Mainichi Mind Blown

You know the weird feeling you get when you hear a song for the first time, and then you hear it 20 more times within the same day?  Or you just read about a new car and then start seeing them everywhere.  That kind of crap happens to me every single day because I'm learning Kanji.  It can happen to you too!

While it kinda sucks having to relearn to read as an adult, it has also been incredibly rewarding lately. I study a few new words and BAM, I'm seeing them in books, in games, online, at work, freakin everywhere!...except TV because screw Japanese TV.  I study it once and life takes over and helps me review it all day/every day.

All the Japanese I don't know is just lumped into that big category of 'crap I don't know', so when I do see a known kanji it just pops right out against the blur.  Its like my Japanese is piecing itself together and coming into focus.  And speaking of Kanji, the JLPT sign-up starts tomorrow.  Everyone else should be getting on their kanji studying as well.

You know what also starts tomorrow?  The end of the world according to Japanese news.  Starting April first the sales tax is going up from 5% to 8%, and holy crap the idiots making a scene.  It is like Y2K all over again, but dumber for some reason.  I can almost get past all the crazy claims like "it's going to put (insert store or restaurant name here) out of business."  The little things are what have really been eating at me .

Flocking to department stores to stock up on toilet paper for example.  Seriously, holy shit people! It is, quite literally, not even worth my time to think about the sales tax increase for more than 2 seconds, and citizens are taking a separate driving trip to the store, paying about $6/gallon for gas, to save a few yen on toilet paper...What is wrong with this picture??  Everything, that is what.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is study your kanji for a rewarding experience in Japan, and don't freak the hell out over (literal) pennies.

Real Japan

I went up to 'real' Japan for 2 weeks of work and I was shocked, once again, at how different life in Okinawa is.  I noticed all the little details when I first arrived in Oki, like the need for cars, diet differences, etc.  Now I'm starting to realize how different I am in Okinawa vs real Japan...and apparently I'm starving for Japanese conversation.  It's also apparent that I'm a glutton for punishment because I visited 4 major cities (Tokyo, Hiroshima, Osaka, and Fukuoka) over those 2 weeks...I need a nap

Anyway, to remedy my need for Japanese, my coworkers were kind enough to take me to some very chill whiskey and snack bars.  I've mentioned snack bars before but without too much elaboration, snack bars are bars with female staff, usually with an older woman in charge, and the staff hang out with you and mooch off of your booze all night.  So after a few drinks of liquid courage and a shot of fluency juice, my (limited) Japanese was pouring out of me and I truly felt better about being in Japan.  All was right with the world...the booze and the karaoke certainly helped too.

Real Japan, particularly the big cities I visited, also has a certain 'feel' to it.  The hustle, the energy, the faint smell of soy sauce and urine...It just feels right.    

Plus...THE WOMEN.  They are seriously on a completely different level.  Okinawa is playing pee wee football while real Japan is playing no holds barred MMA with flamethrowers, in SPACE.  I appreciate Oki's weather and laid back lifestyle, but that translates to laziness when it comes to fashion.  Sometimes you want to see insanely thin women rocking 8" boots and 4" skirts in a snow storm and looking fine as hell doing it.  

What was I talking about?  Ah, the mainland is awesome.  Okinawa is just too full of us foreigners to make it feel 'special'.  Plus, Okinawans see gaijin every day so they  treat you like real people instead of racist stereotypes or ask if you can use chopsticks.  Whats up with that??

Business Hotel Room...cause I thought it would be classier than showing a picture of the above mentioned hotty in 8" boots.

日本語能力試験

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test, JLPT for short or the 日本語能力試験 for the opposite of short....long, I guess.

I mentioned a while back that I'm studying for the JLPT, and so far I haven't given up.  I don't  really believe that this test can adequately assess your Japanese ability, but Japan has an unhealthy relationship with exams and sometimes you just need that little piece of paper to say you're smart.  In all seriousness, the whole exam taking process in Japan has gone insane.  Picture the SATs, but every few years starting in elementary school.  From the time you learn how to write you are given entrance exams into all levels of school.  I love Japan, but I'm glad I didn't have to grow up in its school system. Sure I'm legally retarded from going to public school in America, but at least I didn't have to take soul crushing exams that determine my future from 1st grade.

