Category Archives: vocab

Game Lingo – 操作

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This is a term that is translated consistently in nearly every video game. 操作(そうさ) means “controls.” It’s a combination of 操る(あやつる) and 作る(つくる). 操る means “to control a device/vehicle/something.” It can be translated flexibly as “pilot,” “drive,” and “operate.” 操作 can be translated this way, too, but only when it refers to an in-game character operating/controlling/piloting something. In most cases, 操作 refers to the actual human player “controlling” the video game with an input device. 操作方法(ほうほう) is a common section of video game manuals and almost without exception should be translated as “Controls.”

The Japanese are a Pain in the Ass

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Pulls on hip-length boots and prepares to wade blindly through territory normally reserved for Treyvaud.

Sure, I’ll admit that post title is half fishing for search hits and snarky comments, but http://urusai.jp basically asks you to make that same equation. The page is a Nestlé coffee ad disguised as quasi-日本人論.

I came across it while searching for 五月蝿い, a set of ateji for うるさい. You have to dig pretty deep in the page to find the article addressing the reason why it gets those kanji, but it also explains that うるさい, then written 煩し (don’t ask me how that gets pronounced…うるさし？), initially meant “incredibly skilled or of great personal fiber.” It was associated with a quest for perfection or completion, I believe, and as everybody knows, those are generally the most annoying types of people, so うるさい also came to take on the feeling that other people had towards these class suck-ups – one of distance and annoyance.

うるさい definitely means “of a loud and generally unpleasant volume,” but as shown all over the front page, it can also mean a sort of perfectionist, a stickler. The front page is covered with examples of the pattern Xにうるさい: 四季にうるさい, 旅にうるさい, 言葉にうるさい, コーヒーにうるさい. “The Japanese are sticklers for the four seasons, travel, coffee, etc.” ALC provides fastidious, which is another way to say it. I guess the simplest way to express it naturally in English would be something like, “The Japanese are serious about coffee.”

Although to be honest, truly コーヒーにうるさい people are not going to be drinking Nestlé instant coffee.

How to 日帰り温泉

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Japan is clearly viewed as a nation of hardworking people. The “play hard” view of Japan is less well known, and the “relax hard” view is even more hidden. This side of Japan can be found in the onsen, saunas and sentō where Japanese spend hours during off-days; the rest rooms floored with tatami where they drink jars of coffee-flavored milk and smoke cigarettes afterwards; and the restaurants they then retreat to for beer and eats.

This isn’t true of all Japanese, of course. I’d say this applies mostly to older people who live slightly outside of the major metropoli. But even younger people and those who live in cities take their hygiene and relaxation seriously.

While most people stick to their local onsen and sentō, higher quality springs and scenery draw people on 日帰り(ひがえり)温泉 trips. Break it down and it’s a ghost of a trip – you’re traveling long distances to do very little other than have a bath. However once you’ve done a couple and become accustomed to the whole group bathing phenomenon, they’re hard to live without.

Travel agencies offer package sets that generally include round-trip train fare, lunch, and entrance price for one of the baths. These can run anywhere from 5000 – 9000 yen. Not a bad deal, but using a Seishun 18 Kippu will cover your train fare for five separate trips for 11,500 yen. Read more about the ticket here.

Here’s one example of a trip out to 長寿館 in 法師温泉 – one of the least accessible onsen ever made:


How to Higaeri Onsen from Daniel Morales on Vimeo.

すごい <--> 非常に

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Speaking politely in Japanese isn’t just about being deft with keigo. Keigo, which you use constantly and just don’t realize it, is just a small part; basic word choice is also important, as it is in English. There are several different ways to say the same word, and generally the longer the phrase is, the more polite it is. One of the best examples of this is the many different versions of いい. You can power up your いい, but you can also power it down to ええ depending on who you’re with.

Sometimes you need to use an entirely different word rather than a variation of the same word. This is especially true of English. I vividly remember the moment when I learned the definition of the word “asinine.” I was a freshman on the debate team and heard a senior member use it in a speech. When I asked him the definition he said, “It’s a nice way to called someone or something stupid.”

Unfortunately I don’t know how to say asinine in Japanese. I do know, however, that すごい is not going to cut it in important business meetings (just like “stupid”), which is why you should swap it out for it’s more polite cousin 非常(ひじょう)に. すごい, however, can be both adjective and adverb, while 非常に is only an adverb.

When you’re swapping for the adverbial すごい or すごく, you can do a straight-up replacement.    So you can do this swap:

すごく危ない –> 非常に危ない –> 非常に危険

(You might want also consider powering up that 危ない to the compound noun form 危険(きけん), which is the third option up there. I guess this really belongs in another post, but 非常に危険 felt more natural to me, so I went ahead and added it.)

The adjective version of すごい requires you to be more specific with your description; this is a good thing to practice, even in English. So rather than something being “awesome” or “great,” you can say something like 非常に質がいい (it’s of incredibly high quality), 非常にきれいな (it’s incredibly beautiful), or just 非常にいい (it’s incredibly good).

I have to credit my senior year Japanese professor here. Until she noted this easy switch in class, I don’t think I had a grasp of the meaning of 非常に.

MacGyver, That Adventurous Bastard

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Nishiaizu has a small cable television station. Their basic cable package is a mix of different channels – the basic network stations, one J Sports channel, its own station, and a station that used to be called the SUPERCHANNEL. Now, apparently, it’s called Super!dramaTV. Yes, you can check that capitalization and punctuation yourself:
http://www.superdramatv.com/

They have a variety of foreign shows, including MacGyver, which translates into Japanese as 冒険野郎マクガイバー. Put that back into English and you get (and I have to warn you that this is painfully literal) "Adventure Bastard MacGyver." Here’s the page:
http://www.superdramatv.com/line/bouken/index.html

Hence, the subject line of this entry. That fuggin bastard.

Originally posted December 5th, 2006

Stop the Misuse of Definite Articles!

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I saw a traffic sign that read:

ストップ
ザ
死亡事故

This translates to:

Stop
the
traffic fatalities

Here is the Japanese pronunciation:

Sutoppu
za
shibou jiko

Come on, guys. Cut it out.

It is hilarious, though, to replace "traffic fatalities" with other Japanese words. I am just as bad as they are.

Originally posted May 6th, 2006

My new favorite Japanese phrase…

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乱気流に突入 – learned this one in class today as I was teaching travel vocab. It popped in the textbook as a translation for `turbulence`. I like the sound of the phrase…rankiryuu ni totsunyuu. Rhymes nicely.

Originally posted October 7th, 2005