Author Archives: taekk

Update on the lack of updates

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Seeing as how I’ve been neglecting this blog again for almost a month, I thought I’d just write a few words about what’s going on besides all the neglecting I’ve been doing.

New Updates to the Grammar Guide

In addition to the usual tweaks and fixes, I finally spent some time working on new sections of the grammar guide. Writing this blog helped because I was able to copy parts from my old posts and mold them together with some new stuff.

First, I put together a section about how things are defined or described with 「いう」, a topic I discussed before in several posts. This is a topic I consider to be indispensable for mastering intermediate Japanese.

–Defining and Describing with 「いう」

I also finally finished the first draft of the slang section (about a year late), describing some patterns and general principles of slang in Japanese. I intend to add more material in the future but I’m fairly happy with how it turned out so far, particularly the section about the lack of sentence order.

–Casual Patterns and Slang

So do check them out and as always, I welcome any corrections or suggestions.

I tried installing Linux… and failed miserably

I installed Xubuntu and managed to get MP3s to work after hours of googling, experimenting, and bargaining with the devil. Then I uninstalled it after I discovered I could not see the transcripts for my chinesepod mp3s with Amarok. The lyrics button turned out to be a online search for lyrics instead. Lame.

Then I went on vacation

I also took a week off to visit the ol’ USA for the first time in over three years. I was mostly surprised at how little things have changed but it still seemed strange to be back after so long. Some things I noticed:

1. I had forgotten how large the portions of food are. I immediately regained the pot belly I was slowly trying to get rid of. No appetizers or dessert for me, thanks.

2. Even in a large bustling city, things seemed a bit barren and empty. Of course, that’s probably just my bias from living in the most crowded city in the world.

3. Surprisingly, eating out costs just as much or more than Japan. The price just looks cheaper ($5 vs 600円)

4. I hate tipping. Americans are supposed to be so bad at math and yet we’re supposed to multiply the bill by 1.15 in our heads every time we eat out. How does this tradition continue to persist?

5. Service was a lot better than I remembered and when friendly, it was much more sincere than the robot-like, manual-driven politeness in Japan. I think I was just mentally scarred from my time in New York.

Also, I just slacked off

I took the opportunity of being in the states to buy the controversial “GTA: San Andreas” game for $15. (It costs over 5000円 at an import game store here.) Any updates from me in the near future are now highly unlikely.

And I ran out of stuff to write about

Actually, I’ll never run out of stuff to write about when it comes to Japanese but I’m looking at my huge list of unfinished drafts and for some reason, I just don’t feel like finishing any of them, either because it’s too much work or I’m just not excited about the topic. So if you have an interesting topic regarding Japanese you’d like to suggest, please let me know in the comments. Here are a few guidelines for interesting Japanese topics.

1. Don’t suggest things that can be learned by looking at a dictionary and some examples sentences. Examples include topics like, “What does 「に関して」 mean?” or “How do you use 「～限り」?”

2. No lists. I hate lists because you never remember them anyway, especially vocabulary lists. For example, “Can you make a list of the most common giongo and gitaigo?” I could but it would be boring and useless.

3. Don’t worry. Be happy. o(^O^)o

Mo’ Moe!

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「秋葉」 used to be Tokyo’s biggest electronic district. I say, “used to” because it has been steadily turning into something shadier over the years.

「秋葉」(short for 「秋葉原」) is pretty much a geek’s paradise. There are all sorts of games and electronic stores including the massive 「ヨドバシカメラ」, which was newly built not too long ago.

Well, it turns out that there are two different categories of geeks: the technology geek and the creepy geek. 秋葉 used to be for the technology geeks, guys who were into gadgets, software, and hardware. But it turns out many geeks have interests in another realm, which I can only describe as “shady”.

I go through 秋葉 everyday on my commute but I decided to take my commuter’s pass, go over there on a weekend, and actually look around and explore the neighborhood. What I found out was that probably about half of the businesses there now cater to the “dark side” of the geek population.

First of all, there were mountains of porn. What looked like perfectly normal stores would suddenly have a whole floor for porn. Some stores had a whole floor just for animated porn. Scratch that, some stores were for animated porn! You can’t find this kind of selection for this type of stuff anywhere else in the world. (Incidentally, just to be clear, I didn’t actually look around or purchase anything. In fact, I didn’t even go inside, I could pretty much tell what it was from the staircase. Just to be clear.)

Besides the monumental amount of porn, 秋葉 is increasingly turning more fetish-like. I can’t explain this any better than saying one word: 「萌え」. 「萌え」 is kind of like “ubuntu” in that it represents a whole concept and therefore doesn’t have any specific definition. The similarity totally ends there though. Let’s see what we can find out about this word on the net.

(If you want to learn more about 「萌え」, you can also check out the Japanese wikipedia entry on 「萌え」. It’s so extensive, it’s practically a research paper.)

萌えとは

一般に「架空のキャラクターに対する愛情」として理解されることが多い。が、マスコミ的にはオタク全般に対するイメージと合わさり、歪んだ伝搬をされることもしばしばである。なぜか萌え＝メイドさん、のニュアンスが付加されるなど。
(from はてな)

「なぜか萌え＝メイドさん」 Ahh yes, the maids. As a fellow male, I just cannot understand the attraction of maids. I mean, these maid costumes completely cover the body with layers and layers of clothing. Yawn. And yet 秋葉 has totally been taken over by maid cafes, called 「メード喫茶」, for reasons beyond my comprehension. Let’s take a look at this list of maid cafes. CURE MAID CAFE in 秋葉原、ひよこ家 in 秋葉原、Cafe Mai:lish… 秋葉原、Cos-Cha hmm… 秋葉原？ 秋葉原 isn’t even that big a place but I bet the list doesn’t even come close to covering all the maid cafes in 秋葉原.



