Category: Japanese (日本語)

Word of the day – 和

By Simon

The Chinese character héIn Mandarin Chinese, the word 和 (hé) has a number of meanings. On it’s own it is usually means ‘and’, but also means harmony, peace, to be affable, the sum, and ‘of Japan’.

Here are a few words featuring this character:
和平 (hépíng) – peace; peaceful; mild
和鳴 [和鸣] (hémíng) – to sound in harmony
和風 [和风] (héfeng) – a gentle breeze
和服 (héfú) – a (Japanese) kimono
和氣 [和气] (héqi) – gentle; affable; agreeable; friendly
和聲 [和声] (hésheng) – (musical) harmony

When pronounced hè, this character means to match; to harmonize, or to write a poem in reply (和詩). It has another pronunciation – huò – which means to knead or to mix. Apparently some people pronounce it han as well, but I’ve never heard that pronunciation.

In Japanese, this character is pronounced wa, o, yawa- or nago- and means peace; harmony; the sum; the total; Japan and various other things.

Word of the day – お任せ (omakase)

By Simon

omakase in the Japanese script

I came across today’s word on Amazon’s Affiliates site today. They use it as the name of a widget which displays products based on Amazon’s understanding of your site, the visitors to your site and the page you place it on. They say it means “leave it up to us”.

お任せ (omakase) is a Japanese word that means “entrust” or “protect”. It’s used mainly in Japanese restaurants, where customers might say “お任せお願いします” (omakase onegaishimasu), which you could also translate as “Chef, I’m in your hands”. When they say this, they are asking the chef to select and prepare food for them in a manner of his choosing. The chef also decides how much to charge. This usually results in a very good meal at a reasonable price as the chef will feel obliged to create a worthy meal out of the freshest foods he has, to reward and retain a valued customer’s trust in him.

Word of the day – pachi pachi

By Simon

Today’s word, パチパチ (pachi pachi) is an onomatopoeic Japanese word meaning:

1. pleasant clapping sound;
2. sound of something hot bursting open (i.e. popcorn);
3. incessant blinking

It came up while I was chatting with some Japanese friends earlier today and is one of the many onomatopoeic words in Japanese.

Here are some more examples:

バラバラ (bara bara) – rattle
クスクス (kusu kusu) – giggle
ポチャポチャ (pocha pocha) – splash
フサフサ　(fusa fusa) – a full and attractive head of hair
ギトギト (gito gito) – being oily
イライラ (ira ira) – the state of being frustrated
ポカポカ (poka poka) – the state of being nice and warm

See also this site and this site.

Interestingly, some such words describe visual phenomena, such as blinking, or feelings rather than sounds. Does any other language do this?

By the way, apologies if you’ve been unable to access this blog, my other blog, the Omniglot forum or some of the pages on Omniglot recently. Unfortunately I haven’t managed to find a solution to this problem yet, though it usually sorts itself out after a while. If any of you have any ideas how to fix it, please let me know.

Finger names

By Simon

Finger names

When chatting with some Japanese friends today, the subject of finger names came up for some reason – specifically what the different fingers are called in Japanese and English. It took quite a while to establish which finger corresponded to which name – to make this clear, I found a picture of a hand, added labels and uploaded it to my site.

This is what the fingers are called in those languages:

拇指 (boshi) / 親指 (oyayubi) lit. “thumb/parent finger” = thumb
人差し指 (hitosashiyubi) = lit. “person offering finger” = first finger / index finger
中指 (nakayubi) = middle finger
薬指 (kusuriyubi) = lit. “medicine finger” = third finger /ring finger
小指 (koyubi) = lit. “little finger” = fourth finger / little finger / pinky

In Latin the fingers are named thus:

Thumb = Polex
First finger = Demonstratus (pointer)
Second finger = Impudicus (gesticulates)
Third finger = Annularis (ring)
Fourth finger = Auricularis (removing wax from ear)

Their names in Welsh are as follows:

Thumb = bawd
First finger = bys troed (foot finger)
Second finger = bys canol (middle finger)
Third finger = bys y fodrwy (ring finger)
Fourth finger = bys bach (little finger)

and Irish they’re:

Thumb = ordóg
First finger = corrmhéar (odd finger)
Second finger = méar fhada (long finger)
Third finger = méar fáinne (ring finger)
Fourth finger = lúidín

What about in your language?

Aberystwyth

By Simon

As I have no classes this weekend, I decided to go to Aberystwyth today. The bus took about an hour and a half to get there and went through some nice scenery and some pretty villages and towns along the way. I particuarly liked Aberaeron, a small town by the sea with attractive Victorian houses painted in many different colours.

Photo of Aberaeron

Er nad oedd dosbarthiadau heddiw, penderfynais i i fynd i Aberystwyth. Treuliodd y daith ar y bws tua awr a hanner ac aethon ni’n trwy gefngwlad hyfryd ac trwy nifer o drefi a phentrefi pert. Mae Aberaeron yn arbennig o ddeniadol, gyda llawer o dai Fictoraidd lliwgar.

In Aberystwyth I spent quite a bit of time wandering around the town and bought some Welsh CDs, a new Irish course, and another book of tin whistle tunes to add to my collection. There are some good bookshops in Aber, including one with French-Welsh and German-Welsh dictionaries, and courses for learning Breton and Irish through the medium of Welsh. They also had a Cornish course and dictionary.

