Cool Verb Ending – －やがる

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Over winter break, I started reading 『まほろ駅前の便利店』, one of the books on my Japanese reading list. It’s okay so far – lots of ただ-based puns since the main character’s surname is 多田 – and it was good motivation to discover that it’s being made into a drama series for Japanese TV. Sadly, though, the book was pushed aside by reading I had to do for school. And by manga.

Over winter break I had a thirst for comics for some reason. Not just Japanese stuff. I ordered The Walking Dead Compendium and have been working my way through that. I have the first two volumes of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman queued up as well.

I also brought back some manga from Japan. I was pleasantly surprised to find some Satoshi Kon manga that was recently released to commemorate his death late last year. In his roundup of 2010’s best manga over at Neojaponisme, Matthew Penney mentioned Seraphim, an unfinished project that Kon was working on with Mamoru Oshii (of Ghost in the Shell fame), but the other manga that was on the shelves when I was there was the two-volume, appropriately-titled Opus.

I’m through with the first volume, and I can say confidently that Kon fans should be satisfied by the content – it’s meta with equal parts action and awesome drawings. Light stuff, but lots of fun.

One linguistic thing I noticed while reading was the heavy usage of －やがる verbs. 言いやがる, 出やがる, 行きやがる, 心配させやがる, しやがる, やりやがる – it’s all over the place! I was vaguely familiar with the word from my project manager days – the pattern is used frequently in video game dialog – but I realized that I didn’t know the specific meaning and derivation, so I looked it up in the dictionary:

やがる
［助動］［やがら｜やがり・やがっ｜やがる｜やがる｜やがれ｜やがれ］《補助動詞「上がる」から》動詞の連用形、助動詞「れる」「られる」「せる」「させる」の連用形に付く。軽蔑や憎しみなどの気持ちを込めて、相手の動作をいう意を表す。「あいつめ、とんだうそをつきやがった」「あんなやつに負かされやがって」

As you can see, やがる is an auxiliary verb (補助動詞 – that’s a fun four-character compound to say ほじょどうし、ほじょどうし、ほじょどーし). I’ve bolded the meat of the definition: “Expresses a person’s actions with (the speaker’s) feelings of scorn/hatred included.” I added “the speaker’s” to the definition because it’s almost always spoken rather than written.

In short, it’s an auxilliary verb that means fuck. Or fucking, goddamn, damn or whatever curse word feels natural for the person and the verb that person is performing. Basically it’s a tone thing, and in English we express scorn/hatred with curse words. In Japanese, one of the ways they do it is with やがる. The content of the action being performed doesn’t differ at all from a normal 言う, 出る, 行く, する, or やる. What does differ is how the speaker feels about the action.

An example from the manga: the main character is a manga artist who gets sucked into the world of his own comic because one of the characters pops out into the real world and snatches an important page of the comic. The artist is forced to go in after him. The manga artist doesn’t just say (ページを）持って行った (He ran off with the page); he says (ページを）持って行きやがった (He fucking ran off with the page). (Aside: I feel like “He ran off with the goddamn page” is a smoother alternative, but I wanted to get “fucking” closer to the verb to match the Japanese. Any thoughts? I feel like this would be an acceptable change.)

心配させやがる and やりやがる are interesting cases. These both get used in reference to friends rather than enemies, so the former is almost like “Damn, you had us worried.” The latter I saw in a video game once as a やりやがるな！ I believe it was in a shooter or in a co-op card game, and the phrase was praising the partner’s actions/play. I can’t remember how the translator handled it, but the one thing that comes to mind now is “Fuck yeah!” or “Hell yeah!” It is along the lines of “Nice work!” Most やりやがる phrases will be more similar to the example above and in reference to an unpleasant やるing.