Cuter without the maid costume?
(from Cafe Mai:lish)

Worse, the maids have started branching into other industries such as 萌バーガー, a burger shop and even a hair salon called moesham. (Notice the use of 「萌え」 in both store names)

The 萌え phenomenon and 2ちゃんねる* have spawned a new class of vocabulary. My favorite is 「ツンデレ」, which comes from 「ツンツン」 and 「デレデレ」. I love it because, Yahoo, of all the places, has the funniest definition ever.

ツンデレ （つんでれ）

アニメや漫画のキャラクターの傾向を表す語。普段はツンツンしているヒロインが、恋人と2人きりになるとデレッとかわいくなること。アニメの主人公のキャラクターとして求めていたものだが、実際に自分が付き合う女性に対しても、こうした性格を求めるようになっている。ツンツンして取っつきにくいのに、付き合いを始めると実はしおらしくていつの間にかデレデレとしてくることを求めるのである。しかし、現実にはそうした二面性をもった女性を、オタクの男性がゲットすることはきわめてむずかしいとみられる。
(from Yahoo!辞書)

Basically, 「ツンデレ」 characterizes a common manga/anime female character who is aloof and cold （ツンツン） but becomes all lovey-dovey （デレデレ） when she is alone with the boy she likes. The definition above explains it much better though. The last sentence is the best because it’s worded so seriously and yet is a total smackdown on the オタク nerds who have no real chance with such a girl.

I’ve actually heard rumors of 「ツンデレ・カフェ」. Apparently there was a 「ツンデレ・イベント」 this March. I guess the maids are rude when you walk in and nice when you leave? Hmm… might be the next big thing.

Conclusion

I’m going to conclude here, now that I’ve managed to brilliantly turn this into a language lesson. So I’ll just put this into the “Vocabulary” category and end yet another educational post. (What? You didn’t realize that the whole point of this post was to explore the exciting Japanese language?) I’m not entirely sure if it is appropriate for the “Culture” category though.

あばよ！

*2ちゃんねる is basically the most poorly designed BBS in the history of the world. I mean, I tried using it once but had to stop because the user interface induced me into a temporary coma. The popularity of this website is yet another mystery I’ll never understand.

I was going to make a better title but eh, whatever

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I think I learned 「別に」 probably around the same time I learned how to say “yes” and “no” in Japanese. That’s how awesome and useful this expression is. Unfortunately, it’s not the type of thing that’s taught in a classroom so I’m putting this one in the “Colloquialism” category, which is just my way of saying, “I take no responsibility for what you do with this stuff.”

Don’t get me wrong. 「別」 is an incredibly useful character and is used in a variety of perfectly legitimate words. I would definitely put it in the top 100 kanji list. For instance, 「別れる」 means to “breakup” or “to part from”, a word just as useful but not as harsh as 「振られる」, which means you were dumped or more literally, “shaken off” (ouch). Or just repeat the same character and you have 「別々」, which is essential for when you don’t want to pay for everybody else’s meal. (“Going Dutch” is, unlike Korea and China, customary and quite common in Japan.) And finally, we have 「別に」, the topic of today’s post.

Don’t try this at class

「別に」 is an expression that is very similar to 「微妙」, in many ways. It has a perfectly normal and standard usage but it can also be considered slang, if you use it a certain way.

A lot of people learning Japanese at school have probably already learned 「特に」, which means “especially” or “particularly”. It’s an useful expression particularly because you can use it with the negative to express a lack of preference.

A） なんか食べたい物ある？
– Is there anything you want to eat?

B) 特にないけど･･･
– Not particularly.

Now, that’s all fine and good but what if we wanted to express a lack of preference for positive answers, for instance, like the following dialogue?

A) Can I borrow this?
B) Whatever, sure.

In Japanese, when somebody asks you if something is ok to do, you normally respond with 「いいよ」 (or いいですよ). But 「特にいい」 doesn’t really work here, because it is not a negative response and you end up with, “It’s particularly good”. That doesn’t make much sense. So how do we translate the, “whatever” into Japanese? Well, why don’t we take a look at the following dialogue?

A) これ、借りていい？
– Can I borrow this?

B) 別にいいよ。
– Whatever, sure.

「別に」 actually means “apart from” but you don’t really need to include from what exactly. So you can use it in place of 「特に」 such as the first dialogue to say pretty much the same thing.

A） なんか食べたい物ある？
– Is there anything you want to eat?

B) 別にないけど･･･
– Nothing really.

The “nothing really” is a loose translation but it reflects the fact that you are literally saying, “nothing, apart from” and being vague about what exactly is separate.

If you were wondering how to express your apathetic, non-caring, and sketchy personality, 「別に」 is just the ticket.

A) 本当に行かなくてもいいの？
– Is it really ok to not go?

B) 別に行かなくてもいいよ。
– Whatever, I don’t have to go.

A) チョコが好き？
– Do you like chocolate?

B) 別に。
– Whatever.

Conclusion

So next time somebody is badgering you with questions, you can just reply with 「別に」. Make sure you say it with plenty of spit and a look of complete contempt while you’re at it. It’ll be like you’re saying, “Uh uh, whatever“, all shaking your head, with one hand on your hip and the other waving a index finger at your victim.

Oh wait, was this the part where I was supposed tell you not to do that?

Which is harder? Japanese or Korean?

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In my previous post, I compared the difficulty of Japanese and (Mandarin) Chinese by looking at several aspects of the two languages. As I suspected, this drew out a large number of responses (or at least larger than what I’m used to in any case). However, I was surprised to see how civilized and thoughtful the comments turned out to be. So, I decided to do another language comparison, this time with Japanese and Korean. Before I start, I’d like to mention what I write here is strictly my observations and may not be entirely accurate.

Pronunciation

It is often said that Japanese and Korean are very similar languages. Now this is true to some extent but you can’t forget that Japanese and Korean have completely different writing systems and more importantly, the sounds that go along with them.

