hknamida wrote:

As of today, I have a new favorite: 腹筋運動.
This word alone has changed my stance on rômaji.

ahahhahahahhahaha

My favorite's pretty rare, but it's gotta be ぷくぷくした.  ぷくぷく is the sound of bubbles or 'blup-blup', and if a soft drink bubbles over or something you can say, あ、ぷくぷくした！  It's more popularly pronounced ぶくぶく because it's a bit hard to say, but that takes the fun out of the whole thing.

The reason　it's funny is primarily because of devoicing rules.  Let's review (sorry, but this is easier to write out in romaji): In standard Japanese any unstressed 'u' or 'i' sound that is between two consonants which you don't pronounce with your vocal chords, you cut off your vocal chords and only 'whisper' the vowel.  The consonants for this are K, T, P, H, S.  So for these situations

(K/T/P/H/S)//(U/I)//(K/T/P/H/S/silence)

you don't pronounce the 'u' or the 'i' in the middle.

So when you say ぷくぷくした it's all devoiced except the 'a' sound at the end: p(u)k(u)p(u)k(u)sh(i)ta or (roughly) pkpkshta.

Neither ぷくぷく nor ぶくぶく seem to be in rikaichan or wakan (except the latter with a different meaning), but surprisingly they're in my electronic dictionary.

Last edited by Tzadeck (2009 August 30, 8:59 am)

New favorite: 馬場馬術. ばばばじゅつ? Seriously?

ジジイ

I want to use it one day.

Just found this one today:

地球温暖化防止 (ちきゅう　おんだんか　ぼうし）- prevention of global warming from a Yahoo kids article on a cool looking boat: http://cvt.kids.yahoo.co.jp/yomigana/in … 90824.html

Last edited by captal (2009 September 04, 3:24 am)

thanks- fixed

Last edited by captal (2009 September 04, 3:25 am)

I think you sit at home and do translation and RtK forum posting all day, wearing that hat, causing global warming.

「よろしゅーたのみまんがなー」【大阪弁の挨拶】

Love that dialect in general...

C. J.