The JLPT is just another wack exam that is a good idea for any gaijin who wish to work in Japan.  Why am I taking this exam since I think it blows?  Having a tangible goal is a great motivator for me to buckle down and study the language, especially the parts of the language I hate (I'm talking about you, Kanji).  The amount of kanji/vocab/grammar needed to pass each level of the JLPT is clearly defined, so to pass this exam you basically just need to go through the lists of required kanji/vocab/grammar and commit them to memory.  This website lays it out quite nicely.  Is that all language is?  Memorizing selected vocabulary and being able to regurgitate it?  No, of course not.  You don't even have to speak Japanese during the test, so this is obviously not a perfect method for testing language fluency. 

The one thing I do like about the JLPT is how it classifies the levels of Japanese and it requires a high level of Japanese to pass the N1.  5 is SUPER easy and 1 is insanely hard.  There are a lot of Japanese books out there, and they all have their different take on what beginning through advanced is, but the JLPT has a pretty good layout.  In contrast, the Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone have a pretty low bar for 'advanced'.  I thought about listing some good study books, but you can just as easily google JLPT N2 grammar and kanji and find which sites work best for you.  

Those that took the exam in December should be getting results soon.  Good luck to everyone that took the JLPT.  I can't wait till I get my own piece of paper that tells me what I already know - that I can できる the 日本語！

Study Up!

Coming from someone as lazy as myself, this may not sound all that convincing, but to seriously pick up Japanese you need to buckle down. For too long I've been relying on Osmosis to do the work for me.  I've surrounded myself in Japanese music (Otsuka Ai, and Ayaka mostly), Japanese friends (mostly girls), and books that I'd thumb through whenever I felt like it.  There are a few problems with this method of 'studying'.

For one, only hearing women speak is hugely detrimental.  There are things that only women can get away with saying and you don't want to pick up on these (ending your sentences in 'wa' and 'mon' just for starters).  Think of making guy friends as an investment that will pay off later when you have more manly Japanese and the Japanese girls are lining up for your phone number.  Its only fun to be the cute gaijin that speaks a little girly for so long (trust me).  Though girly Japanese may work for nanpa, good luck getting a job in Japan talking like a high school chick. 

Second, I found that when I learned at a leisurely pace, I was forgetting as much as I was learning. Sisyphus is no model for language learning.  The only way to stay ahead is to cram your face
with as much Japanese as possible, and that unfortunately takes commitment.  Since I've been working, I've lost 9 hours of study time per day.  I'm starting to wish I'd majored in Japanese so I'd have this language down by now...why did I have to get a degree in a marketable skill?

Third, much like working out, putting in just a few hours a week will only yield results for so long.  You will plateau unless you are constantly challenging yourself.  Unlike working out, you can't just take language steroids and get fluent in a week.  I've used Rosetta Stone, Japanesepod101, and Pimsleur but they only worked when I was constantly using them and pushing past my comfort zone (which is more difficult than it sounds because Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur don't really teach beyond intermediate Japanese).  

I doubt this will be all that motivating for anyone out there, because I wrote this for myself.  I've set a goal to take the Nihongo Noryoku Shiken and I need to remind myself to study up.  You hear me Jon Evans??  Pass the N1 or N2 and you've got an in for a Japanese job, so don't drop the ball!

Extra Hard Cock Grease

Now I'm sure some of you reading this were probably looking for porn, so I'm sorry to disappoint you.  But this is a real thing.

SEE!

You can find these little gems of ridiculous word play all throughout Japan.  Though everyone "learns" English from grade school, somehow these things slip though the cracks.  You would think that in the global age of the internet someone would do a google search of Cock Grease to see if that was an appropriate name.  It would only take 10 seconds to realize that this product name didn't exactly bring up good imagery to sell hair wax. 

In the above photo, that woman walked in and blocked my shot, but you can sort of read the sign for the water they are advertising.  Its called Clytia, They have a Website.  Anyone else getting thirsty thinking about Clytia??

But of course the winner of broken and busted English will always go to clothing.  I really need to remember to take more pictures of this kind of stuff.  Even though I speak English as a first language, there is no way I'd ever be able to think of putting "All My Exes Got Married" on a shirt.  I love you Japan, but I will never fully understand you.

