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

[JenMember]

now it’s clear to me. thank you :)

[DazananMember]

Not sure if this is exactly the appropriate thread for it but rather than start a whole new one I figured I’d just ask here… I cant figure out a kanji in this song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2QqQvMSQW8&feature=channel_video_title

Its at 2:00 「笑顔ではしゃぐ君に？？？？？？？？？？？」
Ive got eyestrain from staring at that and my damn dictionary for so long.
First person to get it gets one dollar from me (You pay shipping and handling)

[マーク・ウェーバーMember]

I don’t recognize it :(

[ElenkisMember]

It’s 嘘 (うそ).

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

http://jisho.org/kanji/details/%E5%98%98
That looks to be the one. Just used jisho.org’s “Kanji by radicals” feature, searching for the “mouth” radical at the side, and what looked to be (and is) the “spoon” radical at the top.

EDIT: GAH!!

• This reply was modified 12 years, 11 months ago by  MisterM2402 [Michael].

[JoelMember]

嘘 (うそ)

Something like jisho.org is helpful here, because it lets you try different combinations of radicals until you get one that looks right. I tried listening to it, but all I could make out was the o sound, but that at least helps if I find a character I think might be correct.

EDIT: GAH!!

• This reply was modified 12 years, 11 months ago by  Joel.

[ElenkisMember]

Plus 嘘をついた is a common expression: “told a lie”

Though I have to admit that I couldn’t make it out clearly enough at first. I used the handwriting recognition on my phone to roughly draw what I saw and it suggested it as a possiblity, then I had an “oh right, of course” moment :-p

[マーク・ウェーバーMember]

lol :D

[DazananMember]

haha thanks everyone yea the only radical i could make out was the mouth and i was looking through the…. thousand or so kanji that suggested until i gave up :D
@elenkis handwriting recognition!? what is this wizardry!?

[JoelMember]

I was the same as Michael – I stuck in the mouth and the spoon, and looked through what that turned up. I could also make out at least twelve strokes, so it couldn’t have any fewer than that. With those requirements, you only have list of about forty or so characters to look at (before they start getting so many strokes that they couldn’t possibly be the character we were looking for). Then I just looked through them until I saw the bit at the bottom (you know, the bit that looks like the bottom half of 並).

As it turns out, 嘘 has fourteen strokes, so twelve wasn’t too bad a place to start from. In hindsight, I probably should have recognised it faster, since I’ve actually looked up that character myself in the not-too-distant past (though admittedly the transcription artefacts in the video don’t really aid in reading).

As for handwriting recognition, I know there’s a kanji dictionary available for the DS which has handwriting-input system (which I’ve been tempted to buy, but have thus far managed with good old search-by-radicals) but I wasn’t aware of a similar one for phones. What sort of phone?

[ElenkisMember]

I use a Samsung Galaxy Note myself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAk_MjRD0B4

Any Android based phone can do it, if you are able to buy the software from the Japanese market, which can be the biggest problem.

The iPhone comes with Chinese hand writing input, which works ok for Chinese kanji but wont recognise the ones that have been changed in Japanese, and of course it wont detect kana. Some iPhone dictionary apps have their own Japanese handwriting detection built in, such as the Daijirin app:

http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/id299029654?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2

[MisterM2402 [Michael]Member]

That spoon radical was actually a guess :D I just saw a mash of lines at the top and thought spoon was probably in there somewhere haha.

For online-based handwriting recognition: http://kanji.sljfaq.org/ (though it only does single kanji, which I guess is actually good in this situation :D)
EDIT: To be fair, it relies on proper stroke order a lot.

• This reply was modified 12 years, 11 months ago by  MisterM2402 [Michael].

[ArmandoMember]

ありがとうを浮かべた赤に　　　On the red that expressed thanks
やさしいうたを　　　（This action)
Why is there an を　at the end? Also another example later on in the song (Palette):
ありがとうを溢した白に　　　On the white that spilled thanks
やさしいキスを　　　（This action)

[GigatronMember]

It’s just a different way to order the words. I’ve seen that songs often play with word order a lot, which I’m told you can do in Japanese while still being grammatically correct.

To my (poorly trained) eye, it seems like it says:

To the red that expressed thanks, a pleasant song.
To the white that dropped thanks, a pleasant kiss.

I think the singer is using the “wo” particle to mean that they are giving the song and kiss to the red/white (rather, “doing it towards” the red/white, if that makes sense). The nouns (song/kiss) are being used as the action they represent.

I could be COMPLETELY wrong, mind you, but it’s what it sounds like to me. :P

[JoelMember]

Actually, I was wondering the same thing too. I always took it to be either poetic language or an implied verb.

Gigatron wrote:
> I’m told you can do in Japanese while still being grammatically correct.

This is because of the particles. Word order is important in English because there’s nothing in the language itself to indicate what part a word is playing in a sentence – that is, “A verbs B” and “B verbs A” are different sentences. Since Japanese has particles, though, you can rearrange things and still retain the same meaning – “A が B を verb” and “B を A が verb” would be the same sentence. Though the latter might be a little more tricky to understand when listening.

I still thought you still had to have the verb last, though, but I guess that’s where the poetic language comes into it.

[Author]

Posts