haha, who knew there was a Japanese compound that means "hair of the dog".

I *heart* this thread.

magamo wrote:

Jarvik7 wrote:

Where do babies come from?

A baby comes from where dad comes when mom fakes it.

hahahahhahahhahhaha
this is gold

IceCream wrote:

とうとう帰った。二日酔いがついに終わった。

じゃあ、あけおめことよろ　：）　（ピッチアクセントはどうかしら）

飲み過ぎには気をつけてね。ピッチアクセントはYoutubeとかで実際に聞いてみるといいと思うよ。いわゆる俗語なので、人によって発音が微妙に違うんじゃないかな。

IceCream wrote:

＊　「the」のことは「a」の方が微妙だと思います。
got corrected to:
[incomprehensible, because readers cannnot tell which is the subject "the" or "a"]
「the」については「a」の方ほど微妙じゃないと思います。 or 「the」についてより「a」の方が微妙だと思います。
ー＞　why does ほど make it [a] that's more subtle?

If you translate the corrected sentence literally word-for-word, it'd be like "As for 'the,' it's not as confusing as 'a.'" The "more (adjective) than others" sense in a phrase like "This is not as difficult as it seemed" is often expressed by Aほど〜ない. I think 「the」については「a」ほど is better (の方 isn't necessary.).

IceCream wrote:

＊　what's the difference between ーみよう and ーみようとした？　
e.g.
太った雪に捕獲されてみよう。
太った雪に捕獲されてみようとした。

Usually you use 捕獲 when you catch/capture an animal alive. Also, the wording 太った雪 is unusual. So 雪 in the sentences sound like the name of a person.
The first sentence sounds like "I think I'll be caught by Yuki who is fat," "Let's get caught by Yuki who is fat," etc., and it requires very unusual context.

The latter sentence has the past tense version of みようとする. Its meaning is something along the line of "(Hidden subject) tried to get caught by the fat girl whose name is Yuki because he though it might be good."

By the way, "Big snowflake" is called 牡丹雪 (ぼたんゆき). "Powdery snow" is 粉雪 (こなゆき).

IceCream wrote:

＊「何でもあったんですか？」と聞いて知らん振りした。
got corrected to:
何かあったんですか？」ととぼけて聞いてみた。
何かあったんですか？」と何食わぬ顔で聞いてみた [J200さんの「とぼけて聞いてみた」の方が全体の雰囲気に合っていると思いますが、上のような言い方もあります。]
ー＞ why isn't 知らん振りして ok here? (the situation is, i went back to the office, and everyone turned round to look at me. I had been running around on the roof.). And, so, what are the differences between とぼける and 知らん振りする？ And why do you need to put みた on the end? How does the meaning change if you leave the みた off?

I couldn't understand the context so I read the hilarious lang-8 post. Who would read the quoted explanation and say, "I see. So an employee was running around on the roof of her office. That totally makes sense."?

知らん振り is often used when you ignore a person especially when other people notice the existence of him or he recognizes you. For example, It can be used to describe a situation where you run across an acquaintance you don't like and he says hi, but you ignore him or pretend as if you don't notice. You might pretend to be busy, bump his shoulder, say "Sorry. You should excuse me," and hurry off.

Sometimes it is used when you ignore an event when the consequence of the event has a strong influence on a person. For example, it can be used in a situation where your friend's laptop catches a virus because you visited a naughty website. He knows his computer is broken because of some kind of virus but doesn't know you did it, so you pretend as if you don't know what happened and behave as if it has nothing to do with you.

The point is that it's about a person/people and that someone suffered/is suffering/will suffer in a sense.

When you do something in a 何食わぬ顔 way, you do it as if you don't think the consequence is important, it's a bad thing, etc. It can be either about a person/people like 知らん振り or about yourself/a non-person kind of thing. For example, it is used when you shoplift as if you don't think it's a bad thing. If you do the bump-and-hurry-off thing in a 何食わぬ顔 way, it sounds like you didn't pretend to fail to notice; you just did it on purpose because you were in a hurry. People would think it's rude, but you don't. You might say hello to him next day as if nothing happened. And this "as if nothing happened" sense is also 何食わぬ顔.

When you do something in a とぼける way, you know it's a bad thing etc. But you pretend to be innocent/ignorant/whatever.

