∧＿∧ In this thread, you can talk English with each other.
( ・ω・) Let's drink tea together and chat about this and that.
（つ旦0 Ramble, communicate, have fun!
と＿)__) The native speakers will bring the cookies.
I decided I would make it a point to preview
what was going to come up in class.
Until now, I've never done it, and
I've found it'll turn out to be tough to follow
my lecturer if I don't do it, because the amount of study things
I struggle amazingly increased recently.
100 pages of text books are killing me.
Previewing might not hurt, but rather be helpful.
how old are you?
And what are you studing now?
What kind of cookies would you like?
>>4
Not too sweet
and not too thin
nor too thick
are most of the people here students?
>>2
That's not a bad idea. It can help if you work things out for yourself, and try to stay interested in what you're learning.
I think I'd be too lazy to preview things unless I was really having trouble with them, though.
It's sad that this thread has died so quickly, it could have been really something.
Do the Japanese users hear rather talk in the Giko Bar or another place instead?
I downloaded My finest hour, an RPG.
The game is very picturesque, beautiful, magnificent.
But the problem is, the system is too complicated to understand.
My characters can't level up even though they earned
the experience points needed to progress,
and I don't know why. So it's sad but I gave up this game.
How can I beat my opponent if I can't level up?
>>9
The Giko Bar is one of the 2ch AAs?
First I didn't get what that is, though.
>>9
Yeah, they have the chatter/monologue threads on 2ch.
That's one reason somo of them can't be bothered
to post here, I think.
But more important is it that most of them don't know about
4ch. We must advertise it.
Anyway, here's what I have in mind:
the number of people here is very limited,
so if there comes a new comer, he's not here to stay
because of sluggishness, which leads to fewer people
coming here.
If you allow me to talk about my case, I came here
because a Germany person named Anonymous built a thread
and introduced 4ch. The thread is very deserted now, though.
So if we make a great effort to ask more people to come here,
here they'll come. We need to put our minds to get 4ch popular.
As a result, this thread will be full of people.
for me it's a rather hard to concentrate on studies. I always excurse on another stuff. internet, etc. That's why im permanent loser
let me neet♪
don't worry >>13! we're all permanent losers on the internet!! let us embrace each other as brothers!1
I'm home.
Sorry to have kept you waiting for me.
So where did you all know about 4ch, anyway?
>>16
I learned through 4-ch.net by browsing WAKAchan.org
I am also the Anonymous who started those two threads on the 2ch ENGLISH ita.
>>17
Hi, Anonymous san.
Nice to talk to you here.
So you knew about 2ch after you stumbled on 4ch, right?
But I wonder how Squeek san found 2ch before creating 4ch.
Unless I'm mistaken, Japan Times, a kind of newspaper
published in Japan and also written in English, said
2ch was the most famous BBS in Japan
(I'm sure the 2ch ENGLISH ita was mentioned in the
article a time or two). So if the founder of 4ch read it,
there was no wonder he had a look at 2ch and was inspired,
though.
Haven't any overseas news media brought up the subject
about 2ch by now, have they?
Here, the article I mentioned is just a click away.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nc20030213mr.htm
If you're interested, I recommend to you to read it.
>>18
> So you knew about 2ch after you stumbled on 4ch, right?
No, I knew about 2ch before. Don't know from where, though. I guess it's just a site you neccessarily come across after you get interested in the Japanese part of the internet, yknow?
> Haven't any overseas news media brought up the subject
about 2ch by now, have they?
Well, there are at least these few articles:
http://4-ch.net/nihongo/kareha.pl/1104174791/8
A lot of people probably know 2ch this way:
4chan.net got very popular, as an english version of futaba channel. (Although there's a lot of english image boards now.) The community has always been quite interested in weird things from futaba, and eventually learnt some things about 2ch as well.
Maybe it's backwards to do it that way? 2ch is massive and fascinating, but images don't rely so much on language...
