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

[JoelMember]

I received a random comment on a Japanese practice video I uploaded for class – no idea who it is. My query: what’s かみかみ mean? As in 「日本語かみかみだけど、上手い!」. I can get the gist, but not quite the precise meaning…

[Hatt0riMember]

かみかみ is a slang word that comes from verb 噛む – “to chew”, but also “to fumble or falter with one’s words”. So かみかみ = flater, mammer, stammer, sbumble, stutter.

So, it’s like: Your pronunciation is bad, but otherwise your Japanese is great!

[マーク・ウェーバーMember]

http://bit.ly/Y2W7Zl

[thisiskyleMember]

特製ドリンクの効き目もどこへやら

I get the meaning overall, but am not sure about the specifics of やら on the end.
Any help would be appreciated.

[JoelMember]

マーク: Oh hey, another reply. Didn’t see that for some reason. Would you believe I exhausted all my other founts of information before posting here? =P

thisiskyle: It denotes uncertainty, rather like かしら. “I wonder if X…”. It’s quite informal, though.

[Anonymous]

@Kyle

Basically marks uncertainty.

[thisiskyleMember]

Thanks guys

[vanandrewMember]

The mystery of the Lang-8 correction time again!

A corrector made the below comment when correcting an entry of mine, but I’m not exactly sure what they are on about:

私もお昼にヌードルを食べました(^^)v
ザートも食べたので、少し太った気がします。

Help please?

[JoelMember]

“I also ate noodles for lunch. Because I had dessert as well, I feel like I gained a bit of weight.”

At least, I think it’s dessert. The “de” is missing, though.

[vanandrewMember]

Thanks Joel.

Fascinating stuff!

[AstralfoxMember]

Hi guys, little help?

I’m fine with the basics of nominalization using both の and こと, but have yet to understand the significance of のこと. Can anyone explain it?

Or in these cases would the の be attached to the previous clause, serving one of it’s other gramatical purposes…

[JoelMember]

こと is a noun, so when you want to stick another noun on the front, you need to use の – it’s just the particle の, not the nominaliser の.

こういちのことが好きです

[AstralfoxMember]

So it was something that simple. Thanks Joel.

[eru777Member]

In a movie that features a Japanese actor there is an exchange of words between him and a girl.

The girl asks “When will we meet again?”

Asano answers :

“いつか” and the subtitle translates it to “someday”

The weird thing that I am witnessing is that when I put this word in the dictionary it says : “Fifth day of the month” Which makes sense, but it also means “when” (?)

What does いつか mean , ultimately ? Context again ?

P.S.: I know for a fact that he didn’t mean “we are meeting again in five days”

Hey! Lip them? Lip them? What?

[JoelMember]

Spelling. And yeah, I guess context when you’re hearing it spoken. They’re different words.

Five days is 五日 or 5日. Yeah, that’s read as “いつか” – the 日 counter for days has some of the oddest exceptions.

いつか meaning “sometime” is the question word いつ (when) plus か. Similarly, なにか = something, どこか = somewhere, だれか = someone, et cetera.

 

On a side note, this movie features a Japanese actor? Whoa. What won’t they think of next? =P

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