Round Two!

Today, I finished the second week of school for the Spring Term here at Hiroshima University. Although break was a fun time, being put back to work hasnt been a completely bad experience. It's good to have structure in life. However, I already know which classes I'm going to get burned from, even though we've only had two days of instruction. I can only hope that my enjoyable classes stay that way, and keep me from going crazy.

現代史, or "Contemporary History" is on Tuesday afternoons, and is a rather terrible way to end the day. I saw it in the syllabus database, but I decided to take it only after I learned that one of my Japanese friends was going to take it. Its content is basically post-war German history; not exactly my cup of tea, but hardly offensive. However, after the first class, I began to have doubts about it, mostly because the teacher rambles on and on and on. It's worse than most teachers because I dont think he realises how boring he is. I would drop it, but stupid me didnt believe my friend when he said he was thinking of dropping the class. After I got the professor's signature and turned in my registration form, I learned that my friend had indeed dropped the class. This past week's lesson wasnt better than the first. We discussed the German constitution, and I have no idea what was going on because the constitution is written (well, translated) into very formal (read: Verbose) Japanese. Even if I had been able to read the fifty million kanji that were on the screen, I still wouldnt have been able to understand the slides, because I have rarely seen (if ever) any of the grammar structures. For the moment, I havent withdrawn from the class because I havent actually registered for it, but because the grade for the course is completely dependent on the final, there is a chance I could pass it. However, the textbook is written in Formal Japanese, which means I get stuck every other character. Since I can withdraw at any time, I suppose there is no rush to drop it, but I am seriously worried about that class.

The other class that worries me is my 古典中世文学演習 class, which is on classical Japanese literature. To get credits at UHM, I need to take two classes here to equal on UHM class, so I decided on this one. I learned of this class from my literature professor from last semester, but the reason I really need to pass this class is because it'll give me credit for EALL 371 (Traditional Japanese Literature), and possibly JPN 466 (Readings in Classical Japanese). The other Japanese literature class that was recommended to me would only have gotten me EALL 271 (Traditional Japanese Literature in Translation), but I'd rather take that class at UHM next semester, as it will get me a writing intensive credit (which I really need). But from the first class, I had a bad feeling. For one thing, the professor speaks really fast, in my opinion, so I can barely process what he says, much less understand. The course content doesnt help either. We're reading a text called 八重葎 Yaemugura, and I've only been able to find snippets about it on the internet. But that's not the problematic part. We have to translate the original text from 変体仮名 to 現代仮名遣い, and then into Modern Japanese. What is 変体仮名 you may ask. It is an older form of ひらがな, and is less standardized and more calligraphic. In other words, it's like reading cursive, from back in the day, when people would write everything in size eight font, with E's after the TH, and having more OU's than you need. And to top it all off, the professor isnt exactly happy to have a foreign student in his class. When I asked him to sign my registration paper, I asked him straight up, Is it okay for me to take this class? He never answered my question. He didnt say, "This will be a wonderful class for you!", or "It's going to be difficult, but try your best!", or even "No, this is too hard for you". Thankfully, I have a few friends here who can help me translate, but I'm not really sure what section I've been assigned to translate, or who is in my group. Of all my classes, this is the one that I'm very sure I will screw up in, and everyone in the class will think I'm such a dunce.

Having said all of that, there are a few classes that I am excited to take. With the exception of Level 4 Japanese (it's going to be the same as last semester -_-;), My Level 5 Japanese class, Japanese poetry class, Politics and Foreign Relations of Japan class, and Cross Cultural Studies on Education class all look to be very fun and interesting, as well as useful.

My Level Five class is the 分析 class, or Analytics. Its goal is to better our writing, by comparing natural Japanese with the Japanese of people who are learning it. Although we do have to write an essay every week, the essays are hardly long (half a page typed), and (so far) the topics are really basic (eg 自己紹介 Self introduction). I think this class will be the most important of all my Japanese classes here, if only because it will encourage me to practice the grammar and vocabulary I am learning, as well as make me think like 日本人. Although I doubt I will ever become native level fluent, I think this'll help me get as close to that as I can. The teacher of the class is a bit spacey, and I dont always understand him, but the gist of the class is fascinating. Even though I may write or speak in Japanese, sentence formation is always in English. That is, I determine what I want to say in English, translate it to Japanese, and then display it (in the form of conversation or writing). However, this means there are transcription errors, because some English forms cant exist in Japanese, or vice versa. By looking at sentence formation from a Japanese perspective, perhaps my Japanese (or way of thinking) can become more "natural".

