Author Archives: Daniel

Cool Compound – 青春

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This compound literally means “blue/green spring," close enough to its actually meaning – “youth.” It’s used all over the place, notably in 青春１８切符 – the Youth 18 Ticket, a special Japanese train ticket that gives you five days of unlimited rides on local trains. While the title of the ticket includes both “youth” and “18,” anyone can use the ticket. It’s only available during school holidays – summer (July 20 to September 10), winter (December 10 – January 20), and spring (March 1 – April 10) vacations.

The five days can be used non-consecutively, but you have to ride local trains – i.e. trains that don’t require a 特急券 (とっきゅうけん, express fee), so some 快速 are included. The best part of the ticket is that it costs a mere 11,000 yen, or just over 2000 yen per day! To be used effectively, though, it does require that you ride for hours on end, but, hey, get some beers and a bento and enjoy the ride.

Some of the special trains that are somewhat-limited-express are the overnight trains. I’ve only ever taken the Moonlight Kyushu that runs between Hakata and Shin-Osaka, but there are several others. The Moonlight Nagara has a stop that departs after midnight, which means you only need to use one of your five days (if you are on the train when it crosses over midnight, you’ll have to stamp twice…unless you’re lucky – video requires facebook membership).

Summer vacation doesn’t start for a while, but it’s critical that you reserve your spot on these overnight trains a month in advance (the reservation only costs an extra 500 yen…make sure to tell them you’re using the Youth 18 Ticket). They sell seats on these trains starting a month before departure, and they are extremely popular (especially the dates around the start and end of the New Years’ holidays); people line up to buy tickets at 5am on the day one month before they leave.

For more information, please consult the following sites:

http://wikitravel.org/en/Seishun_18_Ticket
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2362.html

Keep Your Eyes Open

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I was at elementary school on Monday. There’s one sixth grade student who doesn’t go to class. He sits in the office making papercraft all day. They’ve actually given him his own desk. I take over the desk on Mondays. This past Monday this is what it looked like:

 

One of the teacher’s has put out a lot of stuff for him. In the middle, next to the pens and slightly behind the laptop, you can see times tables sitting there in the hopes that he will absorb them. I looked closer at the chart next to the Pooh mug:

 

It’s a science chart. It may or may not be helping him, but it sure helped me. I knew 根（ね） and 葉（は）, but hadn’t learned, or maybe couldn’t remember, 茎（くき）. It just goes to show what you can learn from keeping your eyes open.

Cool Compound – 購入

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I remember seeing 購入（こうにゅう） in an email at some point during my third year of study and being significantly confused. At that point I didn’t have enough experience to realize that 購入 was simply 買う in a more complicated disguise – think "purchase" instead of "buy."

Friday Puzzle – You Little Pun(k)

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On Monday, a little second grader marched into the teacher’s office, announcing, “I’m Tatsuyoshi from second grade and I’m here to see Chika-sensei. May I come in.” After a few moments it was clear he was just bored, and two teachers had the following conversation:

「本当に用ないでしょう」
「ようなし」

which prompted a round of laughter. Your goal is to explain why it’s funny.

The prize if you win? One can of 100% barley malt beer – e.g. Ebisu, Suntory Malts, Asahi Premium.

Please do not post your answer in the comments. Send it to me via email or facebook. My email address is るぱんさんせい (romanized) at-mark gmail dot com.

Friday Puzzle – This Picture is an Image, Clearly Answer

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I had a record number of entries (6!) for this weeks puzzle! Lots of interesting ideas. I’ll go through them.

Robyn suggested “Serving suggestion,” which he said was from Australia. I like the efficiency (it was the shortest answer), but it sounds more like a recommended amount of food (e.g. one cup, two doughnuts, 27 Miller Lites) than a warning about possible misrepresentation.

Brian suggested “Enlarged to show texture,” which is so awesome and sensuous (mmm…texture) and sounds very familiar to me, but the “enlarged” part takes more license than I would like.

Kiyoe offered the excellent “This is an artistic representation of the product,” which may have been the sole winner had she submitted it as “Artistic Representation, but…

The winner for serious answers goes to Aleisha, Kiyoe and Randall, who all suggested slight variations on the traditional, “Actual product may vary.” I’m feeling generous, so instead of random selection, I’ll give a beer to everyone. This phrase is, if you think about it hard enough, just as strange as 「写真は、イメージです」 Seriously, how much will this product actually vary? And in what way will it vary? I hope not too much.