So if you cheat on a test where students in the 90th percentile or above can pass,

it can be 知らん振り when you know someone would suffer because you sneak into the top 10% and push out the person on the boarder, e.g., "Well, someone will fail because of me. I kind of feel sorry for him, but I'll just go 知らん振り. I need to pass this test,"

it's a 何食わぬ顔 way when you do it as if it's not a bad thing, e.g., "Everyone cheats so it's not unfair or anything."

you do とぼける when you get caught but try to get away with it by pretending to be innocent, e.g., "What? I didn't do anything."

Because running on the roof isn't related to a person/people, とぼける is best to describe the situation when you pretended that nothing has happened. 何食わぬ顔 would work, but it sounds like you thought/pretended to think that what you had done was nothing special.

Last edited by magamo (2010 January 05, 3:51 am)

IceCream wrote:

wall of questions

Oh, I didn't expect this thread would turn into a serious question thread.

Anyway, apparently the transcript you're using was made by a non-native speaker, and most of the questions are just transcription errors. You might want to ignore the sub.

IceCream wrote:

1. 男：　じゃスリーサイズはいくつ？
　　女：　めとな冗談ですね
what's a めとな冗談?

I have no idea. Can you give me a link to the audio or upload it?

IceCream wrote:

2. 女１：　知ってる　お肌が何にも手でしなくて元気なの二十歳までなんかって
　　　　24歳に最初の肌の曲がりカードがきてからもなんか　曲がりぱなし
　　女２：　曲がりぱなし
　　女１：　若きのにきびが終わったら、次は小じわや紫外線と戦って
　　　　　　つまり、女の人生は戦い続ける人生なの
　　　　　　だからね、こういって武器は持たなきゃいけないわけ
　　女２：　でも、まあ、いいや、今度またばしこし
kk. firstly, i'm pretty sure 曲がりカード should be 曲がり角. I get the idea about what 曲がりぱなし is, but it doesn't seem to be in the dictionary, so, um... is it a shortened version of another word or anything? Also, is 小じわ small しわ？ in which case, does anyone know where i can find rules on changing し to じ in compound words?　Finally, whats ばしこし?

It seems every sentence has at least one transcription error...

Anyway, 曲がりぱなし is 曲がりっぱなし, I think. Your dictionary might explain it in an entry for 放し (はなし). It follows a verb and adds a sense of "keep doing X," "left Xed," "do X and move on as if nothing happened," and so on. It often becomes っぱなし, i.e., 曲がる (verb) + 放し -> 曲がりっぱなし. You might hear older people pronounce "放し" "はなし," but it's kind of rare. Also, it becomes っぱなし regardless if it's attached to 曲がり because of 促音便 (そくおんびん). You can read a simple rule about it here:

http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?pid=64121#p64121

As for the sound change in 小じわ, it's called 連濁 (れんだく). There are general rules, but there are a lot of exceptions to them so I don't know if they're practical. You can read an in-a-nutshell version of the rules on these Wikipedia articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%80%A3%E6%BF%81

And I think ばしこし is an transcription error. I don't know what it's supposed to mean.

IceCream wrote:

3. 男：　一緒にしゃに撮りません　莉子さんも一緒に
　　女：　莉子はだめ、今日そとしてあげる
しゃ is short for 写真. The situation is that 莉子 has had an argument with her boyrfriend and is in her room. Is そとして　そっとして？

The transcript has so many errors I can't tell which part is correct. If I were asked to make as few corrections to these lines as possible to make it sound natural, it'd be:

一緒に写メ撮りません？　莉子さんも一緒に。
莉子はだめ。今日はそっとしてあげて。

You should check if it's correct for yourself because the transcript has too many errors to guess what the original lines are like.

IceCream wrote:

4. 女１：　なんかは　ていとコーチのメールってきちんとしてるね　
   女２：　なんかやっぱ、大人よね　
　　女３：　大人っていうか、渋い

5. what does おっ様のしす refer to?

6. この家庭環境だと悩みこともできないぜ、悩まない

Most likely errors. I have no idea what the correct sentences are.

IceCream wrote:

7. ダブルブッキングーｗｗｗ　
私もパーティーのハシゴをしたことがあるんだけど、
二箇所目でも調子にのって飲みすぎるから、
次の日、すっごく後悔するんだよね
This was a comment on one of my lang-8 entries... what does 二箇所目 mean? Does it mean she didn't go to the second place she was supposed to?

