/jp/ - Otaku Culture

[Anonymous No.]

I've heard people say things like, "You can always tell an anime fan by the way they speak Japanese."

What do people mean like this?

What sort of mistakes are commonly made that single them out?

How can one avoid making these mistakes?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11080466
You could stop repeating things they yell in anime... Tip if you are serious.

[Anonymous No.]

It's like you can recognize child who repeats lines from cartoons.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11080477
>>11080490
I guess that's what I'm saying. Is it that foreign-anime-fans tend to spew catch phrases and are obnoxiously genki like their favorite anime characters?

Or is there a tonal difference, difference in pronunciation, difference in grammar patterns, etc.

[Anonymous No.]

If you're a white weeb faggot with a neckbeard who talks like a teenage girl, it's obvious.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11080498
Obviously if your native language is not similar with Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

Grammar patterns, different tonal differences, etc. Talking in a monotone voice also confirms that you're an anime fan right off the bat.

[Anonymous No.]

CVs tend to be huge hams. It would be like someone speaking English like one of those bad renaissance fair actors.

[Anonymous No.]

My Japanese teacher makes fun of me because she says I talk like a feminine girl....

This is what you get for watching moe. It's differences like what particles you end your sentence with or use in casual dialogue.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11080758
It's also possible that if you watch anime with criminal activity, you will start using blunt forms and odd expressions by accident and will sound like a Yakuza. Your teacher will beat you for this.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11080521
No, it's the opposite. Anime voices have more pitch variance than normal japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11080765

> and will sound like a Yakuza

This is a good thing.

They are the last bastion of masculinity in Japanese society. No one other than the Yakuza still have the aggressive confidence of Pre-WW2 Japan. Everyone else is a complete pussy.

[Anonymous No.]

If you copy phrases and stuff you hear from anime then yeah you're going to sound retarded.

But if you just pick up the pronunciation it's all good. I was always the best in my class and pronunciation and it's all thanks to the anime, yo.

In the end, if you're intelligent then it'll all work out and you'll be able to tell what you should and shouldn't say, given the context in which you are using Japanese.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086360
except no one talks that way on the streets irl except 2eiji4yu teenagers

if you actually were being spoken to like that by someone who meant it, you'd be about 3 minutes from getting raped in an alley

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086360
Pre-WWII Japan was boring as shit.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086360
u just watch too many anime

[Anonymous No.]

A thread a while ago horrified me when the average poster didn't know わ was a feminine sentence end.

[Anonymous No.]

Do the yakuza make their own music like the black american gangsters make their rap music?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csOqoM8AkzI

[Anonymous No.]

Hi /jp/ I never come here but I hassle /int/ because I'm learning German and I've developed an interest in languages.

What's your thoughts on Japanese grammar and vocabulary? German is more complex than English because of gender articles which change verbs and everything (I think most European languages do that) plus they're infamous for their compound nouns.

Anything interesting in Japanese?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086425

Japanese grammar is very simple. There's about 3 irregular verbs. The rest conjugate in the same way every time. No articles, plurality, noun cases, genders, etc.

The grammar is entirely controlled by particles, which mark the preceding word, which removes the need for strict word order.

The only thing that is difficult is kanji, as so many must be learnt to read properly, but that just requires a spaced repetition deck and some time. It isn't really too different to learning the arbitrary spelling rules of English.

Oh, and there's a lot of homonyms, due to the adoption of Chinese words without the tones.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086417
It depends on the intonation though. When women use it they do it with an increasing pitch. Men use it sometimes as an exclamation with a decreasing pitch. But yeah dirty gaijin should avoid it altogether as we'd most probably fuck it up.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086446

Do you have an example of a male using it?

It might just be は.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086440
>Japanese grammar is very simple. There's about 3 irregular verbs. The rest conjugate in the same way every time. No articles, plurality, noun cases, genders, etc.

Sounds like bliss...

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086425
You think German compound nouns are interesting? Japanese has compound verbs. It's as scary as it sounds.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086456
I... How...?

Like runwalkjumpskip?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086461

走る (hashiru, to run) +　出す (dasu, to take out) -> 走り出す (hashiridasu, to start running)

Most of them are obvious, but some change meaning a lot from what the two separate verbs mean.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086456
>>11086467
Compound verbs in Japanese are pretty simple.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086440
Then you realize that grammatically, Japanese can use an entire sentence as a noun which is the subject of another sentence.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086513
Can't you do that in English too?

>Anon likes to write on the Internets
>That's why he's a great guy

"That" would be referring to the entire first sentence? Or do you mean something different?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086513

I don't see how it is difficult.

The dog that runs while wagging its tail likes to eat meat.

尻尾振りながら走る犬は肉を食べるのが好き。

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086476
Suure. Until you encounter something like 走り出してみていなかった.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086570

That's not a compound verb.

The ability to do that is what makes Japanese so simple.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086582
What is it, then? (Adjectives are verbs, so don't even try that route.)

