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Post by Bokusenou on Mar 21, 2015 7:41:30 GMT
Does anyone know if there are any specialised greetings or anything for baby showers? Is it just おめでとうございます? The Japanese group I've been going to is going to have a baby shower for one of the members either next or the month after, and they invited all the members. I've never been to a Japanese baby shower before, so that's why I'm asking. Most of the members have been in the U.S. a while, so baby showers might just be a Western thing, or a U.S. thing, and might not be something they would do if they were in Japan, but I figure better to be safe than sorry.
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Post by Jembru on Mar 21, 2015 10:23:43 GMT
Babies.. not my forte at all ^^
A baby shower is before the birth isn't it? They're not a big thing here, and while I don't know about Japan, my Japanese friend who had a baby here, didn't have a baby shower, but made a big thing of okuizome. I don't know if that's normal though, or just how her family does things.
This probably isn't exactly what you need, but there is a section in that phrasebook I got from London, for writing greetings cards and it includes greetings for the birth of a baby. Keep in mind that this book is teaching English, so it is showing the English conventions and then translating that phrase into Japanese.
・ 出産 Congratulations on the birth of your son (daughter)! 男の子(女の子)のご誕生おめでとう! Hoping your little boy (girl) grows up healthy. (赤ちゃんのご健やかな成長を祈りいたします)
I guess おめでとう is the best bet then. I think that second line would probably work as a greeting before the birth. Maybe.. So I don't imagine it would seem unnatural to just write..
妊娠おめでとう! 赤ちゃんのご健やかな成長を祈っています。
I googled 妊娠おめでとう and it seems pretty standard. There a few posts on various question sites from Japanese wondering how to reply to news that someone is pregnant, so I'm guessing there's no standard 'go-to' phrase. It seems they like to include things about the time of year like, 'take it easy in this summer heat' and so on..
Someone wanted to know what to write in a letter and this was a suggestion they got, for example..
素敵なご報告ありがとうございました! おめでとうございます。 これから夏本番、暑さに負けずお腹の赤ちゃんとの夏を楽しんでくださいね。 どうぞ、お大事にお過ごし下さい。
That might be a bit much for a card though (although come to think of it, cards I've received from Japanese friends almost always have at least one sentence besides the greeting..)
Sorry if this wasn't much help. :/
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Post by Bokusenou on Mar 22, 2015 3:34:23 GMT
Jembru Thanks Jem! That gave me some ideas. Yeah, baby showers are before the birth, and seem to mostly consist of watching the mother-to-be open presents (which are mostly baby supplies, since having a baby can be expensive), and general celebrating. Come to think of it, this is going to be my first time going to one. I don't know if it's a boy or girl, and finding gender-neutral baby supplies might be tricky. It's still early, but at least I'll have some ideas what to write on the card now!
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Post by Jembru on Apr 18, 2015 19:13:07 GMT
Can anyone explain in context, the difference in nuance between 最初に and 最初の?
I thought it was simply 'to start with/first of all' and 'the first'. This is how I've been using them anyway. Yet on lang-8, I had this sentence changed..
最初のやることは「朝の会などで、好きな話題の一分間スピーチをしてみましょう」です。 最初にやることは「朝の会などで、好きな話題の一分間スピーチをしてみましょう」です。
He used red so this makes me think that using の here was wrong. However, I wasn't intending here to say, 'First of all, I have to make a 1 minute long speech'. I wanted to say, 'the first activity (in my text book), is to make a one minute long speech'.
Does anyone know why my sentence was wrong? Was it the use of やること maybe, making it sound like it was the first action I took, rather than the first exercise in my book? I chose this wording because I wasn't sure how to say activity in the context of an exercise to be carried out during class. I say 課題 in my notes and video journals, but I'm pretty sure I'm using this out of context. I don't allow myself to look up words or check my grammar on lang-8, because I can't do these things during a conversation, so I fear it would be damaging to become too dependent on such things. Also, I discovered that I learn better when other people correct me, than I do by trying to correct myself. Maybe I have self-trust issues ^^
Still, maybe I should have gone for 課題 after all. I'll slip it into my next journal.
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Post by Bokusenou on Apr 25, 2015 17:39:42 GMT
In a nutshell, 最初の can only modify nouns, while 最初に can modify verbs, although the sentence does read like you just picked that part, instead of it being the first one in the book.
