日本語の道

どうもです

日本に住んでたときに俺の大家さんの息子と一緒に焼き鳥を食べに行った。焼き鳥が出せれたら、彼は確か「どうもです」とお礼した。

「ありがとうございます」がちょっと丁寧すぎて、「どうも」だけだとちょっと足りないと判断したとき「どうもです」がいいと思ってた。その表現を使うようになった俺はこの間「どうもです、言わないよ」と直された。それから、「若者の言葉みたい」と言われた。今まで何回も言ったのに誰も教えてくれなかった！

A Small World

狭い世の中・世の中狭い　　It's a small world

It's interesting how you use a different adjective for this in English and Japanese.

Japanese Sex

An indirect way of saying a married couple is sexually active:

夫婦（ふうふ）生活がある。

The opposite can be used for a married couple which doesn't have sex:

夫婦生活がない。

This is such a subtle phrase and I wouldn't have guessed the meaning from the words alone. A direct way of saying this, though, is セクスレス. I can't believe the word 'sexless' is used in Japanese.

Understood?

下の表現が本に出てきたけど、英語ではなんと言えばいいですか？

人事とは思えない

友達と話したら、私は「気持ちが分かる」とか予想してたが、いまいち、分かんないよね 。

Same Situation

「同じ（おなじ）穴（あな）のムジナ」って他の人と同じ状況に置かれるという意味ですか？説明してくれると嬉しいです。ムジナってなんでしょう？

Lost Dog

一昨日友達と日本の文化と結婚の話をしてた。イギリス人よりも日本人の女性のほうが結婚について期待をするよねと私は言った。例えば30歳まで結婚してその後子供がほしいという日本人の女性が多い。「「Left on the shelf」をならないように祈ってるよね、日本人は」と私が言った。

それで私の友達が「それは日本語で「負け犬（まけいぬ）」だよと教えてくれた。それは面白いよね、英語の表現も日本語の表現も。辞書に調べたら負け犬というのは「underdog, loser」だったけど。

結婚してないままどうせいするイギリス人のカップルは多いけどそうする日本人は少ないですよね？こっちでは離婚する人が増えてきて、現在結婚の意味がないと思う人がいっぱいいるでしょう。昔俺もそう思ってた。今は「いつか結婚をするのはいいかもしれない」と思うようになった。

皆様はどう思いますか？小さいころから結婚したかったですか？結婚したくないですか？

Distracting

Often I want to say something is 'distracting' in Japanese, but struggle to think of anything appropriate. Today a friend taught me one way of saying it:

気が散る　（きがちる）　－　Be distracted

If you look at the kanji, it really does make sense. I'll try and make an example sentence:

きれいな人が喫茶店にいて、気が散って勉強に集中が出来なかった。

Dumbo Ears

耳をダンボにする - Eavesdrop

How great is that? That must be the power of Disney in Japanese culture.

Uh-huh

Today's word of the day, presumably from うん, is 「うんうん」…

①うんうん と うなずく - uh-huh (agreement)
②うんうんうなりながら - grunting and groaning
③うんうんと車を押して… - (push a car with...) force

Kyushu

12月25日に初めて九州に行った。長崎は山ばっかりですごくいい景色が見れた。次の日島原という場所に移動し島原城から数年前火山からできた山を見た。そこから雲仙（うんぜん）という有名な温泉ホテルに泊まった。

そのホテルの部屋は和室だし着物を着てるお姉さんもお茶を入れてくれたしちょっと昔の日本って感じだった。驚いたのは着物を着てるお姉さんは晩ご飯の時間について話してるときに「シチ」時でなく「なな」時と言ってた！それって方言？それとも彼女だけ？試験のとき7時はなんと読むと聞かれて、シチ時と答えたらばつじゃない？

翌日の朝時差ぼけのため5時に起きてしまった。屋根の露天風呂（ろてんぶろ）に行ったら誰もいなく自分だけのお風呂だった！そこから雲の中の山も湖も見えて本当によかった。

Personal Use

こないだビックカメラでＴシャツを買うときに店員さんに「自宅の用ですか」（確かそんな感じ）と聞かれて、僕は理解が出来なかった。自宅って家のことじゃないかと思ってて混乱しちゃった。友達に聞いたら「自分の用ですか」っていう意味だった。なるほど…僕にとっては変な表現だけど覚えていこう！

