My Japanese journey thread

[sergiu]

I am Romanian, I know a little Japanese (like Konnichiwa and Arigatou, that means I'm a noob), but now I want to push it to the ultimate level: THE DBZ LEVEL!

So what I'll do is post some sentences that I'll be listening to, and if you're kind enough, you can help me figure them out.
So I'll post the subtitle sentence in English followed by what I think I heard. I'll use Denshi Jisho - Online Japanese dictionary as my dictionary for kanji.
So here goes:
First episode of DB sentences:

Long ago, in an era completely unknown to all
Koro wa mukashi mukashi daremo mita koto mo kita koto mo nai fushinna jidai.

On a certain mountain 1000s of miles from civilization
Miyako kara shunsendi (this is what I could hear, I know it may be wrong) mo hanaretaru yama oku ni...

There lived a lone boy who communed with nature...

Daishizen mo aite ni tata hitori de senkaku shite ni ( something similar to shite ni, there was noise so I couldn't say for sure) shounen ga ita.

The thread should be called Guessing game, now that I think of it

[PouncingAnt]

Is that how you learned English? If so, I'm seriously impressed. Because you appear to have picked about the most difficult method of learning a language I can imagine! I seriously recommend a change of learning methods.

That said, if you're doing this just for fun, I can see how it might be a laugh. If not a confusing one.

lets tackle the first sentence.
"koro mukashi mukashi" - well, koro is like toki, meaning the time, and mukashi means "long ago", and when used twice consecutively picks up a feeling very similar to the "Once upon a time/ long long ago" of English literature.

"daremo mita koto mo kita koto mo nai" daremo means "nobody", "mita koto ga nai" means to "not have the experience of seeing something" (mita is to have seen, nai is to "not have") so, "kita koto ga nai" (kita is to have heard) means "not to have the experience of hearing something". (kita koto is to have the experience of hearing something. You can guess about mita koto, right?)
the particles changed to "mo" to give "mita koto mo kita koto mo nai", since when you say "this and that are blue", you use "thismo thatmo blue desu". The "mo" particle shows the two objects are strongly related.
SO, "daremo mita koto mo kita koto mo nai ....." becomes "....that was both unheard and unseen by anyone". More or less.

"fushinna jidai". Fushin probably means "suspicion" but since I dont see any kanji here, I cant be 100% sure. It might be "dullness" (a word very appropriate for me, maybe). Jidai means "age" or "era". It is usually used in the context of large periods of time, like, for instance the amount of time a person is on a throne, or even huge periods like the bronze age etc.
So, "fushinna jidai" means "age of suspicion" (I expect we're not talking about an "age of dullness" considering this is a sub we're talking about..)

Right, I'm not going to do the remaining sentences. It took long enough to do this one. I hope you can see that, with the amount of effort one has to put into each sentence, it really isn't worth it. In order to remain concise, I've more or less skimmed the grammar. To make sure it was explained in a properly understandable manner, I would usually devote an entire chapter to each grammar point, not 1 paragraph!

Furthermore, anime and dramas are littered with odd grammar, and strange phrases, since this sometimes makes for a good story, and grammar isn't at the forefront of the mind of whoever makes TV programs. So there is a good chance that by learning Japanese from either of these sources, you will end up with a very odd language skill by the end.

As such, I regard this post and the previous as prime examples of how not to learn and how not to teach. But, otherwise, if you're just in it for the fun, I don't want to spoil that, so long as you realise learning Japanese like this is damned difficult.

[sergiu]

You don't have to translate EVERY word, I actually translated them, what I am interested in is the grammar. I can see why your way of teaching can be tiring.

I want to understand the Japanese used in that cartoon right now, not your average textbook Japanese, anyway thank you for telling me how not to learn, I will continue like this all the same, just not on this forum, I found a better one for my needs.
Thanks again.

P.S. I'm not sure how I learned English, I think with a dictionary and a lot of cartoons.

[manners]

Make it easy by doing a good course or programme. That's what I did and now I can impress Japanese who knnow nothing about their own grammar when in a discussion about grammar.

Japanese grammar is easy to understand if shown how. Using Japanese is more difficult, though but not impossible and easy for basic to intermediate users.

[PouncingAnt]

Originally Posted by sergiu

You don't have to translate EVERY word, I actually translated them, what I am interested in is the grammar. I can see why your way of teaching can be tiring.

I want to understand the Japanese used in that cartoon right now, not your average textbook Japanese, anyway thank you for telling me how not to learn, I will continue like this all the same, just not on this forum, I found a better one for my needs.
Thanks again.

P.S. I'm not sure how I learned English, I think with a dictionary and a lot of cartoons.

You called yourself a noob, and you didn't mention that you had any actual interest in the program you were watching. How am I supposed to know you are only learning it for purposes of watching that anime? You could just have said "I want to understand this anime", and it would have been far clearer. Instead I assumed that you were translating the anime just for the sake of learning Japanese. My bad.

I think your response was sour beyond necessity. You didn't say what you wanted to learn, so since you picked such a strange method, I (wrongly [and hypocritically]) assumed you to know very little about Japanese, or learning languages. Sorry about that too.

Originally Posted by sergiu

I can see why your way of teaching can be tiring.

However, as I said, that is not how I teach. I give proper explanations of grammar complete with irregularities and exceptions. In order to ensure one understands a certain grammar point, at least a page of writing (maybe up to 300 words) is required. Where your sentences contained about 2-3 notable grammar points each, it would be an arduous task to explain the grammar in such a way as anyone learning Japanese could understand it. The previous post was an example of the fact that, if you compress what would be 3 pages of grammar into a single forum post, it is still huge, and at hardly adequate.

I think I may have pissed you off, though it wasn't my intention. If you need help with grammar, there are some excellent books titled "A Dictionary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Japanese Grammar". You can quickly find grammar, and it is explained in full.

[sergiu]

I liked the word noob, but I remember some words from long ago when I learned some Japanese from a textbook.Now I decided that I'm going to learn only that specific spoken Japanese, it beats the hell out of what I used to do so far.
I'm sorry if my response was sour, your reply did kinda piss me off, anyway it's ok.
I don't know how strange the method is, but it's fun and I like fun
So on to watching Dragon Ball Z