100 Japanese Things

This method of Japanese language learning may be odd to some, but I couldn’t resist at least introducing this blog which rather tastefully documents pop singers whose underwear has accidentally appeared in event photos over the 80’s and 90’s.

I’m not sure of the practicality of this site, but as a pop-culture maniac, I find this insight into the pop-world intriguing.

Fascinating tidbit #1 is the writer’s formality. He uses 「です」and「ます」forms opposed to a more casual style, giving the blog a frank and polite feel. It documents pop idol mishaps with gentleness and sincerity. The writer is respectful and devoted to his readers and has constructed a bulletin board for readers to post pictures of idols for him to showcase on the blog.

Why he started the blog is not clear, but it appears the guy simply digs pictures of idols whose underwear shows. It doesn’t seem perverted or anything, he just digs it.

So what can one learn from this blog?

For one, the writer uses a lot of shortened words. The title of the blog is「愛チラ大百科」(あいちら　だいひゃっか), which I translate to “The Encyclopedia of Idol Panty Shots”.

But if you look at the word for “idol”, which in Japanese is「アイドル」、it is nowhere to be found in the title. That’s becuase it has been shortened to simply “アイ”. And for “Panty Shots”, the Japanese would is 「パンチラ」, 「パン」being the shortened form of「 パンツ」meaning “pants” as in “underpants”, and 「チラ」meaning to flash. The writer has changed the 「アイ」part of 「アイドル」into the kanji,「愛」which means “love”. This play on words with the same phoenetics gives it a double meaning.

The first meaning is, “idol”, as in “pop-idol”. By using the kanji for love, it gives a second meaning in which the writer can imply his feelings of fondness for these idol panty shots. I think it can also mean “lovely” in describing the idols. By simply changing the charcter to 「愛」the writer is able to explain what he is blogging and his feelings towards it in one word.

The author also shortened a sentence about a singing duo who dresses in maid outfits in which I found interesting:

「ワシントンDCで行われたアニメイベントに、アニメソングを歌うために渡米。」

This translates to:

“They flew to Washington DC where an anime event was being held to sing an anime song.”

It is in reference to a cosplay group called Funny Stones who was invited to perform in DC. He recaps and and shortenes with:

「アメアニソンイベントとかにも出てるんだ〜」

Which breakdowns like this「アメ」＝America, 「アニ」＝Anime, 「ソン」＝Song, 「イベント」＝Event. The sentence means, “Wow, they’re also doing American Anime Song Events”, with the writer expressing slight amazement.

In the shortened version, specifics on Washington DC is lost, but the basic meaning is still there in only 10 katakana characters.

The word “cosplay” itself, has become a part of the English language among Japan/Anime knowing peeps is the combined shortened form of the phrase “costume play”.

Shortened words is not only limited to katakana vocabulary. For example, a college student attending Waseda University in Tokyo is often referred to as 「早大生」(そうだいせい）. If you were to write this out in a more complete form, it would be 「早稲田大学の学生」. By plucking one kanji from each group of words, you can shorten a long sentence into something short and succinct. The way these kanji are picked are related to ease of pronuciation.

If you look at 「早大生」you can see they took the 「早」in
「早稲田」, 「大」of 「大学」, but when it came to 「学生」they did not use 「学」but the「生」part instead. As reader Jen points out, this is to differentiate between Waseda as a University, and a student of Waseda.

Besides the language points you can learn form this site, there is also a lot of information about pop-idols–something that may be useful when loading up on karaoke songs for your next enkai.

If you’re a Kurt Vonnegut fan, you’ll know that homeboy urged us to:

please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

Which seems nice, and is easy enough to do back home. But how does one murmur that in Japanese?

Which brings us to the January 1st issue of Brutus Magazine.

Yo, what? Yes, that’s correct, it’s no longer January.

But BRUTUS magazine’s stuff attempts to be ‘classic’ rather than just timely, so if you’re in Japan you can get recent back issues at most big book stores.

