"you open the tin to find a letter, a dusty fountain pen and a pressed leaf."
This blog is being made to encourage myself to keep up with my language learning endeavours. I suppose its a studyblr? well, its probably going to be more of an online diary. I'm not exactly the studious type, but language learning has slowly been growing into a passion for me. I also want an outlet to try typing in my target language, and maybe make some friends?
Goals for this blog:
document and encourage myself while learning. I kind of want to treat this blog as if I'm talking to an audience, but also I'm really just talking to myself lol.
organize any information i find useful, or want to remember.
update it semi-frequently? don't expect a content hose or anything. this blog is for me, primarily.
document what I'm immersing in. Primarily using immersion based methods to study, and honestly id like to talk about the experience more than just gas-lighting myself into acquisition lol.
practice some self output. talking in my target language is still far a ways a way, but i still want to get used to flexing that muscle more.
so yeah. if you'd like to talk about language learning with me, please feel free to shoot me an ask or a dm. I'm far from an expert, more just soap-boxing on my own, but I'm always looking for new things to immerse in and love talking about media. :)
This is a side-blog, so it stays on topic. Interactions from me will probably go through my main! @lukrio99990
hi hi i'm a new langblr sideblog ! my name is aster, i'm 25, and i use fae/fleur/it pronouns.
currently studying japanese and newly chinese but i learned french for some years too and i dabble in other languages! i am the number one duolingo hater boooo. and i might post about learning to code and the books i'm reading too.
～The difference between the endings “だ(da)/です(desu)” and “なのだ(nano-da)/なのです(nano-desu)/なんだ(nan-da)/なんです(nan-desu)/んだ(n-da)/んです(n-desu)” in Japanese sentences～
Simple affirmative sentences in Japanese usually end with “だ/da” or “です/desu”, but there are also sentences where “の/no” “なの/nano” or “ん/n” “なん/nan” is added before them to make it “のだ/no-da”“なのだ/nano-da” or “んです/n-desu”“なんです/nan-desu”.
The role of “なの/nano” “の/no” and “なん/nan” “ん/n” is to emphasize. You can add them when you want to emphasize, like when telling a surprising fact to the listener, or when you want to pique the listener’s interest and then explain in more detail.
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When you want to say something normal, you don’t add them.
「猫猫(まおまお)は後宮(こうきゅう)で働(はたら)く下女(げじょ)だ/です」
Maomao is a servant girl working in the rear palace.
「猫猫は後宮で下女として働いている/います」
Maomao works as a servant girl in the rear palace.
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If you use “の/no” or “なの/nano” in the second half of the sentences, you can emphasize the second half;
「猫猫は後宮で働く下女だが/ですが、本職(ほんしょく)は薬屋(くすりや)なのだ/なのです」
Maomao is a servant girl working in the rear palace, but HER REAL JOB IS as an APOTHECARY.
Maomao works as a servant girl in the rear palace, but SHE WAS ACTUALLY KIDNAPPED and SOLD there.
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On the other hand, if you want to emphasize the first half of the sentences, add “の/no” or “なの/nano” to the end of the first half.
「猫猫は後宮で働く下女なのだ/なのですが、本職は薬屋だ/です」
Maomao IS a SERVANT GIRL WORKING IN the REAR PALACE, but her real job is as an apothecary.
「猫猫は後宮で下女として働いているのだ/のですが、実は誘拐されてそこに売り飛ばされた/ました」
Maomao WORKS AS a SERVANT GIRL in the REAR PALACE, but she was actually kidnapped and sold there.
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The sentences are not incorrect even if “の/no” or “なの/nano” is not added. It’s OK in case the speaker doesn’t want to emphasize anything or the listener already knows the fact.
「猫猫は後宮で働く下女だが/ですが、本職は薬屋だ/です」
「猫猫は後宮で下女として働いているが/いますが、実は誘拐されてそこに売り飛ばされた/ました」
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However, “なの/nano” or “の/no” is very formal or manly ways of saying, mainly used in written language or spoken in formal situation. So, in spoken language of daily conversation, “なん/nan” or “ん/n”, that sounds casual or soft, is mostly used instead. The difference in usage between “なの/nano” and “の/no”, and “なん/nan” and “ん/n” is as follows;
<Nouns: 「＋なの/nano」「なん/nan」>
formal 「薬屋なのだ/なのです」「下女なのだ/なのです」
casual/soft 「薬屋なんだ/なんです」「下女なんだ/なんです」
<Verbs: 「＋の/no」「＋ん/n」>
formal 「売り飛ばされたのだ/のです」「働いているのだ/のです」
casual/soft 「売り飛ばされたんだ/んです」「働いているんだ/んです」
<Adjectives＞
formal:「basic form ＋ “の/no”」
背(せ)が高(たか)い: tall...「彼(かれ)は、とても背が高いのだ/のです」: He is very tall.
casual/soft: 「basic form ＋ “ん/n”」
可愛(かわい)い: cute...「彼女(かのじょ)の笑顔(えがお)は、すごく可愛いんだ/んです」: Her smile is so cute.
