I was once wondering around a neighborhood in Tokyo and passed by a group of friends who were saying goodbye to each other. I heard one of them say “お疲れヤマ”. I stopped, wondering if it was some strange kind of slang or regional variation, but she then started laughing and said “お疲れマウンテン”.
I personally had one or two issues with the video you used. I’m not sure they were being literal when they said は means “as for”. は doesn’t have any meaning, it has a function. Translating it this way can help people understand how は works within the sentence, but I’ve also seen it confuse people too. I once saw a post from someone who said 私は難しい incorrectly thinking it meant “It’s difficult for me.”
Some of the things you mentioned also weren’t accurate.
a) Generally speaking, cats are liked [猫が好きだ] b) As for me, cats are liked (-> I like cats) [私は猫が好きだ]
Sentence B is correct. Sentence A however is just sentence B with the subject/topic omitted. You’ll have to infer the it from the context, but it will be “I” in most cases. I don’t think there will be any context in which it will be understood as cats being generally liked by everyone.
a) Generally speaking, as for cats, everything about cats is liked. [猫は好きだ] c) As for me, as for cats, everything about cats is liked. (-> I like cats) [私は猫は好きだ]
There are a few issues here that are a little misleading. は好き can be used like this, but in my experience of looking at sentence from native Japanese speakers, it’s mostly only used in the following three ways:
Number 2 and 3 can be replaced with が, but は is preferred for number 1.
私は猫が好き also doesn’t quite mean you like everything about cats. It’s the same as saying you like cats in English, you’re making a general statement without specificially identifying what you like about them. I like everything about cats is closer to 猫の事が好きです or 猫の全てが好きです.
I’m no expert on this, but in addition to the other factors people mentioned, I would say that people in Japan seem to pay a lot more attention to high school sports. The Koshien Stadium and the high school baseball tournaments name after it are very famous. I’m not even interested in sports, but I know about them and often notice friends talking about them online. I know absolutely nothing about the college baseball tournaments or where they’re held.
Weak has a very negative tone to it. Using weak to describe food or drink is rarely, if ever, used in a positive way.
As I mentioned in my other comment, I assumed they were the same, but several sites said they were different things. “American coffee” is a weak brewed coffee, and Caffe Americano (アメリカノ) is a diluted espresso, which is actually stronger than most brewed coffees, at least in terms of caffeine content. Japan has アメリカノ too, and in my experience it’s much more common.
It appears to be somewhat common. When looking it up, I found several sites like this one that explained how to say アメリカンコーヒー in English.
I thought maybe it was supposed to say Americano, but it’s not the same. There’s an explanation here. It’s made from light roasted beans, and they say it most likely got it’s name from Americans in post-war Japan brewing coffee with lots of water or diluting it further before drinking.
I’m not American, but the name sounds a little judgemental to me.
They’re only temporary, and the last one will be in November, so you’ll only be able to visit if you’re planning on going in the next 4 months.
Thanks. How about conjugated verbs and adjectives? Google play’s dictionary only recognizes then if they’re in dictionary form.
For Google Play, the integrated dictionary doesn’t recognize any word that has furigana on all of the books I’ve read, so I don’t think it’s an issue with individual books. It also can’t recognize conjugated verbs or adjectives, so it would be great if there are any other platforms that can.
Can the dictionary recognize words that use furigana? That’s my main concern as I don’t use machine translation.
I prefer the live action TV series, but the Sukeban Deka series is great. It’s about a high school girl who works as an undercover agent for a branch of the police that investigates crimes that take place at schools that regular cops aren’t allowed to investigate. Unfortunately, very little of the franchise has been officially released in a English. ADV released the OVA in the 90’s. The 2000’s movie reboot got a release too, but that was the worst version IMO.
It doesn’t look like there was an extra space. Spaces with Japanese keyboards are 2-3 times as long. Considering there’s already a gap after a comma, the gap would look huge with an extra space.
Here’s the sentence with and without a space after the comma.
はい、 コンビニです。
はい、コンビニです。
OP’s sentence looks more like the second one.
It was 25 years ago, so I don’t remember. Blade of the Immortal was one of the first, if not the very first, graphic novels I bought. Back then, graphic novels were only for back releases, and new releases were typically two or three chapters combined into a monthly Western style issue, so I’m sure I bought some of those before getting graphic novels.
I normally only read Japanese releases. I started Sukeban Deka volume 2 last week. It’s a 70’s shojo manga, although it has a surprising amount of action and violence for something aimed at girls. One of its spin offs was released recently, so the original series got a reprint.
Yes, but you can also get different opinions. Lots of people also love to tell other people that they’re wrong, which can be a toxic trait, but can also help weed out incorrect information when done constructively.
There are services like Lang-8 and HiNative where you can get your writing checked or ask questions, so I’d suggest using those instead.
Good guide. I’m sure it’ll help a lot of people. I believe that オーダーメイド is the more accurate antonym of 既製.
I wasn’t familiar with the term パターンオーダー, but the following site gives an explanation. It says there are three types of オーダーメイド (the other two being フルオーダー and イージーオーダー). They say that パターンオーダー involves the tailor selecting the best fit from a number of sample patterns, and making minor changes if there are any parts that aren’t a good match. At the other end of the spectrum is フルオーダー, which is making a tailored suit based on your measurements and not a pattern. So it’s not wrong, but パターンメイド is a specific type of tailored suit.
https://fabric-tokyo.com/answer/suit/pattern-order-suit#1-2-パターンオーダー（初級者向け）
Thanks for this. I tried to do it using the python method, but I couldn’t get it to work.
上下左右 (じょうげさゆう). Means “top, bottom, left, and right”. It isn’t used very often, but it’s useful for talking about web design, which is how I first encountered it.
拘り (こだわり) when used for food. It’s easier to translate it as a verb (拘る), which means to be particular about something. 玉子に拘っている can very simply be translated as “We’re particular about eggs”, but 拘りの玉子サンド is much more difficult to translate. In this usage, it means that lots of care, thought, time, and/or work has been put into getting it right. There are a few translations you could use, but I don’t think any one of them had quite the same nuance. Jim Breen dictionaries translate them as “speciality”, but I don’t think it captures the original meaning at all. You could translate it as “artisanal” or “finest”, but that gives it more of a high-end or luxury sounding nuance. “Meticulously crafted” is also close, but that sounds like something very complex or elaborate, whereas the original can be used for simple things.