Katakana vs the English Language

Before you get too excited about learning Katakana, there is yet another down side to this distant cousin of actual words. Most, but not all, カタカナ words are borrowed from English. Japanese (particularly drunk Japanese) assume all Katakana is English so you as an English speaker should understand.

First of all, the Katakana word is likely only related to the original word by one vowel sound.

For Example:

Naita- This comes from the word Nighter, which is somehow supposed to mean 'night game', like a night baseball game.

Secondly, there are other Katakana words based on German, French, Korean, and others.

For example:

Anke-to (アンケート): Survey. This is based on the French word, Enquette with the same meaning.

Third....Katakana is retarded.

Kariumu (カリウム) : Potassium. Yeah, that makes sense. Actually, it at least explains why a K is used for Potassium in the periodic table...but how the hell am I supposed to know that?


If you refuse to learn カタカナ, you will never be able to speak Japanese well. But on the other hand, you won't have to butcher your native language... Before I completely convince you that Katakana is the most annoying aspect of Japanese, here are a couple katakana words that aren't so bad.

OK：Okay.　It means exactly what you think it means. Is used to say things like 全然OK (zenzen OK): its completely fine.

セフレ,Sefure: Friend with benefits. Is a combination of the word Sex and Friend.

Kanji 二番

After briefly discussing why studying Kanji (漢字) is not as bad as it seems, let me bring you back to reality with 3 typical problems you will more than likely encounter on your journey to literacy.

1. The 'I have no f&#%@* clue' problem

As kanji gets more complicated, it can become impossible to read. When you come across these indecipherable kanji, you are basically screwed. You can guess how they might sound based on the radicals, but you can never really be sure. Congratulations, you are an adult who can’t read

鬱 - I think this means 'retardedly complicated'...

2. The 'Dog+Small+Room = Dog House' problem

Problem number 1 was a worst case scenario. There are some instances where you come across compounds you have never seen before yet you might know exactly what the word means because you know the 2 or more Kanji the compound is comprised of. If you know the building blocks well enough you can guess the meaning and pronunciation. Like the example above, Inugoya (犬小屋 ) is made up of the Kanji for Dog, Small, and Room.
Or the first time I saw 住所 on a form. The first Kanji comes from 住む, to live. The second, 所, is tokoro, place. So a reasonable person would guess this is the place you live.
On the more difficult side, for Fire Alarm you have 火災報知器. From left to right the Kanji are Fire, Disaster, Report, Know, Device. Kind of sounds retarded when you put it in those terms.
This problem is kind of like knowing what a necrophiliac is and then having to guess what necrosis means. You know the elements, so you can make an educated guess. This is a unique problem because even though you know what the word means, you still can't say it.

3. The 'What’s the Kanji for 'I should know this?' problem

For most people, you learn to speak at a rate exponentially better than you learn to read, so much of Kanji studying is learning how to write words you already know. Similar to the situation above, sometimes you can almost guess what the compound will be before you even learn them. I think there is/was a game show in Japan based on a similar concept, where they give you the name of some difficult Kanji and you have to guess what the character is made up of based on the meaning. I'll post that if I ever find it.
For example, after learning what suugaku (数学) and kougaku (工学) mean, mathematics and engineering respectively, I could only assume that literature was bungaku (文学). You can pretty much put 学 after anything to make it the study of that thing.

Whats the kanji for water gate? Whats that? Water (水) and gate (門)? 水門...why didn't I think of that?

漢字

After all that ‘easy’ katakana stuff comes the real Challenge – Kanji. At first glance Kanji , Chinese characters, seem like a tough pill to swallow. They are actually not too terribly hard to learn…except there are more than 2000 in daily use…so good luck with that.