Yahoo provides us with a nota bene after the core definition that further supports the association with fuck/some sort of casual spoken phrase. The phrase has been taken up by dudes:

◆近世以降、男性のぞんざいな調子の会話で用いられる。「…（し）ている」に「やがる」の付いた「…（し）ていやがる」は、「…（し）てやがる」となることがある。また、その前の連用形の末尾の音と融合して、「どこへ行きゃあがった」のように「…ゃあがる」となることもある。

This is another one of those phrases that are good to recognize but should never be used. I don’t trust myself to use these precisely enough to get the intended effect. Maybe a joking やりやがるな every now and then with friends I’m really close with but never in any situation even slightly more formal. It is a very useful phrase to know for game and manga translation, though, so keep your eyeballs peeled.

Passive HUH?

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When I wrote my last post, I never imagined that I would have an opportunity to use やられた so soon. Well, here it goes: 英語の文法用語にやられた！

As I’m sure many of you have noticed, someone rightfully called me out for mistakenly saying “passive tense” instead of “passive voice” in my Japan Times article “Stop worrying and embrace the passive tense.” (Judging from my bit.ly stats, more of you followed the link to the letter to the editor than the actual article!)

In my defense, I do use “passive voice” at times in the article, so I knew there was some sort of difference between voice and tense, but the letter to the editor certaintly cleared it up. I guess before I thought that “tense” meant “verb conjugation,” which the Japanese passive is, but apparently this is not what tense is.

The main point of my article is not diminished by this (minor?) semantics issue: the Japanese passive is awesome, and you best get used to it, son. The sooner you can take off the floaties (it’s been years since I’ve used the floaties metaphor, apparently) and swim in the deep end without any subjects or objects, the sooner you will be doing real, live Japonese.

So please do continue to call me out for my inadequacies…especially if they are English inadequacies. That I can handle. I only take offense when my Japanese is corrected. NOT!

号外 – Oyster Season Closing Poem

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My love of oysters is well chronicled here at How to Japonese. Last year I got a group together near the end of April and we spent over $1000 on oysters! (゜д゜;) This year I won’t even approach that. The group is smaller and the oysters are much, much cheaper. If you’re in New Orleans today, please feel free to drop by Cooter Brown’s from 7pm onward.

To celebrate, I’ve written a poem about the end of oyster season. Enjoy:

‘Twas the first of September and all through the parish
Not a mollusk was stirring in stomachs a’famished.
But when the long hours of toil ended that day,
Eyes brightened, smiles formed, and the people became gay.

With a jump and a shout the crowds took to the bar
To eat them some oysters from near and afar.
“On the halfshell, on crackers, or charbroiled!” they exclaimed.
“In poboys, in gumbos, or Rockefeller!” they said, unashamed.

Through fall and winter and spring they did eat,
And as summer approached, they realized they were beat.
“My belly is full,” a wee lad cried, holding a shell.
“And I’ve been at this smoky bar for so long that I smell!”

“One last night!” someone screamed, “We haven’t drank all the beer.”
“And once April is over, we’ll have to wait till next year.”
“’Tis true!” another echoed, “This is the most important day thus far.”
“Because we can only eat oysters in months that have R.”

From amidst the hordes of oyster eaters there arose a great cheer,
And they all ordered more dozens and refilled their beer.
The hot summer months are no reason to get down.
Let’s celebrate! You’re invited! to end oyster season on April 29 at Cooter Browns!

Cool Passive Phrase – やられた！

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I have an article in The Japan Times today, this time about the passive tense in Japanese. After introducing a couple of phrases that helped me understand how the passive tense works in Japanese, I discuss Murakami’s amazing sentence from his Mediterranean travel diary, which I examined during Murakami-palooza 2008. My translations then and now are slightly different. What do you think? The new one is a bit smoother.

I also talk about the awesome phrase やられた！ as an example. I highly recommend using this exclamatory phrase as frequently as possible. It will earn laughs, especially in situations where you aren’t really that やられたd.

If, however, this happens:

Then you have truly been やられたd. That image is one of the results of a Google Images search for やられた.

Drink for Japan Results

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Saturday, April 2, Avenue Pub hosted Jetaa NOLA and our guests who all came to Drink for Japan!