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Post by Jembru on Apr 26, 2015 17:33:32 GMT
In a nutshell, 最初の can only modify nouns, while 最初に can modify verbs, although the sentence does read like you just picked that part, instead of it being the first one in the book. Yeah, this was my guess at least. I love lang-8 but it doesn't really make up for having a teacher sometimes. Someone who will sit me down and specifically explain the difference between what I meant to say and what I actually said. For now, I might try to add an English translation to my posts to help people see what I was trying to say. I know when I'm correcting posts, Japanese can really help to clarify what they'd intended (even if sometimes I was just hoping I'd misunderstood -some people write about very odd things on there >.<). Oh but there is some hope.. I have met a guy who will actually correct me while I'm speaking! He does it nicely of course, and expects the same from us. It's so refreshing and it really helps. Often it's just little slips of the tongue, like the other day I said '口をかけた' instead of '声をかけた' and he just says the correct phrase back to me while I was speaking. I correct myself and then carry on. I'd say that's even more effective for me than having my written Japanese corrected, although I would have probably found it intimidating a year ago. I'm definitely going to keep him close by. He's a very valuable ally!
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Post by Jembru on Apr 30, 2015 19:54:55 GMT
Does メニュー refer to an item on the menu as well as the whole thing? I've met this word in a few contexts that I understood as the former. For example. In my textbook, there's a story about a woodpecker who sells sounds to other animals. One day it started to rain and the woodpecker declared, 「おとやの新しいメニューができたんですよ!」at the time, I just thought it meant he'd written a whole new menu and didn't think much more about it. However, he goes on to say that 'I'm not sure if I'll be able to offer this menu tomorrow, so I wasn't sure if I should write it at all' but look how he says this.. 「でもね、もうしかしたら、明日はできないかもしれないから、メニューに書こうか書かないか考えてたんですよ。」 'メニューに' here, suggests that he's adding something to the existing menu. It turns out that this new 'menu' was the sound of rain falling in the birch wood. Then.. I listen to JLPT listening tracks as background noise while I'm online. I don't pay attention but of course I catch bits. This conversation caught my ear so to speak.. youtu.be/QsqZ9k3dZ-s?t=34m36sIf I hadn't met this use in the textbook, I would have said they were talking about menus in general. 'I wish they'd make more menus with options for girls'. But the male speaker says 'it can't be helped, there aren't so many girls at this uni'. So she's complaining about that particular dining hall's menu. So.. when they say 'menu' surely they mean. 'item's on the menu'. Regardless of how you understood this, I guess you'd still get the answer right, but I'm just curious to know if my hunch is right? I'm pretty certain, but not entirely.. Oh now I think of it, there was an episode of 'kotobadoriru' on NHK for schools that maybe hinted at this usage. There is only one item on a piece of card (badly written in kana), and the customer yells 'look at this menu.. what's this meant to mean?'. You could argue that he was calling the card the menu, but he might also have been referring to the item. It's impossible to know in that context though.
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Post by chocopie on May 1, 2015 8:29:48 GMT
I suppose you could think about 女子向けメニュー as being a sub-menu of the main menu, like if someone said デザートメニュ-増やして欲しいな~!But I guess at the same time, the lack of plural means that even a single dish could be considered a menu? I've heard it used like your woodpecker example before so just bear it in mind!
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Post by Jembru on May 1, 2015 8:43:54 GMT
I suppose you could think about 女子向けメニュー as being a sub-menu of the main menu, like if someone said デザートメニュ-増やして欲しいな~!But I guess at the same time, the lack of plural means that even a single dish could be considered a menu? I've heard it used like your woodpecker example before so just bear it in mind! You know, I never even considered that it could be a larger menu with sections like starters and desserts. In my head I was just imagining a single piece of laminated A4! So now there's 3 possible meanings. Gaaahh.. The lack of a plural can be a right pain sometimes. It's possible that I've missed something in the woodpecker story of course (I wish I still had a scanner), but he definitely appears to be talking about just that one thing. If I remember to, I'll try to ask a native speaker about this. I can't imagine it's something that would come up in conversation very often though. It's just a weird coincidence that I came by this use (potentially) twice in a short period of time.
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Post by chocopie on May 11, 2015 12:12:30 GMT
I have a quick question.. I've come by a use of 一応 that I haven't seen before. I'm familiar with the use of this word to mean the speaker is making a tentative statement, showing hesitation or they know what they're about to say might sound boastful so are using it like fake humility, a softer for the whopper of a boast that's about to come out of their mouth. But what then, is it doing here.. その当時はもう、日本で一応すでに働いてましたか、それとも学生さんでしたか The speaker isn't a native speaker, and he does have a tendency to word things awkwardly, so it's possible it is just an out right mistake, but if not, I'd really like to know what this 一応 is doing there. I know this was a while ago but I found a Maggie sensei post on this maggiesensei.com/2012/06/12/request-lesson-howwhen-to-use-%E4%B8%80%E5%BF%9C-ichiou/and the usage you came across still doesn't make sense to me. I wonder if he was using it as a kind of filler word?