Most people just see a bunch of scribbles when they look at Kanji, but the characters are made up of some basic building blocks (basically the more difficult Kanji are made up of several simply kanji called radicals). You can even use these radicals to look up unknown kanji in the dictionary. I think this was done in an ancient time before you could write the kanji in a denshi jisho or just hold your cell phone over the character for a translation. So once you get familiar with the simpler building blocks, you can pick up new words really quickly. Then once you learn these words, you can combine them to make new words.
For example, ィ can represent a person, 木 stands for tree. Put them together, you got a man leaning on a tree,　you get 休, vacation.
女 (woman) + crown = 安, easy. I didn’t say they all made perfect sense. Take that word easy and combine it with fun (楽) and death (死) and you get euthanasia (安楽死). Tell me with a straight face that doesn’t make sense.

Okay, in case all of those half-assed examples aren’t helping, do you at least see how the building blocks help? Instead of looking at the Kanji and seeing a bunch of lines, you only have to see 2 to 5 radicals in a specific order. So when you think about it, you don’t really have to memorize 2000 kanji, just 200 radicals and how to arrange them.

Japanese have problems with Kanji too, so don’t feel terrible about knowing a measly 100 or so Kanji. With the rising popularity of computers and keitai, many Japanese are forgetting how to write these characters out. Kind of like the need to spell correctly flies out the window once you discover spell check.

If you've learned nothing else remember this kanji, 外国人, because no matter how many kanji you know, this is all you'll be.

Lets Hear some Japanese

You can read about Japanese all you want, but it is absolutely necessary to hear this fantastically mathematical language. I’ve found a good video that has examples of lot’s of English Katakana and good expressions. This video has the added bonus of showing you how low budget Japanese TV is.

If you are just reading the subtitles, do you see how they use the word ‘challenge’? He is not just trying to cut various objects (and friggin succeeding at it), he is challenging himself to do something awesome.

'Super slow' is the most obvious Katakana in the video but did you also catch that 'Besuto suri-'? That's 'Best Three' if you were wondering. You can also here the surprised 'heeeeeee' after the samurai cuts everything. Use that word, it's a lot of fun.

The whole variety show concept is very reminiscent of elementary school ‘show & tell’, but I think elementary school had a better budget. Someone comes in with a skill or object (usually food) and everyone chatters away while looking at it. This may have seemed like a good idea at first, but this concept gets old, FAST. Most of the time, the guests aren't as cool as this Isao Machii Samurai either. Here, enjoy more of this dude cutting things in half, and then never watch Japanese TV again...

5 Most Common Japanese Words (you will absolutely hate using)

美味しい: Oishii (delicious) – this obviously had to make the list. You cannot go 5 seconds without hearing this damn word. If you want to man it up, you can say Umai – it has basically the same meaning. I’ve come to the conclusion that all Japanese are self conscious of their cooking, so whether you’re eating a nice prepared meal, or a shucream from a conbini, be sure to say this at least 37 times before finishing.

Oishii my ass...

痛い: Itai (ouch) – This is mostly for the women. Since all Japanese women are real women, they are light and dainty, and as such they need to convey this to everyone around them. One manner of doing this is to say itai when anything gets remotely close to touching you? Just trip over a bike? Itai! Just get hit by a wash cloth? Itai! Its so versatile!

そうですか: Sou desu ka (is that so) – In addition to being self conscious chefs, Japanese people are never sure you’re listening to them unless you interrupt their conversation as much as possible to let them know you aren’t sleeping. Conversations go something like this…
Kinou, Ken ni battari atta. - Sou desu ka?
Kare ha Kyoto ni… - Sou desu ka?
Nani .. - SOU DESU KA!

Nagarakugaragara (????) – When you get older in Japan, you can’t be bothered with silly things like enunciation so be sure to slur your words and barely open your mouth to make your speech indecipherable. But still act surprised when people say they can’t understand you.

heeeEEEEEEE? ( word? ) – When someone gives you new or surprising information use this word. Be sure to start soft and build to a dramatic finish. The longer you hold out the word, the more surprised you are.


All sarcasm aside, lets have a serious recap.

Oishii – it is expected that you say this about your food. Whether it sucks or not is irrelevant. You can try to eat your meal in peace or chime in with a little “mmm”, but sooner or later someone will ask Oishii? Trust me. Just say the word.

It's all oishii dammit!

Itai – I suppose the word has sort of morphed to become “woah” or “yikes” in addition to “ouch.” It is just a knee jerk response when someone gets touched by surprise. It doesn’t mean they are hurt, so don’t assume all Japanese are pansies. And when I say Japanese women are REAL women, I mean it. Guess who don't get the epidural when having babies. That's right, Japanese women.