Natural Keigo

昨日初めてインターネットの友達と電話で話した。メールは何回もしたことがあって、二人で敬語を使わないことにしたのに実際話したら二人とも敬語で話してた。自然に敬語を使うなんて俺はちょっと日本人みたいだと思った。自画自賛…

昔は敬語ほとんど使ってなかったけど去年から自分と相手の立場を考えて頑張って適切な言い方で話そうとしてる。相手の年が自分より若いと分かれば別に敬語を使わなくてもいいんだけど年が同じぐらいだといきなり親しい言い方で話すのが難しいよね。ちょっとだけ日本人の心が分かるようになったみたい。

Ake Ome

新年になったら日本人は「あけましておめでとうございます」と言います。

若者は「あけおめ」と省略をすることが多い。今年友達から下のメールが届いてきた…

「あけおめ、ことよろ」

「ことよろ」って分かるかな？外国人のためのＩＱサプリみたい！そのテレビ番組大好き！

More Clashing

This follows on from my previous post about clashing appointments. A different friend said that he wasn't sure about バッティング, but had another couple of alternatives.

予定が重なる（かさなる）
予定がかぶる

The first of which is quite easily remembered as it actually makes sense, even in English. I'm not too sure about the second one - all I can think of is hats!

Clashing Heads

Apparently, in Japanese when two appointments 'clash', you say something like 「バッティング」- presumably from the word 'butting'!

Getting Better

この間頭もお腹も痛かった。少し休んだら俺は「ちょっとよくなった」と友達に言った。彼によると「楽になる」のうほうが自然だ。Ｍ先生、教えてくれてありがとう。今日のキーポイントでした！

Bullshit

うんちくをたれる　=　Talking bullshit?

No Regrets

今日日本人の友達が帰国した。彼は空港からSMSのテキストを送ってくれた。「思い残したものはない」と書いてあった＝No regrets.勉強になった。

日本で頑張ってね、Ｙ君！

Once More

関西弁で標準語の「もう一回」は「もういっぺん」と言う！

最近からの新しいlanguage exchange parnterが関西人だから関西弁いっぱい習うチャンス！

Let's Pretend

For some time I have known of a way to make 'pretend to' type sentences using ふり:

知らないふりをする。
Pretend not to know.

I've learnt another similar type of phrase which is used for saying things like 'pretend not to have seen/heard':

見なかったことにする。
Pretend not to have seen.

聞かなかったことにする。
Pretend not to have heard.

Oh yes, and Happy Valentine's Day!! Are my days of receiving hand made chocolates and biscuits over?　(>_<)

[As always, feel free to correct any mistakes you see.]

Tsumori

I understand the following sentence:

理解できるようになった。

But I was suprised to hear this sentence:

理解できるようになったつもり。

I presume from the context that it means the same as the first sentence but I wondered whether there was any nuance?

The つもり I have learnt is normally used for 'intention' after having made a decision, e.g. 「あのラケットを買うつもりだ。」.

Actually, I've heard a similarly confusing sentence before. It went like this:

分かってるつもり

Can anyone clear this up for me? Is this new grammar or simply a type of style of speech?

Girl Talk

In a recent post, I discussed a few points I'd like to focus on when speaking Japanese. My language exchange partner has spread further light on the matter.

When talking about point ③, I had claimed that my Japanese wasn't particularly feminine because I don't use words which only women tend to. But that isn't the only issue: certain types of intonation, problem ①, can make you sound feminine.

For example, I said the following to my language exchange partner:

「簡単な文章作って」

She said that because I inflected not just the く, but also the て in 作って, my request sounded slightly feminine! Aha! I feel a step closer to understanding how to improve my spoken Japanese.

3 Points

There are three points I'm going to have to watch out for when I speak Japanese:

①Intonation
I've been told that my accent is good, but some people accurately comment that my intonation can be awful. I'm not sure how to improve this without people pointing out to me when I use strange intonation. If I recorded my own voice I wonder if I could spot strange intonation myself? Probably not all of it.

②Getting Excited
Of late, I've noticed that for some strange reason I am far more excited and enthused when I am speaking Japanese compared to English. Shouldn't it be the other way around? In any case, in doing this I can rush speaking and use a higher pitch than when I speak English. My language exchange partner kindly pointed this out. I'd like to use my natural voice in Japanese, which perhaps means calming down a tad?!