>>20
Yeah, I know what you mean.
You searched for some information and found some 2ch message
system dealt with it like I did before, I guess.
And I didn't know the articles was uploaded except for
Japan Times. Maybe there was someone interested in 2ch
by reading one of the online media.
>>21
>images don't rely so much on language...
(・∀・）＜I'll say!
Im get interested in 2ch after seeing Kikkoman flash. I download few more (chinko_onesan, etc) and found link to 2ch.
>>21
I am inclined to agree. Usually, the first thing a westerner notices about 2ch is some flash.
This kinda spreads after this happens initially, especially through popular weblogs (for instance: http://www.blogjam.com/2003/05/20/mona/).
>>12
Sorry for taking so long to reply to your points.
I think 4-ch will benefit of its users advertising it in any form.
However, I also think that 4-ch is too small right now and doesn't get enough contributions in order to make those people who would visit 4-ch once because of us advertising it stay for a longer time.
Thus I think it would be best if we started some little activity in here ourselves and keep the pace of posting and contributing up on a level that will keep users who check the site for the first time interested enough to come back for a second and third time.
With this in mind, I encourage you and everybody else to keep posting or start posting on 4-ch, not only here on the Japanese board but also on the other boards. Look around, and if there's anything catching your interest, don't hesistate to participate. 4-ch is free for all (as long as you abide by the rules) and the more people get this thing going and lively, the better.
I suggest we know what we have in common, I mean,
it's better to talk about some theme, so that the thread
is running.
> what we have in common
we're all posting on 4-ch~ ( ﾟｰﾟ)b
So you mean you want to talk about 4ch itself?
>>26
I am a young man.
>>29
By that you mean Sighjoh Hideki?
He's not so young that he can call himself young, though.
The suggestion that most English users hear of 2ch from 4chan is right. I first wanted to visit 2ch when I saw a Flash entitled "typewriter.swf" and thought it was funny even though I couldn't figure it out. It ended up being a musical about a 2ch poster getting angrier and angrier at someone who's every reply ended by including Mona with a huge set of balls. I still wish I could find what music was in that.
found 2ch when my website got linked on a 2ch thread and got over 150 users from japan in a day (up from around 10 users a day). Following back the HTTP_REFERER brought me to 2ch.
>>32
I guess your site attracted 2ch'ers because there's something about it. I'm interested in it, too.
What does your site deal with?
I'm a big evangelion fan.
Does anyone like evangelion fan?
You mean a kind of Japanese manga, right?
>>32
That's strange. AFAIK, 2ch has an automatic dereferer thing enabled for all the links posted in the forums.
Yeah, I get referrers from ime.nu on my website, not 2ch
okay, testing, one, two, three.
>>38
Oh, hi!
I'm the one who asked you to visit this board.
I'm glad you've come along!
>>38
Oh, hi!
I'm the one who asked you to visit this board.
I'm glad you've come along!
Oops, sorry.
I mistakenly posted two times.
So how many years have you been learning Japanese?
I thought you said you're Chinese.
And I studied Chinese a little before, though I found it
too complicated for me to master the language.
As a matter of fact, all I remember now is 我是学生.:)
加油 came to mind.
It is hooray or cheer up in English, right?
Oh, man, sorry. I totally forgot about this window. Maybe we can chat again some other day?
>>42 I've been learning Japanese for about two and a half years now. My teacher says I have the potential to learn the language easily but I have to spend more time practicing. Yes, I was born in China.
Yeah, one of the biggest reasons why I gave up on continuing my Chinese education was that the language just seemed too hard. I travelled a lot during my childhood and never had the opportunity to gain foundation studies in any language. Up to this point in my life, I've spent most of my years in Canada so I just picked up English as my primary language. "我是学生." means "I'm a student." right?
>>43 "加油"... I have no idea what that means. I can speak a bit of my province's dialect of Mandarin to communicate with my parents. I speak a tiny bit of standard Mandarin. I can understand most of my province's Mandarin and standard Mandarin. I can pick up a few lines of Cantonese after listening to my friends. And my writing and reading of Chinese in general is horrible.
