16日08月
2009年

このばんぐみは……

This one’s been bugging me for a long time. I’ve heard the phrase countless times — it’s often spoken at the beginning of TV shows — but all my attempts to translate it, or even decipher the syllables, have failed. However, I stumbled across an answer today.

この番組は、ごらんのスポンサーの提供で送りします。

kono bangumi wa, goran no suponsaa no teikyou de okuri shimasu

Which roughly translates to, “This program is brought to you by the following sponsors.” Of course! It makes sense now. Two things mislead me here:

  1. I couldn’t determine where the word boundary was in kono bangumi, despite being very familiar with the word kono (this). It didn’t help that the first few times I heard this phrase, Konami was shown on the screen.

  2. The loan word suponsaa (sponsor) was easy to pick out, so I interpreted the goran no before it as gorando, thinking “grand sponsor”.

Now my mind is at ease. Time to watch some TV.

11日07月
2009年

Smart.fm

ここに日本語を勉強しよう。僕はinkyだ。

07日07月
2009年

ウェブカメラ

04日07月
2009年

ブレードランナー東京

03日07月
2009年

寿司

今日、僕は寿司を食べました。サーモンとイカとエビとマグロがありました。おいしかったです。私は以前は魚が好きじゃなかった、でも今ではとっても気に入っている。

箸はまだ難しいです。

03日07月
2009年
In English we tend to draw out vowels for emphasis, but in Japanese they hover on that moment riiiiiight at the beginning of the consonant and then hit that fucker with a wicked staccato.
Ode to っ
25日06月
2009年

かける

Dictionary definitions for Japanese words can sometimes be overwhelming. To say the definitions of “kakeru” are overwhelming, however, would be an understatement. Here is just one word with this pronunciation:

掛ける — to hang; to hoist; to raise; to sit; to be partway (verb); to begin (but not complete); to take (time, money); to make (a call); to multiply; to secure; to put on; to cover; to burden someone; to apply (insurance); to turn on; to set (a dial, an alarm clock, etc.); to put an effect on; to hold an emotion for; to bind; to pour, sprinkle or spray onto; to argue (in court); to deliberate (in a meeting); to present; to increase further; to catch (in a trap); to set atop; to erect (a makeshift building); to hold (a play or festival); indicates a verb is being directed to someone

How do you study something like that?

24日06月
2009年

Stumped

Every now and then I’ll post some words that have stumped me while revising.

  • 必要【ひつよう】 necessary
  • 先週【せんしゅう】 last week
  • 秒　【びょう】 counter for seconds
  • 明日【あした】 tomorrow
  • 習う【ならう】 to learn

22日06月
2009年

漢字だいすき

20日06月
2009年

四つ仮名

  • じ – ji/zi
  • ぢ – ji/di
  • ず – zu
  • づ – zu/du
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ついて

『日本を見出そう』がアイルランド人の日本語勉強のログです。

Finding Japan: Journal of an Irish guy trying to learn Japanese.

Words or kanji that were new to me at the time of writing are marked in red. Hover over them for a translation.

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