Sou Desu Ka – I sometimes here it over used in conversations but it just means “uh huh”, “really”, “you don’t say”. You can also say it after someone asks you a question to buy you time to come up with an answer. It’s actually a quite useful phrase.

Insert mumbling here – I don’t know what it is about men getting older in Japan but it turns their Japanese into garbage. It seriously happens to EVERYONE. It is a common stereotype for the elderly in Japan, so don’t worry if you can’t understand some old dude. Even native Japanese can barely understand these fogeys.

heeeEEEEEEE – I say this sometimes to make fun of how others sound, but people take me seriously. That’s how ridiculous this word is. If you don’t like this word, sometimes an “uso!” (no way, you lie!) or a "maji?" is more appropriate.

More Words

If you’ve had any experience at all with a foreign language you likely have that story where you asked for dog feces instead of Reese's Pieces. We’ve all been there. To help avoid this future mix up, I have put several pairs of similar words together so that you’ll be less likely to make these hilariously embarrassing mistakes.

In most cases, words that sound similar are so different in meaning that people can assume what you meant to say, but sometimes the words are similar enough to create problems. For example…

Byouin, Biyouin – Byouin (病院) is a hospital while Biyouin (美容院) is a beauty parlor. If you are suffering from alcohol poisoning but manage to get into a cab and ask to go to the Biyouin, you'll be one sexy looking corpse.

Suwaru, Sawaru – Suwaru (座る) is to sit while Sawaru (触る) means to touch. This little mix-up is based on actual events. A buddy of mine strolled up to nice lady on the train with an empty seat next to her. ‘Can I touch there’ he asked while pointing down…. SECURITY! Actually he was lucky, she just laughed it off.

Chizu, Chi-zu - Chizu (地図) is a map while Chi-zu (チーズ) is cheese. I'm not exactly sure how this could go bad, but it has potential to go horribly wrong.

Gamu, Gomu. Gamu (ガム) is gum while Gomu (ゴム) is rubber, or condom. I can see this playing out all too well. You are getting frisky with a young lady at a classy establishment like hotel fine. Its getting heavy so you look her in the eyes and ask ‘do I need gum?’.
'No, of course not' she says….BAM, you got herpes.

And a classic is Kanjou, and Kanchou. One means check, while the other means enema, or to poke your fingers into someone's ass. I say it's a classic because nobody uses that word for check anymore. I'll just let you guess which one is which the next time you're at a restaurant and want to leave...

More JET Fire

After expelling a lot of hate on the JET program, I decided to do a little more research and learn some more about this retarded program. I haven’t quite pinpointed the source of its failure, but I did find another JET with some stupid ideas and someone else who tries to let JET off the hook. So…maybe I was right in the first place.

Regarding this first JET, he has some ideas for helping teach English in Japan. His first idea being that Katakana should not be used in the classroom. While I do agree with this, he goes on to say that Roman characters (the kind you’re reading right now) can be used to represent Japanese sounds, but Katakana cannot be used to represent English….in this case, he is only half right.

I am reminded of my days studying Japanese at UMD with a book written in the 80’s and entirely in English characters. Needless to say, I didn’t learn much from that book, because I wasn’t really reading Japanese. Losing Katakana and using more English would give Japanese kids more exposure to the language, and would likely help out in the long run but the idea of Romaji accurately representing Japanese is absolutely false. There is no way to use roman characters to represent all Japanese sounds, because English simply does not have those sounds.
Take らりるれろ and が for instance. In roman characters, they are written RA RI RU RE RO and GA respectively, but this is just as close as English can get to writing these sounds. For RA, the actual pronunciation is like a fusion of LA and RA while flicking your front teeth. This is why they are sometimes written LA LI LU LE LO, and also why Crown and Clown sound the same to many Japanese.

It is also why somebody thought this was a good idea.

They are not used to distinguishing the differences between R and L, because the closest thing they have is something in the middle.

