ダメよ～ダメダメ (dame yo! dame dame~)

This one is trending right now, I was told today.  The language itself isn't anything special; it's just a way of saying "That's no good" or "You can't do that," things of the like.  My friends tell me that what stands out about this clip is the tone and pitch of the speaker.

 
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Update (July 10, 2015)
Unfortunately, You Tube took off the above video, I imagine for copyright reasons.  But people have been filling in the void with other clips.  Below are a duo who use the original audio recording and mime along with it:




I was surprised to find a bunch of SNSD videos dedicated to this phrase. Their Japanese has gotten so good. . .I'm jealous.


aa

今でしょ！Ima desho!!

This was a popular phrase from last year. (But I think that its message is pretty much timeless.)


My friends tell me that I should say it without the final -u (ーう) that you usually see in deshou.  It gives it a more abrupt stop and sense of, I don't know, urgency maybe.

今でしょ！(Ima desho!!) = The time is now!  Now's the time!

And another interpretation is "Right now."  I liked these little clips.  Homemade imitations of commercials. 




And this one was pretty funny.  I don't know why so many of these "Ima desho" videos have kids in them.
"When you gonna study?"  
"We're studying now, man!"




 The "right now" translations reminded me of this Van Hagar classic.  Amazingly, it's now over twenty years old.   I really like a lot of the Van Halen catalogue, but this one was one of my least favorite of their singles.  I'm listening to it now to see if I have a different reaction than I did back then, since that sort of thing can happen.

Love Is an Open Door (Japanese version)

As is the case in many corners of the internet, lip-syncing Frozen songs has become a widespread meme in Japan.  This is my favorite one.

I hope the kanji, romaji, and English lyrics are arranged in an easy-enough-to-read way. I've tried to arrange them by verse and chorus.  

A lot of the lyrics aren't direct translations, I should mention.  For example, the "Oshiete yo" at the beginning of verse 2 doesn't translate to Han's line "I mean it's crazy. . ."  I think that in general, when movie themes are redone in Japanese, the gist of the lyrics' meaning is kept intact, with some or much artistic license taken.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=umDteq-g7XE

Lyrics in kanji / kana and below that, romaji
(from http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/frozen/articles/231661/title/love-open-door-japanese-lyrics-kanji-romaji-english-translation):


ねえ、ちょっとおかしなこと言ってもいい？
そういうの大好きだ！
nee, chotto okashi na koto ittemo ii?
souiu no daisuki da!  
[Anna:] Okay, can I just, say something crazy?  
[Hans:] I love crazy!
 
どこにも出口のない日々が
突然に変わりそう
変わる（君と出会えて）すべてが
初めてのときめきだわ（初めてのときめきだよ）
僕も同じこと考えてた！だって
どこにも居場所のない日々で
探し続けていたこんな人を
dokonimo deguchi no nai hibi ga
totsuzen ni kawarisou
boku mo onaji koto kangaeteta! datte,
dokonimo ibasho no nai hibi de
sagashi tsudzuketeita konna hito wo
kawaru (kimi to deaete) subete ga
hajimete no tokimeki da wa (hajimete no tokimeki da yo) 
[Anna:] All my life has been a series of doors in my face
And then suddenly I bump into you [Hans:]  I was thinking the same thing! 'Cause like
I've been searching my whole life to find my own place
And maybe it's the party talking or the chocolate fondue [Anna:] [giggles] [Anna:] But with you... [Hans:] But with you [Hans:] I found my place... [Anna:] I see your face... [Both:] And it's nothing like I've ever known before!


二人だから
とびら開けて
飛び出せるよ
今（今）もう（もう）
二人だから
futari dakara
tobira akete
tobidaseru yo
ima (ima) mou (mou)
futari dakara 
Love is an open door!
Love is an open door!
Love is an open door! [Anna:] With you! [Hans:] With you! [Anna:] With you! [Hans:] With you! [Both:] Love is an open door...


教えてよ
え？
なにが好きか？
サンドイッチ
僕と同じじゃないか
私たちはよく似てるね
あ！またそろった！
考えてること
感じていること
そう（本当）に
似てるね
oshiete te yo
e?
nani ga suki ka?
sandoicchi
boku to onaji janai ka!
watashitachi ha yoku niteru ne
a! mata sorotta!
kangaeteru koto
kanjiteiru koto
sou (hontou) ni
niteru ne  
[Hans:] I mean it's crazy...  
[Anna:] What?  
[Hans:] We finish each other's-  
[Anna:] Sandwiches!  
[Hans:] That's what I was gonna say! 
 [Anna:] I've never met someone-  
[Both:]Who thinks so much like me!
Jinx! Jinx again!
Our mental synchronization
Can have but one explanation  
[Hans:] You-  
[Anna:] And I-  
[Hans:] Were-  
[Anna:] Just- 
 [Both:] Meant to be!


ひとり（ひとり）寂しい日々に
もうお別れしよう
hitori (hitori) sabishii hibi ni
mou owakareshiyou
[Anna:] Say goodbye... [Hans:] Say goodbye... [Both:] To the pain of the past
We don't have to feel it anymore!


