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Ms. Answerman: Just a Small "Thank You"


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Sword of Whedon



Joined: 17 Sep 2003
Posts: 683
PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 2:01 am Reply with quote
And if you knew anything about Japanese, you'd know that when "wa' is by itself, it's written "ha"

That's how you can always tell the people on animelyrics.com who don't actually speak the language, and usually get lots of romanizations wrong.
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abunai
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Joined: 05 Mar 2004
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 2:29 am Reply with quote
Sword of Whedon wrote:
And if you knew anything about Japanese, you'd know that when "wa' is by itself, it's written "ha"

That's how you can always tell the people on animelyrics.com who don't actually speak the language, and usually get lots of romanizations wrong.


As always, it is possible to dichotomize the readership of any group. For instance, into those who speak Japanese and those who don't.

Or... into those who wouldn't dream of writing something so condescending and rude as "And if you knew anything about Japanese..." and those who would.

Thanks to Rebecca for another good column.

- abunai
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Iron Chef



Joined: 23 Jan 2003
Posts: 487
Location: Seattle, WA
PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 3:29 am Reply with quote
According to Full Moon wo Sagashite, you're supposed to say "ohayou gozaimasu" when showing up to work, too, no matter what time it is. Smile
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xanbcoo



Joined: 19 Dec 2003
Posts: 245
Location: Houston/Austin Tx
PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 4:29 pm Reply with quote
Here, here! Sakura, make us proud. No more tears for you! You go Kishimoto!
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Toboe



Joined: 14 Apr 2004
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Location: Rakuen
PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:17 am Reply with quote
Dear Sword of Whedon,

You are a rude jerk.

Sincerely,
Toboe
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Sword of Whedon



Joined: 17 Sep 2003
Posts: 683
PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:37 am Reply with quote
Quote:
As always, it is possible to dichotomize the readership of any group. For instance, into those who speak Japanese and those who don't.

Or... into those who wouldn't dream of writing something so condescending and rude as "And if you knew anything about Japanese..." and those who would.


Or those who are answering questions who should know this stuff. This is basic, basic, first year, first week stuff, that anyone who has been an anime fan long enough to be an answer guru should know.

Quote:
Dear Sword of Whedon,

You are a rude jerk.



Thank you, I try

Exposing others cluelessness, especially one who is a source of "answers" is never rude. And yes, I'm perfectly happy to take over the job for those who are about to ask "if you think you can do better"
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ACDragonMaster



Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 405
PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 11:52 am Reply with quote
Quote:
According to Full Moon wo Sagashite, you're supposed to say "ohayou gozaimasu" when showing up to work, too, no matter what time it is.


According to a random old guy in a train depot in Tokyo (when I visited two years ago), you say "ohayou gozaimasu" as a formal greeting in general regardless of time of day. Of course, this guy was also going on and on about how polite Japanese culture is, and seemed to have a decent knowledge of American baseball teams (i.e. when I said I was from Minnesota, his first response was "ohh the Twins!"). And no, he was not drunk. At least I think not. Too early in the day for that. >_>

Sword of Whedon wrote:
And if you knew anything about Japanese, you'd know that when "wa' is by itself, it's written "ha"

That's how you can always tell the people on animelyrics.com who don't actually speak the language, and usually get lots of romanizations wrong.


Actually, the particle written with the kana 'ha' is pronounced 'wa', and thus it is standard practice to romanize it as such. This is the same thing for the particle 'e' (written 'he'), and 'o' (written 'wo'). Romanizing all of these based on the pronunciations rather than the litteral spellings is considered perfectly acceptable and often helps reduce confusion.
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Sword of Whedon



Joined: 17 Sep 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 12:59 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Actually, the particle written with the kana 'ha' is pronounced 'wa', and thus it is standard practice to romanize it as such. This is the same thing for the particle 'e' (written 'he'), and 'o' (written 'wo'). Romanizing all of these based on the pronunciations rather than the litteral spellings is considered perfectly acceptable and often helps reduce confusion.


Which is exactly what I said.
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Toboe



Joined: 14 Apr 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 2:02 pm Reply with quote
[quote="Sword of Whedon"]
Quote:

Exposing others cluelessness, especially one who is a source of "answers" is never rude. And yes, I'm perfectly happy to take over the job for those who are about to ask "if you think you can do better"


You know something? You're insufferable. Nobody would ever want to read your column because you'd be a totally condescending, unfunny, and unentertaining ass clown. Christ, Ms. Answerman works hard on that column and she does a great job and all you can do is come in here with one extremely questionable "correction" and then proceed to take a big sh*t all over the column, even going so far as to nominate yourself to take it over?

What the hell is wrong with you? Have you ever taken a step back, looked at what you were saying and thought about how much of a prick you sound like?

Get some perspective and stop trolling these forums insulting the people who work hard to provide you with free content. Also, go ask your mother to teach you some manners, since she clearly forgot about that during your childhood.
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Juniper



Joined: 07 Dec 2004
Posts: 51
PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 2:12 pm Reply with quote
Sword of Whedon wrote:
Exposing others cluelessness, especially one who is a source of "answers" is never rude. And yes, I'm perfectly happy to take over the job for those who are about to ask "if you think you can do better"


No one would ever read it. I can hardly stand reading your asinine bull on a forum.

The question wasn't "what's the difference between ha and wa," it was a question about greetings, which she answered. She doesn't need to back it up with a linguistics lesson. Given your history of ego-stroking and coming off as a pompous dick, it doesn't surprise me that you think you could do better. Only no one else believes that. Get a hold of a yourself. Rebecca writes a great column.
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Rebecca



Joined: 18 Mar 2002
Posts: 57
PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 2:54 pm Reply with quote
Sad as it is, I included both to scare the wa/vs/ha comments away.

