Japanese Word of the Week

[Toku Warrior]

It's been a long time since we made posts in this thread. Here's a word:

Itadakemasu

means = phrase said out of respect before one begins to eat.

Edited August 15, 2008 by Toku Warrior

[durendal]

To understand why Japanese keeps saying that, it literally means, "I am going to take this now". May be used in others aside from taking food as well.

[*Jess♥]

thanks for reviving this dude

it's a good thread

Is this the correct spelling?

I only ask because i always found the similarity with ittekimasu quite interesting.

[*V Guyver]

what about that word that sounds like "betrayal" usually means let's go or come on. I usually hear females say it.

[durendal]

Itadakimasu (戴[いただ]きます)= is what you say when you eat

Ittekimasu (いってきます)= is what you say when you leave

Also I'm not sure what you mean by sounds like "betrayal", but betrayal is "Uragiri" (裏切り) , and let's go is "Ikimasho" (いきましょ)

[*V Guyver]

http://rapidshare.com/files/137855523/betaio-betrayal.mp3

Betaio/betrayal, or something along the way it sounds. It's in the above ling, the last word spoken in it.

[*Jess♥]

I believe that's ikkoyo...

it's something they shout a lot and i'm never exactly sure what it is they are saying but it means 'let's go' or something along those lines.

[*V Guyver]

Yeah, I've heard it in a lot of Anime and it's always translated as Let's Go or Come On. I also here it in a lot of fighting games. Oddly enough it's always a female saying it, I've never heard a guy actualy say it in any japanese material.

I wasn't sure how it was supposed to be pronounced because it sounded alot like betrayal from the various characters like Morrigan from Darkstalkers. I can swear they has an A in it. Then again I'm half deaf and need a hearing aid, so I'll trust your ears better then mine.

[durendal]

That was "Ikuwayo", it means, I'm coming. She said, "what are you doing, here I come" or something to that degree.

To disect, the root word is "iku" or go, the "wayo" are somewhat colloquial suffix which are usually added in conversation, as the "yo" at the end denotes emphasis.

[*V Guyver]

Thanks Ryuki and Durendal. I was pretty confused by the word.

[durendal]

Not much one to revive old topic, but this thread still has some kick in it.

Here's my contribution, a simple one actually which I think everyone is familiar:

の (NO)

This is not actually a word but more of an enlgish equivalent of a preposition in english. It is similar to the word "of" or the " 's" at the end of a noun. So when you see "Suzaku no Miko", the literal translation is Miko of Suzaku, or Sukazu's Miko. [Miko (巫女) is a Japanese equivalent of a priestess or shrine maiden. Suzuaku is a proper noun, more popularly known as being embodied by a phoenix or a vermillion bird.] So in effect, it literally translates to the "Shrine Maiden of Suzaku".

There are other uses for the preposition "no" but this is one of the basic uses.

Examples:

Shouri no Megami = Goddess of Victory [shouri=victory, megami=goddess]

Hanya no Urami = Grudge of Hanya

Taka no Dan = Band of the Hawks [Taka=Hawk, Dan=Troops] (taken from Berserk)

[*Jess♥]

that's pretty useful!!

I think that i may sometimes get mixed up with the ordering of the grammar.

wether it is the noun before the 'no' that is owning the one after it or the noun after teh 'no' owning the noun before it.

but now I think it is pretty clear.

and now I know teh kanji for shrine

oh, i found it interesting to note the similarity between the word hawk and the word tall.

not sure if it is relevant or simply a coincidence.

[*Jess♥]

colours

akai - red

kiiroi - yellow

shiroi - white

aoi - blue

midori - green

kuroi - black

[durendal]

Taka (鷹) falcon and Takai (高い) high. This is where kanji can become more useful. Also, the meaning are mostly derived through context. Which is why there are many puns and jokes that are lost through english translations. If translated to english, makes no sense because there are a lot of homonyms in Japanese.

[Toku Warrior]

Hey Durendal, doesn't Wataru mean Water in Japanese?

[durendal]

Uh... Water is Mizu (水). Wataru is to cross, to extend or deliver. Would depend on how you use it.

Perhaps you were pertaining to waterloo?

[Toku Warrior]

Nope, I was remembering an old Anime I watched a long time ago back when I was in Rhode Island. Can't remember the title but the characters' name was Wataru and he said it ment water.....guess not. Thanks for clarrifying.

[durendal]

Here's something for everyones reference.

Kudasai. A suffix usually added to a verb to emphasize a request.

Tabete Kudasai = Please eat

suwatte kudasai = please sit

okite kudasai = please wake up

yamete kudasai = please stop

[*Jess♥]

and one of my favourites -

kitte itte kudasai = please listen to me

( i think i got that right)

[durendal]

Welcome to another session of the Japanese Word of the Week.