Photo of Aberystwyth seafront

Treuliais i maith o amser yn grwydro o gwmpas y dre a brynais i gryno ddisgiau gan Siân James, Gwenan Gibbard a Swci Boscawen, Cwrs Gwyddeleg newydd, a llyfr o diwniau ar gyfer y chwiban. Mae nifer o siopau llyfrau da yn Aber, yn gynnwys un sy’n gwerthu geiriaduron Cymraeg-Ffrangeg a Chymraeg-Almaeneg, a chyrsiau Llydaweg a Gwyddeleg trwy gyfryng y Gymraeg. Mae cwrs a geiriadur Cernyweg da nhw hefyd.

After having a look around the castle, I walked along the prom, and then went up Constitution Hill on the cliff railway. The views from the top were amazing – I could see more or less the whole of Cardigan Bay from the Llŷn Peninsula in the north to the Pembrokeshire Peninsula in the south. The sun even came out for a while and the clouds cleared making the view even better.

Photo of Aberystwyth from the Cliff Railway

Ar ôl i mi gael cipolwg ar y castell, cerddais i ar hyd y promenâd ac es i i lân y Graiglais ar y rheilffordd y graig. Oedd y golygon i lawr y bryn yn ardderchog – o’n i’n gallu gweld Bae Ceredigion braidd i gyd o’r Llŷn yn y gogledd i’r penrhyn Sir Benfro yn y de. Disgleiriodd y haul am sbel a gwasgarodd y cymylau hefyd ac felly, oedd y golygon yn well.

On a semi-related matter, I received an email today from Steafan MacRisnidh, a speaker of Scottish Gaelic who is currently working in Japan. He has set up a new blog with some Gaelic lessons in Japanese. He also has a number of other blogs in Gaelic. Just though I’d mention it here.

As we usually have a quiz at the weekend, I don’t want to disappoint you today, so here it is:

Which of the following places is the odd one out?
Caerhirfryn, Caerliwelydd, Caerlŷr, Caernarfon, Caerfaddon, Caergrawnt, Caergaint, Caerwysg, Caerwrangon

Nobukaze

By Simon

The other day I found a site called Nobukaze which contains some interesting information about Japanese history, samurai, pop culture, language and a variety of other weird and wonderful Japan-related topics. There’s also some information about the Indonesian and Javanese languages and writing systems, and a guide to “Java for the Absolutely Clueless“.

The Indonesian language section mentions that there is very little mutual intelligibility between Malaysian and Indonesian, mainly because of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. Indonesian has apparently borrowed numerous words from Javanese, which are unfamiliar to speakers of Malaysian. Does anyone speak Malaysian? Can you understand Indonesian? Or vice-versa.

Another interesting page on this site explains the origins of Japanese names. Did you know that the Japanese didn’t have individual names for their rivers and other geographical features? People might have called the stretch of a river that flowed by them by one name, while their neighbours further downstream had a different name for their stretch of river. There were no names that applied to rivers as a whole, at least until the 16th century, when Portuguese missionaries apparently forced the Japanese to adopt overall names for rivers, seas, etc, so that a map of Japan could be produced for the Pope.

Sushi-go-round

By Simon

Today I came across the term sushi-go-round for the first time. I’d been discussing Japanese restaurants with a Japanese friend and mentioned that I didn’t know what to call those sushi places where you sit a the counter and the dishes come round on a conveyor belt. He found the term sushi-go-round in a Japanese-English dictionary. The Japanese name for such restaurants is 回転ずし (kaiten zushi) – lit. ‘rotating/revolving sushi’.

Have you heard of the term sushi-go-round before?

In some Chinese restaurants the tables have a bit in the middle that rotates so that you can a reach dishes without stretching across the table. Sort of similar to the sushi-go-round, but on a smaller scale. I think this is called a lazy susan in English. Does anybody know what it’s called in Chinese? Or do you have any other names for it in English?

Word of the day – haiku

By Simon

the word haiku in Japanese kanjiAs I’m sure many of you know, haiku (俳句) are short Japanese poems made of of 17 syllables usually in 3 lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. The only Japanese haiku I can remember is:

古池や　(furu ike ya)
蛙飛びこむ　(kawazu tobikomu)
水の音 (mizu no oto)

An old pond
a frog jumps in
splash!

There are many other English versions of this famous haiku by Matsuo Bashō (松尾芭蕉) here. It’s amazing the number of different ways such a seemingly simple poem can be translated.

Haiku are not only written in Japanese. Non-Japanese haiku don’t always have exactly 17 syllables, but they usually a similar structure to the Japanese ones. Here are a few examples I came across recently in Scots:

Reid cluds lemin
at keek-o-day – refleckit
in the cray glaur

Red clouds glowing
at sunrise – reflected
in the pigsty mud

Hauf-road up the glen
a daurk wee lochan –
a cran tentie

Halfway up the glen
a dark little loch –
a heron watchful

Birlin doon
the rowth o gean blume
taigles a bummer

Swirling down
the plenteous cherry blossom
delays a bee

Do you know of any haiku in other languages? Or have you written any yourself?

Mobile novels

By Simon

Recently the first Mobile Phone Novel Awards were held in Japan. The winner was a woman from Osaka, whose novel concerns a love affair between a schoolgirl and a gigolo. You can see a Japanese version of the report here. The Japanese have apparently been reading novels and manga on their phones for a few years, though this is the first time I’ve heard of this phenomenon. Some of the authors of these novels apparently write them entirely or partly on their phones as well, which must lead to very sore thumbs!

I think such novels are quite popular in China, but do you know if they have caught on elsewhere?

Have any of you read a mobile novel like this? Are they written in a different style to printed books?

Japanese for kids

By Simon

The son of one of my friends has decided that he wants to learn Japanese and his parents have asked me if I can recommend any suitable courses for him. I thought of the Talk Now! series, but they only teach you a limited number of words and phrases, and the lad, who’s 10 years old, wants to learn more than that. I also suggested Pimsleur.

Have you any suggestions?