Sure. why not?
Let's just take it easy.
Hope you come along again.
>>45
Is your teacher a native Japanese speaker?
If not, we'll be glad to help you when you come across difficult words or slangs you don't understand. Feel free to post them on the "Japanese online idioms" thread.
>>47 Yes, he has spent four to five years teaching English in Japan before teaching foreign languages in Canada.
>>48
I found it intriguing that Canada accomodates Japanese teachers because it's an English-speaking nation. I heard a joke before: People who speak two languages are called bilingual. People who speak three languages are trilingual. People who speak only one language are American.
I'm no racist at all, but the fact that almost all native English speakers who teach their language in Japan don't speak Japanese has made me think English-speaking people weren't bothered to learn another language, but it seems I'm a bit wrong. I hope your efforts bear fruits in the future.
About 加油, by the way, I may have seen the expression on banners when Chinese people assembled in a sports stadium and tried to cheer up their team. So I guessed it was like 頑張れ in Japanese.
Um, let me cancel "almost all"-I did a lot of generalizing-I put some of them instead. Sorry about that.
Japanese language is too hard to learn :(
That's why only few non-japanese people want to learn it...
I know what you mean. Actually, most Japanese people feel the same way as when learning English.
That being said, are you a learner of Japanese language?
I wonder if Japanese people think that learning languages like German, French or other Indogermanic languages is as difficult as learning English.
What do you mean?
German language is easier to learn?
Well, I guess not.
Learning to pronounce German should be a lot easier for Japanese people than learning to pronounce English, at least. English pronounciation is completely crazy.
On the other hand, though, does German language define every noun as male or femail, doesn't it? It seems crazy. I couldn't guess whether the Internet is male or femail, for example..
"We're" is sometimes pronunced as "W're", isn't it?
Where does the E sound go? Why do Americans pronunce "we'll" as "w'll"? It sure is crazy..
>>57
The E sound changes into a "schwa" when unstressed in American English. So the sound is still there, it's just changed because of stress. In "we're" the schwa is merged with the R after it to produce the rhotacized schwa "er" sound found in English and Mandarin Chinese. The same stress change is true for "we'll" which actually changes to something like "will", a mid-back vowel like schwa.
As you can see, stress change is very important in American English, especially when compared to British varieties. In British varieties the change from stressed to unstressed vowel doesn't usually change the vowel, but in American English it usually does.
>>56
Der Internet is masculine. Google gives 66,500,000 hits for "der Internet" and only 35,600,000 hits for neuter "das Internet". I can't search for feminine "die Internet" because it returns too many results in English, Afrikaans, and Dutch.
Learning English grammar is easier than German grammar. Learning English pronunciation is harder than German because English has many, many more vowels.
> Der Internet is masculine. Google gives 66,500,000 hits for "der Internet" and only 35,600,000 hits for neuter "das Internet".
You shouldn't trust Google on this. "Das Internet" is neuter in German. Your higher results for "der" can only be explained by flection in case of a combination of words in which the stem word defines the gender. Example:
"Kabel Deutschland erhöht Bandbreite der Internet-Anschlüsse"
This sentence talks about the numbers of internet accesses in Germany. Because of the plural of "Anschluß" and is in the genetive case, thus the article is "der".
"Internet" has a masculine gender in French (according to www.granddictionnaire.com/).
Also masculine in Italian (according to it.wordreference.com/).
And female in Spanish (es.wordreference.com/).
>>58-60
You guys are great language experts.About English pronunciation, then, "we're" sounds like "wer" in a way. Think schwa must be the key to improving one's pronunciation. Is there any other example you think is caracteristic of American English pronunciation? When I watch American TV dramas such as 24 or Baffy, I sometimes find Sutherland/Nicholas Brendon mumbling and miss what they say. I'm curious to know what you think about it.