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086570
"was not trying to start running" isn't really less complicated.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086587
in Japanese, the idea of "verbs" and "adjectives" is far less concrete than in other languages. everything tends to be a noun at base, which is why precise conjugation and particles are so essential.

the て form tends to work as not only conjunctive, but also nominalized. considering the way it used to conjugate in old Japanese, one might say て is actually just a conjunctive particle, and in the old form it would be appended to the base (nominal) form of the verb

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086587

It is just conjugation.

走り出す = to start running
走り出してみる = to try to start running
走り出してみている = to be trying to start running
走り出してみていない = to not be trying to start running
走り出してみていなかった = to not to have been trying to start running

I don't see why you'd consider this to be a huge complication.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086601
>to not to have been trying to start running
u wot

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086601
incorrect. ていない is different from "to not be doing" even though ている is "to be doing"

走り出してみていない = to have not tried to start to run
走り出してみていなかった = to have not had to be starting to run (presuming that later on you have had to be starting to run)

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086604
>to have not had to be starting to run
Holy shit what are you doing.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086591
>everything tends to be a noun at base

Please elaborate.

>>11086601
Because it is a huge complication for me personally? I'm certainly open to interpretation that I'm just stupid.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086613
I don't know man, we're talking about a grammatical function that's technically there but is never fucking used because it has no functional value

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086360
You don't know anything about Yakuza.

Hello Kitty is hugely popular with many Yakuza oriented groups and members.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086601
>>11086604
I hope you will never translate anything.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086624
I literally can't functionally translate it because it makes no sense in Japanese. It's grammatical muck.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086624

Without context, the only option is to use "to x".

You will note that English dictionaries list verbs in this form.

No one would translate anything in context like that.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086623
>is never fucking used because it has no functional value
Regardless, your translation is wrong.

>走り出してみていない = to have not tried to start to run
Why would it be in the past?
>走り出してみていなかった = to have not had to be starting to run
This isn't even English.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086630
Of course it makes sense.

>>11086633
That wasn't really the problem.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086634
because it's not language.
English doesn't have a way to appropriate this conjunction because translation involves capturing the meaning of the word, to which there is none.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086641
It's negative past progressive with "to try", what is the problem?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086630
Well, look who you just lost to.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086651
It actually is "was/were not trying", not "did not try".

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086652
True. Still better than an output of "can't translate it, makes no sense".

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086651
like I said, it has technical value. that doesn't mean it has semantic value, which google and >>11086652 totally missed

>>11086657
it. has. no. semantic. value. if you tried to use it to mean what it translates directly to, you would be incomprehensible.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086634

Because tenses don't always work the same in Japanese.

忘れていた, for example.


>>11086651

Google translate cannot do Japanese. It sometimes even ignores negatives, and loves changing the perspective into first person.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086663
Stop pulling shit out of your ass, it perfectly makes sense and everyone would comprehend it.

>>11086664
>Because tenses don't always work the same in Japanese.
But they do.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086671
you would be surprised at how easily nonstandard, even if logically-arranged, word arrangements completely fail to elicit a response

source: I live with a girl who refuses to use English with me anymore

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086671

If they were identical and exactly parallel then "I forgot my wallet" would be "財布を忘れた", but if you said that to a Japanese person, they'd wonder how you could possibly have forgotten it, if you're talking about it.

It is "忘れていた" because it was an ongoing action that has now ended.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086680
forgot ≠ left behind

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086664
You know, the easiest way for you to explain what you mean would be to show how to actually express "wasn't trying to start running" in Japanese.

>Google translate cannot do Japanese.

I don't think anyone ever claimed otherwise.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086676
>you would be surprised at how easily nonstandard, even if logically-arranged, word arrangements completely fail to elicit a response
I don't speak Japanese but I find this hilarious.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086686

走り出してみなかった。

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086687
it's so strange sometimes. so, say I wanted to say "it's no longer hard for me to do"
しにくい shinikui means "hard to do"
～くない ~kunai (adj. i→ku declension) means to not be
~くなる ~kunaru means to become
~なった (naru→natta) means became
so logically しにくくなくなかった shinikukunakunatta should be the double-declined, once-conjugated way to mean "it has become not difficult to do"
BUT IT ELICITS NO RESPONSE OTHER THAN A 45 DEGREE TILT

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086697
And now translate "did not try to start runnning".

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086591
>everything tends to be a noun at base
That's how it works with every language.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086700

The same.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11080521
WTF man.
It's the opposite.
Anyway, it depends on your home country. The most obvious way is grammar pattern.
Normally people would learn either polite (masu), "or normal casual" . Grammar from anime will be... something completely different. Either way too old/polite (samurai things) or completely bastardized insulting casual/manchildren

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086701
not really, English adjectives are just adjectives other than those which derive separately from nouns. words like "fast" have no innate nominal state.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086698
Why not apply some Occam's and communicate the equivalent of 'lel it's ez nao'?

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086446
> わ for men
Not in official Japanese. If you are not wrong, then it comes from a dialect, anime, or cherryboy.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086708
I'm starting to feel like all of Japanese is occhamized
which is hard for me, because I have a liberal arts degree and a couple of APs in English

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086707

English isn't really a language. It is just a pidgin that got out of hand.

