Archive for 日本語
November 21, 2007 at 5:56 pm · Filed under 日本語
日本語の勉強の時間がなくなって，残念です！I can’t wait to start studying kanji again. I stopped before the summer so that I could write my thesis. That is almost almost almost there!! Ahhh…that last bit…so hard! And then revisions…but I can’t even think about those yet.
So for a little Japanese while I don’t actually have time or brain energy to study anything new, pinktentacle had a great post of this year’s top 60 buzzwords in Japan. Some of them are familiar from my time there, some are too familiar : P, and many are references to things said by politicians and famous people.
The list is no order but the first was quite familiar to me:
1. KY [abbreviation of kuki ga yomenai - 空気が読めない]: This is (not a reference to the lubricant, but) an abbreviation of the Japanese expression kuki ga yomenai (”can’t read between the lines” or “can’t sense the atmosphere”), which is used to describe indelicate or unperceptive people. Example: That guy is so KY.
I was at a drinking party where a manager was being a bit humourous with the expression. I, of course, wondered why they were talking about lube so someone explained. But still…it is difficult to forget meanings you grow up with so I had to accept experiencing amusement on a different level from all at the table.
October 15, 2007 at 2:36 pm · Filed under In the Kitchen and Foodstuff, In the News, Movies&Film, Travels, 日本語
The strike is finally over and garbage collection resumes this week. We were just starting to consider alternatives to get rid of waste piled up over the three months. Hopefully this experience will lead to better recycling practices for all.
travel
I read about a place in Chile called Punta Pite and it has finally given me an definite answer to the question I always ask others: “if you could leave on a trip tomorrow anywhere in the world, where would it be?” It’s likely my next big trip will not be for another year or so but in the meantime, I will read up on Chile with a possible side of Easter Island salad.
news
日本語
From my Japanese language exchange over an ever-delicious Elysian cappuccino on Saturday: you know how we say that we want to “brush up on …”, for example, brush up on my Japanese? You can use the same expression in Japanese: 日本語を磨く (nihongo o migaku) - brush my japanese. The same verb (and kanji) is used for brushing ones teeth brushing. We also discussed 不器用 (bukiyoh) and a translation - clumsy; both the physical and mental uses of the word. Then I inquired into a Japanese version of quote / unquote fingers but my conclusion for the night was that it doesn’t quite exist. If you know other please let me know.
food
On Friday after drinks at Koerner’s a few of us went to Topanga Cafe on W 4th for some dinner. I had been inhaling cider for the few hours previous thus this was the most incredible thing to eat:
the chicken burrito. On reflection, I might have preferred beef or bean but…it was good. Can you believe that cheese and the sauce…? On further reflection, or after getting this picture of my camera, I realized that I had eaten something that spent half its plate-life staring at me.
pets
I was also cat sitting this weekend which was good given my limited interaction with pets. Seven months old, she was quite the active cat and I played with her; tossing mice around and animating string. I wondered if I was entertaining her and then I wondered how much she perceived these things in motion as being moved by my hand. Was I creating an illusion or did she need to use her own imagination? How do cats play?
movies
I saw The Darjeeling Limited last night and while it may disappoint those expecting a new favourite Wes Anderson movie, I enjoyed the faces and expressions of all the actors, with all their flaws, made beautiful.
mobile phone
I am still without mobile phone but it’s hard to want to spend the money on the ones available here when I had Orange Juice in Japan. I sort of want to wait until I have a (more) highly paying job and then I can invest in one of them fancy phones. But moments like coordinating meeting at a movie theatre and saving seats could have been made easier if I was connected. We could have made the balcony!
September 28, 2007 at 1:43 pm · Filed under 日本語
Yes! “Just a few words a day”…so I’ve been busy and will continue to be busy until (…?…) but, 出来るだけ! As much as possible!
ガリガリ, garigari
According to my ds, it is onomatopoeia for grinding or gnawing but, according to rikaichan it means selfish person or selfishness. Are they related? 心をガリガリかじる.
虫,むしば, mushiba
“cavity”, “decayed tooth”, the first kanji, 虫 (mushi), means “insect” and the second, 歯 (ha –> ba) means “tooth”. I wonder if the origin is from 虫 being used in compound words expressing things rotten or having gone bad or, was it once believed that a cavity or bad tooth was caused by a bug living inside?
September 23, 2007 at 11:25 am · Filed under 日本語
After some time of not studying to learn anything new, I feel renewed motivation to pick up more and more Japanese - below helped. Unfortunately I do not have too much time to study now but if I can try for even just a few words a day…
…and I think it will help to post them here. For archival purposes and also for the chance that I do have some Japanese readers who can tell me “Meghan…you don’t need to remember that”. Without further ado…
鼻の穴, はなのあな, hana no ana
“nostril”, more literally translates to “nose’s hole”, nose being 鼻(hana) and hole being 穴(ana), I like that it rhymes (鼻の穴にバナナを突っ込む).
いびき, ibiki
“snoring”, this is harder for me to remember because the word, ibiki, sounds more like a sneeze to me, perhaps the sneeze of a small dog.
苦しい, くるしい, kurushii
“painful”, “difficult”, “laborious” in the context of work or more physical things like breathing. I think I remember hearing this word a lot so it might have broad usage.
チョコまみれ, choco mamire
“covered in chocolate”, my translator says that mamire (まみれ) is a stain or smear but I think it can maybe also be used as a suffix - xxxまみれ meaning “covered in xxx”, comes from the verb mamireru (まみれる) meaning to be smeared, covered.
By now you might be wondering where I am getting these words from. I pick stories from the book I bought at the airport and try to read them. They seem to be written in a natural speaking style so I hope I can pick up on some Japanese that you don’t learn studying grammatical patterns. The current story involves chocoballs inserted into the nose of a sleeping boy.
次の瞬間, つぎのしゅんかん, tsugi no shunkan
“the next instant”, an important expression if I am going to be telling suspenseful stories.
ぴくぴく, pikupiku
onomatopoeia for twitching or wiggling.
全身, ぜんしん, zenshin
“the whole body”, as in his whole body began to convulse. It is good to remember that the kanji 全 (zen) has means of “all”, “whole”, “entire”, “complete” and so on.
Now do I dare try to use all the words in a sentence or two?