(In Japan you can also order back issues online. In America subscribe through Amazon (expensive) or get individual issues through Giant Robot.)

Each issue is themed. An art issue, a Music vs. Rakugo issue, a movie issue, etc. And the magazine’s design is hot (compare their covers to those of American upscale men’s mags, 95% of which feature a large picture of George Clooney with weird hair).

In many of these issues they ask famous people what their favorite nani-nani is, and let them chat a bit about it. There’s pictures of the things the famous people like, so all you have to do is find some famous person who likes the same things as you, and then you can get their other recommendations, kinda like low-fi J-Idol Netflix for intellects.

The January issue is about books, and features Hikari Ota of the most excellent 爆笑問題Podcast .

He, like me, is a big Kurt Vonnegut fan.

In said story, Hikari quotes the Vonnegut line as:

これが幸福じゃなくてなにが幸福なんだ。

（幸福：こうふく）

A pleasantly idiomatic translation of, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

If anybody actually tries saying this around happy Japanese people, please let us know the results.

If you want to learn some songs a nice place you might want to start is　みんなの歌　（みんなのうた）.

(video embed now removed from YouTube, but some obscure site has it, just follow this link and scroll down)

I stopped studying French at age 13, but still resonating around my brain are such lyrics as “Bonjour monsieur bonjour madame, bonjour mademoiselle, je me presente, je m’appelle Fabian Petit, Je suis Fabian Petit…”, and, “tu as un animal? ” The reason for me saying this is, of course, that I think lyrics have a wonderful way of sticking to your brain, whether you want them to or not (cut to me singing the “tu as un animal” song to myself).

Moving on, みんなの歌 simply means “songs for everyone” and that’s what they are. They are aired on NHK everyday around 4.30ish and, more importantly, any time you like on YouTube. If you do happen to catch them on TV everyday you’ll be pleased to see that they keep the same songs for a week or two so you can get lots of practice in before you display your skills at karaoke (yes, they have most of the songs at karaoke).

I personally love these songs simply for what they are (aside from the Japanese practice), my favourite is 「僕は熊」 “I Am A Bear” (scroll down linked page to view). From which you can learn a useful phrase like:

「ライバルは海老フライだよ」

(「ライバルはえびフライだよ」)

my main rival is fried shrimp

Another favourite is「じーじーの絵手紙」(「じーじーのえてがみ」), “Grandfather’s Picture Letters“).

From this you can learn a phrase like:

「ボート遊びしてちょっぴり興奮」

(「ボートあそびしてちょっぴりこうふん」)

“playing on on the boat I got a wee bit aroused“, or a less
risqué translation might be “playing on the boat, its all a bit exciting“.

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Truth be told, this next song gives me a bit of a headache, but it’s got a good message so I shall throw caution to the wind. It’s in support of the もったいない campaign, もったいない in this case means “wasteful”, but beware its multitude of meanings.

It’s called もったいない.

Useful sentence:

「お水の流しっぱなしは　Ah~　もったいない」

「おみずのながしっぱなしは Ah~ もったいない」

“leaving the water running is Ah~ wasteful”

And that makes sense in any language.

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There are plenty of みんあの歌 songs around and new ones coming out on NHK all the time and all the videos have subtitles too so you can learn the words fairly trouble free. Enjoy!

Remember last week, when we were young and in love and you frequently called me up to say, “Oh, 100japanesethings.wordpress.com, I cannot stop reloading you!”.Well, I would like to inform you that THINGS HAVE CHANGED. By which I mean our URL. Because now it’s just 100JapaneseThings.com.

The love, however, remains.

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But soft! Did you fear that I would leave you without a smidgen of Japanese? Never! Even our metaposts have Japanese things. Such as…

The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affair’s Ambassador Kids Website

They’ve got this lovely little page with pictures of all the flags of the world and each contry’s katakana name.

Some are easy.

Samoa? サモア, of course.

