Jun Togawa's Radar Man 10 Dec 2019 4:35 AM (5 years ago)

----

Share good posts with good goblins.
Claytonian at the gmails.

『妖怪ハンターヒルコ』（1991） PANDORATV 16 Jun 2019 7:03 AM (5 years ago)

----

Share good posts with good goblins.
Claytonian at the gmails.

Yamasa Soy Sauce: What's in a logo? 14 May 2016 4:57 AM (8 years ago)

So, 屋号 (yagou) are symbols that some companies have. There are a few common elements floating around. The most common is probably the rooflike element, such as can be seen in this Yamasa soy sauce logo. Like many yagou, it can be read even without the name appended. Or at least, it could, if there wasn't the 上 (ue, above) kanji appended to it. That was confusing me. So I looked it up. Turns out that that symbol has been used since the Edo era to show that they were officially recognized as a superior brand by the government.

The more you know♪...

Japanese Study Links

Upside down luck at Chinese restaurants 17 Jan 2015 9:37 PM (10 years ago)

There are lots of Chinese restraunts here in Japan. Of course, the food is different than what is passed off in other countries ( I prefer American Chinese fare), but I wanted to point out that there is often an upside down 福 (fuku, luck) symbol on the wall. The logic is this:
Upside down symbol is falling. In Chinese, to fall is literally to arrive at the ground. Thus, arriving luck, or 倒福.
Have a look for this symbol on the wall the next time you go out.

Planet of the Apes Hachimaki 2 Dec 2014 5:33 PM (10 years ago)

I and my girlfriend laughed a lot at this episode of MST3K, which I remember watching as a teen, but the funniest part for us was seeing a monkey boy running around town with a hachimaki. Hachimakis are what the working class used to wear as sweatbands. I'm not sure I've ever seen one in the wild, outside of a festival.

You can watch it yourself:

Japanese Study Links

Who drew Howard and Nester? Shuji Imai did. 3 Nov 2014 2:39 PM (10 years ago)

If you're a child of the Nintendo Power generation and a manga aficionado to boot, you might have occasionally wondered who drew Howard and Nester (the good ones, before a new artist took over).

Recently Howard ebayed off an unpublished comic from the series, as well as the first ever episode's proof. I scoured it for the Japanese information. Does that say Tamura? I thought to myself. Tamura searches were just bringing me a baseball star. But someone on Tumblr said Shuji Imai, and the wikipedia for 今井修司 seems to check out. Unfortunately, he doesn't draw in his classic style anymore.

Japanese Study Links

Karate will see you through this disaster 27 Oct 2014 5:33 PM (10 years ago)

Sign says:

女性 women

中高生 middle and highschoolers

病弱者 weak and sickly dudes

かんげい welcome

gloss: We welcome, women, children, and the infirm!

大地震 big quakes

大津波 massive tsunamis

大不況 great depressions

にまけるな！don't lose to 'em!

gloss: Overcome all the hardships that nature and the economy can throw at you!

カラテ教室 Karate class
--
If you are having problems getting that precious byoujyaku karate teacher sympathy, here is a makeup guide.

Japanese Study Links

Anyways, Just Try It Once 23 Oct 2014 12:43 AM (10 years ago)

Thought this an interesting way of using 兎に角 (tonikaku, anyway) that we probably wouldn't do in an English ad. It translates pretty much as per this post's title. It seems like the nuance of the Japanese "anyway" is slightly different.

You might note that sometimes I write anyway with an s. It's not really fixed in my idiolect.

MOTHER OF MERCY I DON'T SPEAK JAPANESE! Japanese Game Show (SNL) 19 Feb 2014 4:38 AM (11 years ago)

I remember watching this one as a kid. I had no idea they were trying to speak actual Japanese. They fall far from the mark on pronunciation, but good effort. If I remember correctly, SNL has a Japanese cameraman or producer that helps out with this kind of stuff and occasionally appeared on camera (as fat Sulu, once, for instance). This was fun to confuse the girlfriend with.