With the exception of the /z/ consonant sounds (which Koreans usually can’t pronounce), the sounds in the Korean language are a superset of the sounds in Japanese. This means that in order to learn Korean, you not only have to learn most of the sounds in Japanese but also additional sounds, many whose difference I can’t even tell. This, I think, is the strongest argument for Korean being the harder language to learn. Because anytime somebody wants to try out a Korean phrase learned from a friend, I need to have it repeated about 5 or 6 six before I can tell what he is trying to say. And even then, it’s an educated guess at best.

With Japanese, though you sound like crap without the proper pitches, you can still make yourself understood with even the worst accents (most of the time).

The writing system

Now the comparison get more difficult because Koreans have invented an ingenious little writing system called hangul to cleverly handle all those different sounds in Korean.

For Japanese, you have to memorize 46 separate characters (not including the obsolete characters) for each individual sound. Since you have both hiragana and katakana, that amounts to a total of 92 characters that you have to memorize just to write 46 sounds. If you count the voiced consonants, small 「や、ゆ、よ」, etc., you only get a total of 102 sounds for learning 92 characters. That’s not a lot of mileage.

With hangul, you learn consonants and vowels separately and match them up like legos. You can combine up to a maximum of three consonants and one vowel. For example, if you learn 4 consonants and 4 vowels, you can combine each consonant to the vowel to get 4×4=16 letters. You can also add yet another consonant to each of these letters to get an additional 16×4=64 letters. You can even add yet another consonant though the possible combinations are a bit limited for the fourth consonant. If you consider the fact that hangul has a total of 19 consonants and 21 vowels, you can appreciate just how many sounds Korean has over Japanese. In fact, I don’t even know the total number of letters in hangul. Imagine what a nightmare it would be if you had to memorize a separate character for each sound!

A sample of hangul
Consonants: ㄱ(g),ㄴ(n),ㄷ(d),ㄹ(r)
Vowels:ㅏ(a), ㅓ(uh), ㅗ(o), ㅜ(u)

Possible combinations include:
가(ga),거(guh),고(go),구(gu)
나(na), 너(nuh), 노(no), 누(nu)
다(da), 더(duh), 도(do), 두(du)
라(ra), 러(ruh), 로(ro), 루(ru)
각(gag), 간(gan), 갇(gad), 갈(gar)
각(gag), 간(gan), 갇(gad), 갈(gar)
곡(gog), 곤(gohn), 곧(gohd), 골(gohr)
국(gug), 군(guhn), 굳(guhd), 굴(guhr)
낙(nag), 난(nan), 낟(nad), 날(nar)… etc.

Hangul, like the English alphabet allows you to write a lot more sounds with a smaller number of characters while still maintaining the unambiguous 1 letter = 1 sound aspect of Japanese. You may be thinking that in the end, all this means is that there are a lot more sounds and more letters to go with them. How does this make Korean easier than Japanese, which doesn’t need to deal with all these extra sounds to begin with? And my reply to that is, you don’t need hanja (kanji) in Korean.

In Japanese, due to the limited five-vowel, consonant+vowel sounds (with the only exception of 「ん」), a lot of words end up with the same pronunciation. For instance 「生」 and 「正」 are both 「せい」 in Japanese. However, the original Chinese pronunciation for 生 is “sheng” and “zheng” for 正. Similarly, in Korean 「生」 is “생” (seng) and “정” (juhng) in Korean. Japanese doesn’t even have a “uh” or “ng” sound. Let’s compare more kanji with the 「せい」 reading with the Korean version.

Kanji Japanese Korean
生 せい 생
性 せい 성
姓 せい 성
製 せい 제
正 せい 정
精 せい 정
勢 せい 세

As you can see, out of seven characters that have the same reading in Japanese, you get a total of five different pronunciations in Korean, three of which do not even exist in Japanese. Most importantly, Korean has just one letter and one sound for each character just like Chinese. In Japanese, you often get two or even three letters because one wasn’t enough to pronounce all the consonants and vowels. What you end up in Japanese is a bunch of repeating, long, and hardly decipherable text without kanji.

I get a headache from just looking at this
しょうがくごねんせいにしんきゅうしたさいだいのメリットは、おとなのつごうでちゅうがくせいともこうがくねんともよばれるちゅうぶらりんのよねんせいからかいほうされて、どっしりこうがくねんのざにこしをすえられることだった。

Even with spaces, it’s not much improvement
しょうがく　ごねんせいに　しんきゅうした　さいだいの　メリットは、おとなの　つごうで　ちゅうがくせいとも　こうがくねんとも　よばれる ちゅうぶらりんの　よねんせいから　かいほうされて、どっしり　こうがくねんの　ざに　こしを　すえられることだった。

With hangul, because you have a lot more letters, the visual cues are a lot more distinct and there are fewer homophones. However, because the visual cues are not quite as clear as Chinese characters, you do have to learn where to put spaces. I think it’s a small price to pay for not having to learn 2000-3000 Chinese characters, don’t you?

You don’t need kanji/hanja in Korean because of the increased visual cues. But you do need spaces.

외모가 뛰어난 학생들이 그렇지 않은 학생들보다 학업 성적이 뛰어난 것으로 밝혀졌다고 10일 선데이 타임스, 데일리 메일 등의 언론이 이탈리아 연구팀의 연구 결과를 인용 보도했다.
(from naver.com)

I think it’s ridiculous when Japanese teachers don’t teach their students kanji or when somebody says that you don’t need to learn it. Yeah, you don’t have to learn it if you don’t mind being illiterate. Books, signs, restaurant menus, computers, everything has kanji in it and you don’t get the furigana either. But in Korea, you really don’t need to learn Chinese characters at all. Sometimes you might see it in parantheses on signs next to the hangul and newspapers may use some very simple characters such as 大 or 現 but it’s a supplement to hangul instead of the other way around. Just compare Yahoo! Korea to Yahoo! Japan. Not a single Chinese character in Yahoo! Korea. Yahoo! Japan? Too many to count.

