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An Open Thread for Personal Stuff. I’m going to try to put these up more often. As usual: No trolls, no MRAs, etc, allowed.
I wrote a few Chinese characters for my grandmother, she seemed to be happy that I can write in her native language in a pretty way. So at least there I am happy that my studies into japanese are going along quite swimmingly. Speaking of which I even managed to parse my first sentence from japanese to english. It’s part of my goal to be able to have a second language, so japanese is as good as anything to me.
この娘の名前ことのはだつけ。。。
In romanji, the way to pronounce this sentence is:
kono musume no namae kotonoha dasuke…
Because “kono” the first two characters translates to “this”, and musume means both “daughter” and “girl.” Since the page I’m looking into features a girl and not specifically about daughter, I picked girl. “no” which is the character with the single loop and an arch like a mickey mouse logo, after musume denotes a possessive. This possessive is to “namae”, which means “name/full name/given name/first name.” So far it is “This girl’s name is”, the is being there as part to localize the transition words of english. Then the last part I know then to be her full name, from the earlier parts of the sentence.
“Kotonoha datsuke”, I know to separate the hiragana, the symbols paste “namae”, like this because usually a female name would end in “ha”. So her name is written in phonetic, as “Kotonoha Datsuke.”
Finally I am able to translate the sentence into “This girl’s name is Kotonoha Datsuke.”I cheered way too much about being able to translate such a simple sentence.
Then I started onto the next sentence, and, well, it’s got three particles, a noun used as a verb, and other things that make my head spin. I will understand this language soon enough.
@Oogly
I’m pretty good with particles, but adjectival nouns and the like… Sorta learning German was hard enough. I think I’ll stick to my 1 1/3 languages, thanks. Good luck tho 🙂
I’ve been feeling so depressed, and it’s all so built up I don’t even know where to start. A man who broke my heart a few years ago, triggering a major depression that I’ve only just been getting my life back on track from (it was all really complicated) called to tell me that I was right, and the weird thing I had nagged him to get checked out was in fact cancer. But he’s not getting treatment.
https://www.facebook.com/drawingboardcats/
Hi: Just wanted to say that I am so glad that I found this site. It combines two of my great passions: the fight for gender equality and animals.
The link above is to my brother’s website. He recently wrote/illustrated a book about adventurous felines using the personalities of our own kitties as the models. Believe me this not a cheap pitch to try to get someone to buy his book. But from the feedback I’ve gotten if you like cute, clever animal drawings you might want to take a (completely free) look.
Also, there is an adorable song about a slightly hyper squirrel singing about his love of nuts. I tried to download it but I’m a bit clueless when it comes to such things. Oh, wanted to thank whoever posted that wonderful bunny video. Just great!
The main reason I’m posting this is that I received some less than encouraging medical news this week. Not looking for self-pity. It’s just that right now my brother and his future are truly what mean the most to me and I’d love to share what I in my sisterly pride feel are his artistic gifts. Sorry if this sounds lachrymose. Blame it on the medications!
Thank you again for your site David. It is a gift in this day and age!
@Axecalibur
Thanks man.
But seriously it’s annoying cause on this sentence, I can write it, I can pronounce it, I know the individual parts but like a newbie engineer I’ve yet to figure out where the last five nuts and bolts go to get the engine in one shape.
兄さん,この娘の計画協力しろつて言うけど。。。
Onii-san, kono musume no keikaku (yes I know it literally is keikaku) kyouyoku shi ro tsute yu kedo…
The first character is onii as elder brother, san is just an honorific for politeness. Past the comma again is “kono musume no”, which from my previous translation again is “this girl’s.”
Now is the part where I find myself completely lost, and I’m still looking up how to. “kyouyoku” is cooperate, but in my dictionary, Jisho, the “shiro” is also part of the verb. That makes it weird, then there is the “tsute”, which is the particle meaning these things:
intermediary; influence; good offices; connections; someone to trust; go-between; pull
THEN I got “yu kedo,” “yu” is declare, and “kedo” means although.