Polly at Avenue got in touch with me in March after I tweeted that I was going to meet with Jetaa about putting together a New Orleans-based earthquake relief fund. The NOLA Japan Quake Fund was established, and two weeks later we had an event thanks to her help and Jetaa volunteers.

Jetaa NOLA and Japan Club members helped man the doors and take tickets:

We also had great sponsors. Taqueria Corona donated guacamole, pico de gallo, and chips:

Santa Fe also donated food and people to help serve it. One of the guys from Santa Fe could speak some Japanese and was curious about JET.

People started to show up right on time at 3pm, and pretty soon we had a nice crowd up in Avenue’s balcony bar. Altogether we had over 100 people attend.

Together For Japan was in the house selling their T-shirts for the cause:

We sold raffle tickets and gave away some great prize packages thanks to Dirty Coast, Creole Creamery, Taqueria Corona, Bonerama, and Papa Grows Funk. And I can’t forget to thank all our beer geeks: The prize packages all included some rare beer donated by Vasu, Dylan Lintern, Jeremy BeerBuddha Labadie, and myself. Vasu gave a quick rundown of the beers included in the prize packages:

Doug Tassin (Fukushima ’07-’10) was the MC for the raffle. Here are some of our winners:

Altogether, we raised over $4743 plus some online donations!

I can’t say enough about Polly and the staff at Avenue Pub. Polly was extremely generous and helpful – she volunteered to donate all sales during the event and the sales of Japanese beer for a full day. She also helped arrange donations from all of the local liquor/beer distributors – Crescent Crown, Glazer’s, Shelton Brothers, Southern Eagle, and Abita – as well as food from Santa Fe, which just opened a new location across the street. The staff donated back $108 in tips that they made during the event, and they were very welcoming as always.

Talking with Polly and the staff, I got the sense that they felt the same way as Jetaa NOLA did: We did this not only because we have a connection to Japan, but also because it was the right thing to do. It goes beyond some philanthropic obligation to something greater.

The NOLA Japan Quake Fund has not chosen where the money will go yet, but I will be following the decision closely. I will share any information here, and I’m even hoping I can somehow follow the money trail and see exactly how we help.

If you have any photos from the event, please send them to me and I’ll add them to this post. Thanks for drinking for Japan!

Jammin’ for Japan

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I’ve been working madly the past month on two fundraising efforts here in New Orleans. I mentioned Drink for Japan in a previous post. We raised about $4000 in three hours! The next event is even bigger.

While planning Drink for Japan, I contacted John Gros of Papa Grows Funk, a local funk band featuring Japanese guitarist June Yamagishi, to see if they would donate to the event. John not only wanted to donate CDs and T-shirts, he wanted to organize a benefit concert with several A-list New Orleans bands. He has contacts in the Japanese community, and marketing guru/PR person/writer Carrie Williamson had gotten in touch with him about doing something. We all sat down with some members of the Japan Club and Jetaa NOLA, and the NOLA Japan Quake Fund made a lot of sense as the target of the concert proceeds: it’s being administered by the Greater New Orleans Foundation, the city has endorsed it, and all the Japan-affiliated organizations in town are involved. Donations alone have raised over $100,000, and that doesn’t include these two events.

The result has been amazing. John quickly lined up the musicians. His friend Yumi Mano helped gather donations and get restaurants involved. Michelle Hansen of the Japan Club has spearheaded the silent auction. Carrie really pushed the corporate aspect, which has resulted in some very impressive donations from big companies. I’ve been working the social media aspect and helping out with logistics, and Jetaa NOLA members have helped volunteer and solicit donations. The result is Jammin’ for Japan which will be this Sunday (tomorrow!), April 10 from 7:30-11:00pm at Rock ‘N Bowl:

The great thing is that local radio station WWOZ will be broadcasting the concert LIVE. They stream on the Internet, which means that anyone with an Internet connection can listen. When I did the calculation for the time in Japan, I realized that this concert will take place almost exactly a month after the earthquake and tsunami: it will run from Monday, April 11 09:30-13:00 Japan Standard Time.

