http://100japanesethings.com In Which 100 Japanese Things Shall Be Revealed, So That You May Learn Much Japanese From Them Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:27:52 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Our own Jason Ho sent this from his commute to work today. He would like you to know that he enjoys signs that depict mutant figures. And they are cutest when in ambiguous spacial relation to a bike, aren't they? 自転車通行可 通行可；つうこうか This one means: Bicycle passage permitted [i.e. walking or biking okay, no cars ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/07/11/signs-2-the-mutant-that-family-may-not-bike-here/ Ooh, our first sign submission: Gah, it's so wee and hard to make out! Do you hate it? * From Scott, who works as a translator in a building a few hundred meters from my desk. He says: the text reads: 月極有料駐車場 I think this is one of those signs that people see and ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/07/10/sign-1-monthly-parking-in-the-land-of-dang-tricky/ Oh, we'll still be bringing you THINGS. But we're also going to be bringing you signs. Starting immediately. If you're in Japan, you can play along. See a Japanese sign that you don't understand? Take a pic and e-mail (or keitai-mail) it over to (type it just like that and ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/07/08/the-japanese-sign-project-begins-plus-sign-1-the-rusty-crosswalk-buttons/ Exhibit A) Japanese text reads: カンヌ映画祭 あなたの映画の大ファンです。ぜんぶ海賊版にしちゃいました！！ Exhibit B) １）やれやれ！あっちも悲劇、こっちも悲劇だ！ ２）ガソリンの値段がこのまま上がり続けるなら私もバスを使わなければいけなくなるかも！ Exhibit C) １）考えてみたんだけどオバマとクリントンの「ドリームチケット」で2番目になるのも悪くないかなって ２）ばか言ってんじゃないの！ ---- Kind of hard to understand Japanese political comics, because to get the joke you probably have to understand concrete lobbies, LDP, etc. But (for Americans), American political comics in Japanese equal=Not so bad. On Exhibit A: All you need to know is that 海賊　（　かいぞく　）means "pirate"　(in both the ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/06/02/thing-10-japanese-newsweek-cartoons-and-quotes-from-the-perspectives-page/ 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 ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/04/08/thing-9-shortened-words-and-short-skirts-what-is-aichira/ 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 ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/03/27/thing-8-the-january-issue-of-brutus-magazine/ 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 ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/03/24/%e3%81%bf%e3%82%93%e3%81%aa%e3%81%ae%e6%ad%8c/ 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. ---- But soft! ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/03/17/quick-note-we-are-now-100japanesethingscom-and-furthermore-flags/ 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 ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/03/11/thing-6-the-japanese-wives-guide-to-lunchbox-revenge/ 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 ... http://100japanesethings.com/2008/03/09/thing-5-lay-your-building-blocks-before-talking-about-poop/