You you you you!

It has been long time since I wrote on this blog last time.

Today, I had a question on Japanese from my deary friend, Lucas. Hi Lucas =D!!

Question was on you in Japanese. I believe in English, there are not too many ways to say "you". Is that right??

What I think of is... just you.......

Anyways, Lucas's question was what how to use "omae" and "anata". His knowledge on those 2 words was like this "I have read that anata is used between close lovers, but I have also read it is used between businessmen."

OK. Let's explain what I think... what I know :p.

Now let's start with "you" expression we have in Japanese.

We have

1) Anata

2) Kimi

3) Omae

4) Anta (this one came from "Anata" I believe)

and there are several more like "Ondore" "Odore" "Ondorya" lol, those are something that you would not want to use for your friends or whatever, only when you try to get ready for fight or something XD. Just for your info :p.

In Japanese, we tend to omit subject like "I " and "you" in conversation unlike English. If you want to ask "What would you like to drink?" then we would say "nani ga nomitai?"

In this phrase, "nani" = what, "nomitai" = want to drink, "ga" = something that comes after subject in Japanese. So there are no "you" part in Japanese.

Anyways.... so go back to 1) Anata 2) Kimi 3) Omae 4) Anta.

Anata, would be used for

1) someone close lover, like wife to her husband

2) someone you do not know much, like someone you just met (it is a bit weird concidering 1) isn't it?)

3) between business man (this can count as (2) too I think)

Overall, Anata is an expression pretty polite.

Kimi, would be used for

1) someone at the same age or younger, we do not use this for elder people

Omae, would be used for

1) among men, this sounds a bit rough or macho. Some girls use this (I do too sometimes) but it does sound like she is not very feminine (^^;.

2) someone younger than you. But this also sounds like you are a bit bossy I think.

Anta, would be used for

hummmm a bit hard to explain... this sounds a bit casual or rough.

So, "anata" would be the most approprite in any occasion I think.

Hummmm would this be good enough?? Maybe not. If you ask me more, then I will try to answer further ne ;)!!

xoxo

Cutting Onion Without Crying

Since I live with my parents, I get to cook just once a week (Monday supper and Tuesday lunch) which is very lucky since I do not like cooking very much.

Anyways, since my Mom seems to have less energy today, I fixed lunch today. Made Yakimeshi (fried rice).
I used 1) onion 2) carrot 3) green pepper 4) scallop. My mother told me to use scallop before it got old :).
So I cut onion, carrot and green pepper into small pieces and saute it and put scallop then rice.

By the way, I believe cutting onion makes you cry doesn't it?? Well, it does to me. I think this is global.....? Anyways assume it is and today, I did not cry when I was cutting the onions!!!
I watched a TV show a couple of weeks ago. It was a quiz show. In the question, there was a quiz that
which one is not correct to prevent you from crying when you are cutting onion. There is one that does not work.
1) Have piece of onion in your mouth when you are cutting onions
2) Plug your nose when you are cutting onions
3) Cover your eyes when you cut onions

Do you know which one is the right answer?? 3) Covering your eyes does not work. Did you know that?? I have narrowed my eyes when I cut it before and I thought it worked... but the thing (I forgot how it is called) permeate through nose mucous membrane (wow big word... (@_@) than eyes!!!!

So today, I tried not to breath from nose when I was cutting the onion and I DID NOT CRY!!!!! It does work!!! You should try it too!!



[Today's Japanese]
Above pictures. The left one is onion in English right? And the right is green onion.
I was wondering why these two have similar name even though it does not look a like. But maybe those 2 are some kind of family ne, I think. In Japanese, those 2 does have similar names.
Onion is "Tama-negi" and green onion is "Negi". You see? the "negi" part is the same just like the onion part is the same in English. "Tama" means ball sort of in Japanese. So.... ball shaped negi is onion......

In English Onion seemed to be the base and in Japanese Negi (green onion) seemed to be the base.... would it be something to do with which one is used more or something? or.... which one is harvested more.....?!?!? muttering........

PC troubles....

Awwww.... it's been only a couple days since I started this blog and 2 days ago my PC started to act weirdly again..... (;_:). I had pretty similar symptoms about a month ago. I took my PC to a "Pasokon Kobo" which is a PC repair and selling (original PC with relatively low price) chain in Japan.

They could not find any false. They even said that they could not see the symptoms. I had 2 fans renewed and get the PC back. Then after a couple of days later I had the same symptom again!!! So I gave it a try to bring my PC to one of my friends, a German friend who lives very close to my house, who were to be really good with PCs. THEN, he found what was wrong and repaired it for me =D!!! And a month passed, it started again (==;. Restarting again and again sort of (not that bad yet). Since my computer genius buddy is back to Germany to see his family.... (TOO BAD Stephan!), I called a person who made the PC for me 7 year ago :p! I know~ I know~ it is pretty old ne..... I was almost buying a new notebook though... he said he could save my PC girl, so I am going to send the PC back to him for repair. Oh please fix it right *cross my fingers*.

So, this blog might be a bit slow for a while. Not sure it all depends on my PC girl condition. Will see......

[One little Japanese lesson for today :). ]

When you do something for the last try, like you do it without expecting too much from it. We say it "Dame moto de" in Japanese. It is kind of slang form I think... comes from "Dame de moto moto". Which means give it a try without expecting too much.
"Dame" literally means "not good". "Moto" would mean.... hum maybe "equal to the start"?? Hope this makes sense........

In the above sentenses, I gave it a try to bring my PC to one of my friends (I am not so sure if this English sounds natural. Forgive me English is not my first language so :p) if I say that in Japanese, I would say "Dame moto de tomodachi no tokoro ni PC wo motte itta (I went to bring my PC to my friend's without much expectaion)".
Well that is it for today!!! Mata (see ya)!!

Robert and Fabien from Germany

Finally be able to upload some pix of Robert and Fabian!!

Robert is one of my customers from Germany. He bought a CD from my shop JapaNeedz in March I believe (I checked it and yes it was March 12th that he purchased a MiniMoni CD from my store :)). I usually send my customers ship out notice on ship out with some questionnaire and he kindly replied to that email and I found out that he had a plan to come to Japan in April!

So he came to Japan =D.



This one above is the picture of his friend Fabian me and Robert (from the left) in front of Hiroshima castle. Pretty different from western castle, isn't it =D??



Fabian tried out a old Japanese battle clothes in the castle. He seemed pretty liked that one!



Robert showing me the pictures he took at Shukkei-en garden (and this one was taken by Fabian :p). The Shukkei-en is one of the famous place in Hiroshima as well for beautiful Japanese style landscape. I do not go there so often but when I go, I get really relaxed and feel good in the nature garden.



After Shukkei-en, we went to a burger shop (not sure if that was McDonald or Lotteria) and ate and went to a Book Off, a second handed books and CDs chain in Japan. Robert bought so many CDs and DVDs of Hello! Project. Attending to the Hello! Project concerts is one of the main reason for Robert and he actually attended many concerts and bought concert fans, posters and etc at the concert (the above picture is a part of his collection)! Glad Robert and Fabian had good time in Japan.... even though, they missed the plain back home once...... (they eventually made home of course ;D).

Robert is now into studying Japanese and purchase 2 Japanese learning books the other day.
"Minna no Nihongo Shokyu 1" and "Minna no Nihongo Shokyu1 Honyaku & Bunpou Kaisetsu" the first one is with basic explanation and quiz and stuffs and the second one is grammar stuff in German.

This book seems pretty famous for Japanese learner, some say those are the best and some say it is a bit boring so I am not sure. I guess it depends on people's taste. Well, good luck to Robert on his study!!