----

Want to give feedback? Share this on g+ and give me a tag (+claytonian JP) (if you want to keep it private, share with only me).
If you spot a typo or don't have g+, you can just email me. Claytonian at the gmails.

GReeeeN - 愛し君へ 14 Aug 2013 6:55 PM (11 years ago)

I've been known to sing a GReeeeeN song or two at karaoke. Anyways, this video will tickle nostalgia bones, and has a very funny cameo by Black Jack.

Japanese Study Links

Karaoke: Charisma.com 『GEORGE』 18 Jul 2013 6:32 AM (11 years ago)

Level: Hard. Charaismadotcom is a new favorite duo for me. I guess they are rappers?

Japanese Study Links

Yoda Rakugo 6 Jul 2013 6:17 PM (11 years ago)

This is an image that happens to please me a lot: Yoda as a Rakugo storyteller. GF made out the name paper as saying maybe Taitei Yoda-yu. This comes from the Daikon 4 imagery. I've not yet seen a high-resolution version...

Japanese Study Links

A lot of these characters are not really used in Japanese, but this is one of the quickest guides to how kanji work I've seen.

Japanese Study Links

Karaoke: Love is Blue 16 May 2012 2:17 AM (12 years ago)

Older readers may be familiar with Paul Mauriat. He is a composer that was very big in Japan. Japan made superstars (in Japan) out of many instrumental music makers (see the popularity of The Ventures in a previous karaoke post).
I only became cognizant of him after being intrigued by a track of his in the 20th Century Boys movie. But the man provided the background music of my childhood. Here is one of songs, that was a hit in America, in three languages
Japanese:

.
French:

English:

Or perhaps you are a purist and just want the orchestral version.
I have a French-fluent coworker, so I think we will tag-team this song.

Japanese Study Links

Karaoke: Webster City Connection Found 29 Mar 2012 4:52 AM (13 years ago)

I just wanted to take this opportunity to point out that this song existed. I already blogged that part, but I have now confirmed it is available at your closest Utauga karaoke outlet. You can look for it by the name シティコネクション (shite konekushion *snort*) or look for his other songs under エマニエル (emanieru).

Which is more impressive, this or that time Pink Lady had an American TV show? In any case, history is weirder than we were aware.

BTW, yes, I know that most of the old karaoke posts on this site have been milleniumcopyrightact-axed. I'll try to work on fixing them.

Japanese Study Links

Bless This Bathhouse from Thievery 25 Mar 2012 10:09 AM (13 years ago)

After consulting with the girlfriendal unit, I determined that going to a sento may be the best way for me to get over this week-long stiff neck. A sento is a traditional Japanese bathhouse. I've been to onsens (hot-spring water bathhouses) plenty of times, but this was my first time to a sento. I could take a bath at home, but it would be very hard, and maybe the cost in gas would be about the same as the 450 yen to access a sento (I don't know).
One thing to keep in mind if you visit a bathhouse is that unlike most onsens, you need to take your own towels and soaps. Outside the sento doors, we discovered an interesting charm stuck to the wall.

It reads:盗賊除神璽 touzokujyoshinji, burglar abolish imperial?/divine-seal (this bathhouse is under holy protection from thievery). That last character usually refers to an emporer's seal, but 神璽 can refer to either the emporer's seal or the Three Divine Regalia. Ultimately, it comes from 天(あま)つ璽(しるし) (The Mark of* Heaven), so I think this is actually referring to something like that in this case.

Also of note is that both 璽 and 盗 don't have the standard amount of strokes on this sign. Older/alternative forms, I'm guessing.
--
*つ is really old Japanese for の (of, the genitive particle).

Japanese Study Links

Why Dost Arnold the Negger of Schwarze Say Chichinbuibui? 8 Mar 2012 8:00 AM (13 years ago)

Because that is what you say in Japanese instead of abracadabra. Video insanity:

(visit the original post if you can't see the vid) Alright, he actually mispronounced it on purpose (a first in foreign celebrity CMs) to evoke the product name and cast a spell on your wallet.