This week we will be learning about the word "naru" [なる].

"Naru" literally means "to become", and is usually connected to the end of a noun to denote becoming that noun. example "Pairoto ni naru" or "become a pilot". [パイロト になる]

There are other form of the word "naru" depending on how you use them.

"Narimasu" is "will become", ie: "Isha ni narimasu" [医者になります](Become a doctor)

"Narimashita" = became, ie: "Kyoushi wo narimashita" [教師になりました](Became a teacher)

"Naritai" = want to be, ie: "Onna ni naritai" [女になりたい](Want to be a woman).

This is getting a little difficult to feature as future subject will require readers to have basic knowledge of Japanese. Should we feature a kanji of the week instead?

[Toku Warrior]

That sounds like a good idea. Especially since I don't know a whole lot of kanji.

We can still do the Japanese words but we could keep it to the basics and easy to remember ones. That or we can have it where we post words out of members requesting to know a word.

[*Jess♥]

actually, I really enjoyed this latest sesion

thank you durendal, I have learned a fair bit about verb conjugations and stuff like that. this is really interesting.

onna no hito wa kawaii desu.

nihongo no kyoushi ni narimasu.

I think kanji of the week might be interesting.. but for people who are unfamiliar with reading kanji, it would be rather confusing.

that is unless you break it down into the constituent parts and explain what each symbol relates to..

sorta like

買

which was explained to me as an eye 目 looking over a shellfish　貝 about to purchase it.

meaning shopping - kau. (verb in it's basic form)

[durendal]

Hmm.... explaining kanji like that would be a little difficult. Breaking down the kanji to it's root components will be confusing as every root component has different meaning and if joined together will have another completely different meaning. This can be a good example for some kanji like mori [森] (forest), break it down that tree [木] (moku) joined by another tree will become a grove [林] (hayashi), and adding another tree to the kanji will turn it into a forest [森] (mori). If only all kanji are as simple as this.

One example, Hagane [鋼] (Steel). It's a combination of the root components Kane [金] (gold) and oka [岡] (hill). Now combining these two, the apparent meaning would become a "mountain of gold" wouldn't it? Which is totally different from its true meaning.

The only reason I see why you need to break down the root components is for the purpose of searching for it in the kanji dictionary. Ryuki, I'm sure your familiar on how to search for kanji in a dictionary. But for the benefit of everyone, I'll explain this.

As mentioned above, kanji's have a root component. Each root component has a number of strokes ranging from 1 to 17. As the traditional dictionary sorts the kanji in order of number of strokes. Then after you find the root component, you then count the strokes of the remaining components and search it in the subsection of the root component that you just found, where kanji with the same number of strokes are listed, and you search for that kanji in that list.

It is really difficult to study kanji as you need to memorize thousands of kanji. Not to mention double that since kanji have two methods of reading (Kunyomi and Onyomi). Not even the Japanese themselves can memorize all the kanji. However, if you grew up learning chinese, it will be much easier for you to learn the kanji as Chinese characters are 90% similar to kanji, since Kanji is derived from Chinese, hence the onyomi reading.

I have to admit, when I translate the Guyver VDF, I need a dictionary by my side because all that damn techinical stuff are hard to comprehend. I'm a mathematician dammit, not a scientist.

[*Jess♥]

One example, Hagane [鋼] (Steel). It's a combination of the root components Kane [金] (gold) and oka [岡] (hill). Now combining these two, the apparent meaning would become a "mountain of gold" wouldn't it? Which is totally different from its true meaning.

it all depends on how you look at it.

if you don't make a story for it, it will be harder to remember.

in this case, I would take teh meaning as gold from the hill, and i would twist it a little, to mean 'precious' from the hill. you know, using metaphor to describe steel.

like oil is sometimes described as black gold.

for people who do not study any form of japanese characters, it can be next to impossible to decipher the arrangement of teh strokes.

I rmember before i started studying, I could not tell the difference between the kana for sa and chi. and kanji was just a complete mess to me.

[*Jess♥]

I feel a this stage it might be helpful for everybody if i point out the differences between 好 (love) and 女子 (girl)

i don't know if you noticed but the symbols look almost identical.

the major difference is that the symbol for love is a combined symbol whereas teh sybol for girl is two distinct symbols that can be separated.

the two symbols are woman 女 and child 子. (or baby)

when placed next to each other, it means the literal, woman child, or girl.

but when combined, it becomes more abstract and is more to do with the relationship between the two.

a mother and child is descriptive of love. because that is the greatest example of love you can get.

some reference -

好き - suki - love

好 - kou - love

女の子 - onnanoko - girl

女子 - joshi/onago - girl

女 - onna/jo - woman

子 - ko - child/baby

男の子 - otokonoko - boy

男の人 - otokonohito - man