The Politics class I'm taking looks interesting, although because of the literature class just before it, I've always been in a foul mood (really need to work on that). The two professors that teach it have such bubbly personalities, and seem to have a relationship akin to Lucy and Ethel (DONT JUDGE), I feel bad that I dont enjoy their class more. Ostensibly, the course is to teach us how the Japanese government works, and how it interacts with other countries on the international level. Seeing as I would like to work on that international level (although probably on the American side [sorry Japan]), taking this class was a given from the start. Like I said, I have yet to go to the class happy, so I cant really say much about how I think it'll be going. We are given the chance to do a presentation on a topic related to Japanese poltics or foreign relations, and to be quite honest, I'm happy for that. In my application to the program here, I said that one of the things I'd like to accomplish is telling people about the Japanese in Hawaii. For better or worse, the Japanese in Japan have forgotten their brethren in Hawaii, despite the strong ties that once existed (and actually, still do). I have to tell the profs when I would like to present, but I already know my topic. (I imagine if the lit class didnt bring me down so much, I'd be much more excited for this class. Fuck Japanese lit.)

My Japanese poetry class is taught by the teacher I had last semester in Japanese literature. He's such a funny teacher, and even though I'm not going to get credit for it, I decided to take his class anyway. The poems were written by various poets during the Taisho and Early Showa period, and so feature some archaic Japanese. But it's mostly in the form of ゐ, which is modern い, or maybe some 旧字体 kanji. But nothing diffuclt (LIKE SOME OTHER LIT CLASSES). Although I dont understand the explanations completely, the short ones are sufficiently simple enough for me to not only understand them, but also enjoy them. Finally, the other plus of this course is that I actually know people in it! One of the Chinese girls I knew from last semester's class is back again, with a friend of hers, and I also convinced one of the American girls to take it with me. Two of the Korean girls are taking it too, so we finally have a noticable group of HUSAs to combat those hostile Japanese kids. (<----That may be the paranoia talking, I dont know.)

To be completely honest, I signed up for the education class for one reason: I WANT FIELD TRIPS. I had heard through the grapevine that the education class offeres field trips to local schools, and I knew that I wanted this class. But the professor that teaches is it so friendly, and it actually does sound somewhat interesting. Last class we discussed what culture is, and it was insightful, inasmuch as it confirmed what I have been notice: Culture is a fluid property, and can be used to group people together, as well as drive them apart. Although I planned for this class for silly reasons, I am glad I'm taking it. If only I was going to get credit for it...

Today is Thursday, so I had my Level 4, Japanese lit, Politics, and Level 5 classes today. While three out of the four were good classes, Japanese lit brought me down a lot, and I'm still bitter about my 現代史 class on Tuesday. And on top of that, I've had some personal issues that I need to deal with. Despite all that, I need to focus on the good things that are happening. This semester, I have Wednesday and Friday off, so I'm hoping that I will use the extra time for good use; namely, working hard for the difficult classes I have. And more long term, I need to realize that I need to push myself to become the best that I can be. This semester will be difficult, and there is a really good chance I will fail some classes (sorry Grandma, I'm not my sister). But you know what? Even if there is shame from an F on my report card, I need to try my best to make that a high F. British Ben ended his last blog post with "頑張っている". That is a mindset I should adopt. 頑張って、わたし！

歌詞の翻訳 I

Way back in high school, before I understood a lot of Japanese, I would spend recesses in the Japanese classroom, looking up kanji. Although I was listening to Japanese music since about age eight, I had never known what they were about. But in high school, I was taught how to use a kanji dictionary, so finally, I was able to get at least a fuzzy understanding of what I was singing along to. However, my Japanese teacher was less than enthusiastic about my endeavours. She told me that translating song lyrics was actually really hard, and that it would be better to stick to texts.

I have never forgotten this piece of advice, and actually, I agree with it. The way songs are structured (particularly Japanese songs), sentences can be fragmented into pieces, with one sentence in two different lines, or two sentences in one line. Also, Japanese lyrics tend to mix different speech styles (mostly polite words with casual ones), which can make translation difficult. But most importantly, I'm not fluent in Japanese, so any translation I produce is bound to have errors or oddly worded structures. Knowing all of this, I still every now and then engage in a bit of translation. Because I have a strong interest in what I'm listening to (I like to know if it's a happy song or a sad song), I try just a little bit harder in understanding the words. And if I want to sing it at karaoke, I can go ahead and read the kanji onscreen, instead of reading the furigana. With all this in mind, I translated one of the songs I am just in love with right now, "近づきたくて with YU-A" from the album "K.J. with...". I've already blogged about why I loved this song, so I'm not going to go over that in depth right here. It'll probably find its way into the translation notes anyway. Just so you know, this is probably going to be long post, so I hope you dont have something to do right now.

Let's begin with the translated lyrics. I didnt try to make them fit the meter of the song, so dont take my lyrics with you to karaoke and expect them to fit. I tried to produce English as close to the original Japanese as much as possible, so some sentences are awkwardly long. Finally, I'm going to make two assumptions right now.
1. You have no interest in the music I like/listen to, so you don't need the Japanese lyrics/pronunciation guide.
2. If you are interested in the Japanese lyrics, you can read Japanese, or find a way to read Japanese. それなら、このリンクをクリックしてください。

では、let's begin! YU-A is the girl singer, and she's in pink. KJ is the guy, and in blue.