Don't worry too much about various accents, it's not very important.
Always remember to put "" around your searching terms in Google:
Without ""
der internet の検索結果 約 33,700,000 件中 1 - 10 件目 (0.05 秒)
http://www.google.co.jp/search?hl=ja&q=der+internet&btnG=Google+%E6%A4%9C%E7%B4%A2&lr=
das internet の検索結果 約 27,500,000 件中 1 - 10 件目 (0.03 秒)
http://www.google.co.jp/search?hl=ja&q=das+internet&btnG=Google+%E6%A4%9C%E7%B4%A2&lr=
With ""
"der internet" の検索結果 約 765,000 件中 1 - 10 件目 (0.23 秒)
http://www.google.co.jp/search?hl=ja&q=%22der+internet%22&btnG=Google+%E6%A4%9C%E7%B4%A2&lr=
"das internet" の検索結果 約 2,470,000 件中 1 - 10 件目 (0.24 秒)
http://www.google.co.jp/search?hl=ja&q=%22das+internet%22&btnG=Google+%E6%A4%9C%E7%B4%A2&lr=
Concerning pronunciation, some Japanese webmasters (greatly famous among English learners in Japan) emphasized importance of English pronunciation, saying, "if you can't pronunce English correctly, then you'll face the deadlock in learning the language or can't listen to it" or something like that. And I find it somewhat true because unlike the languages in Europe, Japanese pronunciation is far from that of English, especially American. Even "for here or to go" can't be correctly listened to by most Japanese people. One reason is because of what they call reductions/assimilations. It's hard for us to get the hang of them. That's why the web administrators urges/encourages us to stick to the pronunciation. We need to practice, practice, practice not only to pronunce well but also to listen well. By the way, though, I don't need to worry about it on the Internet since we can communicate with alphabet.
Doesn't Buffy come with subtitles or something?
For example in the UK when one watches TV one can turn on subtitles. What's spoken is at the same time written as text on screen. Very helpful to connect the spoken sentence to the written word.
Or, in Holland most English shows are left in English and there are Dutch subtitles. Not as good a learning tool as the UK's one but still useful to connect the meaning to the spoken sentence.
In Japan I heard that most English movies are subtitled rather than dubbed. You have there an invaluable tool to learn the foreign language. Even if you don't pay attention there is a learning process at work here. I have been watching anime subtitled since two years and there are a lot of words and sentences that I have memorized thanks to that.
>Doesn't Buffy come with subtitles or something?
Yes, it does. Both subtitles and dubbed Japanese are available. But the subtitles and what's spoken isn't always matched, I'm sorry. What you said is convincing and I don't disagree with you, but I guess there's a difference between English learners in Japan and those who learn Japanese language. When many of us Japanese listen to English, the language sometimes sounds like &%@*;][;>\$#. What do they pronunce? Things like that happen to even somewhat exprienced learners.
>Very helpful to connect the spoken sentence to the written word.
BTW, if an English show without subtitles are broadcast in the UK, do they make out what's spoken in the program because of the broadcasters' pronunciation?
>What do they pronunce?
You mean "what accent do they have"? That depends where they are from.
As for the "for here or to go" is so often said that some will say it as one word. It may sound like "for here [] to go" or "forheretogo". It becomes a word in itself. No need anymore to try to split the sentence into words. Just memorize the "forheretogo" sound and it's meaning, I would say.
I once learned a language without learning the words. I just memorized the full sentences people were saying and asked for the meanings. Soon I was able to speak fluently with the natives. Sometimes I would even be mistaken for a native! (but not for long, only at a first contact). I never studied any grammar for that language.
>if an English show without subtitles are broadcast in the UK, do they make out what's spoken in the program because of the broadcasters' pronunciation?
I don't understand the question. Who is "they"? The viewers? The viewers are supposed to know English.
>67
> It becomes a word in itself.