What is that phrase all about? Well if you scrape your knee, your Japanese mom will say ちちんぷいぷい、痛いの痛いの、飛んでけ Pain, pain, go away come again another day. She is invoking an ancient imperial spell! And she is Japanese, which may come to you as a shock unless that was already her ethnicity in which case business as usual, you Asianoid (is my fake word offensive? I wanna be Asianoidish... or Ahnoldish).

As I said, it can be used as a generic magical phrase, but some think it originates with the wet-nurse* of one of those Tokugawa dudes, who said to her young shogunling, "知仁武勇は御代の御宝". And 知仁武勇 is pronounced ちじんぶゆう－ (I don't know why Wikipedia put that bar after a う, but let's just roll with it) which got mumbled enough to change euphonically. The phrase means "wisdom and military might are the treasure of our fine imperial house, so shut up and go to sleep".

Others think it comes from an old Buddhist word, 七里結界 (shichiri keikkai) which seems to be the establishing of 7 ri's† between you and the worldly world mcworld. Or really wanting to get away from people you hate (no really that is the second definition; I look all this crap up).

BTW, abracadabra, presto-chango and the like are called おまじない in Japanese. ♪ The more you chant!♪
--
*funny thing, wet-nurse is pronounced mama in Japanese. Well, among other things and probably not properly, but still.

†:2.44 miles. Duh.

Japanese Study Links

I always feel like a dancing camcorder is watching me 4 Mar 2012 1:48 AM (13 years ago)

If you have visited a Japanese theater in the last few years, you have seen the odd anti-piracy notice below. I was always perversely tempted to film this thing. Luckily someone else illegally put it on YouTube.

Some wedding parties are starting to riff on it too.

Japanese Study Links

What Edan's Partner Was Singing About 12 Feb 2012 12:41 AM (13 years ago)

Today I finally solved a mystery that has been bugging me for like 10 years. What the heck was that kid singing about in Edan's old song Sing It, S***face?

Turns out it was an old children's song called Futa'atsu (Doublings or just Two drawn out in a sing-song-style). The lyrics: ふたあつ（tune/山口保治・lyrics/まどみちお）

一、
ふたあつ　ふたあつ　なんでしょね
There are two, two, right?
お目々が　いちに　ふたつでしょ
One eye and two,
お耳も　ほらね　ふたつでしょ
And one ear plus two, eh.
二、
ふたあつ　ふたあつ　まだあって
There are another couple of things
お手々が　いちに　ふたつでしょ
One arm and another
あんよも　ほらね　ふたつでしょ
and two widdle wegs.
三、
まだまだ　いいもの　なんでしょか
But there is still another good thing
まあるい　あれよ　かあさんの
Those ro-ound things mom has
おっぱい　ほらね　ふたつでしょ
Breasts, see? There are two, aren't there.

J children's songs have no compunction about mentioning breasts (or maybe flashing them with the final line?). See the theme song for dragon ball.

Also, in case you are wondering, all the body parts save for mammary glands in the song are mentioned in baby-language, which is usually a doubling of a given word, but anyo (legs/walking) is an exception.

J Lyrics via this site, where you can also hear the tune.

Karaoke: Star Wars Episode... Uh, One? 29 Dec 2011 12:55 AM (13 years ago)

Unfortunately, I could not find lyrics attached to a video, but the Uga Uga site has confirmed that they do have this song! I give you Star Wars with disco treatment, a small cantina diversion, and Japanese lyrics. Yay!

スター・ウォーズのテーマ～カンテナバンド

But if you are someone that can bust out a guitar and steal our girlfriends, I also have this for you:

帝国のマーチ

Japanese Study Links

I Need a Karaoke Hero 18 Dec 2011 6:16 AM (13 years ago)

I love finding Japanese translations of world-famous songs. See if you can recognize this one. Protip: I gave everything away with my clever title.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8PiJlflNPs&feature=related 麻倉未稀　ヒーロー　（カラオケ）
Edit: video got copyrightslapped, so I found a new version.

