Fun with Japanese
I got some homework back today. Practicing the grammar construction "will not~, would not~, shall not~," one exercise was
ぼくの無実をだれも＿＿＿＿＿＿まい。(No one will/shall/would __________ my innocence.)
The correct answer is
ぼくの無実をだれも信じるまい。(No one will/would believe my innocence.)
My answer was
ぼくの無実をだれもぬすむまい。(No one will/shall steal my innocence.)
Heh.
I seemed to have childhood on the brain that day in general, because other answers for other parts of the homework were things like "I want to see the world like a child, but understand it like an adult" and "Even though childhood is fun, growing up is inevitable."
Today we started a group project (as you know, my favourite thing in the world) in which we're supposed to survey 20 people each on, uh, I guess a word association thing. What image comes to mind when they hear the word -----. Well, honestly I didn't put much thought into it before class, but after reading Susan Napier's The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature, specifically the two chapters on women in pre and postwar fantasy, I suggested お母さん (polite word for Mother). Though I know now in hindsight that such a cursory "investigation" would not have yielded the kind of deep insight to the contemporary Japanese youth psyche I was looking for, I thought it might be interesting. But then after hearing all the other groups' choices (otaku, Kabuki-cho, Hard Gay etc), お母さん was decided to be "boring" and "gay" (I've always hated that use of the word). So we switched to ganguro. While I'm not particularly dissatisfied with this choice, and we've already found some interesting results, I wish people could be less predictable sometimes.
One thing that brightened my day today:
While going about surveying people on campus, others in my group told me they were always told がんばってください [ganbattekudasai] by the people they interviewed. This is a difficult to translate word/phrase, if you ask me. Originally, I was told it means something like "Good luck," but it doesn't really have anything to do with fortune. I think a more correct/literal translation is "Work hard" or "Do your best." So when I/we gaijin are told this with regard to our Japanese, it seems to emphasize the fact that we suck at Japanese, and, in my case anyway, it makes me more self-conscious and very embarrassed and feel like I'm disappointing my teachers and annoying the (Japanese) person to whom I'm speaking. (As you said, Ba, in this way at least I/we are right at home here.)
Well, I was told [ganbatte] by only 3 of the 20 people I interviewed today. Maybe it's a fluke, maybe they just forgot, or maybe it has nothing to do with anything, but... I'll take this opportunity to feel a little more positive about my Japanese than I have for the past two months now, thank you.
ぼくの無実をだれも＿＿＿＿＿＿まい。(No one will/shall/would __________ my innocence.)
The correct answer is
ぼくの無実をだれも信じるまい。(No one will/would believe my innocence.)
My answer was
ぼくの無実をだれもぬすむまい。(No one will/shall steal my innocence.)
Heh.
I seemed to have childhood on the brain that day in general, because other answers for other parts of the homework were things like "I want to see the world like a child, but understand it like an adult" and "Even though childhood is fun, growing up is inevitable."
Today we started a group project (as you know, my favourite thing in the world) in which we're supposed to survey 20 people each on, uh, I guess a word association thing. What image comes to mind when they hear the word -----. Well, honestly I didn't put much thought into it before class, but after reading Susan Napier's The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature, specifically the two chapters on women in pre and postwar fantasy, I suggested お母さん (polite word for Mother). Though I know now in hindsight that such a cursory "investigation" would not have yielded the kind of deep insight to the contemporary Japanese youth psyche I was looking for, I thought it might be interesting. But then after hearing all the other groups' choices (otaku, Kabuki-cho, Hard Gay etc), お母さん was decided to be "boring" and "gay" (I've always hated that use of the word). So we switched to ganguro. While I'm not particularly dissatisfied with this choice, and we've already found some interesting results, I wish people could be less predictable sometimes.
One thing that brightened my day today:
While going about surveying people on campus, others in my group told me they were always told がんばってください [ganbattekudasai] by the people they interviewed. This is a difficult to translate word/phrase, if you ask me. Originally, I was told it means something like "Good luck," but it doesn't really have anything to do with fortune. I think a more correct/literal translation is "Work hard" or "Do your best." So when I/we gaijin are told this with regard to our Japanese, it seems to emphasize the fact that we suck at Japanese, and, in my case anyway, it makes me more self-conscious and very embarrassed and feel like I'm disappointing my teachers and annoying the (Japanese) person to whom I'm speaking. (As you said, Ba, in this way at least I/we are right at home here.)
Well, I was told [ganbatte] by only 3 of the 20 people I interviewed today. Maybe it's a fluke, maybe they just forgot, or maybe it has nothing to do with anything, but... I'll take this opportunity to feel a little more positive about my Japanese than I have for the past two months now, thank you.
posted by Bibhatsu at 04:25
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