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This entry was posted on Friday, October 5th, 2007 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Japanese Culture Classes . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
33 Responses to “Japanese Culture Class #50 - What’s Up With the Intros? 1”
Friday at 6:13 pm
みなさん、
i pulled a few youtube thingies for you!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0dhxz3CnXQ
this particular clip is great because not only can you see the typical fight scene and showing of the inro with 葵の御紋, but the bad guy is not samurai, he’s 公家 (court noble) so his speech patterns are different (as mentioned in the podcast). Finally the emperor himself appears. Note his speech patterns also.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkI3zP2IK4s
marky
Friday at 6:30 pm
Mina-san, we’ve gotten a lot of requests for info about the crazy intros. We also always get questions from people who want to see what it’s like behind the scenes at JPod. We’ve combined both of those into 1 lesson. Marky, Naomi and Yūki take you on a wild tour through 11 intros. There were soooo many cultural references and inside jokes that the lesson came out too long for 1 podcast, so we split it into 2 files. And even though all these intros were unscripted, we transcribed them all! You can find all of that in the PDF and in the Learning Center! We hope you enjoy this!
Friday at 7:02 pm
I didn’t listen yet, but I checked out the PDF. Thanks for all the Samurai stuff!!
Lookin forward to hearing this one!!
Dave
Friday at 8:49 pm
Sugoi!
And with the transcript !
Thank you !
Friday at 10:26 pm
へへ ユーキ先生が来た!ひさしくマーキ星もいる!楽しいね。
I use “でござる” all the time to my Japanese friends, much to their amusement and my girlfriend’s embarassment.
I like Mikiさん’s the best. I think we should all reply to her next blog entry with variations on ’昨日お猿をはりつけしました。楽しかったです。” (Yes, I crucified a Monkey yesterday. It was good)
And I’m glad that after all this time we’ve finally had a lesson with “archaic” in the politeness level.
また聞きたいじゃ!
Friday at 10:32 pm
Just bizarre ! But funny as heck. Loved it!
I got to say its great to hear them. Can’t wait for the next one!
Absolutely loved Miki’s reaction to Honourable monkey. Classic!
“hey every one have you ever crucified an honourable monkey? eeeehhh honourable Monkey??” When I first heard that I was in hysterics.
Friday at 11:34 pm
I always wondered where that wonderful clip with Miki’s reaction 「ナンダヨー!?」
came from.
Friday at 11:42 pm
Marky, ユウキ、直美、なんて素晴らしい〜。
Great lesson!!
ユウキ、”A little bit crazy.” Instant classic!
Saturday at 2:49 am
that was funny i expect to hear more
i have never crucifiled a monkey but i saw people crucified by monkeys in
planet of the apes
with Charlton Heston
thank you guys fpr the effort
ciao
Saturday at 2:52 am
I wonder if 磔 has any relation with the words 針 and 付ける.
Saturday at 3:07 am
This was a fun lesson, and quite useful too. I’ve heard じゃ used at the end of sentences quite a few times, but I wasn’t sure if it was the copula or not. I’ll have to do listen out for でござる as well. I heard Samurai use でござい when talking to a Lord in some old film that I saw, and I couldn’t pick up any ます endings, were they always used?
Also, I was just reading up on ぬ and ん endings replacing ない. ぬ sounds classic or old as Naomi might say
, but apparently it’s still used in certain situations, and ん is old man’s style, right? Although young people say すまん, don’t they?
私もそう思います、ピーターさん。ユーキの”crazy”と言うセリフって本当におかしかったんじゃの~!
Saturday at 3:17 am
US TV alert! NOVA this week investigates the science and art of the creation of a samurai sword. Here is a link to the episode website: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/samurai/
Saturday at 4:15 am
Marky,
I’m a pretty big nihonshi head too. Love the Bakamatsu. Especially Ryoma, Yoshida Shoin and the Sonjuku students. Hit me back on here if you want to talk about it.
Big fan of the intros too.
Dan
Saturday at 4:42 am
Thanks for that heads up, Neil. I don’t usually watch WGTE or WBGU
Saturday at 10:11 am
I didn’t enjoy this at all.
The history of introductions ?
The shape of leotards ?
Reactions to practical jokes in blog scripting?
Ad libs in intros?
Improvisations?
I can’t really see how most of this relates to Japanese culture, and found most it just too frivolous to be of any real use.
If this “fun behind the scenes silly stuff” is going to become more popular, please consider putting future offerings in another lesson title, so as not to mix it with the serious lessons.
Saturday at 10:14 am
i love the intros! although i dunno what they’re saying most times… but they sounded like so much fun and the actors were having so much fun especially when they burst out laughing at the end. i found myself looking forward to the intros everyday!
Saturday at 11:44 am
Shiroi Neko sounds like a real party pooper.