③Masculine vs Feminine Speech
This is a minor point because I believe my Japanese isn't really heavily masculine or feminine. I know most of the major differences and the only reason I am listing this point is because recently one person commented that occasionally I sounded a little feminine - I'll watch out for this but it must be her mistake!

As it Should Be

こうあるべき

My rough translation is 'X is just as it should be' or 'it couldn't be better for X' or 'X is ...' and apparently is similar to これこそ. So in referring to a buffet you can say:

Buffet とは こうあるべき。

These kind of sentences are hard to translate. Maybe something like 'Now this is what I call a buffet'.

Osaka Ben

ごっつうまいやろ

This is the Osaka ben version of something like ちょううまいでしょう - very tasty, right?
ごつ is like the Osaka version of ちょう （とても） while やろ means the same as でしょう.

I find these kind of words and dialects really interesting. Hopefully I can pick up some more.

Stretch Ur Legs

手足（てあし） を 伸ばす（のばす）

At first I thought this meant something like 'stretching your legs.' However, it seems more accurately translated as having a break.

羽（はね） を 伸ばす

Can anyone explain this one? I was told it's used when you are going on holiday - 羽を伸ばしてくる. But what exactly does it imply?

Get Your Way

「そうかなくちゃ！」

I've heard this phrase quite a few times (mostly in anime) but couldn't quite catch the meaning. I'm not sure if it can be translated directly into English, but someone gave me a good example of when to use it:

When, for example, you sugest something like 飲みに行こうよ! but the person you are talking to constantly refuses. When that person eventually agrees, you can use そうこなくちゃ in delight. It seems to be used when there is some opposition to what you want to happen at first before you get your own way.

Gender Issues

One of the things I like about Japanese is the different language men and women use. It can highlight gender differences and make women appear more feminine and men more masculine.

For example, women might say いいかしら while men wouldn't. Men might say これ、ほしいか？ while women probably wouldn't (my friend found this out the hard way when people laughed at her).

Some of these differences are a little old and often unused in real life. E.g. young girls these days tend not to use いいわよ、そうね and so on.

It's interesting how Japanese drama, anime, manga still use this type of language to the extreme - much more than I've ever seen in real life in Japan.

Don't Get It

「ゲット」って気にならない？僕は日本語ぺらぺらになったとしても「ゲット」と使わないともり！

It must be in part due to my students over using the term during it's super popular phase (maybe that was ゲッツ but anyway), not to mention the English grammar butchering.

Do you have any words you prefer not to use?

Informal Talk

Often in Japan I heard what I would call conversational style grammar, things which often caught me out. Some are used often, and of course, you eventually get used to hearing and even using them. For example the following,

やってはいけねい　>　やっちゃだめ
You must not do that

A couple of other ones which I'd like to memorise I heard again watching anime - I've learnt a lot from anime actually, a useful study aid.

やってみないと分からない　>　やってみなきゃわ分かんない
You don't know until you try

言わないほうがよかった　>　言わなきゃよかった
I shouldn't have said that

Any mistakes?

Recommended

英会話じゃなくて、公立の学校で教えていたので、息子さんにおすすめできません。

I was trying to say something along the lines of:

"I taught at public schools, not conversation schools, so I can't really recommend any good conversation schools for your son."

My friend kindly corrected my Japanese (below). To be honest I don't really understand the difference. Isn't this just the verb form of my noun sentence?

「おすすめできません」は良くない意味ですね。
「not better for you」みたいな意味。
「すすめることができません」がいいかな。

[Update: The 'corrected' Japanese may not be so accurate after all. See comments...]

Good Thing

On completing a task someone said, 「いいことにしましょう」.

I said that it sounded like a future action - 'let's do something good,' I guessed. However, it is a phrase used after doing a satisfactory job.

Flu

風邪(かぜ）をひく means to catch a cold, but the verb and particle change for the flu: インフルエンザにかかる.

風邪をひかないように…

Rusty Japanese

I haven't tried to speak much polite Japanese during the past few months, at least not at school as there is little need. But today I was back in the situation of talking to a friendly vice-principle whom I'd met and spoke with last summer. It was annoying because I had to make a real concious effort to add on です and so on, even though the last time I spoke with her it hadn't seemed so hard. I hope it will come back but it's frustrating to feel that you are going backwards at times.