>Just memorize the "forheretogo" sound and it's meaning
That's it. But it's hard to understand where the "or" goes...This is a mistery to us.
>in the UK when one watches TV one can turn on subtitles
I meant the viewers. I thought they were not always used to other's pronunciation or accents. So they need subtitles. What do they turn on subtitles for, then?
The subtitles are there for the deaf people.
In addition to the subtitled dialog you get also information that deaf people would not hear. For example "(Music starts playing in the background)".
How do they do in Japan for the deaf people?
>>69
I see. And I'm afraid most of the TV programs in Japan, as far as I know, doesn't subtitle what's spoken. Besides, if subtitles are usable, you might need a customised TV set if you want them, though audible explanations are available on usual sets. And it's my fault but what I said about Buffy applies to a situation where one watches DVDs, not where he watches TV dramas (I mean if Buffy was broadcast on TV, I wouldn't turn on subtitles, because my TV set is not customised). Just to clarify, TV stations broadcast either dubbed or subtitled overseas movies (in prime hours, Japanese-dubbed movies are major), but we can't get both of them at once.
It's very interesting to know how different things are from a nation to another. Thanks you and sorry my English is hard to understand. I appreciate your gentle attitude toward me.
I think I just remembered, "加油" means to give it all you've got. I think it means "ganbare" or "huiato". 加 literally means "add" and 油 is "oil". The term is pronounced "jia you" in Mandarin. I'm not too sure about my Ping Ying.
Oh and all this discussion of television series and movies with the subbing and dubbing... I'd much rather have subtitles only. I barely focus on the text and it really helps when you're learning the language. I just recently downloaded 10 episodes of MTV's Downtown and found out that they had French subtitles. Because I understood what they were actually saying and a bit of French, thanks to Canada's bilingual education, it's obvious that there are just some terms or phrases that are left out or changed during the process of subbing because it just wouldn't make sense in another language/culture.
I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 24. In fact, in North America, the 4th season of 24 is almost over. I can't wait for the season finale. Buffy has been long over and I'll probably watch the series slowly over summer vacation by renting the DVDs from my local video store.
Mostly, anything that gets broadcast on TV, and also movies, avoid using too heavy accents, because it is true that English speakers will not always understand each others accents. I've seen subtitles used for heavy accents, but this is more often done as a joke.
Speaking to real people is very different. If people you talk to have a heavy accent and do not make an effort to speak more clearly, it might very well be impossible to understand them (at least until you've listened to them enough to start understanding the accent).
Listening to a foreign language is always much harder than reading it. I can read Japanese to some extent (at least if I have a dictionary), but listening to it is much harder, except for really simple sentences. I'm pretty good at listening to English (I am not a native speaker), but watching a TV show entirely in English with no subtitles still means I have to concentrate a lot more than watching it subtitled.
> I think I just remembered, "加油" means to give it all you've got. I think it means "ganbare" or "huiato". 加 literally means "add" and 油 is "oil". The term is pronounced "jia you" in Mandarin. I'm not too sure about my Ping Ying.
I can confirm that. Second-generation, half-illiterate speaker comin' at ya =)
> I'm no racist at all, but the fact that almost all native English speakers who teach their language in Japan don't speak Japanese has made me think English-speaking people weren't bothered to learn another language, but it seems I'm a bit wrong. I hope your efforts bear fruits in the future.
Maybe that's because there are teaching programs that will accept native speakers who don't know any Japanese...I find that rather surprising, though, because you're right--a foreign language teacher should speak both languages fluently. Is there such a demand for English teachers in Japan?
I've wondered if maybe that could be dependent on how we learn the language. They say "immersion" teaching is quite effective, where you are placed in an environment that requires you to speak and listen to only the foreign language. So maybe it just depends on which form you learn first - verbose or written.
____
By the way, have you guys heard of a recent HBO TV show heard "Carnivàle"? I've been hearing nothing but good things about it.
>Is there such a demand for English teachers in Japan?