二人だから
とびら開けて
飛び出せるよ
今（今）もう（もう）
二人だから
futari dakara
tobira akete
tobidaseru yo
ima (ima) mou (mou)
futari dakara 
Love is an open door!
Love is an open door!
Love is an open door!
[Anna:] With you! [Hans:] With you! [Anna:] With you! [Hans:] With you! [Both:] Love is an open door...

If you'd like to hear the original English version, this is one of many links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6nnoWgbdvg

-------------------------------------------------------------------
It's one week later, and this video's gotten some serious views. . .
Someone wrote a short article about it.

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2014/06/04/schoolgirls-frozen-lip-sync-is-hilarious-terrifying/

follow up on pinchi (ピンチ)

Just a follow up on　ピンチ--

As was noted in the entry for yabai, ピンチだ！ can be used for "I'm in a pinch" / "I'm in trouble."  Additionally there's 
ピンチに立つ　( ピンチにたつ )

ピンチ is also the word for clothespin.


And of course, ピンチヒッター is pinch hitter.  For the movie The Sitter, when they renamed it for the Japanese market, they did a play on words, Pinch Sitter ( ピンチシッター ).

        

from "I'm in trouble" to "Oh, this is so good!!"...やばい!!!

Yabai (やばい) has been evolving over the past decade.  Formerly, it was an exclamation of distress, along the lines of "Oh, no," "I'm in trouble," "I'm f*cked."  A short while ago, I was sitting next to one of my fellow teachers when realized that she didn't have enough classes before exam week to finish teaching all of the content she needed to cover for the tests.  She cried out, "Pinchi (ピンチ)だ!", short for "I'm in a pinch"--which, of course, who really says that?  I wanted to make sure I understood exactly what she was saying, so I asked her, "Do you mean it like, 'I'm in a pinch?'" and she said yes; she's quite tolerant of  my language questions, and always helpful, God bless her.  She went on to say that younger people would probably say やばい instead.

While the original meaning of yabai still stands, it seems to be used just as often now to denote very positive feelings about something or someone.  The first time I heard it used in this way was at a summer camp.  As we walked back from the campfire to the hotel (but yes, we still call it a camp), an infinite multitude of stars shone above us, and students screamed out to the sky "Yabai kirei!"  Later that year, I recall hearing it at a concert.  Velvet Revolver was performing (co-headlining a show with Marilyn Manson, which looking back is a pretty amazing occurrence) and some girls next to me, drooling over a topless Scott Weiland, kept saying "Yabai!  Yabai kakko ii!" throughout the show.

Really, though, I think it feels quite similar to an "OMG" in English.  Or how, when experiencing or witnessing something overwhelmingly good, we might comment that we're done for.  Or we might say we're in trouble when we find someone attractive to an extreme degree.  There's something viscerally expressive in this word.

Honestly, I'm not trying to promote this music, but here are a couple of examples of yabai's usage.  The first is a song entitled "Yabai," performed by the boy-group Arashi.  The guy pictured in the video is Jun Matsumoto, perhaps most well-known for his portrayal of Tsukasa Domyouji in Hana Yori Dango.


                           

and this is a Morning Musume video.  The caption under the video,

かっこよすぎてヤバい!

is another usage, stating that something is too cool.  To tell the truth, I was surprised at the heaviness of the guitars at the start of this clip.  It wasn't what I expected from Morning Musume. 


      





 In the caption under this one, you can see another way to use the word.

. . .キレイ過ぎてヤバいｗｗｗ 

by which the writer means that the actress, Kyoko Fukada, is just too pretty (!).

 

No new information in this video, but I liked it because she's going through the time and effort of posting herself dancing on You Tube, at the same time wearing a mask.  I had to smile at that.

.

            

suru (する) verbs, part 5

bunkatsu suru, 分割 (ぶんかつ) する--to divide, split

I thought this was a pretty cool example.  I'd never seen them separate the train cars before.  The splitting up starts at about 2 minutes into the video.




In the video below, someone is showing us how to split a PDF file.

I just think it's nice that people go through the trouble of videoing and posting stuff like this, which I'm sure is helpful to some.
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bunseki suru, 分析 (ぶんせき) する--to analyze, break down



 

To tell the truth, I have no idea what he's talking about--I watched for about 20 seconds and moved on.  But even without comprehending his presentation,  I thought that the visual alone might help in remembering this word.

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  chikoku suru, 遅刻 (ちこく)　する--to be late, tardy


This one just made me laugh. Gorilla Man is definitely running behind schedule. . .

"Baigaeshi!"

This was from last year's TV show, Hanzawa Naoki, the story of a good man trying to survive a corrupt banking world.  I only got around to watching it this year when it reached the internet with English subtitles.  I liked it quite a lot.