As for GA, you can pretty much say it the way it is spelled and get away with it, but I have noticed that the Tokyo (standard) dialect tends to put a nasally sound at the front of GA, particularly when women say it. When they say it, it sounds more like nGA. These are just a couple examples where roman characters fall short of representing Japanese. So for all of you studying Japanese out there, read Japanese and do not settle for Romaji! You’ll only be hurting yourself. It only takes a few days to learn the phonetic alphabet anyway..

As for the second Article, it attempts at defending JET but JET just seems even more stupid after reading it. Debito Arutou points out that the E in JET does not even stand for English, JET’s main goal is not teaching English, and the ‘teachers’ are not qualified to teach. That sounds like a worthwhile program to me!

After bashing JET a bit, Debito goes on to make some very valid points. English classes in Japan are HORRIBLE, and it seems like everyone knows it but is too stubborn to change it. This is why English cafes are so popular, because Japanese are desperate to speak the language – an opportunity rarely given in an English class.

Language is also fluent and ever-changing. How do you tell if someone’s English is WRONG? Did they get the point across? If your dialect is different from the standard, does that make your version wrong? I'm pretty sure I made like, um, bout 20 grammer mistakes in this post alone. But you know what I'm talking about....right guys?

JET

How does someone get to Japan? One option (typically a last option) is the JET Program. The JET (Japanese Exchange and Teaching) program is for lack of a better word…retarded. Let me clarify. The idea of the JET program is great, but the problem is that it is run in such a terrible manner, that nobody benefits. The idea is to send native English speakers to Japan to teach English the way it is naturally spoken. I’ll list their problems in list format from here on out because thinking about JET makes me too angry to form a complete thought.

JET only hires morons. From my many friends and acquaintances that have applied for JET there has been a common theme to the ones that were accepted. Those ‘qualified’ to teach could barely locate Japan on a map and had little to no knowledge of Japanese culture outside of Anime. The only educational requirement for JET is that your native language be English and you have a Bachelor's Degree in 'something'. It is a running joke that you should wear an Evangelion T-shirt to you interview to improve your odds of getting accepted (for the longest time I thought JET stood for Jackasses in Evangelion T-shirts). It is never spoken of openly, but JET fears charismatic, intelligent teachers (who can actually speak Japanese) because they can easily leave the program and get another, better, job in Japan. The less you know about Japan and Japanese, the less likely you are to jump their ship.

You can only be in JET for 5 years. This probably has something to do with the number of applicants they get or the fact that they want young, energetic people for their program but it seems more likely that they just want younger folks who will put up with JET's BS and not ask too many questions (being under 40 is an application requirement). You typically sign a one year contract and have to renew it every year you wish to continue. It almost seems like once you get the position you are fighting for your life to keep it. This is a dumb system because once you get the hang of teaching English, they kick you out and some other idiot has to learn from scratch. The kids get inexperienced teachers over and over again, and learn little English as a result.

You will likely get placed in the middle of nowhere. This is not really the JET program’s fault. So many people sign up for JET and want to be in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and other key cities, but there are just not as many open spaces in these cities as there are applicants. Picking your top 3 cities you want to be located in is part of the application process, but you rarely get any of those locations. Odds are if you do get accepted into JET, you will be in some unknown city with a population of around 100 people. I know some folks that were put in this situation and had to take a bus and train for 2 hours to get to somewhere that had convenience stores. Getting placed in the middle of nowhere also has the added inconvenience of learning non-standard (incomprehensible) Japanese.

There are many different types of English. This isn't so much of a 'problem' but have you ever heard a Japanese person speak English with an Australian accent?? It'll blow your freakin mind!! To add to that, what the hell is rubbish? The word is trash!

Me Hate JET! I think a lot of my excessive, and possibly misguided, hate comes from actually seeing the JET program and it's participants in action. The JETs in Japan are very cliquey. They only hang out with other JETs and only speak English. I met some JETs that lived in Japan for 4 years and could only order noodles in Japanese. You'll also notice that well spoken English is hard to find in Japan.

If you are a decent human being who has a fondness for Japan, you have an uphill battle getting accepted by JET. If you do in fact get accepted, and don’t mind the bureaucratic bull crap, then power to ya, and enjoy those next 5 years! You deserve it!

But you certainly have your work cut out for you. MANY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!