Friday, March 31, 2017

Most Confusing Kanji for Beginners in Common Japanese Words

The Japanese language has many gotchas for beginners, some that will make anyone question everything they've learned so far about a single word, or, most likely, about a single kanji. In this post I'll warn you about some common words in Japanese that have kanji that will suddenly show up in completely different words of totally unrelated meaning which may leave you feeling lost and confused.

OAV

An OAV is an anime that was first made available through physical copies, that is, on discs, DVDs, Blu-rays, as opposed to having first aired on TV. The term stands for "Original Animation Video."

It's literally the same thing as OVA, Original Video Animation. The term OVA is more common than OAV, specially in Japan, probably because "AV" without the "O" normally means "adult video"—i.e. a "pornographic video"—in Japanese.

See the article about OVA for details.

If an anime is first sold as DVD/Blu-ray, then airs on TV, it's an OVA. If it airs on TV first, then is sold as discs, it's not OVA. If it's sold as disc, and never airs on TV, it's OVA. If the anime airs on TV, and then it's sold on discs, but the discs also include bonus content such as an extra episode, the anime is not OVA, but the extra content is OVA. If an anime is first available on the internet, it's ONA. If it's first available as a bonus in a limited edition manga volume, it's OAD.

OVA - Meaning in Japanese

An OVA is an anime that was released first as physical copies, that is, on discs, DVDs, Blu-rays, as opposed to having first aired on TV. This includes both whole series first sold as discs, as well as bonus episodes that never aired on TV but on blu-rays containing episodes that did air on TV.

In English, "straight-to-video" or "direct-to-video" are similar terms, but OVA refers to animation specifically.

If an anime is first sold as DVD/Blu-ray, then airs on TV, it's an OVA. If it airs on TV first, then is sold as discs, it's not OVA. If it's sold as disc, and never airs on TV, it's OVA. If the anime airs on TV, and then it's sold on discs, but the discs also include bonus content such as an extra episode, the anime is not OVA, but the extra content is OVA. If an anime is first available on the internet, it's ONA. If it's first available as a bonus in a limited edition manga volume, it's OAD.
Wednesday, March 29, 2017

masshiro, makkuro, makka, massao 真っ白, 真っ黒, 真っ赤, 真っ青

In Japanese, masshiro 真っ白, makkuro 真っ黒, makka 真っ赤, and massao 真っ青 mean literally "true white," "true black," "true red," and "true blue." They're terms for strong, pure colors, but they're more commonly used with figurative meanings.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Japanese Date Format

In Japanese, dates are written in year, month, day order (year first, day last), e.g. 2000年12月31日 means year 2000, month 12, day 31, therefore 11/10/09 would be year 2011, month 10 (October), day 9. This is different from the date format typically used in English-speaking countries. Compare:

Language Date format Spoken
Japanese YYYY-MM-DD
2000/12/31
ni-sen-nen,
juu-ni-gatsu,
san-juu-ichi-nichi

2000年12月31日
Year 2000,
month 12,
day 31.
British
English
DD-MM-YYYY
31/12/2000
Thirty-first of December, 2000.
31st of December, 2000.
American
English
MM-DD-YYYY
12/31/2000
December thirty-first, 2000.
December 31st, 2000.

Besides the order, the way Japanese dates are written also has some other peculiarities that we'll see through this article.

Diagram describing the Japanese date format.
Saturday, March 11, 2017

Years in Japanese and Eras

This post is being written in 2017, a year. Think of it, it's a pretty big number, isn't it? Over 2000. If you were to give 12 months 12 different names, that's easy, 7 weekdays, 7 different names, also easy, 4 seasons, 4 names, very easy. But 2017 different names is kind of ridiculous, isn't it? Sure the Japanese have a very simple, normal way to call their years?

Existence Verbs

In Japanese, some verbs describe the existence, or possession, of things. They are aru ある, 在る, 有る, nai ない, 無い, and iru いる, 居る. In this article, I'll explain the relationship between these words, and how they're used in Japanese.

nai ない, 無い

One extremely common and very basic word in Japanese is nai. It appears after the particles dewa では, dewanai ではない, after verbs, shinjirarenai 信じられない, and sometimes completely alone, just nai 無い. So, the question is: what does nai mean in Japanese? And why do you hear it so much?
Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Months in Japanese

In Japanese, months don't have names like January, February, etc., the way we have in English. Instead, February, the second month, for example, is referred to as "month two," ni-gatsu 二月. Its number may also be spelled with an Arabic numeral instead of kanji, as 2月.

