Current Events > ITT: Japanese Studies

(+) Yeah! (+)

Japanese Subnautica sure has a lot of hard words. And all the kanji use a Chinese font.

I figured out a way to make it worth playing in Japanese. Install the PDA Pause mod. Then you can actually read stuff without dying of thirst or drowning.

Rimmer_Dall posted...

Japanese Subnautica sure has a lot of hard words. And all the kanji use a Chinese font.

I figured out a way to make it worth playing in Japanese. Install the PDA Pause mod. Then you can actually read stuff without dying of thirst or drowning.

You are way above me. I'm still reading kids books from time to time to get used to some kanji.

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There are so many actual Japanese games available I don't know why you would play a game likely machine translated into Japanese instead of English.

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ssjevot posted...

There are so many actual Japanese games available I don't know why you would play a game likely machine translated into Japanese instead of English.

I do play Japanese games. Sometimes I just feel like playing western games, but I don't want to waste immersion time.

Also, it's very obvious when a game is machine translated and those games are easy to avoid.

Went out to study some Japanese with my girlfriend. She clarified some things about Keigo that I totally got wrong in class so glad I went over that.

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Rimmer_Dall posted...

I do play Japanese games. Sometimes I just feel like playing western games, but I don't want to waste immersion time.

Also, it's very obvious when a game is machine translated and those games are easy to avoid.

Fair enough. It could be worse too. My (Chinese) wife likes a lot of Western Indie games and their Chinese translations are often so bad she usually just plays them in English or Japanese (which is somehow not as bad). My guess is that the Chinese machine translation doesn't know how to handle made up in-game words. She played Subnautica, so I am curious what language she used since you said the Japanese was very difficult (also I encountered the Chinese font thing in the Japanese translation of Hollow Knight, which was also not very good).

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ssjevot posted...

since you said the Japanese was very difficult

It's difficult because there's a bunch of rare geology, ecology and botany related words that are used. , , are ones that come to mind off the top of my head.

Rimmer_Dall posted...

You will see that word fairly often if you are in Japan. Most often in the form of .

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ssjevot posted...

You will see that word fairly often if you are in Japan. Most often in the form of .

I've watched some let's players and a couple of hololive girls play Subnautica and almost all of them struggled with , and for some reason. I figure those are words you'd normally learn in school, but maybe they learned them in katakana?

Interestingly, all the technical words that aren't katakana loanwords are written in kanji except for , which is written as . I just find that kind of weird since the kanji is really easy to read due to the right hand component being a phonetic one and being a very common word that has that exact same component.

Yeah, actually you see it written a lot outside of professional articles. NHK has to write it like that by law, and a lot of other news companies follow government kanji guidelines (ignoring them for super basic stuff like etc.).

They're just following guidelines whenever you see that for super easy stuff. Like most roadsigns say but if they followed the government guidelines it would be (never seen this, but it's technically what it should be according to the government).

Oh and sometimes you see this in reverse! Like in my town there is only one sign that says and the rest all say even though they're all according to the government.

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ssjevot posted...

I honestly find it really hard to read text when words are written like this. The whole word in kanji even if it's a kanji or no kanji at all, please, not this mixed crap.

Rimmer_Dall posted...

Oh and I missed this but that's not (which is ). Phonetic components work more often in predicting pronunciation in Japanese than modern Chinese, but they're rarely 100%. There is a small list of 100% predictive phonetic components out there. I can try to dig it up and post it.

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ssjevot posted...

Oh and I missed this but that's not (which is ). Phonetic components work more often in predicting pronunciation in Japanese than modern Chinese, but they're rarely 100%. There is a small list of 100% predictive phonetic components out there. I can try to dig it up and post it.

Herp derp derp, for some reason even though I was pronouncing them both correctly in my head ( and ) I still somehow thought of them as the same.

In my defense, one of the on-yomi for is . >_>

I still think it's really easy to read, but now I'm not sure why.

This is the article, but I should note it has a few minor mistakes due to the way he did his analysis, there is a professional article as well.

Useful article:
https://namakajiri.net/nikki/testing-the-power-of-phonetic-components-in-japanese-kanji/

Professional article:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280836643_Identifying_Useful_Phonetic_Components_of_kanji_for_Learners_of_Japanese

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Rimmer_Dall posted...

