Peter Backhaus - The Japan Times

LIFE / Language

Jul 28, 2014

The here and there of who's who and what's what

There are some Japanese words that act like little arrows. They are pointing devices that can be used to indicate a specific part of the wider context of what is being said. Some examples in English are "here" and "there," "this" and "that," "me" and "you." But Japanese does this in a more systematic way using what linguists, somewhat grandiloquently, call the ko-so-a-do paradigm. These are four little syllables that can be attached to various suffixes to express all different kinds of spatial and other relationships.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Jul 7, 2014

It's all a matter of character — but which one to choose?

Much has been made of the alleged difficulty of the Japanese language for non-native and even native speakers. My personal impression is that this view is most commonly cherished by two types of people: those who don't know much Japanese (or any at all), and those who only know Japanese.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Jun 1, 2014

Warming up for the Soccer W-Cup

For real soccer fans, the upcoming World Cup in Brazil will be the highlight of the past four years. On top of that, many lukewarm supporters will surely soon discover that they are, in fact, true sports fans. But even those who consider it entirely pointless to watch 22 people running after a ball for how-long-was-it-again will find it difficult to entirely escape the frenzy that is sure to come after the kickoff of the opening match, between Brazil and Croatia, on June 13, 5 a.m. Japanese time. So let's make the best of it and have a look at the Japanese language of soccer.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

May 18, 2014

Translating movie titles into Japanese can get a bit wairudo

For one of my classes recently, I needed to get the Japanese movie version of Harper Lee's classic novel "To Kill a Mockingbird." When I looked for it on Amazon Japan, I was a little confused because they didn't seem to have it. Instead they kept offering me a DVD titled "Arabama monogatari" (「アラバマ物語」). It took me a while to figure out that this "Alabama Story," as it literally translates, was indeed the DVD I had been looking for; the title just happened to be a little, well, modified.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Mar 30, 2014

The sounds of everyday Japanese life

Living in Japan can be quite a noisy experience. Even in my quiet little neighborhood, rarely a day passes without a great variety of sounds being heard. Four days a week the garbage truck fills the air with its most peculiar orugōru (オルゴール, music box) sound. At least once a week, a second-hand object dealer's car roams the streets in slow motion, with a cheerful female voice from the roof speaker announcing that the not so cheerful-looking man inside will take your old stuff free of charge (there's usually some hidden cost, by the way).

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Mar 2, 2014

Getting all mixed up with mixed kanji readings

Gyūdon (牛丼, beef-over-rice bowl) and tonjiru (豚汁, miso soup with pork and vegetables) have much in common. Not only are they a nice combo for a quick lunch (and that it's almost noon while I'm writing this), but on closer inspection both terms also turn out to be a little off with regard to how they are pronounced.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Feb 2, 2014

It's never too early to start juken

It's that time of year again, when hundreds of thousands of soon-to-be high school graduates are busy taking university entrance exams for the coming academic year. This activity is commonly known as juken (受験), and usually translated into English as "taking an examination." The translation is somewhat incomplete though, for at least two reasons. First, the type of exam usually referred to is an entrance examination to a school or a university, called nyūgaku shiken (入学試験) or just nyūshi (入試). Though there are countless other exams to which the term could in principle apply, when people say they are jukenchū (受験中, in the middle of juken), they are usually talking about an entrance exam to an educational institution rather than, say, a diploma for mountain climbing or deep-sea diving.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Dec 29, 2013

So much for nau: What will we say next?

The end of the year is always a good time to reflect on what is, was and will be. With regard to language, one of the most stimulating things I have recently read in this respect was from an article in the journal Nihongogaku (日本語学) about a study in which Japanese university students were asked to name words and expressions they had recently started using or, what's at least as interesting, un-using.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Jul 28, 2013

Hyper, mega, ultra: talking in superlatives

One of the ultra-fascinating facets of Japanese is its super-large arsenal of intensifying prefixes that provide an otherwise neutral expression with some emphatic edge. The best-known (and least spectacular) of them is dai (大), which usually translates as "big." When something went really well, for instance, people call it dai-seikō (大成功, big success), whereas in the opposite case they acknowledge dai-shippai (大失敗, big failure). The trick works not only with Sino-Japanese words but also with native Japanese vocabulary. In such cases, the character usually takes its kun-reading, ō. Some examples are ō-yorokobi (大喜び, big delight), ō-machigai (大間違い, big mistake) and ō-sawagi (大騒ぎ, big fuss). Exceptions to this reading rule of thumb are ō-sōji (大掃除, big end-of-the-year house cleaning)and ō-genka (大喧嘩, big quarrel), where despite the Sino-Japanese main word the prefix reads ō rather than dai. The reverse combination is also possible, as in the antonym pair dai-suki (大好き, love) and dai-kirai (大嫌い, hate).