Put it all together without accounting for grammar, it becomes “older brother, this girl’s plan cooperate intermediary to say although…”
Obviously past “girl’s plan” everything is off heavily. But then, lo and behold, my Tae Kim japanese grammar showed me a better way. “tsu ke” is actually “tte”, and “tte” is used as a casual form of a quote. “shiro” after “協力” would be a command.
With that knowledge, a better translation would be “Older brother, you said to cooperate with this girl’s plan, although…”
I hope? Oh god I suck at this.
Hair cut acheived. I chatted with the other fella getting his hair cut, and then got my head nearly shaved.
It was strange, as i walked to catch my bus i kept waiting to feel my hair brush against my forehead in the wind.
I’m suddenly intensely concious of my hair and scalp. When i think about myself, the mental image has hair, which is a fairly new thing for me.
It was nice to be ‘back’, and it was nice that the barber shop was easy to walk in and just have my hair cut. It’s a reminder that i blow things out of proportion when i’m nervous, and if i just do whatever i’ll be fine.
I also bottled my first batch of home brewed beer. 1 gallon equaled six and a bit bottles for me. I think i might have overfilled a few… but there should be enough space for the pressure to build up in.
aaand it turns out that whatsapp doesn’t keep drafts and i should have copied my message into another program. OH WELL deal with that tomorrow.
@Oogly
The ‘tte’ thing is called a sokuon. It’s a ‘lowercase’ tsu that doubles the next consonant. て=te, つて=tsute, and って=tte
Shiro is used to add oomph. Hayaku=hurry. Hayakushiro=hurry the fuck up!
You have to take into account sentence structure. In German, verbs are always the 1st, 2nd, or last thing in a clause. This requires some fiddling around when translating. Same here:
“Older brother, you said to cooperate with this girl’s plan, although…”
Becomes
“Older brother, although you said to cooperate with this girl’s plan…”
If there’s more to the sentence, it’s likely to be a rebuttal. ‘Yeah, you said this, but here’s why you’re wrong.’ If the elipses are the end of it, that’s usually a subtle expression of doubt. ‘I don’t think the plan is any good, and I’ll imply that without actually saying so.’
All the Japanese I know, I leaned from manga/anime and Wiktionary. Not much, but helpful I hope
ETA:
So, just another casual reminder that I’m still raising money for bills and my move out of my family’s house on my GoFundMe, and people can also donate directly to my PayPal if y’all don’t want to donate to GFM. (Thanks to everyone who already donated though! I really appreciate it!)
I also still have all my stores up (though I apologize for not updating them more often due to stress and general depression): My RedBubble, My Zazzle, and The Unofficial WHTM Zazzle (where Paradoxy sometimes makes stuff based on jokes that happen here).
All of these links help me out a ton, so if you can, please do!
Oh, and I got a message last night that someone from Australia purchased a bunch of stuff from my RedBubble last night! RedBubble doesn’t tell me who they are, only where they’re from, but I’m still happy about it! 😀
Thank you, random Australian! I hope you like your purchases!
We got a new kitten. The poor thing was sick and had to spend some time at the vet, but he’s all better now and we took him in. Our cats are not his biggest fans, but for the most part they just ignore him. At best, they view him as entertainment.
My family’s thinking of getting a new pet. They have their eye on a german shepherd puppy named Maya, but the shelter has a few other families who are also looking at her.
We were high up on the list because we have a big backyard, no kids (Apparently Maya is in the shelter because a child pulled her tail and she bit them), and a bunch of other dogs for her to play with (my family even took our older shepard over there to see how they got along, and apparently it was really well), but the only thing they’re worried about is our cat, because Maya chases cats and has apparently bit one before.
@Axecalibur
Thanks for the advice and the pick me up. I also learned one important thing. If you want to download an image, but you can’t right click, simply go to your configurations on your web browser, disable your javascript, and you can download that image with no hassle. Even if they try to say redirect you you can always stop that with a single click on the x button to the right of your address bar.