On a tangent... the JLPT results should be out in early Feb, right?

Stomach Ache

What's the difference in おなかがいたい and いがいたい? In English don't we just say stomach ache instead of going into specifics about stomaches, bowels, colons and so on?

I think おなかがいたい is used for times when you are dashing to the toilet whereas いがいたい is a pain higher up. Have I got them mixed up again?!

Just Looking

Whenever I'm in an English shop and a shop assistant comes along I say, 'I'm just looking.' Naturally, I carried this habit over into my Japanese, not knowing any better. But when I asked someone I was told that 「見てるだけです」 is rude in this situation.

Hot Stuff

イケメン I have been told means 'hot guy'. Someone told me this comes from いけてるメンズ, but what does that mean? It's interesting that there seems to be no equivalent word for 'hot girls'. Or is there?

A Ride

I came across some interesting terminology for someone who has a car and can drive others around - I think it is typically a guy who is driving a woman around. Someone who has 'wheels' or can give you a ride?

アッシーくん

Please someone tell me exactly what the Japanese is if I misheard. Interestingly a woman offered to fill this role on my behalf :)

Suggestions

なんて is often used for expressing surprise like なんてむずかしい試験. I just wanted to make a note about the following type of usage:

あゆを呼んでピザパーティなんてどう？

In this case it's used for making suggetions. How about a pizza party?

Me Too 2

だって can be used when providing excuses or explaining something. I guess it often goes with もん　(from もの).

ケーキ全部食べちゃったの？!
だって、おいしかったもん！

No mistakes so far, I hope. But there is another conversational use for だって which I've begun to notice recently. I think it translates as something like 'me too' - I was reminded of this all because of my previous post. So I've been hearing things like:

わたしだって！

If anyone could confirm this for me, I'd be grateful.

Not Looking

見てんじゃねーよ!

How would you translate this? A direct translation doesn't seem to make sense: 'don't look'.

Is this something like, 'What the &$#" are you looking at?' That's my best interpretation so far - especially considering tone of voice.

Desho

Could anyone tell me the difference between でしょう and ででょ? I always thought there was only でしょう until I saw in a book that there is also でしょ which has a slightly different usage.

The weather man/lady says 「明日雨が降るでしょう」 right?
Also, I think in けいご, 「よろしいいでしょうか？」

「今のは見たでしょ？」 is correct?

Update: My calligraphy teacher says there is no such thing as でしょ. I'm confused.

Natural Tennis

When I speak Japanese I want to speak natural Japanese. One part of this is using the right words and phrases at the right time. I may say something quite acceptable grammatically with words which are also suitable, but I want to say things the way a Japanese person would them.

Sometimes when you ask people to check your Japanese you can see an expression on their face. They can't find any real faults with your sentences but the sentences don't quite seem natural. I also do this when I look at the work of Japanese students studying English. I find myself helping them to rephrase their sentences to sound more natural.

Here's an example from a ケータイ メール. Being an email explains missing particles - because it's more like spoken Japanese than perfect grammatical Japanese. This is my reply to an email asking how I did in singles & doubles tennis matches earlier today (not good). Also, I was asked if I used the same racket as the other day as it wasn't my usual racket.

ｘ－さんは①シングルスをやったよ[not me]。同じラケットモデルを借りたけど違うストリングとテンション②で難しかった。それは負ける理由じゃないけど…試合のとき、やっぱり調子悪いね。がんばったよ！

After sending this mail I asked a friend if my mail made any sense and if there were any parts I could improve. He frowned, as I described above, said 'hmm, there's nothing wrong... but...' before pointing out the parts I've written in bold. These were his suggestions:

① x-さんはシングルスの試合に出た
② のため、うまく （打てなかった・行かなかった）

These are the type of things I have to learn if hope to some day become a master of Japanese.

P Pronouns II

This follows on from my previous post on different words for 'I' in Japanese.

For a long time I wondered about what type of words were appropriate for 'we' in Japanese. Of course, わたしたち (watashi-tachi) is a valid version of 'we', but when should we use it and when does it sound too polite?

After some consulatation and observation it seems that for a group of boys or young men, おれたち or the more polite ぼくたち are valid words when used at the right times.