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

May 27, 2013

Oyaji gyagu, more than just cheesy puns

Stop me if you've heard this one. Two men aged around 50 enter a sushi restaurant. One orders a raincoat, the other a garage. What looks like the beginning of a "Monty Python" sketch is in fact the stuff of a most typical oyaji gyagu (おやじギャグ), or old man's joke/gag. Such jokes normally center around words with similar or identical reading, but with an entirely different meaning. Linguists call these homophones.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Apr 29, 2013

Bilingual beauty, straight and permed

Beauty must be a bilingual thing. At least that's the impression one gets from looking at signs outside hairdressers, beauty parlors and similar types of businesses in Japan.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Mar 25, 2013

Yoisho! A word to move mountains (and smaller things)

The man from next door says it. My mother-in-law says it. The guy in the grocery store says it. The nurse on TV says it. Seems like everyone says Yoisho! (よいしょ!) It's one of those expressions that appear to be a common part of everyday Japanese life but are not usually taught in Japanese language classes. At least not the ones I took.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Feb 25, 2013

The Japanese traffic light blues: Stop on red, go on what?

Road traffic in Japan is a complicated affair. Apart from those narrow, crooked streets that sometimes end without warning, you have to get used to unclear right-of-way rules and the national fetish for backward parking.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Dec 31, 2012

Even language has winners and losers

If there's one thing to be sure of in Japan these days, it's that by the end of the year you will have a prime minister different from the one you started out with. This year was the sixth year in succession to follow this pattern. Somewhat differently, though, this year there was a general election — not only the first one in three years but also the first one since the triple catastrophe in 2011.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Oct 22, 2012

Politicians may ru the day their names became verbs

"Which new words would you like to see added to the dictionary?" A couple of months ago the publishing house Taishukan put this generous question to Japanese high school and junior high school students.

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL

Sep 24, 2012

Indecent proposals: the language of Japanese dating spam

It started with an email from a 20-year-old college student called Emi, who told me she was looking for a Showa umare no dansei (昭和生まれの男性, a man born in Showa, i.e., born before 1989). Next was Norika, a bored housewife in her early thirties asking me to spend some himajikan (ヒマ時間, spare time) with her. She informed me that she was willing to pay for all expenses, including restaurant and hotel bills. I was even more surprised when only a couple of days later, a 33-year-old chief executive named Saori offered me a larger sum of money if I was willing to enter a tokubetsu na kankei (特別な関係 special relationship) with her. Though being a married man, I couldn't help wondering about this new trend of Japanese women looking for partners in such straightforward ways.

LIFE / Language

Sep 2, 2008

So is it respect for 'the aged,' 'the elderly' or 'the seniors'?

As it is every September, people in Japan are looking forward to keirō no hi, the coming national holiday dedicated to the older members of the population. Respect for the Aged Day provides an annual opportunity to visit one's elderly relatives, get involved in various welfare activities or just stay home in bed and rest.

LIFE / Language

Apr 22, 2008

KY-style Japanese: Express yourself alphabetically

Waiting at the railroad crossing, I couldn't help but overhear the animated conversation that the two students standing behind me were having.

LIFE / Language

Mar 21, 2006

Odd use of foreign loan words a sign of the times

Heed this safety warning: "Caution! Don't lean on the gate. The gate would fall down when lean on it. It occurs you trouble." Having eluded the gate, then follow this health instruction: "The Italian word pomodoro means golden fruit. Tomatoes have vitamin, carotene, potash, pectene, and is good for blood pressure, liver disease and constipation." Having escaped constipation, relax with this philosophical pearl of wisdom: "Cross linking artists and material drive for art of polymerzaion and grow together."

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