Learning Japanese

[Ryuou]

Haha, that's ok Circular Logic. We forgive you.

[nikorai]

Originally Posted by Ryuou

Wow, I didn't know that. Interesting. Guess that goes to show how unused it is these days.

Yes, and they are all called くりかえし. You can type 'kurikaeshi' and convert into iteration mark for kanji or kana by pressing spacebar. (you know the english language course for interpreters? 'Press spacebar' = A space bar for the press).

ーー
皆さん、
お願いがあるんですが。
無理な注文でなければ、この翻訳を手伝ってもらえませんか？お金を払えます。
英語で説明してみます。
Ok, as you know I’m translating idolm@ster bonus disc. You’ve already helped me with Miki. Thanks to that I managed to come up with translation for video one and two. There’s also video #3 which doesn’t need translation and video #4 which does. This is basically 35 minutes worth of talk. Well, it’s not anything difficult from what I can see but I completely fail at this part.
I’ve managed to upload the file, the link is here:

「GREAT PARTY @TOKYO」L4Y! 公開Q&A

http://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/ov1pdm
(700mb, converted to h.264 with deinterlacing problems. I did choose the settings to deinterlace but they seem to fail somehow).

Help would be much appreciated.

[wao]

The exact ONE time so far I've seen the hiragana duplication mark used in modern contexts is when displaying the name of that famous Japanese truck company, Isuzu Motors.

Being a well-known company my IME converts it to how it should be written: いすゞ. Well it got this name in 1949...

[iLney]

I hate to ask a same question but here it goes:

注文の多い料理店宮沢賢治

A restaurant of many orders.

Okay it sounds weird but if that the natural way to describe a successful restaurant in Japan then it's fine.

But what I don't get is, as it stands, why it is not just "注文の多い料理店." What is "宮沢賢治" doing there? The only description I have is "宮沢賢治 (by)."

Oh, and about ninja characters: how come no books mention them? (ok, I may not read enough).

[Rembr]

If that's an article, 宮沢賢治 would be the author.

[iLney]

OMG. I'm so stupid. Thank very much!

[RandomGuy]

Originally Posted by iLney

I hate to ask a same question but here it goes:

注文の多い料理店宮沢賢治

A restaurant of many orders.

Okay it sounds weird but if that the natural way to describe a successful restaurant in Japan then it's fine.

But what I don't get is, as it stands, why it is not just "注文の多い料理店." What is "宮沢賢治" doing there? The only description I have is "宮沢賢治 (by)."

Oh, and about ninja characters: how come no books mention them? (ok, I may not read enough).

The Restaurant of Many Orders (注文の多い料理店) is a collection of children's stories (including the one in the title) by Kenji Miyazawa (宮沢賢治). He's the same guy who wrote Night on the Galactic Railroad, and is quite the famous contributor to Japanese literature.

[nikorai]

Getting back to idolm@ster.
I've tried a few deinterlacers in the meantime. TomsMoComp seems to work pretty well on this live video. So I've encoded the video again. Also cropped and resized it to 640x480. Sorry, I couldn't provide you the proper video at once. I'm also waiting for the connection to be restored. What I managed to upload was from another apartment with a 100mbs lan.
If we can get the translation attached to this, we can make an awesome release. The video quality turns out to be pretty good.

[iLney]

どの傘が田中さんですか?

=> Which umbrella is Tanaka's?

Uhm....... Is there any mistake here? Why "が?"

[Ryuou]

Haha, the very fun が and はdilemma. Honestly I don't know a very good way to explain when to use which. I just go by feel. Hopefully someone here knows a good rule that explains it.

[iLney]

No I mean:

どの傘が....

Should が be の instead?

As it stands, I read the sentence as: Which umbrella is Mr. Tanaka? (Mr. Tanaka is an umbrella?)

But ye, that is my question too.

Also, I have some trouble with "o", "de", and "ni" too.

私は時々公園を散歩します。

Why "を" there? "I walk the park?"

And could ye be so nice to translate those for me?

首相は十五日に国会で演説をします。( I see "diet", "15 days" "prime minister," "speech." They can make a pretty funny sentence though...)

一気に丘を駆け登る. (Run up to the hill at once??)

Edit: and please "teach" me this sentence:

小林さんからだけには、返事が来なかった.

[Ryuou]

Originally Posted by iLney

No I mean:

Originally Posted by iLney

どの傘が....