Japanese Study Links

Claytonian Wrote a Children's Book? Introducing: Green Zombie Green Zombie What Do You See? 19 Oct 2011 6:37 AM (13 years ago)

Everyone probably remembers Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? This book, which I made in Adobe Illustrator, is a send up of Brown Bear that is designed to be both spooky and educational. I use it to teach at an international preschool here in Japan, so the focus was on vocabulary and Halloween fun. It was a hit when I read it this morning from my Android Tablet; the kids made me read it twice!

View Green Zombie Green Zombie What Do You See? here.

A couple notes:
Unlike the original books, "looking at me" is not the verbage used in this book, but you can use it when you narrate to children if you don't like the verbs/pace I chose.

Rokurokubi is a Japanese monster. You may need to practice saying the name out loud. Ghoul is an Arabic monster, and it just means basically monster, goblin, or boggart in my mind.

I may add to this book next year (rainbow blobs, anyone?) as well as find a technical way to emulate brush strokes like the original book has. So check back next October too!

Japanese Study Links

億劫: In Japanese, Sometimes a Task Can Take Aeons. 11 Sep 2011 5:49 AM (13 years ago)

Image ripped (lovingly) from the Buddhist Freedom Ledger.

Lately, I share a lot of kanji, words, and phrases from Japanese in my twitter stream, but today's word demands a bit more of an explanation. Plus it has one of my favorite units of time built into it: the kalpa.

How long is a kalpa, you ask? In Hindu and Buddhist cosmology, they explain it this way sometimes: Imagine an immense block of stone. Every century, an angel descends from heaven to give the stone a brief wipe with a silky cloth. That stone will be worn down a little at a time by this process. But the stone will be gone long before a kalpa can finish.

Less poetically, some clock a kalpa at 4.32 billion years.

Anyways, looking at today's word, 億劫 okku, meaning troublesome or annoying, we can see the kanji 億 (100 million) and 劫 (a kalpa). So it refers to a task that would take 100 million kalpas, or 4.32x10^17 years. Very troublesome indeed.
--
Bonus kalpa fun: A webcomic. The kalpa part comes around panel 31.

Japanese Study Links

California Komachi 16 Aug 2011 5:40 AM (13 years ago)

I encountered these ladies in the streets of Shibuya after missing the last train home on Christmas Eve*. They were in full mouse (cat?) costume and handing out leaflets. Today I finally found their leaflet and looked them up. They go by the name of カリフォルニア小町 (The California Town-beauties). I never knew that small+town=town belle before I started this post. I'll teach you one more word:表現する (hyougen suru): to express a concept. In the video, they use gymnastics to create cheesy images of famous Indian things. Their artistic merits are moot, but I just think they should keep the masks off.

*Don't worry, I met random foreigners and we all went to the best room at Karaoke Hiroba. Excellent Christmas Eve, that.

Japanese Study Links

Comprehensive Guide to Japanese Lesson 1: Screw Aisatsu, Is That a Dog? 10 Aug 2011 6:20 AM (13 years ago)

I'm not going to teach you aisatsu (greetings) with this, the first Japanese lesson of a series that will teach you every last thing about Japanese. Why? Because you will hear that crap a million times a day if you come to Japan or take in their media! Instead, I'm going to teach you some hiragana (syllabic characters) and kanji (ideographic characters) and even characters from one more writing system.

Sample conversation between two people:

Person 2 (In response to something person 1 said earlier):あれ？
That? [points to something which he expects the other party to look to]

Person 1: ん。　　。。。。えっ？！木？
Yup. ...What?! [realizes what they are really seeing] A Tree?

ええ。。。。
Yeah...

犬と。。。。
I thought it was a dog...

アーア！
Oh come on!