I for one totally enjoyed it. The intros are great practice and really make me laugh, especially that I know what they are saying now!
Saturday at 2:04 pm
はいはい、喧嘩しちゃダメだぞ。意見はそれぞれの勝手だから(どんなに固くても
)。
Saturday at 10:44 pm
This was awesome!
You guys hit so many things my head is spinning. Big ups on the Samurai stuuf, nobody really teaches that stuff, but that’s really Japanese culture, I think.
Thanks!
Saturday at 11:11 pm
Miki’s laughing was so funny.
Now that I think about it, “honorific monkey” is a little strange, isn’t it?
Sunday at 12:28 pm
so many people had been asking for this since we started, i apologize in taking so long to get around to it.
we bit off a little more than we could chew this time (hence two 15 min files). next time i promise to keep it within a reasonable time.
Javizyさん、 about ぬ an ん endings.
ぬ is just an old conjugation variation which gave rise to the modern ん form. but ん is not old man style. i tend to hear that when people are angry or caught off guard. and it’s not a polite.
for example つまらん! ”this is boring (and i’ve had enough of it)”
or わからん “i don’t know (don’t ask me again).”
this isn’t really a good way of explaining it. but it’s definitely not old man style, cuz i hear girls use it all the time. maybe naomi or yuki can explain it better.
danさん、幕末 is so interesting. so many great people with a different ideas about how to save japan. my personal favorites are 勝海舟 (Katsu Kaishu) and 新撰組 (the Shinsengumi).
marky
Sunday at 11:27 pm
Really interresting stuff. Thanks!
Monday at 12:37 am
That’s not quite true. すまん, the very informal form of すみません and すまない, is very common, and while it’s certainly very informal I definitely wouldn’t call it impolite. The nuance that ん has is rough and masculine, but not necessarily angry or rude.
Monday at 12:41 am
BTW, you use the ん negative every time you use a polite negative verb. For example:
ありませぬ(classical) ー> ありません(modern)
Monday at 12:51 am
とても すごい です。 オーパニング は 楽しみかった です から この
説明 を 前 から 聞きたがった です。
ありがとう ございます
Monday at 3:08 am
Marky,
Here are some great books regarding Bakumatsu. Give em a read if you can:
Revolutionary Origins of Modern Japan by Thomas Huber
Lot’s about Kaishu and the other Choshu guys.
The Last Shogun by Shiba Ryotaro
Gives you the perspective from the Shogun’s side.
Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration by Marius Jansen
May be the best book about the time period.
Unfortunately there are no good books written in English about the Shinsengumi. If you have any recos, let me know.
Dan
Monday at 5:33 am
I am so glad to hear this extra/lesson.
I like these behind the scenes and the meanings things. I think this is the third time listening to this and I’m still not tired of it.
So I am guessing:
- コマネチ is Nadia Comaneci the Romanian gymnast.
- こうばしい to me is equivalent to the word pungent, a really strong smell, no?
Does こうばしい just relate to food or could it be other smells?
Monday at 10:14 pm
jasonさん、
>>the very informal form of すみません and すまない
yeah you’re right about すまん. but i wasn’t talking about すまん in particular. i should have been more clear; i was referring to わからん and つまらん (as those are what i hear the most). both of which have a kind of curt feeling, imo.
danさん、
>>The Last Shogun by Shiba Ryotaro
love that book!
as for english books about shinsengumi, “Shinsengumi: The Shogun’s Last Samurai Corps” by Romulus Hillsborough isn’t a bad read at all. i wish he went deeper, but he’s clearly a lover of the 維新志士 and not the 幕府. it’s quite evident in his book “Ryoma” which is much longer and detailed than this one.
>>Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration
i know this book but i didn’t like the cover so i haven’t read it yet. ( how’s that for a lame cliche?) now that i have a recommendation, i’m gonna go and pick it up this weekend! thanks for the おすすめ
>>Revolutionary Origins of Modern Japan
i’ll check this one out too!! thanks!!!
Monday at 5:49 am
Ithought this was a great podcast…lots of fun, and I had definitely been wondering about some of the intros…looking forward to more explanations with lots of esoterica. It keeps things lively, and fun.
thanks
docmac
Monday at 12:13 pm
esoterica is a great word!!
Saturday at 10:57 am
haha. i love the intros so much i play them to my non-japanese speaking friends. they laugh too.
Monday at 6:12 pm
Nadia Comaneci is a Romanian gymnast. She is famous because she is the first person in history to receive a perfect 10. The funny thing is that, when that happened, the electronic board didn’t have enough numbers to show a 10.00, so in stead it showed a 1.00
By the way, I just love the intros, especially the “classic touch”!
Keep up the good work guys!
Tuesday at 12:02 pm
Amazing… amazingly funny, that is. I’ve never had this much fun listening to a language lesson!
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