Some don’t have English as the root, so you get, for example, the well known Germany=ドイツ

The tricky to remember ones are just a touch off from English:

Holland？　オランダ

Jordan？　ヨルダン

But what’s that, old veteran? All that is cake?

Well, can you say, THE REPUBLIC OF KIRIBATI? Huh? Well, can you? Now you can.

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NEXT UP: Something less practical.

Okay, so there is no ‘Japanese Wives’ Guide to Lunchbox Revenge’.

But there IS this amazing post on the Japanese version of Yahoo! Answers (Yahoo! 知恵袋） concerning ways in which one can get back at one’s husband by sabotaging his lunchbox.

The question comes in like this:

主人と大喧嘩しました。明日のお弁当で仕返ししてやろうと思います。

(しゅじん　と　おおげんか　しました。　あした　の　おべんとう　で　しかえし　してやろう　と　おもいます。)

Yesterday my husband and I got in a big fight. I’m thinking of getting revenge by doing something to his daily lunch box.

どんなお弁当だったらギャフンというでしょうか？

(どんな　おべんとう　だったら　ギャフン　という　でしょうか？)

What kind of bento would leave him feeling defeated/speechless?

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Now, in America, this would have likely lead to some crazy cruel suggestions.

For reference: A high school acquaintance of mine once put a dead squirrel in his neighbors’ mailbox as an act of revenge. I was thinking I’d see something along those lines.

Instead (note, what follows are very rough translations just to get you hype, but far better to go ahead and jump over there yourself):

玉子焼き・目玉焼き・ゆで卵とご飯。
塩ッ気なし。

(たまごやき、めだまやき 、ゆでたまご　と　ごはん

しおっけなし )

An omelette-y egg, a fried egg (sunny side up), a boiled egg.

Without salt!

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白飯に

(しろめし　に )

梅干

(うめぼし)

On top of white rice… a sour-plum.

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The above was a pretty common suggestion. There is something funny about opening one’s lunchbox to just a sour plum, though some took a more critical path…

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お弁当って、女性の優しさとか妻の愛情の象徴ですよ。

（おべんとう　って、じょせい　の　やさしさ　とか　つま　の　あいじょう　の　しょうちょう　ですよ。 ）

それでガッカリさせられるというのはツライ。

A bento is a sign of a women’s kindess, or of a wife’s love.

To make him feel disappointed (through a bento) seems tough.

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Some lacked creativity…

前の晩と、全く同じ おかずを詰めてあげる・・・・

（まえ　の　ばん　と、まったく　おなじ　おかず　を　つめてあげる）

Give him the exact same food as last night!
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わざと箸を入れ忘れる・・・・

(わざと　はし　を　いれわすれる）

イジメになっちゃうかな？？？？？？

Forget his chopsticks on purpose…

But would that be bullying?？？？？

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…and some had plenty…

ご飯の上にのりで大きく「バカ」と書き、おかずなし。

（ごはん　の　うえ　に　のり　で　おおきく　バカ　と　かき、　おかず　なし。）

On top of the rice, write a big ‘Stupid’ in sea weed. Give him no other food (i.e. accompaniment to rice).

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ハムをハート型に切りぬき、のりで「畜生」と書く

（ハム　を　ハート　けい 　に　きりぬき、　のり　で　ちくしょう　と　かく）

Cut a piece of ham into the shape of a heart and use sea weed to write ‘Dang you!’ on top.

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And taking the very high route…

いつもより心を込めておいしいものを作ってあげると、反省してくれないかしら？

（いつも　より　こころ　を　こめて　おいしい　もの　を　つくって　あげる　と、はんせい　してくれない　かしら？）

Make an even better than usual lunch for him, likely to make him reflect a bit, won’t it?

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All of which seems a little soft and, dare I say, cute to most Western viewers. But beware, here comes some…

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NOT SUBTLE FORESHADOWING: More examples of bento web-iness later coming over the next few days! Truly shall you know the supreme-ness of the average Japanese lunch, and properly shall you be able to compare it to mere white rice and sour plums!