I hope that you all tune in. Below I’ve pasted the Japanese press release along with an explanation of how to listen live. Please forward this widely to Japanese friends! Let them know that New Orleans is thinking about them.

ニューオリンズのジャズと伝統文化を伝えるラジオステーションの WWOZ 90.7 FM が、4 月 10 日（日）に市内のライブハウス Rock ‘N’ Bowl で開催されるコンサート NOLA Japan Quake Fund」をライブ中継

ジャズやブルース、ファンクなど、さまざまなジャンルで今のニューオリンズを代表するミュージ シャン、カーミット・ラフィンズ、パパグロウズファンク、ジェレミー・デイブンポート、ボネラマ、そして ジョージ・ポーターJr&ランニングパードナーズがサポート

2011 年 3 月 31 日（木）於ニューオリンズ ––– ニューオリンズのジャズと伝統文化を伝えるラジ オステーションの WWOZ 90.7 FM が、来る 4 月 10 日（日）に市内のライブハウス Rock ‘N’ Bowl で午後 7 時半から 11 時まで開催されるコンサート NOLA Japan Quake Fund」をライ ブ中継されます。ジャズやブルース、ファンクなど、さまざまなジャンルで今のニューオリンズを代 表するミュージシャンたち、カーミット・ラフィンズ、パパグロウズファンク、ジェレミー・デイブンポート、 ボネラマ、サンパイ・バーンズ、そしてジョージ・ポーターJr&ランニングパードナーズがサポートに かけつけてくれます。このうち、4 つのバンドには、それぞれ日本人ミュージシャンがメンバーとして 参加しており、当日はスペシャルゲストのサンパイ・バーンズも加わって、できるだけ多くの人に このイベントへ来てもらって、少しでも多くのお金を募金してもらい、3 月 11 日に発生した大規 模地震と津波、そしてそれに続いて起きた原発事故による放射能問題の被害に苦しんでいる 日本のみなさんのお役に立てたいと演奏や募金の呼び掛けを行ってくれます。当日は、日本の 文化にも触れてもらおうという目的で、地元のニューオリンズジャズ太鼓ドラマーズも演奏してく れる他、日本食レストランの NINJA が人気の高いメニューからいくつかのアイテムを販売します。

WWOZ ラジオはオンラインでも聴けるため、地元ニューオリンズだけでなく、全米、および世界中 で愛聴されています。そこでライブ中継するということは、世界中の人たち、そしてもちろん日 本の人たちがこのイベントをライブで聴いてくれるということです。イベントを主催する私たちは、こ れによって少しでも多くの方が NOLA 日本地震基金（NOLA Japan Quake Fund）を通して、 日本で被害に遭われた方々に支援の手が届けばいいと願っています。

パパグロウズファンクのリーダーであり、ハモンド B3 オルガン奏者兼ボーカル担当のジョン・グロス 氏がこの Jammin’ for Japan イベントの発起人です。彼は、次のように語っています。

「今まで、日本へ何度もツアーで訪れて、多くの日本人の友人ができましたが、みな温かい人 柄の素晴らしい人たちばかりです。ニューオリンズとその音楽を心から愛してくださっていて、いつ も応援してくださっています。特にうちのバンドのギタリストである山岸潤史氏を通して、一生を 通じて友人と呼べるような出会いもいくつかありましたが、私たちがカトリーナの被害で苦しんで いるときに暖かい支援の手を差し伸べてくれました。」
「最後に日本に行ったとき、宮城県の仙台と石巻へ行く機会がありました。演奏するお店の オーナーの方は、僕たちが到着したときに赤いカーペットを敷いて出迎えてくれて、一生忘れられないような素晴らしい思い出を作ってくださいました。今回の震災で、その町の方たちが本 当にひどい被害を受け、何もかも失くしてしまわれました。その方たちの気持ちを思うと、いても たってもいられず、また明るい笑顔を取り戻してもらえる手助けを何とかしたい、そう思ったの です。彼らの必要なお金や支援に比べれば、僕たちがここで渡せるものは微々たるものでしょう。 でも、僕たちがカトリーナの経験を通して学んだのは、とにかく第一歩を踏み出すこと。どんなに 困難に思えることでもまずはじめてみることです。その第一歩の手助けをしたいと思っているの です。」