Bottom line: In terms of simplicity in writing and reading the language, Korean wins hands down. Well-played Sejong the Great, well-played.

Grammar

So far, it seems like Japanese and Korean are totally different. So what the heck was I talking about when I mentioned that they were similar? Well, why don’t we take a look at how to say, “I went to school at 7:00.”

Japanese: 私は７時に学校に行った。
Korean: 나는 7시에 학교에 갔어.

Can’t see the similarity? Ok, why don’t we add spaces to the Japanese, replace the Korean with hanja, and use the same style for the characters.

私は ７時に 學校に 行った。
나는 7時에 學校에 갔어.

As you can see, the sentence structure is exactly the same. Indeed, Korean and Japanese grammar has the same general ideas including particles and the main verb always being at the end of the sentence. However, that’s like saying French and English grammar are the same. Once you get into the details, you’ll find all sorts of stuff that are completely different. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

Particles

Particles in Korean are what you get if a bunch of people were to get together and say, “Hmm… Japanese particles are just too easy to understand. How do we make it harder to yet again confound those silly foreigners.” Then one of them will go, “I got it! Let’s change the particle depending on what comes before it!” Then the rest will go, “Oooh, that’s good.”

That’s basically how Korean works. The 「が」 particle in Japanese is either “가” or “이” depending on what it is attached to. The 「は」 particle is “은” or “는”, 「を」 is either “을” or “를”, and 「で」 is “로” or “으로”. Japanese students can now proceed to laugh at fellow students who chose to learn Korean instead.

Conjugations

Unfortunately, I don’t know enough about Korean conjugation rules to really accurately compare the two languages in this regard. However, I do know one big difference is that Korean does have a future tense unlike Japanese. Also, I give you this entertaining excerpt from this site.

Past tense is another easy verb tense. Here is the basic pattern.

1.Take the dictionary form, drop the 다
2.Add the ending 어 or 아, which makes it the casual form (everything but the 요 at the end)
3. Add ㅆ under the last syllable
4. Add 어요 on the end.

먹다
먹 + 어 – 먹어
먹어 + ㅆ – 먹었
먹었 + 어요 = 먹었어요.

마시다
마시 + 어 – 마셔
마셔 + ㅆ – 마셨
마셨 + 어요 = 마셨어요

마시 + 어 = 마셔? I mean 마시 + 어 = 마시어 makes sense but 마셔? I don’t think my math is good enough to understand that. Also, notice how it says, “Add the ending 어 or 아” but neglects to mention how to decide which one to add. I’m sorry but this doesn’t look easy to me at all. But then again, when you have Japanese conjugation tables that look like this, maybe I shouldn’t complain.

Counters

Yep, both languages have them. And yes, it’s totally confusing for both languages.

Conclusion

In terms of difficulty, I think Japanese and Korean are at about the same level. Some parts are harder for Korean while other parts are harder for Japanese. However, considering the larger number of sounds and the different particles in Korean, Japanese is definitely the easier language to start in. If you’re not good at distinguishing new sounds and pronunciations, you’re definitely going to have a hard time with Korean.

In particular, that fourth consonant can get really silly. For instance, the word for chicken is “닭”, made up of ㄷ(d),ㅏ(a), ㄹ(r), ㄱ(g), and it’s supposed to sound something like “darg” but I can’t even hear the /r/ sound. And “없어” is supposed to sound like “uhbs uh” but to me, it sounds exactly the same as “uhb suh” (업서). Really, it’s just ridiculous.

However, once you master all the sounds and the basic grammar in Korean, you’re in for smoother ride the rest of the way. While Japanese students will be struggling with four different types of conditionals, looking furiously in the dictionary for the readings of 「大人」, 「仲人」, 「気質」, and 「問屋」, and trying to remember if it was 「静かな」 or 「静な」, you’ll be just sailing right by enjoying the benefits of having only one letter and reading for each Chinese character. You don’t even have to learn them, if you don’t want to.

Which is harder? Japanese or Chinese?

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This post doesn’t have anything directly to do with Japanese. It’s more like a personal blog entry, just to talk about the things on my mind lately. You see, I have spent a lot of time writing about Japanese in trying to convince the Internet that it is actually a very easy language to learn in many respects. The grammar rules are very consistent and logical, and kanji can really help you speed up your vocab memorization. But is Japanese actually easy, relative to other languages?

About a month ago, I started doing language exchange with a Chinese person every Sunday. It’s quite interesting because I teach her English, she teaches me Chinese and all of this is done in Japanese. It works well because she is quite fluent having lived in Japan for many, many years.

Now, Chinese is supposed to be like the holy grail of foreign languages, image-wise, for us Americans. Or maybe it was Japanese? Well, we probably don’t even know the difference. Anyway, if you tell your friends and family that you’re learning Chinese, they’ll probably go all “ooh”, “ahh” and “damn, you’d have to be some kind of a freak genius to learn that”.

Chinese characters don’t impress or scare me though, having learned Japanese. In fact, I was actually wishing for Chinese characters when I was studying for the GRE because all those stupid English words started to look the same. And on top of that, now that I’m studying Chinese, I can’t help but get the feeling that Chinese is like the easiest language in the world. Of course, I’m still a complete beginner but from what I can tell, Chinese is just so much simpler than Japanese.

Of course, comparing the difficulties of two languages will always be impossible because so many things depend on the person learning the language. But still, it’s fun to try because it usually brings out heated arguments and one-upmanship, which is basically the whole point of the Internet. So here we go.

Conjugations

Because Chinese has nothing but Chinese characters, there are no conjugations of any kind whatsoever. This means that you miss out on all the fun you get to have with okurigana.

