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Post by assasin8 on Dec 15, 2014 22:52:55 GMT
Thank you! These pages were REALLY helpful! The website itself looks really great too! Thank you!!!
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Post by Mikauzoran on Dec 16, 2014 19:15:10 GMT
That seems like pretty good information to get you started. It sounds like you could really benefit from the Genki textbooks, Assasin8. They have such great explanations and examples. That's the textbook series that we used at my college, and I think it provides a good foundation.
As far as the example sentences you were asking about,
"You should eat soon." = すぐに食べたほうがいいです。 or すぐに食べたほうがいいだと思います。
"I would help you if I could." = 手伝えたら、手伝います。(This one I'm not 100% sure about. It sounds kind of funny, but that might be because doing the conditional of a potential verb. It's literally, "If I were able to help, I would help.")
"I need to do my homework." = 宿題をしなくちゃいけません。
Hopefully that's helpful.
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Post by assasin8 on Dec 17, 2014 2:02:08 GMT
Yeah, everyone talks about Genki and it's prevalence in colleges... I would love to have it, but it's just soooo expensive... Actually, I wonder if there's a PDF version I could read from? I'll have to look into that... But how come you have 「いきません」at the end of the 「しなくちゃ」? I think it makes sense, looking at it from a certain point of view, but does that mean that expressing need in Japanese uses a double negative? (To me, the sentence looks like "it would be bad if you didn't do your homework")
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Post by Mikauzoran on Dec 17, 2014 2:40:51 GMT
~なくちゃいけない/いけません is just the set expression for having to do something. It's literally "I can't go without doing my homework."
Is Genki really that expensive? I remember it being on thirty dollars or so. I didn't think it was that bad considering a lot of college textbooks are around one hundred if not more. I've always rented mine except for ones that I know I'll consult again and again. So pretty much language and my intro to law and my torts texts.
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Post by assasin8 on Dec 17, 2014 3:21:14 GMT
Haha, yeah... 30$ is what I consider "expensive"... Well, that's just something I'll have deal with. Maybe I'll end up buying them if it looks like they'll be REALLY useful... Thanks for the help!
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Doku
Junior Member
Posts: 69
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Post by Doku on Dec 21, 2014 4:59:22 GMT
So, uh, weird question but I bought this shirt today in a thrift store (that's mostly owned by some Japanese women) thinking it only had one or two kanji on it but but it turns out there's a whole lot more. I was wondering if anybody could give me an idea what it says? I know "Kamikaze" is on there, but that's really it. I just don't want to seem like total trash if someone asks me while I'm wearing it.
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Post by Mikauzoran on Dec 21, 2014 6:05:02 GMT
Well, the best I can tell you right now (keep in mind that it's midnight, I'm half asleep, I'm sick with a cold, and I'm on my phone, so I can't enlarge the photo in order to read better) is that you seem to have obtained a staff T-shirt from an izakaya (Japanese pub. Think beer and snacks like grilled meat kabobs). I'll take a closer look at the photos tomorrow.
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Post by Mikauzoran on Dec 21, 2014 16:19:59 GMT
Okay, so I believe that says "General Public Izakaya" and then the kanji in the middle is...it looks like "喧嘩" or "fight". At the bottom in red it says "irasshaimase" which is "welcome!" usually said by shop or restaurant staff. To the side it says "Kamikaze Special Attack Number One..." I can't make out the last kanji, but it looks like the ki part from "hikouki" (airplane), so that would be the machinery/mechanics bit of it.
In the next picture, it's hard to read the writing at the top, but it starts of with The Empire of Japan (and then I can't read the last two kanji. It's stylized and kind of blurry). The line under that reads "...Headquarters". I don't know what the first kanji is supposed to be. I can make out the second half of it, but I'm not sure what the first radical is supposed to be, and all of the possibilities that I can think of don't make sense. Below that is "Fight" again, and below that seems to be the name of a family it starts out with plum and is that supposed to be tree? After that, it's stylized and blurry, but the last two kanji are "family" as in "the Ueda Family".
Below that, all of the hiragana and kanji, is the Japanese National anthem, "Kimi ga Yo". It's translated like "May the Japanese Empire reign for generation after generation until small stones become boulders covered in moss." I'm sure you can find a better translation out there, but that's the gist of it.
So, yeah. That's what it says. I have no idea what kind of shirt you got, though. Google search time! Okay. Like I first thought, you got a staff shirt from an izakaya. In New York! Surprise, surprise. "Kenka" is a New York izakaya located here: 25 Saint Marks Place, New York, NY 10003. Go sometime and tell me how their takoyaki is. Case Closed.
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Doku
Junior Member
Posts: 69
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Post by Doku on Dec 21, 2014 16:47:26 GMT
It was from a thrift store above that actually! It's called Search & Destroy and this is one of their "original" shirts. I had a feeling it had something to do with it, but I didn't want to go spouting something off and then have someone call me out. St. Marks is actually around the same area as Little Tokyo, so there's a lot of ramen shops and other fare down there. There were a bunch of these shirts in different colors (along with others that said the name of the thrift store or had the logo to the bar on the ground floor on them).
Thank you so, so much, Mikau.
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Post by Mikauzoran on Dec 21, 2014 16:56:20 GMT
No problem! Sorry I couldn't make some of it out, but I figure having the gist of it would be a good start. Glad I could help!
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Post by Nikudou Natsumi on Dec 29, 2014 1:35:02 GMT
Is there a difference between when to use にほん and when to use にっぽん or is it just a matter of preference?
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Post by Mikauzoran on Dec 29, 2014 2:05:44 GMT
I've never been taught one way or the other, but from personal experience it's interchangeable. I hear にほん mostly, especially in the context of Japanese language or Japanese people. I hear にっぽん in phrases like にっぽんいち or にっぽん.
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Post by Nikudou Natsumi on Dec 29, 2014 2:12:24 GMT
Okay, thanks! Just was curious . . .
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Post by Nikudou Natsumi on Dec 31, 2014 15:46:32 GMT
I've been wondering for a while now . . . Conan calls Ran by "neechan" and Sera by "no neechan". Is there a difference between these two?
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Post by Mikauzoran on Jan 3, 2015 15:56:20 GMT
This is another one of those things that I haven't been formally taught, but Ran-neechan would translate as "Big Sister Ran" as you all know. Sera no neechan is more like "Big Sister of the Sera Household". It's kind of like how Azusa might be called "Poirot no neechan" or "Big Sister from Poirot". It's a descriptive phrase used in place of the actual name of someone.
I haven't really heard that way of calling someone by "last name no nii/nee chan/san". The neighborhood kids all called me Sora-neechan/Kara-neechan. Well, the saucy ones called me Karada-neechan, -.-; but... Anyway, "no neechan" is definitely more formal and farther removed from plain old "neechan".
As a side note, I was watching the Lavender Mansion case again the other day, and I was wrong about the way Conan calls Hakuba. It should be Saguru-niichan just like how it's proper for him to call Hattori "Heiji-niichan", but instead he called him "Hakuba no niichan". I wonder if it's a thing Conan does to emotionally keep his distance from other detectives that might end up being suspicious of him. Hmm. Something to think about. Because honestly it is weird for Conan to use "no nii/neechan". Most kids use "first name+nii/neechan" for teenagers/young men and women. There has to be a reason why he's singling out those two like that.
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