I was told that if a group of people has even one girl in it then うちら (uchira) is a better word for 'we'. Perhaps, I thought, because using おれたち would imply that the girl were part of a group of men and hence be rude.

So my theory was that any female presence would render おれたち and ぼくたち as invalid or just plain rude.

I was very surprised when I heard a man say to a woman in a TV drama last night, 'Let's start from the beginning.' Why? Because he used 'おれたち'! So, I asked a different Japanese person...

I was told that the man can use おれたち in this type of situation while the woman would use わたしたち, or うちら as before. This was a bit of a shocking revelation and destroyed my theory. Perhaps the theory holds true outside of 'couple situations'?

Beware: though it's natural for a girl to say わたしたち, if you are a guy and you say the same thing then you'll sound strange because it is so polite. Confused?!

P Pronouns I

There are many words that we can use in place of わたし depending on who we are or how we perceive ourselves, whom we are talking to, and so on. Some of my observations (which may not hold true all of the time) are as follows.

Young boys use 僕 （ぼく）. Interestingly I once heard a very young girl use this word.

Young men often use 俺 （おれ） in friendly conversation. When I asked my high school students last year, they told me that I should use おれ. I should mention that I'm 24 years old. Another student said that it sounded funny when I used it which now surprises me even more as I have heard numerous elementary school children using おれ to refer to themselves!

Often young men seem to change from おれ to 僕 （ぼく） when talking to someone 'above' them (e.g. a parent's friend).

This change can become permanent or after the man ages a little and doesn't feel おれ is suitable any longer.

Older men can use different words such as わし and so on, but I have only ever heard these words in anime and in film subtitles - do people really use these in Japan these days?

For girls, a common replacement for わたし is あたし.

Interestingly, a friend from Kyoto told me that both boys and girls can use うち for わたし (bearing in mind うち is often used to refer to one's home).

Then there are the formal personal prounounds such as わたし and the super-polite わたくし. One guy I was talking to said he has to use わたくし in his job interviews. At the time he was a final year university student looking for his first full-time job.

Clean Toilet

Does this mean what I think it does? If so it means let's keep our hearts and toilets clean.

Natural Te Form

食べていいよ (たべていいよ)　　-　　you may eat...

This is one of the first uses of the te (て) form that we learn as Japanese language students. When you come to Japan you will notice that everyone seems to often add an extra て to these types of sentences:

食べてていいよ

I am assuming the extra て comes from いて but in a shortened form, but this might not be correct.

In any case, after asking some questions it seems that though the two sentences above technically have the same meaning, the second implies that 'I am not going to eat yet...', that there may be some length of time involved, 'go ahead and eat,' and so on.

In the same way, while 持って (もって) means 'please hold (this)', 持ってて implies 'please hold (this)... for a while'.

Looking After Me

お世話になります （おせわになります） is often said to someone after they've looked after you for a period of time. For example, when you give your goodbye speech when leaving your job you will say this. I even heard people use this phrase to a tour guide at the end of their tour.

お世話になっております is a very polite version. I often hear teachers use this to school visitors and on the phone.

Anything To Say

言うことないの？
Don't you have anything to say?

I felt like saying this to someone when I held the door open for someone and they just walked through without saying anything.

こんにちは の は

I once told a Japanese person that she was mistaken using わ after こんにち in her emails. She said that she's been using it for the last 40 odd years without knowing any different. I didn't know the reason, but I was told in one of my early Japanese classes to use は and not わ. Anyway, this Japanese lady believed what I'd told her but believed that わ was equally acceptable.

While fiddling on my keitai in Japanese, I came to the realisation that there is kanji for konnichiwa: 今日は！
こん＋にち＋は and everything started to make more sense. Note that normally 今日 is read as きょう (kyou).

After realising this, I told a different Japanese friend about my revelation and he put everything into context for me by completing the こんにちは puzzle.

Greetings (あいさつ） Japanese people used to use were:

今日はどちらへ行きますか - Where are you going?

ちょっと （出かけています） - I'm just out for a bit

So, over time the initial greeting became shortened:

今日はどちらへ？ ＞ 今日は？ ＞ こんにちは

So the は in こんにちは is は and not わ because it's actually a particle from the sentence 今日はどちらへ行きますか!