はしごする usually means to drink at two or more bars/pubs/whatever in a row. The person used it for parties probably because he or she had lots of alcohol. 二箇所目 (にかしょめ) is literally "the second place," i.e., it's 二 (two) + 箇所 (place) + 目 (ordinal numeral marker). Ordinal numerals are "first," "second," "third," "forth," "fifth," and so on.

IceCream wrote:

8. かぶった is totally killing me!!! i still don't get it...
i got some funny / joke corrections on my lang-8 entry, and one of them was...
大晦日、重複して予約を受けてしまった！
ー＞　大晦日、約束がかぶってしまった！
Other かぶった sentences:
1.　やっぱり　かぶったか。　パリのマダム・ジュリアン。　ちっ。
2. じゃあ　かぶってたな。別の男と同時進行。　で　そいつのガキができて　いらなくなったお前を　ポイッと捨てた。

AとBがかぶる, AがBとかぶる can mean "A and B happen to exist at the same time." It's often used when the two events/things shouldn't happen/occur/exist simultaneously. Double-booking is a good example. If you cheat on your boyfriend, part of the dating period is in the state of かぶっている between him and the other guy. If you got the exact same birthday present from more than one friend, you say プレゼントがかぶった because you got "duplicate" gifts.

Last edited by magamo (2010 January 12, 2:20 am)

Also useful to know the Japanese word for a 'Pub crawl'..must SRS that one

Last edited by aphasiac (2010 January 12, 4:08 am)

aphasiac wrote:

Also useful to know the Japanese word for a 'Pub crawl'..must SRS that one

I bet you can't pronounce it correctly when you bar hop.

@IceCream
How about watching the drama without subs for a change? Accurate subs are very helpful, but they're not necessary.

By the way, the duplicate かぶる isn't used when the duplicated action is done by your own strong will. It has a 自発-ish nuance like other intransitive verbs, so if a girl says, "あー、一時期かぶってたんだよね。(the hidden subject is 'dating periods')" when she cheated on her boyfriend, she'd sound like she's slutty and not thinking it's serious or very immoral; "It just happened. He was nice and cute."

IceCream wrote:

mm, the subs from last season are around a million times better than the ones that came before it. There are a couple of transcription errors but they're pretty minor really, and the sentences do at least make sense in japanese. I guess that's because they came from captions. guess i'l stick with those then...

I'm not that convinced there's so many transcription errors, could just be one or two here and there combined with the way they're presented here. Guess I'll have to wait and try to go through a few myself.

IceCream wrote:

@magamo: oh, cool, thats interesting. so, i guess then, you wouldn't use it as a reason to be angry with someone? I mean, not for doing the double thing itself, but maybe for being just immoral in general. I'm not expressing it very well, but that's quite an interesting distinction to make, cos it keeps blame on a person rather than an act, i guess.

It might be a frustrating situation if two things are in the state of かぶるing, but the word itself doesn't indicate the reason you're angry. For example, if you asked your students to write an essay or book report and two students ended up picking the same subject/book, you might say, "選んだトピックがかぶってる." It could be cheating, but the sentence doesn't imply it's a conspiracy or a coincidence. It just says it happened. But the two students wouldn't say the same thing if they picked the same topic/book on purpose. If they accidentally chose the same thing without knowing it, they might use かぶる the same way the teacher did.

Another example is this oft-used phrase: "キャラがかぶってる." It means two people share the same personality/character so they fall into the same category in your mind. For instance, when the protagonist/heroine in a popular drama, movie, and the like gets popular because of his or her unique personality, it often spawns tons of ripoff characters in media. So you often see protagonists/heroines from different shows behave the exact same way. This is the typical situation where キャラがかぶってる. The director/scenario writer of the show wouldn't say it in a normal context because they deliberately did it.

If a dirty Japanese girl who was learning Japanese education at Harvard came here, everyone would think "この子Aijinとキャラがかぶってる," and she might say, "Aijinとキャラがかぶって困る…"

IceCream wrote:

hehe i don't think you realise how much japanese telly i get through in a week ;p. its a lot... about 95% i watch with no subs at all, i only ever open the subs file when i'm making cards, and read through the whole show then. i dunno about srsing without accurate subs though...