For instance, if you want to negate something, just add 「不」. It doesn’t matter if it’s an adjective, verb, or noun. It’s almost too easy.

Chinese
好。- Good.
不好。- Not good.

In contrast, Japanese has separate rules for two types of adjectives, nouns, and two types of verbs. You also have two exception verbs and two exception adjectives. English is probably even worse because you need to match the right tense to the subject and other stuff I probably couldn’t even explain.

This tacking on character trick works for all sorts of things that would be complicated grammar in any other language. You want to say something is “too much”? Just add 太. So since “small” is 小, too small becomes 太小. You want to say, “not too small”, just add 不: 不太小! You want to say that you’re in the process of doing something? Add 在. With Chinese, using a character based writing system actually makes sense! You can’t make this stuff any easier folks. You don’t have to conjugate and then conjugate the conjugation, and then conjugate the conjugated conjugation like you do in Japanese.

Language gone wrong

行きたくなくもないけど、行けなくならなかったら、行かないよ。
– I wrote this and even I don’t know what it means.

Still, I’m expected the other shoe to drop as I learn more Chinese. There has to be a price to pay for not having conjugations. For example, I’m already confused about 了 because it supposedly expresses a completed action but I see it in non-completed actions as well. I’ve also seen past actions without 了. I don’t get it.

Tones

A number of people have told me about how tones are so difficult in Chinese. I don’t really remember what they said, but I vaguely remember something about my mom being a horse or something. Pretty rude, if you ask me.

Now that I’m actually learning them, I don’t think tones are that difficult. I mean there’s only four and I have a sneaking suspicion that the second is pretty much the same as the third. I heard that Taiwanese has 7 tones. Now that sounds difficult. I don’t even know how that is possible. Is tone 7 like the chromatic scale or something? I can hear the teacher saying, “No, idiot! Your tone is completely wrong! It’s supposed to be a harmonic minor, not melodic! And the third is flat!”

Anyway, I think having all the tones laid out in advance makes things clearer than Japanese in many ways. Japanese people have this strange belief that Japanese is completely flat but in reality, if you don’t get the intonation right, you sound like crap. If Japanese is completely flat, how come you can get an accent dictionary that shows the pitches for each word? With Japanese, the only way to get that perfect native intonation is to just imitate native speakers. Not very helpful, I know, which is why Chinese is easier to understand because it’s all laid out for you.

Even so, to make the comparison fair, I need to mention that tones in Chinese can sometimes change. I’ve figured out that while 不 is usually fourth tone, if the next character is fourth tone too, it changes into the second tone. I don’t know if this is a rule, just something I’ve noticed along the way.

不知道。- bù zhī dao.
不是。- bú shì.

Kanji/Hanzi

Aaaahhh, kanji, my favorite topic. With a language like Chinese, it actually makes sense! Kanji is great as long as you don’t totally f***k them up like the Japanese did.

I think a small number of characters have maybe a max of 2 readings. Even then, it’s because it means something completely different like 觉, which is “jiào” when it means “to sleep” and “jué” when it means “to think”. Let’s compare that to Japanese, which for instance has like a million readings for 「生」. What the hell, 「なま」 doesn’t even originate from Chinese! Why the heck do you write it with a Chinese character?!

Chinese is so much simpler that it wins hands down over Japanese here. It’s not even a contest. The only beef I have with Chinese is simplified, traditional, blah blah, blah… just pick one! Don’t make me have to learn both! The Japanese government can successfully mandate a new set of characters and they don’t even have a real army. Why can’t you?

Counters

Whoever invented counters should be shot. They add nothing useful to the language yet is such an enormous pain in the ass. It’s like a disease that somehow managed to permanently spread itself through all of East Asia. The worst part is, all the counters, for some reason, are all completely different for each language. For clothes, it’s 件 for Chinese and 着 for Japanese. It’s insane.

Still, if I had to compare, I would say Japanese is worse because they have all those crazy irregular readings like 「ついたち」, 「ひとり」, and 「はたち」. But then Chinese has 两, which is not as bad but still really annoying. I can never tell whether its going to be ニ or 两.

Conclusion

I haven’t seen too many comparisons of Chinese and Japanese, probably because the extremely small number of English speakers who know both probably aren’t wasting their time with blogs. So, while I am still completely new at Chinese, here are my thoughts on the topic. If you are trying to decide which language to learn, maybe this will help you decide.

In my opinion, Chinese is really easy and approachable for beginners as long as you’re not tone-deaf. I can say with confidence that it’s a lot easier than Japanese in the beginning. There are so many traps that you can fall into with Japanese in the beginning that just doesn’t seem to exist in Chinese. Common pitfalls include learning only hiragana/katakana or even just romaji, overusing the topic particle, learning the polite and dictionary forms backwards, thinking that 「だ」 is the same as 「です」, etc., etc., etc.

With Chinese, while you have Pinyin, I think Chinese teachers are much better at making sure students learn hanzi. Plus, I haven’t seen too much regarding politeness levels outside of 你 vs 您 (so far). I doubt that Chinese has about 10 different ways of saying “sorry” like Japanese. （ごめん、ごめんなさい、すまん、すまない、すいません、すみません、申し訳ない、恐縮です、恐れ入ります）

Still, I’m going to hold off on making any definite conclusions because I have the sneaking suspicion that Chinese seems easy only in the beginning, kind of like my experience with Spanish. If it’s one thing I learned, it’s that there’s no free lunch in language. If one thing is easy, it’s going to make something else hard.

How come they never teach 「何で」?

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Ｉ don’t know how far Japanese language education has progressed in recent years, but back when I was a student, we were taught to use 「どうして」 for “why”. This was great until I went out into the real world and found out that people used another word that I was never taught: 「なんで」. Huh? What the-? Why wasn’t I taught the real deal instead of being handed down a second-rate word that nobody uses? Why eat a California roll when you can have real sushi?