Month Name In Japanese romaji Translation
January 一月いちがつ or 1月 ichigatsu Month one.
February 二月にがつ or 2月 nigatsu Month two.
March 三月さんがつ or 3月 sangatsu Month three.
April 四月しがつ or 4月 shigatsu Month four.
May 五月ごがつ or 5月 gogatsu Month five.
June 六月ろくがつ or 6月 rokugatsu Month six.
July 七月しちがつ or 7月 shichigatsu Month seven.
August 八月はちがつ or 8月 hachigatu Month eight.
September 九月くがつ or 9月 kugatsu Month nine.
October 十月じゅうがつ or 10月 juugatsu Month ten.
November 十一月じゅういちがつ or 11月 juuichigatsu Month eleven.
December 十二月じゅうにがつ or 12月 juunigatsu Month twelve.

Likewise, the name of the anime 3-Gatsu no Lion 3月のライオン means literally "The Lion of March."

Weekdays in Japanese - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

In Japan, a week has seven days just like everywhere else in the world (probably). For reference, this is what the weekdays are called in Japanese:

Weekday kanji romaji
Sunday 日曜日 nichiyoubi
Monday 月曜日 getsuyoubi
Tuesday 火曜日 kayoubi
Wednesday 水曜日 suiyoubi
Thursday 木曜日 mokuyoubi
Friday 金曜日 kin'youbi
Saturday 土曜日 doyoubi
The names of the weekdays in Japanese.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017

ヴ - ウ with Tenten?

If you have been reading manga for a while you might have encountered this very strange kana: ヴ. The obvious problem with it is that it is an u う in katakana, u ウ, but it has a "diacritic," or tenten, ヴ. You don't put diacritics in aiueo アイウエオ, only in certain syllables like kakikukeko カキクケコ to make them gagigugego ガギグゲゴ, right? So the ヴ kana makes no sense, and yet it exists.

Example of ヴ: vasshu-san ヴァッシュさん, Vash-san, from manga Trigun トライガン

Up, Down, Left, Right in Japanese

The words for "up," "down," "left," and "right" in Japanese are ue 上, shita 下, hidari 左 and migi 右 respectively.
Up, down, left, right in Japanese as an image showing the four directions and their kanji: ue 上 shita 下 hidari 左 migi 右

But surely I didn't make a whole post just to tell you a couple of translations you could find in a dictionary. So here's a lot of stuff you don't even want to know about these four directions!
Monday, March 6, 2017

々 (Kanji Repetition Symbol)

In Japanese, the symbol means the kanji 漢字 that comes before it should be repeated, e.g.: 人々 is the same as 人人, the kanji twice. It's called noma ノマ, kurikaeshi 繰り返し, among other names.

Examples of 々 in Japanese words: yamayama dandan tokidoki souzoushii hibi kokkoku un'nun 山々段々時々騒々しい日々刻々云々.

North, South, East, West in Japanese

So you're playing some RPG in Japanese and there's a "map," or chizu 地図, and someone tells you which cardinal direction you have to go to complete the current quest, but there's a problem: you have no idea how to say north, south, east, west in Japanese!

Worry not! Here's Japanese compass rose so you don't lose your way:

A compass rose with the cardinal directions in Japanese: North, South, East, West, kita 北, nishi 西, minami 南, higashi 東. Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest. hokusei 北西, hokutou 北東, nantou 南東, nansei 南西. North-Northwest, North-Northeast, East-Northeast, East-Southeast, South-Southeast, South-Southwest, West-Southwest, West-Northwest. hokuhokusei 北北西, hokuhokutou 北北東, touhokutou 東北東, tounantou 東南東, nan'nantou 南南東, nan'nansei 南南西, seinansei 西南西, seihokusei 西北西.
Sunday, March 5, 2017

Bakuretsu! Bakuhatsu! EXPLOSION!!!

If you've been watching KonoSuba このすば (if not you should) you might have noticed the character Megumin chants her "explosion" magic with a certain peculiar word: bakuretsu 爆裂. However, there's the more common bakuhatsu 爆発 which also means "explosion." So what's the difference between bakuhatsu and bakuretsu in Japanese?

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Kanji Radicals and Components

If you've been learning Japanese for some time you might have heard about the so-called "kanji radicals," or bushu 部首, and wondered exactly what is so radical about kanji? Do they practice skate-boarding? Bungee-jumping? No? Then what's the meaning of "kanji radicals" after all?

Friday, March 3, 2017

nakama

In Japanese, the word nakama 仲間 means "someone who's in the same group as you," or can refer to the group itself. This group is, often, a group of friends, colleagues, etc. But it can also mean other sort of groups, like in a "birds of same feather" sense, for example.