Anotated Episode Scripts

[vitellus314]

Hi, are there any fansubs groups that give more indepth information about their translations on their websites? many groups already add comments to the subs themselves to explain certain japanese expressions (for example seichi) and adding more information would certainly hamper the flow of the show. However as i'm currently learning japanese, i often wonder what such and such expression/form/word/ending is means, why it's used, etc... so i would find anotated episode translations very interesting and very useful if they existed. Even such a thing for manga would be great (and i've seen some books in stores that do just this).

I'm also looking for fansubs that include japanese subs in romaji.

Finally, can anyone suggest some series that uses easy-to-understand language that could be useful to someone learning japanese? this may be off topic, but i think that translators would be best to answer this type of question.

[SirCanealot]

I'm sorry, but I don't think there's any fansubs that really catter to your wants :/

[Somedude]

Originally Posted by vitellus314

I'm also looking for fansubs that include japanese subs in romaji.

If you're seriously trying to learn the language, teach yourself hiragana and katakana, and don't rely on romaji. If you plan on reading a lot, learn as much kanji as you can too.

As for boning up on vocabulary and kanji, I use this . It has a nice configurable study list system and allows you to do flashcard reviews of your lists. Also, as its primary function is a translator, you can turn around and translate any words you may not know.

[vitellus314]

thanks for your replies.

i'm not really asking a fansub group to do this but whether any fansub groups already do this. Seichi already give a lot of interesting info in their fansubs so i wondered there would be more on their website (but there wasn't).

I'm already familiar with hiragana/katakana and i'm currently studying kanjis. Thanks for the link. The only problem is that i'm not always sure how to write the words I hear....

do any episode scripts in japanese exist?

[CompShrink]

http://web-jpn.org/kidsweb/say/hiragana.html

Here is a chart that shows every pronounciation in Japanese. It may look large, but that is every possible unique combination, and when you see the patterns, it's not really that much. You can click on each of the charaters to hear them pronounced. There are 5 vowels, and they always sound the same, unlike english. I would suggest you study this, get used to the sounds, and then you won't need romaji scripts, it's usually not that hard to tell what they're saying, once you know what the possible sounds are, since there are so many fewer sounds than in English.

http://web-jpn.org/kidsweb/say.html is also a good website in general for learning the basics of Japanese on your own, imho.

Hope that helps. Sorry i don't know any site that heavily annotates the cultural references. You might want to pick up KareKano DVDs (omg, buy anime?) because they have good liner notes for japanese culture (as a dvd extra, so normal dvd rips won't have it, yes buy it...), as well as it being one of the best anime series ever, imho.

[K_R]

Feel free to ask about anything in our forums.

I could add a section to the website for more in-depth episode notes... It's probably a good idea for Ebichu (since I won't be including long pre-episode notes like ampeg did).

And pronunciation isn't always the same. e.g. sake (rice wine) vs sake (salmon)

[CompShrink]

Originally Posted by K_R

Feel free to ask about anything in our forums.

I could add a section to the website for more in-depth episode notes... It's probably a good idea for Ebichu (since I won't be including long pre-episode notes like ampeg did).

And pronunciation isn't always the same. e.g. sake (rice wine) vs sake (salmon)

True, but it is drastically less varying than english, and both those are easily recognizable as sa ke.

[jalana]

Anime-Kraze usually includes a more comprehensive set of episode notes for certain episodes/series on our forums. The ones that comes to mind are the notes for Paranoia Agent and Otogizoushi (in the near future, once our translator gets back from a business trip).

[vitellus314]

Jalana, K R, thx for your replies and keep up the great work!

[Kidd]

Originally Posted by Somedude

If you're seriously trying to learn the language, teach yourself hiragana and katakana, and don't rely on romaji. If you plan on reading a lot, learn as much kanji as you can too.

I can't stress that enough. As a translator myself I have now realized how stupid it was of me to neglect learning the two kana in the beginning. I thought "I'm just gonna encounter spoken japanese anyway, mostly", but trust me that you will want to read too, especially if you're going to translate things (there's always text somewhere, like if a character in a show you're watching reads a letter, the letter might not be read out loud, so even if you know japanese perfectly on a hearing basis, you couldn't read the letter without the kana and kanji). There is also a game for learning kana (haven't tried it much, since I don't really like how it's built up, personally) that have helped a lot of my friends with the kana. It's called "Slime Forest" but I don't really know where you could get it; run a search on google or something. It's freeware (afaik) and to my knowledge it's not half bad at all, but it's a fun experience and you learn kana on the fly. Later on it advances to the more basic kanji, afaik. I recommend you try it out, you might be one of those who benefit from it greatly.

[Soulfang]

Slime Forest doesn't use the most common romanizations for some of its kana. I'd suggest learning it from somewhere else myself.