This is How to Japanese, a monthly newsletter with something about Japan/Japanese and a dash of いろいろ.
日本・日本語: Feeling Sorry
I’ve given up on Attack on Titan twice now.
The first time, my girlfriend at the time (c. 2014) got a few episodes ahead of me, so I gave up and dismissed the show as ridiculous and almost caracaturishly overly emotional (all facts, tbh). I didn’t think about AoT again until I got really into TikTok (c. spring 2021) and wanted to understand more of the memes.
I watched eleven episodes before realizing that, while I was enjoying myself and studying some Japanese, the language being used wasn’t exactly…useful. So I decided to switch to live-action series.
I’m sure I’ll get back to AoT at some point, but for now, 夫のちんぽが入らない (Otto no chinpo ga hairanai, My Husband Won’t Fit) feels like a better…fit, as it were. The show is based on a 2017 novel that was originally published in 2014 in a literary magazine. As the title suggests, the couple has issues with sexual compatibility.
I can’t vouch for the show’s attitude toward sex and relationships (although there’s still one episode left to right the ship), but it does feel like more authentic language immersion than anime. The content is interesting without being too scandalous. And there are a lot of 田舎 (inaka) classroom scenes that remind me of my time on JET.
In episode nine, there’s also great dialogue featuring かわいそう (kawaisō), which I’ve written about previously and turned into a podcast episode this season.
I’ll provide a little background and will try not to spoil a key element of the story. Kumiko and Ken’ichi can’t have penetrative sex. Ken’ichi finds an extracurricular workaround, which Kumiko secretly puts up with. When their relationship comes to a head, there is this scene:
Kumiko: 研一さんがかわいそうだと思って、私我慢してたんだよ。
Ken’ichi: かわいそう?かわいそうって俺が?笑えるね。夫婦そろって、お互いをかわいそうと思ってなんて。
And here’s my English translation:
Kumiko: I felt sorry for you, so I just put up with it.
Ken’ichi: You felt sorry? For me? That’s hilarious. Funny to think we both felt sorry for each other.
I had trouble with 夫婦そろって (fūfu sorotte) at first, but a quick search on Twitter shows that it simply refers to a couple doing something together. Based on the scene alone, I thought Ken’ichi was using it to make fun of Kumiko for feeling bad for him. It’s also more clear to me now that the the sentence follows directly from 笑えるね.
I’ve been watching the Japanese audio with Japanese closed captions (a strategy I highly recommend), so I was pleased to see that the official translation also uses “feel sorry for” as the translation for かわいそう. The official version goes with “So I didn’t say anything” for the 我慢する line, which is a very nice rendering. I think words like かわいそうand 懐かしい (natsukashii, feel nostalgic for) can be tempting to try and render with some sort of adjective, when there really isn’t an equivalent in English. Sometimes you gotta verb that adjective.
Send me all your Japanese live-action drama recommendations. I have access to Netflix and Prime and will probably do Hulu at some point so I can watch “Y: The Last Man.” That was a pandemic read for me, and I’m eager to watch the show.
廃線: Cycling Japan’s Abandoned Rail
This viral tweet reminded me of something:
It reminded me of one of my favorite YouTube series by Adam, who was a Fukushima JET during my time living there. Crack open a beer, sit back, and enjoy his trip.
いろいろ
Wes Robertson has a must read post on “ojisan gokko”: How to Ojisan Gokko: Parodying Lecherous Writing in Japanese. It’s a really interesting look at how young girls are turning the scales on horny old men online. I was really curious to know why なんちゃって means what it does. This Weblio post explains how the grammar is working: なんて + 言う + ちゃう + て. The basic meaning is などと言ってしまって (nado to itte shimatte). One thing that Robertson doesn’t mention is that apparently from 1977-1978 there were actual なんちゃっておじさん who would try to make people laugh on trains (I guess you get bored pretty quickly with no internet). The phenomenon was addressed on radio shows and became a bit of an urban legend, resulting in a specific pose that the ojisan supposedly did while saying なんちゃって. A Google Images search shows some other variations. (Translation of the tweet below: “I thought なーんちゃって was someone’s gag, but I guess it was a little different. Wiki(pedia) has a bunch of theories, pretty interesting.”)
JT recipe/food writer Makiko Itoh re-shared her 2011 memoir/blog post “Accidental Butter” on Twitter this past month. It’s a great read.
In Higashimura Akiko’s podcast this week she mentions that she not only took classes from Murakami Takashi (!) but also that Murakami is a fan of her manga. I can’t seem to track down the Murakami YouTube channel/video that gets mentioned on the pod. Anyone find it?
I had two articles in the JT in August on strategies to learn more abstract words and how pronouns are built into 敬語 (keigo, polite speech). These will be my last Bilingual page articles for a while.
Season 2 of the How to Japanese Podcast is complete! Binge all 20 episodes here.