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Post by Jembru on May 11, 2015 14:46:43 GMT
I have a quick question.. I've come by a use of 一応 that I haven't seen before. I'm familiar with the use of this word to mean the speaker is making a tentative statement, showing hesitation or they know what they're about to say might sound boastful so are using it like fake humility, a softer for the whopper of a boast that's about to come out of their mouth. But what then, is it doing here.. その当時はもう、日本で一応すでに働いてましたか、それとも学生さんでしたか The speaker isn't a native speaker, and he does have a tendency to word things awkwardly, so it's possible it is just an out right mistake, but if not, I'd really like to know what this 一応 is doing there. I know this was a while ago but I found a Maggie sensei post on this maggiesensei.com/2012/06/12/request-lesson-howwhen-to-use-%E4%B8%80%E5%BF%9C-ichiou/and the usage you came across still doesn't make sense to me. I wonder if he was using it as a kind of filler word? Thanks for coming back to this! I always try to keep unresolved questions in the back of mind, although these days there are too many to keep track of. I guess so long as I keep on wading around in Japanese, they usually come back sooner or later when I meet the issue again. I thought I'd make a little sound bite of the track for you. I've recorded the sentences either side of the sentence in question to throw a bit of context in. I personally don't feel his tone implies filler, but maybe you'll feel differently.. soundcloud.com/jembru/audio-recording-on-mondayOn the basis of the aspects of Japanese I'm confident with, I am aware that Steve's Japanese is incomplete, so I think on this occasion he committed that most heinous of crimes and made a slight error in his speech. ^^ Jokes aside though, he has amazing skills and is fluent in several languages, so we can forgive his lack of more native-like knowledge. When I am studying from dialogues he appears in, I am careful not to attempt to pick up new language from him just in case it is wrong, but he is an excellent example of the strategies good learners use in order to achieve fluency with somewhat limited vocabulary and grammar (although don't get me wrong, he has a damned impressive vocabulary still). I've made note of and started to copy quite a few of his tricks in fact, and they do seem to have improved my ability to feign fluency! If we were still doing articles here, it's something I'd have liked to collect together into an article in fact. Not that I have much time for writing at the moment.. unfortunately
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Post by chocopie on May 21, 2015 12:36:29 GMT
JembruI had a listen! Maybe I'm overthinking it, but he kind of drags out the end of 一応 and then says すでに so maybe he said 一応 but then changed his mind to say すでに?
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Post by Jembru on May 22, 2015 20:58:54 GMT
JembruI had a listen! Maybe I'm overthinking it, but he kind of drags out the end of 一応 and then says すでに so maybe he said 一応 but then changed his mind to say すでに? Could be. The dragging out thing is very much a speaking style for him too though, so it's really hard to tell. Sometimes they leave out mistakes in the transcript and write a more corrected version, but other times they leave them in so it's exactly as spoken. I have another question actually. It's something that appears in one of the dialogues in 'Shadowing'. I tried to ignore it and wait for it to appear again in another context but it hasn't and it makes me feel uncomfortable and frustrated whenever I hear the track. It's Unit 2, section 2, dialogue 19. A : テストにやまかけたら、まったくはずされちゃったんだ。 They translate this as 'I was so confident I'd do well on the test, but it was on a totally different area.' What is this ’やまかける’ and why is ’たら’ translated as 'but' in this context? I have a storybook that I read and I'm not allowed to look things up. It's hard, but I just force myself to keep reading and guess the meanings of unfamiliar things from context, even if they're wrong. If I can't guess, I just ignore it and hope it's not important. It's an attempt to get me out of the habit of constantly worrying about understanding every last thing. With this dialogue though, I can't just ignore it. It's really, really grating on me that I can't find this expression anywhere. Help!
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Post by chocopie on May 25, 2015 14:12:40 GMT
You'll find やまかける under やまをかける. You were so close! It means to take a chance/gamble. In the context of a test, I guess the person didn't do much revision, or only revised one part and hoped that would come up. From goo辞書 (where else would I look it up!) 万が一の幸運をねらって物事をする。そうなるであろうと予想して準備する。山を張る。「試験問題に―・ける」 For a bit of variety, here's weblio's page on it. I assume the translation of たら as 'but' is just to make it sound like more natural English.
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Post by Jembru on May 30, 2015 19:35:21 GMT
Thanks for that chocopie. See, if I'd just tried to guess the meaning from the translation, I think I'd have got the wrong end of the stick. I know translation isn't an exact science and there will always be differing opinions about how best to translate a sentence. You just have to go with your gut sometimes and write what you personally feel you'd say if you were trying to express the same thoughts as the speaker/writier. Still, I sometimes feel like the person translating that book skips details that I feel were fairly integral to what the speaker was expressing. It's fine when I already understand what the person is saying (for this I owe so much to Jpod101 for how many idiomatic and casual expressions they threw into their dialogues), but when I need to look things up for myself, it can start getting confusing. Is it that the translator knows a nuance that isn't coming up in dictionaries, or has he just not bothered translating properly.
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