Now that I know some more stuff (you know… stuff… and things…), I can think of two reasons: 1) 「なんで」 is a bit informal and would not be appropriate in some written contexts, and 2) 「なんで」 has some “issues” and they didn’t want to confuse the poor students (we were confused enough as it was).

Only in Japanese, can you write paragraphs explaining the word for “why”

I can understand why you would rather teach 「どうして」 as a teacher. It’s perfectly normal Japanese and you can use it just about anywhere in any context and be “safe”. The only problem is that Japanese people don’t use it that much. Why? Probably because 「なんで」 is shorter and easier to say.

Unlike 「どうして」, you have to be a little more careful when using 「なんで」. First of all, it’s more for conversational Japanese so you don’t want it use it on, for example, official documents. In this sense, 「なんで」 is kind of similar to “how come” instead of just “why”.

Second, things can get kind of confusing because 「なんで」 in kanji is 「何で」 and 「何」 is the kanji for 「なに」. 「で」 is also the particle for describing means. You can see the problem this overlapping might cause.

スパゲッティは、何で食べるの？
-A: With what (by what means) do you eat spaghetti?
-B: Why do you eat spaghetti?

The sentence above can have two meaning and there is no way to tell without any context. The dictionary says that 「何で」（なんで） means “why”. But if you write it in kanji, it looks identical to 「なにで」. There’s even a Japanese page with a survery of 「なんで」 vs 「なにで」. In general, 「なんで」 means “why” and 「なにで」 means “by what means” so when you want to make things absolutely clear, you should write it in hiragana.

In terms of ambiguity, 「どうして」 also has the same type of issues because 「どう」 means “how” and 「して」 is the te-form of 「する」.

どうしていいか分からない。
-A: I don’t know what I should do (how to do so that it’s good).
-B: I don’t know why it’s good.

The first translation is more likely, but the second interpretation is possible as well. There’s no way to tell for sure without more context. (Aren’t you glad you didn’t pick an easy, sissy language to learn?)

Because two just isn’t enough

「何故」 is yet another word that means “why”, which we need because… I’m pretty sure there’s a good reason. 「何故」 is more formal than the other words for “why” and has, I feel, a sharper sting to it, if that makes any sense. It’s more suitable for when you want to ask hard-hitting questions such as, for example, a narrative for a documentary. As a result, you don’t hear this too often in regular, everyday conversations.

一体何故、こんなことになったのでしょうか？
-Just why, exactly, did this happen?

Conclusion

Now that you know all the ways of saying “why” in Japanese (minus local dialects I’m not aware of), you can ask questions like the following in a variety of ways.

Why, Lord, why, is Japanese so complicated?!!

There, aren’t you happy now?

Lessons learned from 「本当」

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Hi, it’s me again with (hopefully) another great post breaking down the intricacies of the hardest language on the planet (pats myself on back). This time we are going to take a deeper look at a word that probably every hard-core anime fan is already familiar with: 「本当」.

本当？！That’s 超 Awesome!! ← (Don’t ever talk like this)

Calm down. This is not a Japanese anime lesson like, for instance “Reiko-chan’s site“, a site so cool it makes me want to cry. Instead, I’m going to look at how the individuals characters 「本」 and 「当」 are used in ways you may not be aware of. You’ll see that these characters are used quite often in Japanese that is slightly more mature than Sailor Moon.

It’s the real stuff

「本」 is so useful that it’s probably one of the first characters everybody learns. You probably already know that it means, “book” by itself and is also part of the word for “Japan” （日本）. You may even know that it’s a counter for bottles, something you’ll need to know if you’re a drunkard salaryman like me.

But did you know that 「本」 also means, “the real thing”? In fact, the word 「本物」 means exactly that as it uses 「本」 with 「物」, the character for object. Other examples include words such as: 本日、本人、本来、本場、本番、本音、本格的、本気、本名. The 「本」 in all these words act like a prefix indicating that it’s the genuine thing.

Let’s take a closer look at 「本日」 and 「本人」 and the role 「本」 plays in each word.

本日

「本日」（ほんじつ） essentially means “today”, but why have another word for “today” when you already have 「今日」? The only difference, as you can see, is the use of 「本」 instead of 「今」. In other words, as opposed to the present day, 「本日」 means, “the real day” (the only “real day” being the current one).

１）今日来てくれてありがとう。
– Thanks for coming today.

２）本日は、ご来場ありがとうございました。
– I would like to thank everybody for coming today.

The only real, practical difference between 「今日」 and 「本日」 is that 「本日」 sounds more official, similar to the difference between saying, “at this point in time” versus saying just “now”. While the practical difference is a bit unrelated, knowing the precise difference between the kanji will help you get a feel for where this difference comes from.

本人

「本人」（ほんにん） is a very useful word mainly because Japanese doesn’t have any pronouns. While you can say 「自分」 for oneself, you don’t have the equivalent for himself or herself. So if you wanted to say, “Talk to the man, himself”, 「本人」 is a handy way to easily refer to the real person in question. Here’s a quick example.

Ａ）田中さんは、いつ結婚するの？
– When is Tanaka-san getting married?

B)本人に聞いたらどう？
– How about asking the actual person, himself?

In addition, expect to see this word used often in applications such as for visas or passports that need to describe what the applicant, herself, must do.

パスポートを受け取る時には、本人が必ず窓口においで下さい。
– When getting the passport, the applicant, herself, must come to the window.

This meaning of “genuine” is related to the original meaning of “root” (hence the tree character （木） with a line across the bottom of the tree). Also derived from the same meaning, 「本」 can be used to mean “main”. Examples of this usage include words like: 本体、本館、本社、本州、本文.