The series protagonist is not to be messed with.  His warning to people, his philosophy in business and in life, is embodied in the line "Yararetara yarikaesu. . .Baigaeshi da!"  (やられたらやり返す 倍返しだ!)　　Yararetara is in the passive voice, so some of my friends' and students' attempts at direct translation come out something like "If it is done to you, do it back--double payback!"  A slightly less direct  translation would be "If someone screws you, give double the payback." Or if you want to go higher than double--Hanzawa Naoki goes up to jyuu at some point--then something like "If someone screws you, screw 'em back ten-fold.")

-bai (倍) is the suffix for times, as in nibai (二倍, 2 times), sanbai (三倍, 3 times), etc.    If you just say baigaeshi, it's apparently presumed to mean double the payback.  If you want to go higher, then you have to put a number, e.g. san (三), go (五), jyuu (十), etc. before the baigaeshi.

At the end of this video Naoki H. delivers the line:



This is a trailer.




 And this is a website where you can watch it with English subtitles.  To be honest, I don't think that the translators are native English speakers, but I'm not complaining--they did a good enough job that I could easily keep up with the story.

http://www.drama.net/hanzawa-naoki-episode-1

よろびこ (yorobiko)

I don't think this is officially a word yet, and it may never be. . .I recently learned it from one of my high school students.  よろびこ (yorobiko) is a mutation of よろしく (yoroshiku) よろしくおねがいします (yoroshiku onegai shimasu).  It's one of those words that, right now, maybe only high school students would know.

When I mentioned this to other adults, they recalled that around ten years ago, よろぴく (yoropiku) was the word of the day.  Just a cute alteration of the very-important yoroshiku, I guess.  These adults tell me that yoropiku is "so old."

One of my fellow colleagues at school, when she heard me asking about yorobiko, looked on with some disdain.  I think it's an understatement to say that not everyone here likes the morphing of words and phrases that the younger generation is into.  Personally, though, I find it a bit impressive for its creativity.  As with many things in Japanese culture, the creativity manifests in doing new things with old things.

A couple of links of people using it on their blogs.  (I wanted to check around to make sure that it wasn't only my student using this expression. . .)

http://ameblo.jp/1818abc-0822/entry-11374083579.html

http://now.ameba.jp/gaobaba/1478576234/

procrastinate

Today the new school year started in Japan.  In my two jobs, though, classes don't actually begin for a few days.  I went to one of the campuses, though, hoping to make all of the handouts and mentally run through what the first day of school would be. . .But it was hard.  After spending three weeks in Hawai'i, I'm not in a Tokyo state of mind.  I spent a lot of time today wandering about, having pleasant conversations that put off getting to work.  Just a little before 2pm my friend told me that the Japanese word for procrastinate is hikinobasu. 

vocabulary of cherry blossoms

Anyone who spends a spring in Japan surely learns sakura, the word for cherry blossoms; and hanami  (or ohanami, more formally), which is defined as a "cherry blossom-viewing party."  I suppose it would be as accurate to define the hanami as a picnic under the blossoms, often a drunken gathering, for many.  The best time is when the cherry blossoms are mankai (満開, まんかい）, or in full bloom.

During my first year here, a good friend (a New Yorker and fellow Beastie Boy listener) once likened cherry blossom season in Japan to Christmas back home, at least in its effect on our temperaments.  People are friendly and sociable even to strangers, and the spirit of the season seems to prompt the expectation of this phenomenon.  The air warms, and so do we.  And people are generous; more than once have I been offered and given free drinks, beer and chu-hai mostly, by fellow hanami-ers who happen to be sitting next to me on the glorious earth under trees topped by an illuminated white canopy.  The giving inspires giving, and before long we find ourselves sharing and talking and laughing.  Whenever gusts of wind blow the petals into a shower falling on us, we let out Oohs and Aahs, as mesmerized by this vision of spring as we would be by any winter snowfall.

The sakura, I've been told, is symbolic of the fleeting essence of life and its beauty, something to be enjoyed and, ideally, grasped for what it is while it remains with us, a temporal wonder.  Sakura and Sakurako are popular names for girls.

Most of these pictures were taken at Yoyogi Park (Yoyogi Kooen, 代々木公園).

 

 

 

The majority of eople in Japan, in my experience, are really good about not littering

 

 

Lastly, a music video by Morning Musume with today's vocabulary.  Honestly not the kind of music I usually listen to, but there are obviously people who like it.  For those not yet indoctrinated in the world of Jpop, Morning Musume was a sort of precursor to today's AKB groups, over a decade ago.
                       

suru (する) verbs, part 4

bougai suru (妨害する、ぼうがいする)= to barricade, disturb

In the two videos below, this verb is being used to describe people who get in the way of emergency vehicles.




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boushi suru (防止する、ぼうしする) = to prevent, keep in check

 And the speaker in this video shows us how he prevents dehydration in his wonderful bird


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boshuu suru ( 募集する、ぼしゅうする) = to recruit, collect

And this is a recruiting video for the group Morning Musume.  It's not my kind of music, but culturally I think they deserve recognition as being the precursor to AKB and all of its offshoots.