I think yes, but as you said, it's sure as well that there are English teaching schools which offer the programs in which native speakers don't need any knowledge on Japanese language to teach us English-I've heard the word immersion teaching as well. As a matter of fact, I've seen recently lots of English speaking people when I got on the train, though most of the cases I came across, they were not with Japanese-maybe it was hard/exhousting for them to hang out with their students after school. That said, if you speak Japanese, you're more competitive. Let me take an interesting example. A few years ago, a Canadian male who spoke Japanese very well came to pay a visit to 2ch and set up his own webpage before he wrote books in Japanese and published them, which I think were selling well. I can see many other books written by native speakers. I myself bought some of them.:)
>I can read Japanese to some extent
Yeah, I know you can! I sometimes feel some of English speaking
people here is great and have good knowledge on languages, including Japanese. That makes me awestruck.
加油是对的。
For any Japanese here who can read somewhat good english, or even any English speakers here, I highly recommend you go to this excellent blog on life of an American preschool English teacher who worked in Japan. ttp://savagepencil.typepad.com/
Excite's translations aren't that bad. But it would do you good to read it in English because I find it is quite well written for a blog.
You might want to start from the beginning, or read certain categories by going here: ttp://savagepencil.typepad.com/confessions/archives.html
I'm wondering whether there are any foreign people involved in the animation industry in Japan. I've seen 2 foreign names so far in Production I.G.'s credits for Ghost in the Shell:SAC. One was a Theresia Winkler, and the other one was a Benjamin something.
I invited 2ch. Let's see if they come have a ball here.
For a laugh, check out this translation thread on 2ch:
http://academy3.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/english/1117992522/31
Some dick puts "I hope you whack off" in the middle of a translation, and when I call him on it nobody believes me. If it wasn't so ridiculous I'd probably be pissed off, lol.
Don't feel paranoid, the posts calling your bluff were probably all from one guy. (jisakujien)
Posting in a dead thread.
hello
>>76
I took an interest in your information,so Tried the first one.
But I failed to get access to that URL.
What a bummer !
>>85
ty
Yesterday my best friend died of a massive siesure. Life sucks, I'll go kill myself now...lol, j/k. My fianceé has helped me cope with it for now.
For God's sake,don't put down such a serious matter in this board. I'm speechless. You make me feel depressed.
Is your fiancee hawt? Put a piece of fruit in her ass, like a cucumber or zucchini...
Hello! This thread appears to be dead... Anyway, I just wanted to say hi! Are there any Japanese people here who would like to talk about Japanese/English... stuff?
>>91
i dont know
hello
hi
i'm sad
>>91
why are you interested in 2ch?
unless you let me know the reason,
i won't teach you anything.
おまいなんで２ちゃんに興味があるのか教えれ。ヽ(`Д´)ノ
話はそれからだ。
sorry.
it seems i didn't make sense of you.
In the begining of this thread, there were a bunch of people making generalized statements about the way people pronounce things in America. and this kind of just irked me. There is a HUGE range of dialects across America so it is impossible to say "American English" because there really is no such thing. I'm going to pick on 57 58 and 61 for a bit. Now, I moved to America when I was 4, from Hilversum, so learning English wasn't really much of a problem for me. You can't just hear one thing and say "damnit, why do the Americans pronounce it so!?" _------__-- .. I've completly lost my train of thought. What I'm trying to say is, just, don't generalize things so much.
In the begining of this thread, there were a bunch of people making generalized statements about the way people pronounce things in America. and this kind of just irked me. There is a HUGE range of dialects across America so it is impossible to say "American English" because there really is no such thing. I'm going to pick on 57 58 and 61 for a bit. Now, I moved to America when I was 4, from Hilversum, so learning English wasn't really much of a problem for me. You can't just hear one thing and say "damnit, why do the Americans pronounce it so!?" _------__-- .. I've completly lost my train of thought. What I'm trying to say is, just, don't generalize things so much.