Similarly, the words whose basic form end in “な/na”, such as 「きれいな: beautiful」 and 「上手(じょうず)な: good, well」, become 「きれいな＋のだ/のです/んだ/んです」and「上手な＋のだ/のです/んだ/んです」.
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Whether it is formal or casual/soft depends a lot on the personality of the speaker. For example, KNH’s characters are…
＜Gaoshun＞ Since he always speak in formal way, he uses “なの” or “の”.
Maomao (This is strange, though. There are almost no pets in the rear palace. Keeping an animal requires a permit, and cats and dogs need to be castrated. Where was this kitten born?)
＜Xiaolan＞ Since she always speaks casually and softly, it’s likely that she only use “なん/nan” and “ん/n”.
Xiaolan “I might get some time off on the last day.”
小蘭「あっ、猫猫！これから手習い所なんだ！」
Shaoran “A, Maomao! Kore-kara tenarai-jo nanda!”
Xiaolan “Oh, Maomao! I’m about to go off to school!”
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In the first place, the reason I wrote this post was because I received a question about 「んだろうか」 in Maomao’s line 「おやじ、ちゃんと飯(めし)食(く)ってんだろうか」: “I wonder if Dad’s eating properly.” This line is very rough and manly. If another character were to say the same line, the way they said it would probably be different;
ん/の = (emphasizing. You can omit it, if you don’t want to emphasize.)
だろうか/かしら/かなぁ？ = I wonder if
When I broke the sentence like above, I couldn’t tell whether the “ん/n” in Maomao’s line 「食ってんだろうか」 meant emphasizing or just speaking roughly.
A.「食ってるだろうか」→「食ってんだろうか」(without “の/no” - just saying roughly)
B.「食ってるのだろうか」→「食ってるんだろうか」→「食ってんだろうか」(with “の/no” and changed to “ん/n” due to rough speaking - emphasizing)
I think it’s one of A and B above, but I can’t say for sure. Maybe it’s something only the author or Maomao herself knows. Either way, it’s a pretty rough way of speaking.
By the way, concerning above ③④⑤ examples, the feminine/soft ending “かしら/kashira” and “かな/kana” always combine with “の/no”, not “ん/n”. 「～のかしら」 and 「～のかな」 work, but 「～んかしら」 and 「～んかな」 doesn’t.
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I’ve covered quite a lot of detail, and I wonder if I was able to make you understand me well in English. I’ve never studied to teach Japanese, so I’m sorry if I’m not explaining things well.
When you watch anime with English translation, you probably won’t notice much difference, but spoken language of the original Japanese lines varies greatly depending on the character’s gender, age, position, personality, and even their relationship with the person they’re speaking to. So, if you can notice the differences in the way they speak, you’ll be able to understand the characters more deeply. I would be happy to help you all in any way I can, so please feel free to ask any questions you may have.
Did you know that the english word “star” and the japanese word 星（ほし）don’t actually mean the same thing?
Language does not simply name pre-existing categories; categories do not exist in 'the world'
— Daniel Chandler, Semiotics for Beginners
I read this quote a few years ago, but I don’t think I truly understood it until one day, when I was looking at the wikipedia article for “star” and I thought to check the Japanese article, see if I could get some Japanese reading practice in. I was surprised to find that the article was not titled 「星」, but 「恒星」, a word I’d never seen before. I’d always learnt that 星 was the direct translation for “star” (I knew the japanese also contained meanings the english didn’t, like “dot” or “bullseye”, but I thought these were just auxiliary definitions in addition to the direct translation of “star” as in "a celestial body made of hydrogen and helium plasma").
To try and clear things up for myself, I searched japanese wikipedia for 星. It was a disambiguation page, with the main links pointing to the articles for 天体 (astronomical object) and スター（記号）(star symbol). There was no article just called 「星」.
It’s an easy difference to miss, because in everyday conversation, 星 and star are equivalent. They both describe the shining lights in the night sky. They both describe this symbol: ★. They even both describe those enormous celestial objects made of plasma.
But they are different - different enough to not share a wikipedia article. 星 is used to describe any kind of celestial body, especially if it appears shiny and bright in the night sky. “Star” can be used this way too (like Venus being called the “morning star”), but it’s generally considered inaccurate to use the word like this, whereas there is no such inaccuracy with 星. You can say “oh that’s not actually a star, it’s a planet”, but you CAN’T say 「実はそれは星ではなく惑星だよ」 (TL: that’s not actually a hoshi, it’s a planet). A planet IS a 星.