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BONUS CHALLENGE: In keeping with the theme of eatabug’s last post, there is one totally awesome suggestion over on today’s site that involves poop, or something like it.

If you can find it and drop it in the comments with your best translation, we’ll laugh and give you a shoutout and be your friend.

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(shoutout to AJAT for turning me on to Yahoo!知恵袋)

This guy says the biggest mistake of trying to learn Japanese is by using English grammer patterns to teach it. At Guide to Japanese he tries to explain Japanese from a Japanese point of view so you are not trying to create a Japanese sentence that is an mutated freakazoid English equivalent.

He attempts to lay down the building blocks–something essential to reaching a profficient level of Japanese. It does not offer quick fixes or travel-book phrases. Therefore, the beginning might be slow, but it will save you time and broken Japanese hearts in the end.

Nail the basics. Then start reading crazy shit like this poop fortune teller where your personality will be revealed by the consistency of your stool.

Phrases from the site:

うんこ占い

うんこ　うらない

Poop fortune teller

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あなたを助けてくれるのは屁

あなた　を　たすけてくれる　のは　へ

Farts will bring good luck (lit. Farts are the ones that help you)

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あなたの邪魔をするのは下痢

あなた　の　じゃま　を　する　のは　げり

Diarrhea will get in your way.

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今日のあなたの脱糞運は小吉。

きょう　の　あなた　の　だつふんうん　は　しょうきち

Today’s fecal luck level is small luck.

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Possible outcomes form the fortune teller:

下痢

げり

diarrhea

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カチカチ便

かちかち　べん

hard poop

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蠅

はえ

a fly

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Bonus Phrase:

大便が出そうだ。

だいべん　が　でそう　だ

I have a turtle’s head.

Learning language through a hobby is a fun way to pick up new words and make studying feel like you aren’t even studying. One of my own personal hobbies is collecting toys. Action figures, vinyl dolls, finger puppets, wind-up toys–you name it and I’m interested. Especially living in Japan, there are so many types of toys, it’s hard to ever run out of things to collect(may be detrimental to your wallet, however). But let’s say you haven’t broken into the Japanese toy scene just yet and focus primarily on oh, let’s say Star Wars figures. Guess what–you can collect in Japanese now thanks to a new site, Japan.Rebelscum.Com.

This collector’s site started in the USA as Rebelscum.com, then branced off to Europe, and now has representation in Asia via Japan. The main reason for this is becuase of Japan’s immense contribution to the Star Wars toy collecting society. Japanese toy manufacturers such as Medicom, Tomy, Kotobukiya, and Real Action Heroes provide some of the coolest and finely crafted figures, usually geared for an adult audience, every year.

For example, one of my favorites is a figurine-size remote-controlled R2-D2. It comes with a remote control in the shape of a lightsaber hilt and you can control R2 to go back and forth and beep. And just recently a Japanese company released an R2-D2 soy sauce bottle in which you pour soy sauce OUT OF R2-D2′S EYE. No lie.

Perusing this sight you can build up on some of these vocabs:

近日発売

きんじつはつばい

(On sale soon)

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限定品

げんていひん

(Limited edition item)

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お見逃しなく！

おみのごしなく！

(Don’t miss it!)

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You can also create a username to join in on the forums and practice your typing and reading skills with other Star Wars fans, and talk about exciting topics such as the soon to be released six-breasted dancer from Jabba’s Palace, Yarna d’al ‘ Gargan! (Hell, here’s how you might actually say that: 「奇形な６個の胸を持つ女ダンサー」きけいな ろっこの むねを もつ だんさー)

And if you want to be REALLY cool, you can bust out this phrase the next time you part with your co-workers for the day:

フォースのともにあらんことを！

May the Force be With You

Yes, Star Wars lovers in Japan, reason to unite there is.

R25.jp is a weekly net-paper home to a plethora of conversation starting information mainly about (but not limited to) Japan. It is geared toward male readers.