@Rhuu
Hope your beer turns out alright.
@PI
Hope you can give that dog a good home, and I hope you can get your own home soon.
@Ooglyboggles
この娘の名前ことのはだつけ looks like the つ should be small. If the speaker is saying that the girl’s name is Kotonoha, there would most likely be a は between 名前 and ことのは. Also, assuming the speaker and Kotonoha are both Japanese, the speaker would most likely put her surname first (and Datsuke isn’t a common surname either) .
If the つ is supposed to be small, it then becomes この娘の名前ことのはだっけ. だっけ is often used when the speaker is trying to recall something, so it sounds like the speaker is trying to remember the girl’s name, thinks it might be Kotonoha, but isn’t quite sure.
I hope this helps, and don’t beat yourself up. Stories meant for natives can be hard because they’ll contain expressions that might not be taught to beginners, as well as informal and slang terms, which are fluid and constantly in flux.
Ooglyboggles says:
What KindaSortaHarmless said. And if the つ isn’t small, “だつけ” could also be Sendai dialect for 〜だそうだ (meaning “I hear that ~”). Since I see you missed another small つ, though, it’s probably the much more mundane だっけ.
Distinguishing large and small kana is really hard at first with some fonts. I had trouble for a while with やゆよ vs ゃゅょ, especially if they were furigana (the kana next to a kanji showing how to pronounce it) where there’d be less than a millimeter’s difference between the two.
Part of the problem with this is the speaker is dropping particles and leaving out other stuff that would help you figure out what goes with what. Properly speaking, there should be a に after 計画 which would mean “with” in this case. And you’re close with しろ. It is the casual/blunt imperative form of する, which is part of the whole verb, 協力する.
Also, it’s not clear who the quote belongs to from the grammar alone. It could be the 兄さん or it could be the speaker (contradicting him/herself) or it could even be someone else if it was established earlier in the conversation that there’s another person they’re discussing. You have to know the context. (When I’m reading, I fuck this up all the time and have to reread paragraphs once I realize I was attributing things to the wrong speaker.)
But good on you for approaching native materials. I keep trying to get my lower level study buddies to do more of that because they could really benefit from working with real written Japanese. (We live in Japan and are working towards the December JLPT.) It’s so hard to get a grammar lesson to solidify and become intuitive without a lot of native input. And, unlike with conversation, you can parse writing at your own speed.
Axecalibur
Actually, as はやく is the adverbial form of はやい (“fast”) and しろ is the casual/blunt imperative form of する, a literal translation of はやくしろ would be “do (it) quickly.” In some contexts, “hurry the fuck up” would be perfect. In others, something like “get it over with” might work better. And so on.
My eleven year old b/w cat Biff is being such a sweetheart to me right now. I’m being assessed as to whether I can keep receiving disabilty benefits atm, waiting for the letter with the final decision after four months of form filling, getting info from my doctor and psychiatrist passed along and finally the interview I had last week, it’s beginning to feel like torture. So while I wallow in splatter movies he’s been snuggling much more than usual. I think without having him around I’d be a lot sadder and stressed out.
Bit of a bumpy time at Casa Bluecat. My husband’s eyesight suddenly worsened and he could no longer read with prescription glasses. Went to the opticians on Thursday, and was told he’s having an eye haemorrhage. It’s ongoing and there’s no telling how long it will last or what damage it will do. First thing every morning since has been “am I blind or not?” (So far not, and it certainly makes you appreciate eyesight). Appointment at the specialist on Wednesday, but I think we might try to blag ourselves into the eye clinic tomorrow.
Other than that, the novel’s not going too badly. I’m still living partly in the 17th century. The rest of the time I’m helping organise the East Anglian Storytelling Festival, 22nd – 24th July in Blaxhall Suffolk, which is going to be brilliant.