I was disappointed with everyone’s attempts at humor. Thomas’ “Your Mileage May Vary” came closest, so he gets a can of 発泡酒 (or Miller Lite, whichever he prefers).

I leave you with a bunch of “proz” discussing this term. (Strangely enough, another Morales raised the question!) If you ask me, they’re all just a bunch of toolz. You guys did much better.

More Warning Signs

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I spent the last couple of months apartment hunting in Tokyo. At first I hoped to get my own apartment, but after realizing that would require an initial payment of $3000 plus to an agency, I started to look for a roomshare.

Fortunately, there are some nice websites out there. I replied to several ads and even put up one of my own. I ended up exchanging a lot of emails with Japanese people, and the thing that surprised me was that in nearly all cases, they began mails with 「last nameです」 or 「first nameです」, so 「田中です」 or 「洋平です」 This continued no matter how many emails we exchanged, which I thought was weird at first. Of course I knew who the person was. Did they really think I had forgotten?

I eventually started thinking of it in terms of airbag phrases; it’s just a polite way to begin a Japanese email, a warning sign of sorts, one that’s used on the phone as well. Does it require a translation or easily identifiable English equivalent? Hell no. Get used to it.

Cool Onomatopoeia – じめじめ

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Well, you can mark it. Rainy season has just begun in Nishiaizu. It started raining yesterday at around 7 or 8 at night. Up until early last week, it was still a little chilly at night, and the air was crisp, but on Friday it finally got humid – it felt like someone put a lid over this whole area.

One of my favorite parts about being a JET is listening to the Japanese teachers talk to the students in Japanese. I’ve picked up a lot of useful phrases over the last few years. I used 「反応なし」 quite a bit my first year and finally understood how to create simple imperative sentences like 「声を出すんだ」 my second year.

On Friday I heard the teacher use the phrase じめじめ after I said it was really humid during the introductions. Pretty easy to understand from the context. I went to double check it in alc before writing this post, but nothing came up, so I googled it.

じめじめ is an example of Japanese onomatopoeia/mimetic words. Often two syllables are repeated. Knowing a decent number of these will really expand your vocabulary. The meaning for each different is often very specific, which also makes them very efficient.

Usage varies, but there are several distinct patterns:

– X（と）したY　　じめじめした梅雨
– Xです　　　　　  じめじめです
– XとZ　　　　　　にっこりと笑う
– Xする                　　ぶらぶらする

I found this example of the じめじめ usage, and this excellent grammatical explanation of onomatopoeia – in Japanese 擬音語（ぎおんご） and 擬態語（ぎたいご）.

Airbag Expressions 2

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While I only remember two from the class, I’ve been collecting my own エアバッグ表現 ever since I learned the term.

I would put the following two terms in the same category: 〜ですが and 〜の件ですが. Both serve as a warning that you are about to address a certain subject, and with the right intonation and a slight pause after the が, you can convey the idea that you are about to raise a touchy subject. 件 literally means subject. For example, an interviewer might say:

「事務所費問題ですが、」 or 「少子化問題の件ですが、」

Both serve as a warning that the administrative office fees or declining birth rate will be the topic, giving the interviewee a small amount of extra time to organize his thoughts.

悪い（わるい）ですが is kind of the Japanese way of saying, “My bad” preemptively. 悪かったです is the way you would do a true “My bad.” I believe I used it successfully the other day in Himeji Station – 「悪いですが、両替（りょうがえ）もらえますか。」I was trying to store some luggage in a locker, but, as is often the case, there was no change machine. I approached a bento lady and said, “Sorry to ask, but could you change this bill?” She gave me a kind of reproachful grin but then handed me the coins anyway. Robin told me that he was yellow carded for inappropriate usage of 悪いですが. Apparently, it is used for people beneath you in the Japanese social hierarchy, so perhaps the lady was just pissed off that I was talking to her as though I were her boss. It does smack of someone in an authority position would use to explain slacking or some other mistake, so use with caution.