HOW DO I SAY "…." THREAD

[thisiskyleMember]

But you should say 日本語がまだ上手になってない。 Or I’m not good at Japanese…yet.

[ゼロスMember]

ahh alright thank you so much :)

[GigatronMember]

I have made the (tentative) decision to start studying Japanese again. First thing I want to do is become less cowardly towards speaking it. Which brings me to my question: what would be a good, humble way to say “Please forgive my lousy Japanese”?

I don’t want to come off as a know-it-all when I clearly don’t, so I’d like to make it clear that I appreciate people putting up with my stilted, halting mangling of their language.

[missingno15Member]

When someone (in japanese), says you’re good at Japanese, always respond with:

そんなことないですよ

If you want to say I’m not that good at japanese so I think something like:

（あたし・私・僕は）　日本語（が）あまり上手じゃないんですから、間違いがあったら、勘弁して・許して　ください

I think that will be good enough

[GigatronMember]

Sweet, that sounds about right to me. Respect to you.

I spoke a little today on an outing to my usual food spot (basically the ONLY place I can speak Japanese, and thus my wallet hates me…) I sounded like a complete twonk, but meh, it’s a start.

On a semi-related note, a Japanese customer sitting next to me was using “俺” whilst speaking in polite Japanese. Is this acceptable? I always thought otherwise.

[JoelMember]

Another way to play down compliments is いいえ、まだまだです – “no, I still (have a lot to learn)”.

If you want a slightly more succinct version of missingno’s suggestion, you could try すみませんが、私は日本語があまり上手じゃないんです. If you want to ask them to speak slower, ちょっとゆっくり言ってください.

Edit: We had to record our self-introductions for class this session – when I played mine back, I thought I sounded like a complete twonk too, so you shouldn’t feel too alone in that regard. =) The thing is, thinking that you sound like twonk will give you the impetus to improve – if you always think you sound awesome, you’ll never improve even if you’re actually terrible. =D I can’t really speak for the use of 俺. From what I’ve learnt around the place, it probably comes across as a bit arrogant, but I couldn’t say for sure whether that’s actually true.

• This reply was modified 12 years, 9 months ago by  Joel.

[missingno15Member]

For referring to yourself, it really depends on your relationship with the person. People I know or who allow me, I say 俺. To my 先生 or people I dont know really well, I use 僕.

[ゼロスMember]

Ha ha you guys are absolutely amazing! thank you for all the fast responses :) I leave for japan in 3 weeks and I wanted to try and speak as much as I can in Japanese but I know I am not very good at it so I wanted to be able to say that I’m not good at it yet. THANK YOU!!

[ゼロスMember]

ha ha run on sentence ^ sorry about that lol, I was just uber over excited.

[JoelMember]

Take photos. Show them to us when you get back. =D

Also, have fun.

[ゼロスMember]

I will :D I will probably upload some pictures while i am there too I am bringing my laptop with me so I can check my email since last time I went to Japan for a month I got back to a 3000 dollar phone bill…. I fought with AT&T over it because they said with the plan i got it would be cheaper than getting one of those pay as you go travel phones >.< got it down to 900 dollars but still was not happy with them…. if you ever go to japan just buy a phone card much much cheaper!!

[ゼロスMember]

Apparently they charge you roaming if your phone is on even if you aren’t using it and i used my phone as an alarm…. so i kept it on all the time… but seriously how can they charge you if you arent using the internet or making a call or using apps O.o…. anyways sorry went kinda off topic.

[JoelMember]

Because the phone’s still talking to the network all the time, to let your provider know it still exists. It’s always a good idea to talk to your provider before you go overseas to find out what might happen – even if you weren’t planning to use the phone, what would have happened if someone had called you? Or sent a text message? I had no issues with my phone, because the one I had at the time wasn’t 3G capable, so it couldn’t pick up a signal at all. =) Of course, because of that, the battery would run flat in a few hours if I didn’t turn it off anyway, and the only charger I had on me that’d work at 110V required me to take the battery out to charge it. When I went to America, I got an international prepaid SIM card.

It’s also worth letting your bank know you’re going overseas so they don’t think your card has been stolen if you wind up needing to use it while you’re away. They can also tell you about charges and things.

Lastly, you know you can edit posts you’ve made, rather than posting twice in a row? The edit link is right above the post, next to the post number (but is only there for a certain amount of time). =)

[PencilMember]

I’d really like to do some lang-8 posts and/or Mika-esque* videos about different Japanese books and movies that I’ve enjoyed, but there are two big things I’m unsure of:

1. The word for ‘main character’ or ‘protagonist’. alc.co.jp gives me 主人公, but I’d like to double-check that with everyone here to make sure I’m using it in the right context.
殺し屋１の主人公はやくざの垣原さん。

2. With fictional events and people, do I talk about them as if they were real, or is there some special way I need to relay things?
最近は彼の組長は殺した。

*Search YouTube for ‘Japanese Girl Explains’. (I’d like to hope that my Japanese would be slightly better than her English, but if it wasn’t, at least I’d get tons of helpful criticism. =D)

[GigatronMember]

主人公 is the only way I’ve ever seen it said, so you should be fine there. I’ve always seen people referring to fictional characters in the same way we would, that is, as if they were “real” but in the context of knowing you’re talking about a character. From what I’ve seen though you don’t have to worry about honourifics and whatnot.

I’d love to make some videos like that as well, but have nowhere near the cojones to do so. XD

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