Should が be の instead?

No. Explain why you think it would be の? Your first translation is correct.
Edit: If you used の instead of が then you would be asking in a sense, "Which umbrella does Tanaka-san belong to?"

Originally Posted by iLney

私は時々公園を散歩します。

Why "を" there? "I walk the park?"

It's を because you are walking "through" the park essentially. So を would be used in the "through" sense and the "exiting" sense, whereas に would be going there. The を、に、へ、で can get kind of complicated and jumbled up sometimes.

Originally Posted by iLney

And could ye be so nice to translate those for me?

Originally Posted by iLney

首相は十五日に国会で演説をします。( I see "diet", "15 days" "prime minister," "speech." They can make a pretty funny sentence though...)


一気に丘を駆け登る. (Run up to the hill at once??)

I'm going to assume you meant "these" and help you on the translations of the two bottom ones.
- The prime minister will address the Diet on the 15th.
- For the second one you basically got it, except it's "run up the hill", instead of "run to the hill".

[iLney]

Thank you

The Diet? (My version was "The minister spends 15 days for a speech about his diet )

And about the Umbrella:

Does "どの" also carry the meaning of "whose?" That's the only I way I can see it can work with "ga."

And teach me this please:

小林さんからだけには、返事が来なかった.

Thank you very much.

[Ryuou]

Yeah the Diet as in government/political related. It's like the parliament of Japan. I don't understand the word exactly though.

Does "どの" also carry the meaning of "whose?" That's the only I way I can see it can work with "ga."

Not really. It's better to think of it as "which" umbrella. It's using "ga" because "kasa" is the subject of the sentence. But then it gets into the issue of why it isn't "ha" like I mentioned before. ………HAHAHAHAHAHA, my bad. I just reread the sentence and I think there's a mistake in it. There should be, at the least, a "no" after Tanaka-san. (My mind automatically inserted it). Otherwise, as is, it's asking which umbrella is Tanaka-san. Is this what's been confusing you? I apologize for not noticing that sooner.

And teach me this please:

小林さんからだけには、返事が来なかった.

First try and explain to me what you think it is with what you know already. (I may have an issue with how the whole "kara dake ni ha" section is set up, but I'm not sure.)

[iLney]

Yes, that was what confused me.

And about last sentence:"The only reply that has not come is 小林さん." Again, should there be some "no" in that sentence?

This is my first time running into a complex sentence...

Oh and "には" is not "ni wa"?

[Ryuou]

Yes, that was what confused me.

Alright, sorry about that.

And about last sentence:"The only reply that has not come is

小林さん." Again, should there be some "no" in that sentence?

Yeah that's pretty much it. Although you should probably add a "from" since Kobayashi-san isn't the reply itself. No, there shouldn't be a "no" in there. You could mix up the sentence a little bit and put Kobayashi-san and "henji" together with a "no". “no” in most cases is used to signify possession. (Again though, I'm not a hundred percent sure the particles are right there)

Oh and "

には" is not "ni wa"?

Yeah it's the particle は so read "wa". I don't know which way you're supposed to write it when using romaji.

[Raiga]

For Romaji I like Hepburn (modified Hepburn? Revised? Can't they just call it "version 3.0" or something?) for various reasons that have been indoctrinated into me from what I've read. (The idea being [again, from what I read], Hepburn sacrifices regularity for being closer phonetically [ta chi tsu te to instead of ta ti tu te to], which is good because Romaji is meant for people unfamiliar with the language and if you seriously want to learn the language you should be using kana anyway).

Anyway modified/revised Hepburn says は as a particle should be romanized "wa," へ as "e," and を as "o."

[Ryuou]

Yeah I've heard of Hepburn and I know there's that one that uses the lines above the vowels. I don’t know/follow any rules and just try and spell it out as is, as best I can. I don't know, romaji is confusing and annoying at times.

[Raiga]

It's not too special, there are all these random rules but in the end it's basically just each kana goes to a certain syllable. I prefer to write out long vowels instead of using the macron (the line above the vowels), 1) because it's more true to the kana spelling and 2) I can't get macrons conveniently on the keyboard while typing. XD

Oh yeah and for the n kana you need to put the apostrophe there if a vowel comes next. Can't think of an example off the top of my head, but basically you'd distinguish んい from に by writing n'i instead of ni.

[Ryuou]

Hmmm...めんどうくせぇ