今回の Jammin’ for Japan イベントでは、入場料の代わりに一人最低 10 ドルを寄付しても らいます。これはすべてそのまま NOLA 日本地震基金（NOLA Japan Quake Fund）へ寄付さ れます。さらに、ローカルセレブとのボーリングトーナメント参加費、T-シャツや食べ物の売上金、 サイレントオークション、50/50 ラッフルなどの催しを行い、現場にコンピューターもセットしてクレ ジットカードを使った追加寄付もできるようにする予定です。

NOLA 日本地震基金（NOLA Japan Quake Fund）について

NOLA 日本地震基金（NOLA Japan Quake Fund）は、ニューオリンズで活動しているジャ パンクラブ、ジャパンソサエティ、JetaaNOLA、および日本庭園基金が、ニューオリンズ日本名 誉総領事を相談役に迎えて合同で設立しました。大ニューオリンズ基金（Greater New Orleans Foundation:GNOF）は、連邦政府の認めた 501 条(c)項(3)号団体で、この NOLA 日本地震基金（NOLA Japan Quake Fund）の管理役を務めています。この基金への寄付 金は、被害に遭われた地域のみなさんの復興と再建を支援する日本の NGO’非政府団 体(を慎重に選んで直接そこへ寄付されます。ニューオリンズ市民はカトリーナで経験したように、 どんなひどい災害も時間と共にメディアには乗らなくなり、実際には復興には程遠い状態でし かなくても、義援金を募ることはどんどん難しくなってきます。この基金の一般費用は最低限に 抑え、寄付総額の 98%を直接日本の NGO へ寄付します。この基金はニューオリンズ市長 ミッチ・ランドリュー氏によって是認されています。

ライブを聞くために

まず、ブラウザーでwww.wwoz.orgのサイトを見てください。

左上にある「LISTEN NOW」をクリックしてください。

プレイヤーが開いてきて、生放送が流れる。エンジョイしてね！

Cool 擬態語 – べたべた

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I work at a university writing center helping students (mostly first years) with their essays, and back in February a Japanese couple came on a grant to study writing centers in the U.S. Apparently they run the writing center for exchange students studying Japanese at a university in Shizuoka. The writing center is young, so they were looking for ways to improve their tutoring approaches. (They have some of the same problems – the same kids come in, they make the same mistakes – but I feel like Japanese composition is in a very different place, so I don’t think all of our suggestions made sense to them. Anyone have any thoughts?)

I reported for work earlier than normal so I could interpret if need be, but she was actually quite proficient in English. She also seemed to be ハーフ, but I never asked, so I’m not certain. They brought their kids with them (all four of them, two of them toddlers and one an infant), and the husband took them off for a walk in the morning, but they came back for lunch. My boss had the tutors who were free sit in her office and answer the couple’s questions while we snacked on pasta and king cake, the seasonal New Orleans cake that is served from Twelfth Night to Mardi Gras Day.

King cake is short, ring-shaped cinnamon cake that is covered with sticky icing and sugar. The kids ate some, too, and when one of the toddlers finished, she started smacking her fingers together and saying べたべた. I laughed; the kid was so damn cute, and even though I hadn’t heard the word for a while, I knew exactly what she was saying – the King Cake was sticky.