Congrats on the kitten! I’m glad your cats are tolerating him. My old cat essentially lived in the closet for a good 3 months when I brought home another kitten. He finally got the point of grudging acceptance, which is how they co-existed until he died last summer.
Right now I’m fostering a little kitten that had an awful upper respiratory infection. Her eyes are still terrible and she’s pretty much blind, but otherwise she’s doing great and playing with every toy in the house.
Fingers crossed for you. I’m biased, but German Shepherds are the best. That’s what my family always had.
Cats are the best for snuggles and stress relief. I hope everything works out for you.
I gave a quick update on my life in the group hug thread, but I wanted to share a story with all of you.
A story of how I silently fought a manspreader.
I was at a conference a few weeks ago. During one of the sessions, I was sitting on the aisle with a few empty seats next to me. A man and a woman walked in and motioned that they wanted to sit there. Being polite, I pivoted in my chair to let them through, but when I spun back to face front, I found the man (who had taken the chair next to me) had his foot in front of my chair, meaning his thigh was on my seat, against my leg. As I settled back in, I also noticed that he had his arms held pretty wide too, so our upper arms were touching.
Now, keep in mind, there was a speaker on stage and I was only a few rows back from the front, so I didn’t want to make a scene. Also note that while I am thin, these were hotel conference chairs, so they aren’t exactly roomy. I immediately thought, “This is uncomfortable. I should move,” but I fought that impulse. I was entitled to use my full chair. So, I sat there, with my thigh and my arm against a stranger, and refused to give up my space.
He did eventually shift his position so we weren’t touching any more. I don’t know if that was because I refused to move and made him uncomfortable, but I am so proud of myself for refusing to yield the space that I was entitled to. It may be a small victory, but it was victory nonetheless.
Also, as always, internet hugs to anyone who needs (or wants) them.
I always elbow manspreaders. But subtly enough that I have plausible deniability if they get upset about it. They usually get the hint.
I’m genderfluid and I’ll go for months as one gender and then switch to another. I switched today. I was between femme and nonbinary for more than three months and now I’m male and dysphoric as hell.
@chesselwit: Thanks for the good wishes, appreciated 🙂
Men don’t tend to manspread next to me, because I’m a fairly muscularly built woman who will push back if they try and make an issue of it. I’m not at all “ladylike” and I think due to all the therapy I’ve had I’m not afraid to loudly speak my mind if I think a man (or a woman) is impinging on my personal space. That said I don’t encounter manspreaders much and I make two train journeys a week.
So, a few days ago I had the displeasure to meet my first MRA (and self-proclaimed Nazi to boot) in real life, a young person who started to rant about feminism enough to fill a bingo card (radical feminists, third wave, women refusing to shave their legs… the works, seriously.) Unfortunately I was in no position to reply to them, but thankfully nobody was paying attention to them anyway, being well aware of their… idiosyncrasies. I later learned that this young person was brought up this way by their parents, who held the exact same opinions, and that trying to change their mind had already been proven futile. How sad (and infuriating) it is to see a person so thoroughly indoctrinated in hate at such a young age.
I’m testing whether this works the way I expect it to because I want to share something personal anonymously.
I have some good news to share!
I just got on as a volunteer at one of the branches of my local library system, which will probably make one of the other branches more likely to hire me to a paid position.
I also wrote the first-ever fanfic for a new TV show, and so far everyone who’s read it loves it! I was really nervous about being the first fic writer for the fandom, so the love it’s getting makes me want to jump up and down and squeal. I don’t actually do it because the dog will probably mistake it for a siren and howl, so I’ll do it here. *long, loud squeal while jumping up and down*
That wildcat, or whatever that cat is, has a serious-business DO NOT WANT look on its face. Or am I the only one seeing it?
I think I’m ready to buy a house. I’ve never owned a house before and have always lived in apartments, but the new job has better pay and I’ve been saving up money. I think I want to use the money for a down payment. It would be nice to have my own yard, where I can grow stuff in the ground instead of having to have everything in containers, and I really want my commute to get shorter.