On the topic of when 'ohayou' is used, I wasn't sure if you could use it at any time or if that responsibility fell upon 'konnichiwa'. I'm guessing then that a more accurate translation might be 'hello for the first time today'.

Thanks too for the compliments/encouragement from the majority of you. Very Happy
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abunai
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Joined: 05 Mar 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 3:12 pm Reply with quote
ACDragonMaster wrote:
Sword of Whedon wrote:
And if you knew anything about Japanese, you'd know that when "wa' is by itself, it's written "ha"

That's how you can always tell the people on animelyrics.com who don't actually speak the language, and usually get lots of romanizations wrong.


Actually, the particle written with the kana 'ha' is pronounced 'wa', and thus it is standard practice to romanize it as such. This is the same thing for the particle 'e' (written 'he'), and 'o' (written 'wo'). Romanizing all of these based on the pronunciations rather than the litteral spellings is considered perfectly acceptable and often helps reduce confusion.


Quite correct, but I should point out that this is a matter of convenience, not correctness. Despite the fact that the mora は, when used as a particle marking topic, is usually* pronounced "wa" instead of "ha", that doesn't change the fact that it is は, not わ. It is therefore not wrong to transliterate it as "ha", just impractical and unusual.

Similarly, the particle を is usually* pronounced "o", not "wo". But that doesn't mean that it is wrong to transliterate it as "wo". It's just uncommon.

* When I say "usually", I mean standard (共通語, kyoutsuugo, based on regular 関東弁, kantouben) Japanese. However, there are an amazing number of dialect variations, and many of them will have you pronouncing は as "ha" and を as "wo". In these cases, it is terminally stupid to insist on the common transliteration.

Furthermore, recent years have seen many non-native Japanese speakers in Japanese entertainment (for instance, Origa or Hitoto You), and you will often hear them pronouncing the particles straightforwardly. Again, in these cases the "ha"-to-"wa" transliteration just makes no sense.

On the topic of ohayou, I should point out that it derives from hayai, "early", and is therefore (despite what has been said previously) best suited as a morning greeting. A meaningful translation might be: "You're out early today". It seems to me that using it later in the day sort of implies that the person one is speaking to is not in the habit of getting up before sundown, which could be considered rather rude and sarcastic. Best to stick with the standard forms:

  • Ohayou in the morning
  • Konnichiwa during the day (say from 10 AM until sundown)
  • Konbanwa during the evening and night (after sundown)

On the subject of greetings and politesse, it is usually not a good idea to be too adventurous.

- abunai
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Sword of Whedon



Joined: 17 Sep 2003
Posts: 683
PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2005 8:20 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
You know something? You're insufferable. Nobody would ever want to read your column because you'd be a totally condescending, unfunny, and unentertaining ass clown. Christ, Ms. Answerman works hard on that column and she does a great job and all you can do is come in here with one extremely questionable "correction" and then proceed to take a big sh*t all over the column, even going so far as to nominate yourself to take it over?


I'm just heading off the eventual person who says "if you think you can do better". Being positive is simply patting everyone on the head, when people are wrong they need to hear about it, and I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, deal with it. This is not questionable, it's wrong, and needed to be corrected. If people put effort into their fandom, as someone who answers questions for a major website should, they would know that. Understand that I'm being very nice and understanding to you right now, but being nice to people doesn't usually work, because they decide that they're picked on just like you have any time you question anything people are doing. Hell my friend took Answerman to task for answering all the easy questions like "when is InuYasha on", because he didn't want him falling into the same trap that Televisionary in TV guide did. You know what? Someone showed him the strip and he stopped doing it.

Quote:
No one would ever read it. I can hardly stand reading your asinine bull on a forum.


Ah yet another lazy dublover bitching because someone pops their little bubble. You're welcome!

Quote:
Sad as it is, I included both to scare the wa/vs/ha comments away.


Then you should have noted that "ha" was incorrect. I was doing a show at a con, and one of the people on stage said "Super-Sayin"(Sah-yin), and all the DBZ dublovers screamed "Say-in". Instead of letting the ignorance of Funimation's "actors" permeate, they were corrected. That's your job, to dispel ignorance.

Quote:
It is therefore not wrong to transliterate it as "ha", just impractical and unusual.


But it's completely wrong, because it's read as "wa", and accuracy to what is said is the most important part, especially in the lyrics area that I pointed out. Do you pronounce jawohl(german) "jah-wohl" or "yavowl"? One is right and one is not, and since this is an "i before e" type rule, should be followed. This is not a subjective point. This is textbook.
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sinistertaco



Joined: 17 Jun 2004
Posts: 96
PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:10 am Reply with quote
Ha. Look at the self-important fanboy go. Don't mess with him because he knows Japanese. Sure, he may have a wholly pathetic and insanely unfufilling real life (I'm sure he'll lie and tell me about his hot girlfriend and how much partying he does, but we all know the truth.), but he'll kick your ass on the internet!

And seriously, using "dublover" as some sort of ultimate slam...? How many times do you get beat up in a given week? =

Fandom makes me want to [expletive] vomit.
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littlegreenwolf



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 4796
Location: Seattle, WA
PostPosted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:04 am Reply with quote
Laughing I love that dub lover insult. It's just so... so extraneous. You may just start a new trend, Whedon.
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