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  • in reply to: Single Word Audio #32371

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    Thanks for the advice, guys. =D

    I’ve actually managed to hack together a makeshift solution, which I’ll post in case anyone else might find it useful:

    1. Download Audacity, or something similar.
    2. Set your speakers as the default playback device and your sound card (‘Stereo Mix’) as the recording device.
    3. Look up the vocab on JDIC, start recording, and hit the little blue ‘play’ button if there is one.

    Time-consuming, but at least it works.

    in reply to: The "I found some Japanese I don't understand" thread. #31672

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    So…Once again been trying to bolster my language exposure via, uh…unorthodox means, and as such, I’m running into a lot of uncommon vocab.

    I’m listening to a CD called オジサマ専科; the 「オジサマ」 refers to the fact that the cast has an average age of about thirty, but I don’t quite get the 専科 part. Most sources I’ve checked define it as an either an elective or specialized course (I’m guessing something like college classes), but I don’t really know what the title as a whole is supposed to imply.

    in reply to: The "I found some Japanese I don't understand" thread. #29864

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    Could someone please tell me the difference between 親父 and 親爺? (If there is any.)

    in reply to: The colour of nouns #29833

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    To be fair, there are a lot of color words that are “noun-iro/shoku”, 空色、水色、etc. A lot of anime, book or song titles also play on this fact: 夢色パティシエール means dream-colored pastry chef, ‘cos “Dream-colored” sounds darn cool. I imagine there’s also things with titles like love-colored, joy-colored, etc.
    Ceiling-colored, though…doesn’t really convey a whole lot.Even if context is established, I’m guessing you’d want to say 天井の色, as in the color of this ceiling, and not just ceilings in general.

    I could be way off, though. ^_^;;

    in reply to: The "I found some Japanese I don't understand" thread. #29718

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    Got it. =)

    In the other thread, MomoIro kindly told me about the word 略. Going on Jisho, one of the example sentences for the word is “名前を略さずに書きなさい。” Apparently, it means “Write your name in full”, but as far as I understand, it seems to mean the opposite. 名前を略さずに =Your name abbreviated (although I’m unsure about how the さず part works) 書きなさい=write.

    So…could someone please explain to me what part of the sentence makes it negative? Is it the さず?

    in reply to: The "I found some Japanese I don't understand" thread. #29463

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    もう一度、ありがとう。^__^

    Alright, so I’ve been watching Minami-Ke, and in episode seven, there’s a running gag involving the fact that the class president (she coordinates all the cleaning tasks and such) is constantly addressed as ‘a badass’. It’s a pun based on the fact that 番長(ばんちょう)sounds similar to what’s they’re supposed to call her.

    Unfortunately for me, I can’t quite hear whether they’re calling her. It sounds to me like いんちょう, which usually means ‘director’, but a friend of mine hears it as いいんちょう (‘comittee chairman’) which would also make sense.

    クラス院長
    クラス委員長

    Does anyone here with a knowledge of school-related terms know which it’s more likely to be?

    in reply to: The "I found some Japanese I don't understand" thread. #29315

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    I’ve seen both 勉強 and 研究 used to describe learning, so what’s the difference between the two?

    研究 often refers to scientific research, so does that mean it describes a more in-depth, focused kind of studying than the more typical 勉強?

    Basically, I’m wondering how saying 日本語を研究します would be different than 日本語を勉強します. Any illumination you guys could give would be much appreciated.

    in reply to: HOW DO I SAY "…." THREAD #29299

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    Is there a way to say “X is short for Y”? Like how ‘Dick’ is short for Richard, or how 声優 is abbreviated from 声の俳優.

    in reply to: Slang / Street Talk + something semi-related #29102

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    Today’s Tofugu post reminded me of 殺し屋1, which as of course filled with interesting yakuza-related vocab like 紋紋/もんもん (Yakuza tattoos) and 組長/くみちょう (head of a ‘group’). Of course, most of the stuff in that manga’s…not the sort of thing you’d want to include in your day-to-day life, but it’s still pretty fascinating.