And thus ends a conversation between two friends about how one mentioned a thing (before we overhear them), the other tried to clarify, then the first person at first just confirmed but then realized that the thing he thought was a dog was actually a tree, disgusting the second person. This conversation has probably never taken place, but that is not important!

Okay, so what's the deal? How do I read this? Well, I'm going to include a hiragana chart below this paragraph in the post. At some point, I'll redesign the site to have it float in a handy place, but for now consult the chart for each character. Can you find あ, ん, え, っ, 木, 犬, と, ア, and ー? Well, no, because two of these symbols, 木 and 犬, are not hiragana but kanji (also, two more symbols, ア and ー, aren't hiragana either, but hold on for them and look for all the other characters I listed). As for those pesky kanji, 木 is read き (consult the chart again) and 犬 is read いぬ (that's two characters for the price of one). We'll get to their respective meanings in the vocabulary if you can't tell from the translations above, but if you are smart, you have probably noticed a few other things about the moronic conversation of this lesson...

For instance, they have 。s instead of periods. Well, technically, 。s are only supposed to be used in vertical writing (traditional Japanese is read top to bottom, from the right side of the page to the left, or have you actually not already learned this from the Wikipedia article on Japanese before starting your very hard linguistic journey?), and Western style punctuation is supposed to be used when writing horizontally (which is read from left to right like English for reasons that elude me) but fun fact: Every last Japanese person has disregarded that rule of style for generations to the point it's not even common knowledge anymore.

The proceeding run-on sentence/paragraph/parenthetical-parse-monster was to emphasize a sad fact about studying Japanese: You won't get much help from J peeps when doing it. Seriously, most of them forget what verbs and nouns are, let alone period rules. You don't know what a noun is either? Then seriously, taking up a new language is not for you. I don't expect you to know the word parse (see sentence one of this paragraph-monster) however, but you will have to learn how to parse like a boss to figure out Japanese, so keep that in mind too. And like I said, no help from the natives. Don't even try.

You will also have to learn how to pic up on what people are talking about without using many subjects. If the subject is the least bit understood in Japanese, it is left out. Check out that first sentence, "あれ?" That sound means something like, "in yon way/style/manner/thingy?" Yeah, yon isn't used much in English these days, but it is a useful way to approach あれ. I'll teach you words for "this" and "that" some other time, but right now, the guy is talking about yon thing, whatever it is. Yon could also be an action or a concept. Of course, we would probably just say "that" in modern English, but I want to remind you that yon things are a little different from that things. Yon things are removed a bit from both the people in the conversation, either physically or psychologically.

How do you say あれ though? Well, exactly like あ, but for two mora instead of one. Mora is a word that kinda means a beat in linguistic terms (also, oddly enough, mora is totally an English word too; get used to learning English in these Japanese lessons). All Japanese syllables happen in the space of a mora, and generally, all moras uttered in one breath will be the same length if uttered by a native speaker. Utterly. There can be tones that alter the pitch, but I ain't planning on touching those as I have wooden ears. Lost them in the war.

But wait, at the end of the silly dog-tree conversation I see アーア. If I look on a katakana chart (for that's what these willy characters are called, as you can see below this paragraph), I see ア is also pronounced like an a sound, but I thought that was what あ does! Well, confused me, who is a stand-in for the audience, let me explain: Japan has two syllabaries that cover the same sounds. However, ー isn't likely to be found on either chart. But what it does is lengthen sounds. Usually just for katakana, but sometimes it gets hiragana fever too. So アーア is pronounced kinda like AaAh, if you interpret the captical a's as higher tones. Crap, I thought I wasn't gonna let myself get dragged into a tonal conversation. Monotone for me, thanks.

One more trick! っ is not the same as the hiragana chart つ. The little one is used in this case to indicate a kind of clipped sound, caused by a glottal stop of the sound of the character that proceeds it.

So to summarize, 3 writing systems combined in the same sentences, dropped subjects, implications everywhere, western punctuation can happen (but ellipses have four dots), everything said in even beats, yon mountains call to the dog. Or was it tree? Could have been trees. We'll get to the ambiguity of plurals in later lessons.
This is a beautiful way to begin an explanation of a super hard language to learn. Yes sir.

