Japanese Proverbs: January 2010
It’s been a quiet couple months here at Nihonshock, but this is the first blog post in what’s going to be a busy month!
As usual, here I’ve collected all the proverbs I tweeted in January (looks like I missed one on the 2nd…), including their translations and meanings and other notes, where appropriate. Enjoy, and please follow me if you like them! I’ve been doing this for almost half a year and don’t know how many more months I’ll be able to keep finding new proverbs to tweet, but I still really don’t feel like I’m running out…
Flavor Success: Chocolate Soda
Seriously, Japan. WTF? “Chocolate Sparkling” from Suntory.
Do you take some sort of sick pleasure in forcing me to drink these ridiculous concoctions!?!?!? Curse you, curse yo….. wait… This is… actually not half bad.
Flavor Fail: Chocolate Beer
I’m a Sapporo beer fan. I prefer their brews to Asahi and Kirin, and generally rave about their special releases. So when I saw this on the shelf at my local convenience store, I approached it with an open mind. I like chocolate, I like beer, I like Sapporo. Therefore, I like this, right? right…?
Japanese Proverbs: December 2009
I’m surprised I was able to pull myself away from FFXIII long enough to do my monthly proverb post, yay me!
As usual, I originally tweeted these proverbs throughout December–one per day (except Christmas eve)–and now I’m bringing them all together in a blog post. Enjoy! And please follow me if you like these and want to keep up with the new ones…
Nihonshock 2010
In any country, the start of a New Year is a time to reflect upon the past and to make goals and plans for the future. In the English-speaking world, we have “New Year’s Resolutions” but in Japan they have 新年の目標 (shinnen no mokuhyou).
How did you do last year? What are your goals for the new year?…
Star Wars quotes… in Japanese!
So you want to know how to quote Star Wars in Japanese, do you?
I won’t pretend that I can come up with a useful or sane reason for such an endeavor, but follow me, 若きジェダィ (young Jedi), and I shall show you the ways of the フォース.
My trip to a cat cafe
The other day I finally got around to visiting a place that I’ve wanted to check out for some time: a cat cafe.
No, there’s no relationship to maid cafes or anything like that. It’s not even really a place to get a cup of coffee (though they do offer a small selection food and drinks). It’s a “cafe” more in the sense of an internet cafe and the system is almost identical, except instead of a room full of computers you buy time to go into a room full of cats.
Meow, as a cat lover this was purrfectly right up my alley (sorry, but I wanted to get all the puns out of the way early), so I went to check it out one morning…
Japanese Proverbs: November 2009
This is a collection of Japanese proverbs that I tweeted throughout November 2009. I missed a couple days when I was out with a hangover (sorry, I’ll be more responsible next time), that’s why there’s only 27.
The latest otaku craze: lap pillows
I’ve been seeing these around a lot lately at both otaku-ish locations and regular department stores too (two of these 3 pictures I took at Loft in Sakae, Nagoya). They’re an interesting item, playing on the Japanese word 膝枕 (hiza makura), which is made up of the characters for “lap” and “pillow” and usually refers to resting your head in someone’s lap.
The many ways to say “I”
One of the many unique and intriguing features of Japanese is the vast selection of words you have available to choose from when you want to say “I.”Each of these words has a different connotation reflecting the speaker’s view of his/herself and relationship to the listener.
For this article, I’m introduce to you my personal collection of “I” words that I’ve encountered here in Japan (even if I’ve only seen them once or twice in obscure contexts). Hopefully, this list will help to prepare you for your own Japanese adventures.
More from Nihonshock…
