The "I found some Japanese I don't understand" thread.

[マーク・ウェーバーMember]

I have been confused as well by similar words recently, because Core 2k kept giving me a ton of words and calling them all president, so I went ahead and asked on lang-8 last week. I was only confused with 3 though.
This is what feedback I got(if it is of any use)
①
違いは説明が難しいです。
例えば、アメリカの大統領、会社の会長、政党の総裁って使います。

②
大統領／会長／総裁の違いって、説明しにくいですねぇ。
－大統領は、「連邦行政の長、国家元首」と辞書に出てきます。
　やっぱりアメリカ大統領、ロシア大統領etc、が例ですかね。
－総裁は、日本の政党のトップ(責任者)や団体のトップで呼ぶ場合が多いと思います。
－会長は、「仕事を統括し、代表」する人。
　普通、会社社長より上の役職の人を指すことが多いですね。
　学校なら、生徒会長。生徒会の長のことです。

③
大統領
共和国の元首

会長
会を代表する人

総裁
機関の長

だそうです。よくわかりません。とりあえずわかるのは、大統領は国の役職にしか使われないということでしょうか。（苦笑）

Aside from these, 2 more words having to do with leadership of some sort come to mind:
社長 – president of a company
部長 – leader of a specific department

So to answer your question, 役員 seems to have multiple meaning. From looking it up, this is what I got: http://eow.alc.co.jp/search?q=%E5%BD%B9%E5%93%A1&ref=sa
Board member, officer, official, executive… As you say yourself it seems to not have one specific meaning, but to cover a wider variety of roles in a company :/ Now I am confused as well -_-

[ElenkisMember]

やくいん［―ゐん］ 2 【役員】
［1］ 会社・団体などの幹部職員。法人においては、その業務執行、業務・会計の監査などの権限を有する者。
［2］ その役を担当する人。

http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?p=%E5%BD%B9%E5%93%A1&stype=0&dtype=0&dname=0ss

[JoelMember]

First place I ever heard the word 社長 was in Aria. アリア社長！ =D

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

「悪いけど今日は行けなくなったってヒロに言っといて。」- “Tell Hiro I’m sorry, but it’s become impossible for me to go today.”

What does 言っといて mean? 言って would be the command form (“tell him”), I guess, but what sort of grammar is 言っといて?
Thanks.

[Hatt0riMember]

It’s 言っておいて with half kana eaten :D

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

@Hattori: Ah, that makes sense :) I’ve actually seen ～とく・～どく before, but my brain just didn’t connect the dots here for some reason.

[ChibifreakMember]

I had a question about a translation. In a YouTube video series I watch, they always start with some phrase like this:

おしゃべりあてまーす だいさんほそ は、

I tried google translate, but it said “mars third news” and nothing else… anybody know what this means?? The video link is below.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eBmbj6M3ukk

[JoelMember]

Yeah, Google translate is shaky at the best of times, and only gets more confused when you give it a line of kana alone. I can’t make out that particular phrase in the video you posted, but お喋り (おしゃべり) means chattering, idle talk, gossip, et cetera. Not at all sure of あてます (even if I read it as a contraction of あています). The name of the video includes 「第3旅送」 – i.e. だいさんりょそう – which means “number three something“, but my dictionary isn’t suggesting anything for 旅送, and my Japanese keyboard doesn’t even recognise it as being a word.

Hoping that helps some.

[ElenkisMember]

It’s 放送, not 旅送 :)

She says: ３月２８日更新分 おしゃべりやってます 第３放送は

やってます = やる (to do) in ~ています form

[JoelMember]

Oh. Hah. That’ll teach me to not pay proper attention. In which case, 放送 = ほうそう = broadcast. So 第3放送 = third broadcast.

[ChibifreakMember]

Thank you! That makes a lot more sense now. : ) I try to avoid google translate because of that problem, but it didn’t make sense either way… haha! Thanks again. xD

[PencilMember]

One day I’ll stop sucking up everyone’s time, but until then, what’s the difference between あおいろ and せいしょく。 They’re both apparently ‘blue’ so is one maybe darker?

EDIT: Just looked some of it up, and apparently しょく is a counter for colors? I can understand what counters are for things like books or bottles or such, but for colors? I don’t really understand the idea.

• This reply was modified 12 years, 7 months ago by  Pencil.

[JoelMember]

How would you say “a rainbow is made of seven colours” without a counter for colours? =)

Anyway, あおいろ and せいしょく are just different readings for the same noun meaning blue – 青色. Blue as an adjective is 青い (あおい).

[PencilMember]

Ah, that makes sense, now. =)

I’m also maybe guessing that since quite a few colors have these alternate -しょく readings, that perhaps it’s a slightly more old-fashioned way? Kind of like how very old texts might refer to England as えいこく and the US as べいこく?

[JoelMember]

I don’t know if they’re archaic or not, but the different readings come from the different origins of the words – あおいろ is the native Japanese reading, while せいしょく is the introduced Chinese reading.

On a side note, the old country names aren’t completely obsolete, and are often used for abbreviations in official language – for example, 日米 (にちべい) = Japan and America, for when talking about international relations, say. Personally, I’ve always been amused by 豪, the kanji used to mean Australia – its other meanings are strength, power, magnificence, splendor. =D It’s an abbreviation of 豪太剌利 (read as オーストラリア) or 豪州 (ごうしゅう).

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