Herp derp derp, for some reason even though I was pronouncing them both correctly in my head ( and ) I still somehow thought of them as the same.

In my defense, one of the on-yomi for is . >_>

I still think it's really easy to read, but now I'm not sure why.

Could be from

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ssjevot posted...

https://namakajiri.net/nikki/testing-the-power-of-phonetic-components-in-japanese-kanji/

I believe I've seen this one posted on r/learnjapanese. I find the phonetic compounds to be as hindering as they are helpful due to the number of exceptions and tiny differences that have crept up over time due to phonetic drift.

ssjevot posted...

Could be from

I don't remember having seen that word before. Now that I think of it, I don't believe I've read anything in Japanese featuring donkeys. Maybe I should watch Shrek dubbed in Japanese.

Rimmer_Dall posted...

I believe I've seen this one posted on r/learnjapanese. I find the phonetic compounds to be as hindering as they are helpful due to the number of exceptions and tiny differences that have crept up over time due to phonetic drift.

Imagine the fun of Chinese where it almost never works in Mandarin and even when it does the tone is different so you can't read it correctly anyway. Classical Chinese had the perfect writing system for the time it was used, unfortunately we no longer live in that time and any meaningful reforms at this point are impossible due to the massive amount of print media using the current character sets (Traditional, Simplified, and Japanese). That's why when the government expanded the Joyo set a few years ago nothing was simplified, it's a technical nightmare so it's better to just go with than make new character with the "simplified" (actually one more stroke, Chinese people scratching their head to this day) .

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ssjevot posted...

Fuck this kanji. I keep reading it as instead of because I confuse it with . at least makes sense because works as a phonetic component.

EDIT: I just now noticed the missing stroke thanks to you pointing it out. Maybe now I'll be able to read it correctly.

Rimmer_Dall posted...

I don't remember having seen that word before. Now that I think of it, I don't believe I've read anything in Japanese featuring donkeys. Maybe I should watch Shrek dubbed in Japanese.

You will probably see it in , the rules for animal names using kanji or not in any work of fiction are 100% arbitrary. I recently played NieR Replicant Numbers edition and almost every animal used kanji except which was as though that is uniquely hard to read for some reason in a game that uses (that's read and your IME probably won't even give that as an option).

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Rimmer_Dall posted...

Fuck this kanji. I keep reading it as instead of because I confuse it with . at least makes sense because works as a phonetic component.

EDIT: I just now noticed the missing stroke thanks to you pointing it out. Maybe now I'll be able to read it correctly.

Honestly outside of you won't really see it. If you work in any kind of business in Japan you will see and hear .

Edit: And yeah that stoke isn't missing, that's the correct form (Simplified and Traditional), the Japanese form of added a stroke. The people in charge of doing the reform after WWII got their jobs for political reasons (many wanted to abolish Japanese writing and use romaji, some even wanted to abolish Japanese and use English), so they weren't really thinking too hard about if what they were doing actually makes sense.

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ssjevot posted...

Honestly outside of you won't really see it. If you work in any kind of business in Japan you will see and hear .

I see rather frequently, but not quite frequently enough to remember that is pronounced when I run into it.

I just discovered who did the Japanese translation for Subnautica. Turns out it's a community effort.

https://forums.unknownworlds.com/categories/subnautica-translations

Looks like quite a bit happened in this topic while I was away. A shame I can't get involved, my Kanji is still at an amateur level. Seriously, I need to keep trying with it.

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SpiritSephiroth posted...

Looks like quite a bit happened in this topic while I was away. A shame I can't get involved, my Kanji is still at an amateur level. Seriously, I need to keep trying with it.

The more kanji you learn the easier it gets to learn even more kanji. If you can grind your way past the first 500 or so everything should suddenly get a lot easier. Of course, then you get to the part where you're learning new kanji that look almost exactly the same as old kanji you've learned and you get to enjoy the fun of constantly mixing them up, but in general the more you know the easier it gets to learn even more. Like a snowball rolling down a hill.

Rimmer_Dall posted...

The more kanji you learn the easier it gets to learn even more kanji. If you can grind your way past the first 500 or so everything should suddenly get a lot easier. Of course, then you get to the part where you're learning new kanji that look almost exactly the same as old kanji you've learned and you get to enjoy the fun of constantly mixing them up, but in general the more you know the easier it gets to learn even more. Like a snowball rolling down a hill.