That’s all I’ve got today. I’ve been meaning to write up this story because I don’t think I’ll ever forget べたべた again. Blue Shoe’s post about じょりじょり reminded me that I’d been meaning to write about べたべた. He wrote that じょりじょり is the sound of “a scratchy surface.” The word was vaguely familiar, and I had to really work my memory banks to figure out where I’d heard it. I realized that I was shaving my head when I studied abroad in Tokyo. Once, shortly after I shaved my head, I went to teach an English class, and my students were all like ああ、ダニエル、じょりじょり！

I wanted to know where it came from, so I plugged it into Yahoo Dictionary, which gives this definition:

［副］髪やひげなどを剃(そ)る音を表す語。「―（と）襟足を剃る」

So Blue Shoe is close – it’s actually the sound of shaving (or perhaps cutting) hair or facial hair. Kind of like “buzz” in English. My students were saying “Daniel, you buzzed your head!” じょりじょり, most excellent.

(The Yahoo example sentence uses a cool word I was unfamiliar with: 襟足 (えりあし), the nape of the neck.)

Katrina and the Quake

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A month after I arrived in Japan on the JET Program, Hurricane Katrina hit my hometown New Orleans. I had been placed in Nishiaizu, Fukushima Prefecture, a small town of 8000 people nestled in the mountains on the northwestern edge of the prefecture. My supervisor told me it would probably be okay to go back to the U.S. and help out if I needed to, but what could I do? A good portion of the city was under water, and my family had already evacuated to Memphis. I stayed and watched from afar.

At night I drank beer, watched CNN, and wrote angry Livejournal posts wondering why the O’Brien family of journalists had exchanges like these on international television:

Soledad: Clearly something is burning off in the distance.
Miles: It’s still burning. Clearly no sign of it being put out.

Clearly.

And now, nearly six years later, I find myself in the same position. I moved back to New Orleans last summer, so I’ve been forced to watch news from abroad and trace the paths of friends in Japan from Facebook status updates and Twitter feeds. Apparently, the journalists from outside are bad and the government response is slow, just like in New Orleans.

However, I’m confident that Japan will recover because I’ve realized that Japan is, secretly, just like New Orleans. They both pride themselves on the strangeness of their culture, they both eat really weird things, and they both love to drink beer outdoors. More importantly, they are both geographically exceptional; New Orleans was founded on the soft alluvial deposits of the Mississippi River Delta and Japan on the intersection of tectonic plates. If New Orleans can recover (and it has), then surely Japan can. Chin up, Japan.

The other reassuring part about being in New Orleans is that I’m in more of a position to help. Japan has a special place in its heart for New Orleans, as evidenced by the $44 million in aid it provided after Katrina. I don’t think New Orleans will approach that amount, but we can certainly try.

A consortium of Japan groups here in town has banded together to create the NOLA Japan Quake Fund. We raised over $8000 during our first day online, and that was without the assistance of any events. There will be a number of events all over town, so please follow @NOLA4Japan to keep up with the latest information. I’ll probably be broadcasting the information on my own feed as well.

Based on the response we’ve already had, we’re hoping to raise a good chunk of change – something approaching $100,000 if not more. This isn’t an impossibility. We already have many different groups who want to contribute to the fund. I’m involved with two in particular: Saturday, April 2 will be “Drink For Japan” at Avenue Pub, and on Sunday, April 10, Rock n Bowl will be hosting a celebration of prominent local bands that feature Japanese musicians – it’s going to be an all-start lineup, so be on the lookout for more information.

Please spread this info as widely as possible, especially if you are in the New Orleans area.

College Japanese Notes – 2001/06/29 Frequency Adverbials

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Another lesson from my class notes. Don’t confuse degree adverbials with frequency adverbials:

Clearly I was still getting the hang of the kana.

よく行きます                                                         [Subject] often goes
あまり行きません                                                [Subject] doesn’t go much
ほとんど行きません                                            [Subject] hardly goes
全然（ぜんぜん）行きません。                         [Subject] doesn’t ever go / never goes

Two that aren’t listed here and that both express inrequent visits are たまに and めったに:

たまに行きます                                                    [Subject] goes on occasion/every now and then
めったに行きません                                           [Subject] rarely ever goes