    Also I’m not sure if it’s because I grew up in the Midlands, but I had absolutely no clue what half of those words meant. I know it’s all real slang, but it honestly sounded like they were just throwing random words around. Unders? Bear? Yellow? Go hug one? Bangle? Why is peak a bad thing? And gassed…is that something to do with drugs?

    …Is this what it’s like to be American? o__O

    • This reply was modified 12 years, 8 months ago by  Pencil.
    in reply to: The "I found some Japanese I don't understand" thread. #29092

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    @TripMasterMunky: 四 is usually read よん because し is also a possible reading for 死, which means death. You can read a lot about it online, like here and here on Tofugu; there’s even a TVTropes page on it.

    As for 七 being read なな, I don’t know, but I’m guessing it has to do with something similar, since しち can mean a place to die when written 死地。

    @Fox: Jisho has an entry for 何事も but not 何事でも. Is it one of those things like 仕方(が)ない where it can be said either way? Does the で make any difference?

    I was pretty sleep-deprived yesterday, and looking it at now, I must have misread a few things. I’m not sure why I thought there needed to be a verb, but even right now I’m wondering why there isn’t a particle in between 何事でも and 三日坊主. Because right now I’m reading it “As for him, anything he’s a three day monk”. 何事でも and 三日坊主 are both nouns, so shouldn’t there be some kind of particle to say that he’s like that with anything (は maybe?)

    • This reply was modified 12 years, 8 months ago by  Pencil.
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    in reply to: The "I found some Japanese I don't understand" thread. #29059

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    本当にありがとう。You guys are always so patient and willing to help; I really do appreciate it. I’d like to ask for some more help dissecting basic grammar, but if you think I’m abusing this thread, let me know.

    「彼は何事でも三日坊主だ。」=He can’t stick with anything for very long。
    I’ve been puzzling over it for a while, and I’m still not sure I’m correctly understanding how the first half of this sentence works.

    「彼は何事」
    何事 means ‘something’ that takes place, usually paired with a verb so that ‘something happens’, ‘something exists’, ‘something is done’ etc. But there doesn’t seem to be a verb for it; the only verb in the sentence (だ) applies to 彼, saying that he’s a 三日坊主(Three-Day Monk).

    If there’s no verb 何事 to do, does this mean the word itself can imply a verb?
    (So the sentence would mean “As for him, [he does] things, but he’s a quitter.”)

    • This reply was modified 12 years, 8 months ago by  Pencil.
    in reply to: Anki 2.0 β #28962

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    I’m waiting for a more stable release, too.

    in reply to: Listening Practice #28908

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    Talk CD’s are absolutely fantastic if you can get over the embarrassment factor. They’re fairly lengthy, with clean audio, and a whole variety of different speakers.

    in reply to: Making the best use of JapanesePod101 #28907

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    The free podcasts are designed to be like that. That way, you’ll sign up in order to get what you need.

    What a friend of mine did, however, (and what I’d probably do if JPod’s presentation was more to my tastes) was to sign up for the free premium account taster with an old/rarely used email address and then just mass-download each season one by one. I’d imagine it’d take a while, and be mind-numbing as heck, but if you’re not interested in paying for a subscription, it’s the only other way to get your hands on the complete courses.

    in reply to: The "I found some Japanese I don't understand" thread. #28869

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    Darn it, guys, stop telling me such interesting stuff! >.< (Anyone else noticed that they've slowly started geeking out over Japanese?)

    Anyway, I suppose I should get to asking questions.

    1. If 音楽 is the blanket term for all music, then what's 声楽? Jisho translates it as 'Vocal Music', but does that refer to any music with singing, or is it a specific type like acapella or some Japanese genre?

    2. Do either the がく reading of 楽 or the せい reading of 声 mean anything different than their more common readings (comfort and voice, respectively)? Or are they just using different yomi?

    3. 国語 usually refers to Japanese, but since it literally means ‘national language’, could it be used to refer to a country’s ‘official language’?

    • This reply was modified 12 years, 8 months ago by  Pencil.
Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 44 total)