It’s the stuff in question

The second character 「当」 is just as useful as 「本」 and almost as common. The character by itself describes when something hits its target. For instance, the verb 「当たる」 is used to describe winning a raffle because you were successfully targeted from the random selection. The 「当」 character is similarly used in a variety of kanji compounds to describe the targeted time or location. This is very useful for talking about the time or location in question by using words such as: 当月、当日、当時、当社、当店、該当. Here’s a simple example.

この切符は発売当日のみ有効です。
-This ticket is only valid on the day of purchase.

In the example above, you could have simply described the day that the ticket was bought by saying something like 「買った日」 but it’s not as concise or as professional-sounding as 「発売当日」.

This type of usage is very useful because no matter what the actual time is, it refers only to the time in question. That means that if it’s understood by the context, you don’t have to go through the pain of describing exactly which time that is. Here’s another example.

当時は、運転免許を持ってなかったので、どこにも行けなかったんですよ。
-At that time, I didn’t have a driver’s license so I couldn’t go anywhere.

Here’s another example using a location instead of time.

当店では名前を隠して販売するような商品は扱っておりません。
-We do not handle products that are sold with hidden names at our stores.

「この店」 would also make sense in this sentence but since there may be more than one store and you’re not specifying a store at a specific location, 「当店」 is used to refer vaguely to the store in question.

Conclusion

We took at look at the kanji making up 「本当」, their real meanings, and how they are used in a variety of words. I hope this will help you easily understand a whole slew of new words that use the same kanji. Getting a true sense of what each individual kanji means in this fashion often gives you important clues and mnemonics for learning new words, which is one of the great benefits of using kanji.

It’s that guy, fellow, chap thing

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No offense, but where’s some of the more practical/useful stuff? For a while there, you had me checking this blog everyday – and learning something new every time you posted something. These days…not so much. – jljzen

Ouch. Ok, I admit, I’ve been incredibly lazy with this blog lately. Sometimes I go on a writing spree then I get burned out and have to do something else for a while. It doesn’t mean I’ve run of things to write about. In fact, I would rate this post an 8 on the practical/useful scale. What? You want to know what the scale is based on? Sorry, I’m too busying writing this to answer your question.

This word is used all the time… kind of

「奴」（やつ） is yet another one of those words that just can’t be easily translated into English and yet it’s often used in casual conversations. Look it up at the WWWJDIC and it’ll say, “(1) (vulg) fellow; guy; chap; (2) thing; object”. Hmm… I don’t know about you but when I hear “chap”, I picture, “Quite splendid, I must say!” and “Would you like two cubes of sugar with your tea or just one?” “Fellow” and “guy” isn’t very helpful either. The second definition is also too vague to really make much sense to me. Yahoo 辞書 isn’t much better as it says pretty much the same thing. So why don’t we take a closer look at what the definitions are trying to tell us and how the word is actually used in Japanese?

There was a fellow, a guy, and a chap…

The first definition may sound like the beginning of a joke but what it’s trying to say is that 「やつ」 is a naughtier version of 「人」. It’s impossible to translate because it can have either a good or bad meaning. In any case, by using 「やつ」, it becomes obvious that you don’t have much respect for that person. So you should use this only for your homeys or at least when the person in question is not around to hear you. (God, I can’t believe I just said, “homeys”.)

A: この学校って、変なやつばかりだな。
– This school is just full of strange guys.

B: みんなオタクだからよ。
– It’s because they’re all nerds.

A: 10,000円を貸してくんない？
– Can you send me 10,000 yen.

B: いいよ。
– Sure.

A: マジで？！お前って、本当にいいやつだな！
– Really? You’re really a great guy!

It’s, you know… stuff

The second definition of 「やつ」 refers to generic things. In this case, since objects don’t have feelings, you can use it much more freely than the previous definition.

A: 丸くて赤いのがあるじゃん。すっごく高いやつ。あれを買ってよ。
– You know there’s that round, red thing? The really expensive thing. Buy that thing for me.

B: 全然分かんないけど、とにかく嫌だ。自分で買ってよ。
– I have no idea but anyway I don’t want to. You buy it yourself.

In the example above, I could have used 「物」 instead of 「やつ」 but that just sounds too stiff in the type of casual language used in the example. 「やつ」 sounds much cooler and more hip.

The 「こ、そ、あ、ど」 version

You are probably already familiar with a variety of generic words starting with こ、そ and あ indicating proximity. Just like you have 「これ」、「それ」、and 「あれ」 to mean, “this”, “that”, and “that” (way over there), the same versions of 「やつ」 are 「こいつ」、「そいつ」、and 「あいつ」 respectively. There is also 「どいつ」, the question word for 「やつ」, similar to 「どれ」. You can use these words to refer to both people and objects. In the case of objects, it becomes a rougher and more casual version of 「これ」、「それ」、「あれ」、and 「どれ」. These words are great for when you want to add a bit of punch when referring to the objects around you.

A: すごいんだよ。こいつをパソコンに入れると性能が何倍も上がるんだよ！
– It’s awesome. If you put this in the computer, the performance increases manifold.

B: あ、そう？よかったね。
– Is that so? That’s nice.

I almost want to translate the 「こいつ」 from the previous example as “this shit” but I don’t think it’s quite as strong. If you think of it as a word somewhere between just “this” and “this shit”, I think you’ll have a good idea of what the difference is between just 「これ」 and 「こいつ」.

As before, you can use it to show disdain or a lack of respect for people. In this case, 「あいつ」 is probably the most common because it means that the person is not there to actually hear you.

A: あいつはもう嫌いだ！
– I hate that punk, already!

B: そうよ。もう別れた方がいいって。
– That’s right. As I told you, it’s better to just break up.

Conclusion

I hope this post sheds some light on the side of Japanese you’ll never see in textbooks. Despite the stereotype, Japanese people are not nice and polite all the time as the textbooks make them out to be. It’s life, shit happens, and of course, Japanese has a language for those occasions. You’ll hear these words more often than you expect especially among the younger (kind of delinquent?) crowds where it seems like they use 「こいつ」、「そいつ」、etc. all the time when referring to people and things.