The page is divided up into different categories like “Life”, “Economics”, “Politics”, “Miscellaneous”, and “Sports”. Originally R25 was a free paper handed out on the streets (it still is) so the articles are written short and succinct so guys could read them during their commute to work (R stands for “Recruit” and 25 is for guys 25 years and up).

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Examples of some of the article headlines:

大昔から「黄金」ばかりが珍重されるのはなぜ?

おおむかしから　おおきん　ばかりが　ちんちょう　されるのはなぜ？
(Why Has Gold Always Been So Highly Prized?)

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尿は健康のバロメーター?トイレで健康チェックしよう!

にょうはけんこうのばろめーたー？といれでけんこうちぇっくしよう！

(Is Urine a Health Barometer? Check Your Health in the Restroom!)

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ちょっとワルい男が女性にモテる理由って?

ちょっと　わるい　おとこが　じょせい　に　もてる　りゆうって？

(Why Are Bad Boys So Popular Among the Ladies?)

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In addition to their shorter articles, they also feature longer editorial style essays written by contemporary Japanese writers.

Another bonus: weekly interviews, usually with someone from the entertainment/arts industry like musicians, filmmakers, or actors. Past interviews have included: Demon Kogure, Tadao Ando, Thom Yorke, & Quentin Tarantino.

AND FOR THE LADIES: Be sure to check out L25.jp

As frequently pointed out by the Economist, Japan’s politics are dang confusing. Even more confusing when you have to keep straight political terms for government bodies, party names, etc., in two languages.

You might begin here: 参議院キッズ　(House of Councillors Kids) website .

Admittedly, not an enticing web site name. But a good start if you want to up your J-politics vocabulary and general J-political understanding.

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Key terms to get you started:

国会　(kokkai): In English this is known as “The Diet”. It’s Japan’s legislative body. Members are elected directly by citizens.

参議院　(sangiin): The House of Councillors, the ‘upper house’ of the Diet, where councillors serve 6 year terms

衆議院　(shuugiin): The House of Representatives, the ‘lower house’ of the Diet, where representatives serve 4 year terms

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Phrases you might learn:

国会ってなにするところ？

kokkaitte nani suru tokoro?

(This Diet you mentioned, what do they do there?)

note: the ‘this… you mentioned’ implication comes from the ‘tte‘ sound

どんな話し合いするの？

donna hanashiai suru no?

(What do they discuss/consult about there?)

note: The “no” makes the question sound cute and little kid-ish.

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More English background reading at the Economist Japan Political Structure page.

BONUS: If the kanji is overwhelming, might I recommend running Firefox with the Rikai-chan plugin? Gives you a popup dictionary right in your browser window, just mouse-over the kanji and a (usually accurate) reading and definition pop up.

NEXT UP: Something more fun than Japanese politics. Jeez.

What’s that you say? Facing a page full of science based Kanji makes you want to cry and poo?

Bladow: Gakken Kids! Science : a science site for Japanese kids.

On the top right of the page, you’ll see a button labeled ‘ふりがな’　and then ‘なし’ and’あり’. (Furigana are hiragana or katakana text above a kanji to help you read it even if you don’t know how.)

Punch ‘あり’ and all the ‘hard’ kanji (as judged by the site’s makers) will magically have furigana letters to help you read along .

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Phrases you might learn:

「どうしてあくびがでるの」

doushite akubi ga deru no?

(Why do yawns happen?)

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「宇宙（うちゅう）はいつどうやってできたの」

uchuu wa itsu douyatte dekita no?

(When and why did the cosmos come about?)

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… both useful phrases for confounding little Japanese kids or supervisors.

Reading this stuff is also a good way to bone up on science terms for 2kyu and 1kyu tests. If you’re into that sort of thing.

FUN FACT: Type キッズ into Google, along with any other Japanese word, and you’re likely to come up with an easy to read site on that topic. (キッズ　is the katakana spelling of ‘kids’ that’s used in lots of Japanese kids products).

I’ll look for more of these sites and post the best ones that I find.