Yeah I've started to push through some already thanks!

Also I've been reading the old cinderella and three little pigs children books. My girlfriend pointed out that the Japanese used in those books aren't actually good for normal conversations because of the way they're written.

I've decided to stop them and start reading some Manga I bought a while ago that has Furigana. Hopefully that'll be better for my studies.

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Here's a useful guide for setting up visual novels to be a Japanese learning tool. It found it when I found the same guy's Anki setup guide earlier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAPr5S6h6yE

Very useful way to improve reading skill and vocabulary. I can't vouch for that Island game he recommends but I read Himawari by the same writer and it was excellent.

Reading manga is also good. A lot of people start with Yotsuba& and that is indeed the first thing I ever attempted to read in Japanese.

Sorry, Im not contributing. Glad your topic is going well.

... I always read this topic title as Japanese studios and think oh, whats that? Every frickin time.

*worried someone would figure out what town it was?

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Itachi157 posted...

Here's a useful guide for setting up visual novels to be a Japanese learning tool. It found it when I found the same guy's Anki setup guide earlier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAPr5S6h6yE

Very useful way to improve reading skill and vocabulary. I can't vouch for that Island game he recommends but I read Himawari by the same writer and it was excellent.

Reading manga is also good. A lot of people start with Yotsuba& and that is indeed the first thing I ever attempted to read in Japanese.

Thanks, I'll watch this.

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Overall, I highly recommend that method. Visual novels are pretty good for improving reading and building up basic vocab. If you're a beginner, there are tons of visual novels that have mostly slice of life scenes and therefore easier vocabulary and grammar than your typical actual novel. Of course, there are some really hard visual novels as well, but obviously you don't start with those. However, even those are probably easier than many traditional novels.

As that guy brings up in the video, like 99% of them have 18+ content, but if that's an issue you can just skip right through it and not lose anything in the vast majority of VNs.

Is there a reason why someone would use instead of ( ?) A label on an item in my supermarket uses to describe the flavor of wasabi peas, but why wouldn't you use ?
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Puglia77 posted...

Is there a reason why someone would use instead of ( ?) A label on an item in my supermarket uses to describe the flavor of wasabi peas, but why wouldn't you use ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW4AiEqKGto

Bump for tomorrow

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I feel like taking another shot at Lord of the Rings. Last attempt didn't go so well because I immediately hit a wall when I ran into a bunch of kanji related to farming and farm work that I had never seen before.

I've already read Lord of the Rings in three different languages and I really want to add a fourth to my crown.

Some Keigo homework again tonight!

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Finished my homework but was out all day, so I didn't study much. Class tomorrow then will go out again.

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Alright got quite a bit of homework from class today. Gonna smash some out before bed tonight.


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More homework was posted online by my Tutor. Gonna have to look that over. Also might watch a new Japanese drama tonight. Maybe one that stars Minami Hamabe.

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I got a lot of homework. Need to make a presentation in Keigo about someone who I respect. I'm planning on doing it about Soken Masayoshi, the composer of FFXIV. I've been a huge fan of his and ever since his whole fight with cancer, he gained even more of my respect. Heres a video of his story if you guys are interested:

https://youtu.be/OJCKGhgxXJ8

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About a quarter done with this homework but getting sleepy. I'll call it a night.

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Gonna prioritize Japanese tomorrow. Get this homework done and dusted!

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Geez, just finished my homework. Took a lot more time than I thought.

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Class tomorrow. Got feedback from Sensei about my Keigo. Apart from totally butchering a lot of the Keigo verbs, I did pretty well on my presentation draft.

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So the first part of the presentation did pretty well. The class was invested and everyone liked it, pretty happy about it even though some of the Japanese came out weird.

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Bump, did some studying but Im gonna edge away from Keigo this week and increase my sentence structure skills.

Also will watch some Soko Magattara Sakurazaka tonight.

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Oof, we were given revision over particles. This always trips a lot of people up in our classes. Gonna go through some right now.

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Bump, will carry on with homework tomorrow.

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Particles are the tools of the devil.

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Stalolin posted...

Particles are the tools of the devil.

It doesn't help that a lot of Native Japanese speaking leave out particles here and there.

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Finished the particle homework but Im not sure if its 100% as usual with this. Just gonna submit it and hope I don't get too many wrong.

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You can do it my son.

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