Beginner Lesson #3: Adjectives and the 「の」 particle

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Beginner Japanese Lesson #3: Adjectives and the 「の」 particle (length: 28:56) and original lesson details.

Here is the recording for the third beginner Skype lesson. You can subscribe to this podcast with iTunes from the following link:

Subscribe to this podcast with iTunes

This time, you can tell it’s spring because of the background noises from the birds. Sorry about that and the big delay but I’ve been too lazy for various reasons. Details of the next beginner lesson and lesson date will be posted afterwards in another post. (For those of you who asked, yes, I’m still planning on doing more lessons.)

Lesson Notes

To add to the previous lesson, the topic particle is not the subject like in English. There is no such thing as a subject in Japanese.

It is only the topic and doesn’t have to be directly related to the rest of the sentence.
For example, 「レイさんは、学校です。」 doesn’t have to mean that the Ray-san is a school.

Adjectives

So far, we have learned how to use 「元気」 to describe how you are doing. I managed to cleverly hide the fact that 「元気」 is an adjective. Actually, 「元気」 can also be a noun but so far we have been using as an adjective as a description of your well-being.

There are two types of adjectives: na-adjective and i-adjectives.

Na-adjectives are almost the same as nouns as we have seen with 「元気」. The difference is that you can directly modify a noun by attaching it directly in front of the noun with a 「な」. (Hence the name)

Examples
１．有名な人 – famous person
２．便利なところ – convenient place

The other type of adjective are called i-adjectives. They are called that because they end in the hiragana 「い」. Unlike the na-adjectives, they do not need anything to directly modify nouns. Just attach them to the front of the noun.

Examples
１．広い部屋 – wide room
２．面白い人 – interesting person

You may have noticed, some na-adjectives end in 「い」 such as 「きれい」. You should pay careful attention to them. 「嫌い」 is another example of a na-adjective that ends in 「い」.

Negative Adjectives
As we have seen, the negative for na-adjectives is the same as nouns. Just add 「じゃない」.

The conjugation rules for i-adjectives are slightly different from na-adjectives and nouns.
For the negative tense, you first need to remove the last 「い」 and attach 「くない」.

For the polite form, add 「です」 at the end for both i-adjectives and na-adjectives.

※Important Exception: いい、かっこいい

The original version of いい was よい. As a result, all conjugations are based on よい and not いい.

The 「の」 particle

One of the main functions of the 「の」 particle (besides many others) is used to show ownership, same as the English word, “of”. However, the order is the possessor followed by 「の」 followed by the possession.

Examples
Xさんの部屋 = room of Xさん

Wait, so it’s the same word but not? When does the madness end??

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When I was a naive little student earnestly learning kanji with glee, I remember thinking, “Yeah, now that I learned 「見る」, I now know the kanji for 「みる」!” Ha ha, if Japanese was that easy, I would have spend all that extra time not studying on training to become a professional StarCraft player instead like all the cool Koreans. Actually, what you learn later on is that some words may have more than one kanji with slight differences in meaning such as, “This kanji means that you are feeling blue but this kanji is used when you are feeling blue and you want to sneeze but it just won’t come out. It also implies that your right index finger itches.” Ok, ok, now I’m just trying to be funny… or am I? (Waggles eyebrows) Let’s see by taking a look at some alternative kanji for some common words and when to use them. Hint: It’s when you want to look “cool” and “smart”. (Emphasis on the quotation marks) For example, let’s look at alternatives for 「見る」 (to see) and 「聞く」 (to hear/to ask).

You can see it, my child, yes, but can you see it?

While 「見る」 is fine for just regular “seeing” (whatever that means), you might see 「観る」 instead for when you are watching things such as movies and plays. I have no idea what the exact distinction is but I can tell you that 「観る」 uses the same kanji as the one for 「観光」, which means “sightseeing”. A coincidence? I think not. Actually, I can’t complain about this too much because it’s easier than trying to explain the difference between the words, “to watch” and “to see”. Why don’t we try?

No, you can’t “see television”, you can only watch it. Yes, you can “see a movie”. Huh? Why, you ask? Hmm… I think it’s because native English speakers hate you. Yes, that sounds about right.

Moving on, if a doctor is examining you, you use 「診る」 instead, which uses the same kanji from 「診断」 meaning “diagnosis”.

Ask, hear, eh, what’s the difference?

In Japanese, 「聞く」 can mean either “to ask” or “to hear”. (After all, they are so totally related.) But if you want to be specific, you can use 「訊く」, which only means “to ask” or more accurately, “to inquire”. Also, when you are listening to music, you might use 「聴く」 instead. 「効く」 is also another alternative to mean that something is “taking effect”. It is often used in the context of taking medicine (or rather “drinking” in Japanese).

How do I figure out this madness??

So how do you figure this stuff out? Well, your best bet are Japanese-Japanese dictionaries such as 広辞苑 or 大辞泉. For instance, here is the definition for 「聴く」

.

２ （聴く）注意して耳にとめる。耳を傾ける。「名曲を―・く」「有権者の声を―・く」

Or better yet, if you use the Windows IME, the kanji selection menu will have explanations of the differences… in Japanese.

IME, the only Microsoft software I know of that doesn't suck (until they build a vacuum).

IME, the only Microsoft software I know of that doesn't suck (until they build a vacuum).

For bonus points, see if you can figure out the difference between:
1. 速い vs 早い
2. 取る vs 撮る vs 盗る
3. 飛ぶ vs 跳ぶ
4. 熱い vs 暑い
5. 彫る vs 掘る
6. 閉める vs 締める vs 占める
7. “Japanese” vs “A tongue invented by the devil to prevent the spread of Christianity”.
8. 止まる vs 停まる vs 泊まる