Note that fast can mean either moving quickly, or unable to move.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086712
incorrect. we commonly use it in 関西弁
easterners would laugh but westerners wouldn't bat an eyelid

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086698
Your Japanese is really shitty man.
し難くなくなかった doesn't exist.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086716
>then it comes from a dialect
>we commonly use it in 関西弁

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086703
That's not exactly a satisfying answer.

>>11086707
This may not be the same thing linguistically, but you can still use them as nouns. (Or pretty much any other part of speech, for that matter.)

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086716
It is a dialect then.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086715
>English isn't really a language.
full retard

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086717

Yet that is a technically valid conjugation.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086721
Its' negative + past negative, there is no 成る like you thought.
And I don't think you can do double negatives in a single word, it's grammatically incorrect.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086717
I know, that's what I was explaining. Technically sound, logically sound, but semantically nonexistent and therefore incomprehensible. That's the difficulty of workingwith Japanese from an English background

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086718
>all Japanese is dialect

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086733
See >>11086732

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086716
>>11086734
I had a lecture about "Is it a language or a dialect?" Was fun seeing everyone going full autismus. Even the professors.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086722

It has no regulating body, and no consistent rules.

It can differ to the extent that people cannot understand each other because their dialects didn't undergo the same grammatical changes and vowel shifts, or may not even be derived from the same languages.

That's the difference between Japanese and English. They underwent reforms and defined an official form, despite adopting a lot of outside things. English just fucked around for a thousand years before someone decided it might be a good idea to write it down properly, by which time it was too late and no one wanted to conform to someone else's dialect and the job was half-hearted and will never be finished.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086738
there's not really much to debate, there's no such thing as a completely standardized language among any nation. the only legitimacy to Eastern Japanese is that Tokyo is the current seat of power, but that doesn't change the fact that in West Japan, Western Japanese is valid for all forms of communication.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086698
>しにくくなくなかった
Why do you think there should be a か in there?
It doesn't follow from your explanation at all.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086745
The lecture was not just about Japanese.
And the autismus part is for cases like the one this anon mentioned: >>11086741
Anyway, people don't need much to be confused and angry. /jp/ is a nice example.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086746
sorry, I tripped up

that should be しにくくなくなった shinikukunakunatta

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086698
I noticed that you fucked up the kana, so I'll explain し難くなくなった.
It isn't double negative and means exactly what you said, why would anyone ever not get this? It's a fairly normal phrase.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086741
>It has no regulating body, and no consistent rules.

I wish my native language had no regulating body. It's basically a few stuck-up self-important idiots making decisions that should be made by natural evolutionary process. Sometimes actively fighting the latter. I'm jealous of English speakers and their free language (you guys should really adopt some coherent spelling rules, though).

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086750
>Anyway, people don't need much to be confused and angry. /jp/ is a nice example.
/jp/ is mostly insults or elaborate expressions of frustrated disinterest.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086758

>you guys should really adopt some coherent spelling rules, though

Not possible.

There are too many variations between dialects.

Even if you made changes only to appease the majority in each case, I don't think there would be a single dialect that is accurately represented by the new system, so pronunciation would still be arbitrary.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086758
I disagree with you. But that's just my opinion, and for my mother tongue.

At fist I thought that the regulating body in my country was trash and useless. Always so slow, and just following.
But somehow, as they are taking their time to decide, and actually tryiing to keep our language beautiful, they refused a lot of things from the modern bastardisation or slowed down the process.
And with teachers actually caring, let's say that the official grammar is still very important. Even though the young generation is bad at it (internet + sms), it is really important for most of the jobs and studies.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086758
>. I'm jealous of English speakers and their free language (you guys should really adopt some coherent spelling rules, though).
Until you get horrific shit that murrikans somehow come up with like "would of", "loose" instead of "lose" and so on.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086776
>beautiful
>bastardization

So, you have a bunch of elitist faggots in a position where they can influence the language based on subjective opinions?

We had the same shit tried here with the Katharevousa ("Puristic") variety but as with anything designed for "beauty" and "purity", it was utter shit to use and abandoned as people used the simpler Dimotiki (of the people) variety. And we're better off for it, if I may say so. The Polytonic system was also abandoned in the early 80s or so and it was for the best too.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086784
>influence
As in modify, no.
As in slow down and evaluate the new "trends". And approve them or not, yes.
But actually, I'm fine with that. Seeing how it is done, how they are elected, what they do etc.
Can they decide to change the language by themselves? No.
I find my language rather good and beautiful. Of course, some new things might be added later. But letting plebeians abuse it? No.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086776
>Always so slow, and just following.

That's how it should be. Our regulating body is actively dumbing down the language. And that's not even mentioning their history of randomly changing word spellings just because they could.

Thank god I've left school and don't work in law/press, so I can use the language the way I want, only limited by how others understand me, not by some artificial rules.

[Anonymous No.]

>>11086794
It's still subjective as fuck. For many people, beauty is irrelevant, only conciseness and ease of use matters. Also
>plebeians

[Anonymous No.]

Anime characters talk differently, hang on a second I'll show you

[Anonymous No.]

>>11091041
Never did show us, did you janny?

Please stop bumping these shitty language threads and delete them like you're supposed to.