星 is a very common word, essentially equivalent to “star”, but its meaning is closer to “celestial body”. I haven’t looked into the etymology/history but it’s almost like both english and japanese started out with a simple, common word for the lights in the sky - star/星 , but as we found out more about what these lights actually were, english doubled down on using the common word for the specific scientific concept, while japanese kept the common word generic and instead came up with a new word for the more specific concept. If this is actually what happened, I’d guess that kanji probably had something to do with it - 星 as a component kanji exists inside the word for planet, 惑星, and in the word for comet, 彗星, and in the scientific word for “star”, 恒星, so it makes sense that it would indicate a more general concept when used standalone.
This discovery helped me understand that quote - categories don’t exist in the world, we are the ones who create them. I thought that the concept of “star” was something that would be consistent across all languages, but it’s not, because the concept of “star” is not pre-existing. Each language had to decide how to name each of those similar star-like concepts (the ★ symbol, hot balls of gas, twinkling lights in the sky, planets, comets, etc), and obviously not every language is going to group those concepts under the same words with the same nuance.
Knowing this, one might be tempted to say that 恒星（こうせい） is the direct translation for “star”. But this isn’t true either. In most of the contexts that the word “star” is used in english, the equivalent japanese will be simply 星. Despite the meanings not lining up exactly, 星 will still be the best translation for “star” most of the time. This is the art of translation - knowing when the particulars are less important than the vibe or feel of a word. For any word, there will never be an exact perfect translation with all the same nuances and meanings. Translation is about finding the best solution to an unsolvable problem. That's why I love it.
久し振りですね？I hope you all have been well 🩵 its been awhile since I wrote on this blog. I feel kind of bad for abandoning it honestly, but my motivation for learning japanese has returned recently and I wanted to dust my blog off.
I haven't really been keeping up with my studies honestly but I have blipped in and out of immersion since last year. Mostly through YouTube, and any wild japanese I come across. The ammount of progress I made last year was just enough for me to kind of be comfortable looking at stuff online, but honestly I'm still very much a beginner. I try not to think about wasting time cause it makes me depressed, lol.
So what's next? Back on the path I continue to tread, I suppose. No matter how much time passes I always return one way or another to learning japanese, and I think that's a good thing. I know it's something I want, and I remind myself that language learning is a long process. (Even longer for me, w the depression and adhd lol)
I'm always suprised how much I retain everytime I bounce on and off. I had a moment where scrolling through some jp tiktoks, I was able to read the caption incredibly fast. The whole thing. It was short, and quite easy, but it genuinely suprised me how easy it was to read. ((Still kind of riding that high))
Anyways, I hope you all are well. I made some goals to meet on Saturday, so I'm hoping to make a new weekly post then! またね！
Photowalk at Makiba Park in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, for some Landscape Photography (山梨県立「まきば公園」).
Join me and my border collie on a short photowalk around Makiba Park (まきば公園), a grazing ranch and petting zoo located in the rural town of Hokuto, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, as we enjoy some landscape photography.
In Japanese language, describing a third person’s emotion is different from describing a first person’s emotion: in English, the sentences "I am happy" and "He is happy" are grammatically structured in the same way. However, in Japanese, this direct equivalence is not possible: you can say "私は嬉しいです" (Watashi wa ureshii desu), but you can't simply say "彼は嬉しいです" (Kare wa ureshii desu).
This is due to cultural and linguistic nuances that emphasize the acknowledgment of another's internal state as somewhat inaccessible. In fact, Japanese typically employs expressions that convey a level of inference or indirectness, such as:
Using observational phrases: one might say 「彼は嬉しそうです」 (Kare wa ureshisō desu), which translates to "He seems happy" or "He/she looks happy." This phrasing respects the notion that one can only observe outward signs of emotion, not definitively know another's internal state.
Adding "ようだ" or "みたい": these suffixes add a sense of speculation. For example, 「彼は嬉しいようだ」 (Kare wa ureshii yō da) or 「彼は嬉しいみたいです」 (Kare wa ureshii mitai desu), both meaning "He appears to be happy."
Using conditional clauses: Another approach is to use conditional forms, like 「彼が嬉しければ」 (Kare ga ureshikereba), meaning "If he is happy," which implicitly acknowledges the uncertainty of truly knowing his feelings.
One characteristic of Japanese syntax is its extreme sensitivity to epistemological considerations based on the ego/nonego distinction or the distinction of I/the other. Our knowledge about the mental state of another person must necessarily come from our interpretation of external evidence, and this is well reflected in the Japanese language.