I Want to Get Closer to You with YU-A

*I want to get closer to, but I cant get closer to you
I just want to hear those two characters, [Love]
Hey, what do you think of me?
I'm, I'm
I'm still waiting now*

From your point of view, am I even now your boyfriend?
Am I a nice, older sempai? Am I a convenient conversation partner?
Even though you're just a girl friend, whenever we would meet,
Gradually, I started to care for you, and then I became someone that liked you
Without knowing I had those kinds of feelings, you would confide in me,
"Lately my boyfriend is like this, and if this keeps up, it looks like we'll break up"
And I would lend an ear, with a messed up state of mind,
I needed to confess to you, but I couldnt say it, not in front of you, with your head down

*repeat

It's the weekend, you're definitely out with your boyfriend
That day, I couldnt get the sight of your pre-breakup face out of my head
It was Saturday night, and the town was as festive as ever, but I was looking at the TV, not paying attention to what was on
By myself, worrying endlessly, at that time, I got your text
"Hey, can you meet me now?" I responded quickly, and flew from my house
Our meeting place was that family restaurant, I could see you sitting in a window seat
All tonight, I wanted to tell you my feelings, clearly and exactly
If not, let's end this relationship, I cant stand it, just being friends

*repeat

Someday, I wonder if we'll be able to share our feelings?
Even though I want to know you more, are we just friends?

I want to hear it
What are you to me? And more importantly, what am I to you?
What the hell
Is it the same as before, that we're just really good friends?
I won't run away
Say it clearly, even if it breaks the friendship we've had until now
I want to get over this
Any more than this, I cant hold back my feelings

Fine I'll just say it now, one word, "Love"...

*repeat

*repeat

Translation notes:

The sentence in the first verse, the one about the confession, was the hardest one for me to translate. In the original Japanese, it says: 切り出せずにいる告白のタイミング　ただうつむいてる君の前に It comes out as gibberish if I translate it literally (naturally), so I had to improvise. My interpretation of this part is that the girl tells the guy that she's going to break up with her boyfriend. If the girl you liked said that, wouldnt you want to tell her that you like her? But the guy cant say it, because she told him that with her head down. When the target is feeling like poo, you should probably not make your move.

The second verse (and in parts of the bridge-y part) have the words ハッキリ (hakkiri) and　ちゃんと (chanto) in them. Depending on how they're used, they can be hard to translate. ハッキリ means "Clearly", as in "Say it clearly" ハッキリ言おう (which is the original lyrics), so that's easy enough. But ちゃんと is a bit harder. Jisho.org defines it as "Perfectly, properly, exactly". But basically, what he's saying is that he needs to express his feelings for the girl, plain and simple. No misunderstandings.

I learned a few interesting words from translating this song. For example, 耳を傾ける means literally, "To incline one's ear", but figuratively means to lend an ear, similar to English. Also, 別れ際 (wakaregiwa), which means "On the verge of breaking up". This is kind of a grammar lesson, because according to my kanji dictionary (need to double check with the grammar one later), Verb +　際 means "on the verge of verb". I'll have to remember that for later use. Also 悶悶 (monmon), which means "Endlessly worrying". With 際, before I take a test, I can say 落ち際じゃけん、悶悶してるよ！ I'm about to fail, so I'm worrying like crazy!

I already knew this one, but I don't know how to use it like a Japanese person. The verb for "to see" and "to hear" are usually written 「見る miru」 and 「聞く kiku」. However, there are two other characters that mean the same in English, and also are read the same way: 「観る」 and 「聴く」. How do they differ? My understanding is, the latter two have a little more oomph in them. That is, when you hear your graduation song, perhaps, or your grandmother's favorite tune, you 聴く them. When you're looking at something real closely, taking note of every inch of it, you're ‘観るing it. If you use 聞く or 見る, you're just listening, or looking, nothing serious involved. How correct my explanation is, I don't know for sure. 聴く was explained to me by a Japanese teacher, but even then, she wasnt very specific (like is it only used in a literary sense, or is it okay to use in a text message?), and I'm extrapolating for 観る. In any case, this is one of the advantages of kanji: To visually indicate the emotiveness of a word. Isnt the Latin alphabet boring that way?

The number of songs I dont understand is still pretty huge, and the so is the number of songs with awesome lyrics. I have no problem finding another song to translate. And since I need to study for the Japanese placement exam for next term, there is a high possibilty that I will do this again. I have also been thinking of translating an English song I like into Japanese. I recently received the Japanese translation for a Korean song I like, and it got me thinking. I have never tried that before, so maybe it is time to start.