today will be yesterday tomorrow.

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

Zgarbas Wrote:I discovered that there are a few verbs which end in ~ます　in plain form. It was very confusing and I'm slightly amused at their conjugation in the ~ます form.
膨らますー膨らまします-ふくらましました
すますーすましますーすましました

Kinda lame, but I find it funny .

And of course the ever-useful 目を覚ます. Yeah, it threw me too when I first stumbled across them. A bit of a tongue-twist for me in polite form, though not nearly as bad (for me) as trying to pronounce 煩わしい.

Don't forget 励ます

[Zgarbas]

Well, now this is awkward. I have no idea how it slipped by, but for some reason I always thought 励ます was in ます form...despite having learned it surrounded by plain form. Similar for 目を覚ます, though I more often run into it as 目覚まし。。。You'd think I notice that . Funny how being used to something makes you completely overlook certain things.

励む　→　励みます
励ます　→　励まします

Well, the way you could remember is that 励む is intransitive and 励ます is transitive.

I learned a really cool word today: 感佩（かんぱい）.

how 2 make an Anki deck with rikaichan

佶屈聱牙 きっくつごうが　This 四字熟語 means a writing piece that is stiff and hard to understand. I think of Annie Dillard. I found the word while trying to find an example of 佶. This word made me discover 聱.

HonyakuJoshua Wrote:how 2 make an Anki deck with rikaichan

Have you found this useful? I think I'm gonna take a whack at this during the week. A large percentage of what I pull is from online sources, and lately I find myself hesitant to record certain words because of the time it'll take to yank them into Anki.

I tried Yomichan in the previous version of Anki, but it didn't have an option for preserving the sentence from which you culled your words, which isn't very useful.

Anki 1.2's per-day scheduling makes a day's load pretty much double...

yeah, very much so. I am a Luddite so if I can do it pretty much anyone can - I watched this video about 5 times

My word of the day:

無精髭　（ぶしょうひげ）　ー　"Beard one has because one is too lazy to shave", literally "sloth beard".

gaiaslastlaugh Wrote:

HonyakuJoshua Wrote:how 2 make an Anki deck with rikaichan

Have you found this useful? I think I'm gonna take a whack at this during the week. A large percentage of what I pull is from online sources, and lately I find myself hesitant to record certain words because of the time it'll take to yank them into Anki.

I tried Yomichan in the previous version of Anki, but it didn't have an option for preserving the sentence from which you culled your words, which isn't very useful.

Rikaisama takes the sentences too. Look into it and play with the settings