Haha. I was thinking you were a diligent learner who would read through subs whenever available.

Last edited by magamo (2010 January 12, 4:13 pm)

magamo, how can I be more like magamo?

magamo wrote:

nest0r wrote:

nest0r wrote:

I haven't started going through Buzzer Beat yet, but:

"この家庭環境だと悩みこともきないぜ、悩まない"
pairs up with the following English subs:
"You can't just bring your troubles home to the family.
Don't harass us!"

General tip: I've already learned the hard way that it's difficult to find Japanese subs that don't have at least one transcription error every cpl lines. Maybe I've just been unlucky. So I mostly use them as listening guidelines before deconstructing.

BTW, how would you translate this? I get, roughly, "You can't be so bothered by this kind of domestic trouble, stop worrying!" rather than the English subs. Am I way off?

Here's the source video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSdfSERM4hU (9:50 or so in, when he's muttering to himself from the kitchen)

I can't quite hear the この (sounds more like もう to me) and I feel like instead of だと it's の... Edit: Damn, now I can't hear the の (Edit 2: now it's morphed into ぞも, wth)... I try to avoid lines with the layers of vocals, myself, focus on when it's just one person at a time.

He's saying, "この家庭環境じゃ悩み事もできない。悩めない。" (この　かていかんきょう　じゃ　なやみごと　も　できない。　なやめない。), which roughly means "They don't even let me worry about my stuff. No, I can't." I don't know what the family is like, but I guess they're always noisy and/or talking about wacky stuff so he can't be in a serious mood or something like that.

Grinkers wrote:

magamo, how can I be more like magamo?

Ask masaman that. He's so good at it Nukemarine can't tell which is which.

Cool, thanks. I had found the same transcription on Google but I couldn't hear it myself... I still can't hear the じゃ or the め (as opposed to 悩まない). I heard the ごと and figured it was just a spoken variation? I also hear the ぜ. I already made a mental note not to do this guy's lines when subs2srsing Buzzer Beat, because his character does this slangy masculine thing combined with talking fast and slurring his words together. He uses さ a lot, hehe. (I read someplace that he does some improvisational lines, too. Or maybe that's Shun Oguri.) It works for his character, but not so much for learning material. Edit: Okay, I've convinced myself I can hear the 悩めない and the じゃ now, now I have to trick myself into hearing この I guess. Sigh. I'll keep telling myself the ぜ is actually just the sister as she walks by making a shuffling noise.

Last edited by nest0r (2010 January 12, 7:22 pm)

magamo wrote:

nest0r wrote:

Cool, thanks. I had found the same transcription on Google but I couldn't hear it myself... I still can't hear the じゃ or the め (as opposed to 悩まない). I heard the ごと and figured it was just a spoken variation? I also hear the ぜ. I already made a mental note not to do this guy's lines when subs2srsing Buzzer Beat, because his character does this slangy masculine thing combined with talking fast and slurring his words together. He uses さ a lot, hehe. It works for his character, but not so much for learning material. Edit: Okay, I've convinced myself I can hear the 悩めない and the じゃ now, now I have to trick myself into hearing この I guess. Sigh. I'll keep telling myself the ぜ is actually just the sister as she walks by making a shuffling noise.

なやみごと is one word. You don't usually say or write なやみこと in standard Japanese regardless of language register, sex, social rank, etc. This こ -> ご sound change is also 連濁 (れんだく). I gave a couple links to explanations in this thread when IceCream asked a question about the same kind of change:
http://forum.koohii.com/viewtopic.php?pid=88625#p88625

I know which sound you mean by ぜ. But I don't think many native speakers would care if it's a mumbled/slurred ぜ or a noise coming from his mouth. I guess it falls somewhere between できない and できないぜ. He's probably saying sort of ぜ at the end of the first sentence, but it's something less than a clear できないぜ. It's just the written language can't represent the sound. I don't think you should avoid that kind of speech style in your learning materials like a plague. It's kind of like "suppose" pronounced like "s'pose," I think.

Don't worry, I wouldn't avoid it like the plague, everything has its place. Especially a voce as cool as his.

And ohhhh, I didn't think to look at 悩みごと as a construction. Sigh, guess it's time to end my re-re-extended .jp break and get back into the flow of things.

「背中を押す」を説明してくださ～～い！