So, homework time. Find a hiragana practice chart somewhere and print out something that you can trace. Make sure it includes stroke order arrows. Look up Japanese writing system on Wikipedia if you haven't already (don't try to memorize it; save some brain space). Enter the terms below into a memory system or program of some sort (*cough* Anki *cough*), and check their pronunciation using the audio at wwwjdic (linked in the right toolbar).

Next time, maybe I'll start feeding you kanji and verbs (Holy crap did I just do a lesson with out verbs? I see what I did there).

Vocab:
あれ (sometimes ああ) yon (that way)
ん nasally grunt of agreement
えっ ejaculation of surprise
木 tree(s)
ええ sound of confirmation
犬 dog
と a particle that effectively quotes whatever proceeds it.
In this case, to give the sense that this person was thinking about a dog (the word thought is not said anywhere in the sentence though, as it is often dropped and this is the first lesson anyways).
アーア sound of exasperation

Questions? I promise this silly post was not a trolling of you, and it will get easier to grok, but maybe I can answer some queries in the comments section of this post.

Japanese Study Links

A Hopeless Romantic's Adventures in Japan View RSS

Jun Togawa's Radar Man 10 Dec 2019 4:35 AM (5 years ago)

『妖怪ハンター ヒルコ』（1991） PANDORATV 16 Jun 2019 7:03 AM (5 years ago)

Yamasa Soy Sauce: What's in a logo? 14 May 2016 4:57 AM (8 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

Upside down luck at Chinese restaurants 17 Jan 2015 9:37 PM (10 years ago)

Planet of the Apes Hachimaki 2 Dec 2014 5:33 PM (10 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

Who drew Howard and Nester? Shuji Imai did. 3 Nov 2014 2:39 PM (10 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

Karate will see you through this disaster 27 Oct 2014 5:33 PM (10 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

Anyways, Just Try It Once 23 Oct 2014 12:43 AM (10 years ago)

MOTHER OF MERCY I DON'T SPEAK JAPANESE! Japanese Game Show (SNL) 19 Feb 2014 4:38 AM (11 years ago)

GReeeeN - 愛し君へ 14 Aug 2013 6:55 PM (11 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

Karaoke: Charisma.com 『GEORGE』 18 Jul 2013 6:32 AM (11 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

Yoda Rakugo 6 Jul 2013 6:17 PM (11 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

Japanese Study Links

Karaoke: Love is Blue 16 May 2012 2:17 AM (12 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

Karaoke: Webster City Connection Found 29 Mar 2012 4:52 AM (13 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

Bless This Bathhouse from Thievery 25 Mar 2012 10:09 AM (13 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

Why Dost Arnold the Negger of Schwarze Say Chichinbuibui? 8 Mar 2012 8:00 AM (13 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

I always feel like a dancing camcorder is watching me 4 Mar 2012 1:48 AM (13 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

What Edan's Partner Was Singing About 12 Feb 2012 12:41 AM (13 years ago)

Karaoke: Star Wars Episode... Uh, One? 29 Dec 2011 12:55 AM (13 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

I Need a Karaoke Hero 18 Dec 2011 6:16 AM (13 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

Claytonian Wrote a Children's Book? Introducing: Green Zombie Green Zombie What Do You See? 19 Oct 2011 6:37 AM (13 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

億劫: In Japanese, Sometimes a Task Can Take Aeons. 11 Sep 2011 5:49 AM (13 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

California Komachi 16 Aug 2011 5:40 AM (13 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

Comprehensive Guide to Japanese Lesson 1: Screw Aisatsu, Is That a Dog? 10 Aug 2011 6:20 AM (13 years ago)

Japanese Study Links

『妖怪ハンターヒルコ』（1991） PANDORATV 16 Jun 2019 7:03 AM (5 years ago)