Are we talking animals here, or the parts of people used to sit down on.

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Isakaya High School Roleplaying Info

"An old man like me stands no chance fighting against a high school girl in her underwear" - Oshino Meme, Nekomonogatari (Kuro)

quote:

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I picked up a single volume of yaoi manga

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I thought this would be enough of a clue.

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That just made my day! Thanks for the laugh, Kaz.

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3,2,1, Let's jam.

This needs a supporting post in the bishies thread I feel.

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Isakaya High School Roleplaying Info

"An old man like me stands no chance fighting against a high school girl in her underwear" - Oshino Meme, Nekomonogatari (Kuro)

今、宮沢賢治の「注文の多い料理店」を翻訳してみてい ます。ここまであまり難しすぎません。今年の日本語の 授業のポートフォリオに入れると思います。まあ、よく できるならそうします。

I'm currently trying to translate Kenji Miyazawa's "Restaurant of Many Orders". So far it's not too difficult. I think I'll put it in my portfolio for Japanese. If I do it well, that is.

Please do correct if you notice anything wrong or weird.

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Hmm, I don't think I know that story. And do you mean you want help with the translation or with what you just wrote?

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Just with what I wrote there. I'll ask my teacher if I run into trouble with the translation.

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Gotcha. I think what you've written is mostly fine, and some of my suggestions might be about personal preference, but here's what I think:

～てみる is usually like "try and see", more than "attempt to" and it's something I often end up misusing too. I'm not quite sure how to fix it, other than perhaps ～ようとする.

あまり～すぎない sounds like too literal a translation, I think. I'd say something like あまり, そんなに or　別に難しくない sounds more normal, since that kind of understatement you get in English ("not too difficult" means "fairly easy" isn't so common in Japanese.

I found the final sentence confusing, which again might just be me. Instead of よくできるなら you could also say うまくいけば (more like "if it goes well", but that might not be necessary. And instead of そうします, just repeating 入れます would be more easily understood.

I hope that doesn't seem like too much correction! As I said, it was fine and I understood, but those were the points I thought might benefit from some adjustments.

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Not at all, that's really helpful! Thanks for taking the time. ^_^ I did have my doubts about using ~てみる there, and すぎません sounded odd. I don't think we've done conditional yet in class so the last sentence was definitely unfamiliar territory.

We learned あげる、くれる、and もらう yesterday, and how to use them. Seems straightforward enough.

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Conditionals are quite easy to learn, because once you've studied them you find yourself using them all the time. But for now I would suggest that if you know the conjugations, using ～たら or ～ば is usually better than verb～なら, since it's normally for nouns.

Giving and receiving words are simple enough to learn, but you can expect to mix them up constantly in speech. Especially once you do ～てもらう etc, you'll end up second-guessing yourself all the time. Like with all things, you just need to get into the habit.

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Very absorbed in studying lately. I found a new site a couple of days ago called renshuu.org and it seems really good. I'm not really a big fan of flashcards but I thought this would at least be a useful addition to my studying. Vocabulary is an area I'm pretty weak on so I thought it might help me expand that too.

I've been toying with the idea of finding a language partner to practice with on Skype, probably someone from Lang-8. But I don't know. I'm shy, it would be awkward, I don't know what we'd talk about.

Eh... maybe.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Kazegami
Very absorbed in studying lately. I found a new site a couple of days ago called renshuu.org and it seems really good. I'm not really a big fan of flashcards but I thought this would at least be a useful addition to my studying. Vocabulary is an area I'm pretty weak on so I thought it might help me expand that too.

I've been toying with the idea of finding a language partner to practice with on Skype, probably someone from Lang-8. But I don't know. I'm shy, it would be awkward, I don't know what we'd talk about.

Eh... maybe.

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Ooooh thanks for linking the site, I think it'll be useful for me too! :3

I just realized, if I continue with the program I volunteer with this summer, I'll have met/made friends with between 200-300 Japanese exchange students. Whoa! Not including friends who are permanent residents in Canada or studying full time here.. Still, I don't have a language partner since I primarily work assisting students with English. I'm still really new to studying Japanese although I'm finding it relatively easy.. So I should be looking for some language partners myself outside of my university, preferably people in Japan. I think my friend was using Lang-8 and she met some pretty good partners.

So last week, a Japanese friend of my employer whom I've never even met sent me a book. So I just finished writing an immensely polite thank-you letter in Japanese. Stressful. <.< I haven't worked enough on keigo.

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@Kaz...


keigo???

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Keigo is this extra polite register of speaking. The sort of language you need to use when speaking to customers, superiors at work, older strangers, etc. Ordinary verbs have keigo version that are entirely different. Like, you can't say your boss is いる (iru), you have to say they're いらっしゃる (irassharu). Meanwhile you can't talk about yourself going somewhere with 行く (iku) anymore, it has to be 参る (mairu). It seems that even a lot of Japanese people aren't great with keigo. Our teacher said it's important for getting a good job, though.

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I can confirm most youth especially won't use keigo. The Japanese I can use is all mostly keigo and they stare at me like, "Wow that's so polite, you can speak keigo!" I really like keigo. I only know a few people who use keigo.

I think one of my conversation partners did with her senpai, but she went to a different university from the other students and the girls from there tended to be much more polite in how they addressed each other.

I've always been worried my Japanese pronunciation isn't very good but all the kids I live with say I have really good pronunciation for someone who isn't even sort of fluent in the language.

I think keigo is definitely worth knowing... Like in any language, for formal situations you need to know some formal language, or else you won't sound serious enough.

Of course, it would sound ridiculous among friends (imagine in English being like "how doth thee feel about partaking in a brewed beverage this even?" but Kaz has the right idea. Letters are definitely a context for being a little more formal than usual - even if it's just using the occasional set expression.

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スレを蘇っていいのかな。（汗
Hope it's alright if I revive the thread.

最近、練習としてライトノベルの小部分を訳しようとし ている。
I've been having a go at translating small parts of a couple of light novels recently, just for practice.

フィクションはやっぱり記事などよりかなり難しい。
As expected, fiction's a lot tougher than news articles and the like.

でも楽しい。面白い言葉遣いがいっぱいで、筋やキャラ も面白い。
It's fun though. It's interesting seeing more creative use of language, and having characters and a storyline to follow.

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Today I learned the Japanese for "dinosaur" (恐竜) is literally "scary dragon" and that's adorable.

Although thinking about it, it's actually very close to the root of the English word, which comes from Greek for "terrible lizard".

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I liked that word when I learnt it too. I think it's probably one of a number of kanji compounds that were made in (I think) the early Meiji period as direct translations of western words, mostly for specific scientific or philosophical ideas.

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