Abbreviated Sentences

Using the example from my previous post, we start with:

“Watashi wa ureshii desu.” (“I am happy.”)

This is a complete sentence.

In fact, let’s do one better.

"Watashi wa ureshii desu!"

The speaker is the context.

So, we don’t actually need a “watashi wa” (1st person pronoun + “topic particle”) at the start of the sentence. We can assume that “watashi wa” is the context, because we can see the speaker; and unless she specifically points out some other person, it obviously refers to her.

So:

“Ureshii desu!“

"Ureshii desu!"

This, too, is considered a complete sentence.

But wait. We know that she refers to herself here. So why do we need a “desu”? We can tell that she’s using “ureshii” as a noun, describing her state of being as “happy.”

So, we could just as easily write:

“Watashi wa ureshii!”

"Watashi wa ureshii!"

This is also considered a complete Japanese sentence… and here’s why.

This is one of my golden rules of Japanese grammar:

Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. – Jeremiah Bourque

So, armed with this principle, we can see that dropping these sentence elements is not removing them; it is hiding them!

In English, you basically can’t do this, but in Japanese, you can have an unstated subject. Here, the subject and the topic are one and the same, so we can use a single “wa” and not have to worry about “ga” at all.

So, we can get away with the following:

a) An unstated subject

b) An unstated copula (the “desu” part)

You don’t need a degree to understand copulas. If I ask “Who is happy?” and the reply is, “She is.” then “is” = the copula. That’s all. It’s not a verb in the usual sense.

So since we can drop two elements… hey… is there a rule saying you can’t drop both elements at the same time?

NO. THERE IS NO SUCH RULE.

Ergo:

“Ureshii!”

"Ureshii!"

Even this is a complete Japanese sentence.

Why? Because the other parts are hidden, not missing. They’re there, we just don’t see them.

This is why people in Japan can listen to a cute girl saying “Ureshii!” in a loud voice, appreciate her cuteness, and not think that she’s somehow breaking the rules of grammar. She’s bending the rules, not breaking them. That’s allowed. That’s OK.

The Real Trick Is…

The speaker is the context of the sentence. That’s the key. So, the real trick is simply this:

When you hear “Ureshii!” or sentences like it, look for the speaker. React accordingly.

It’s not really about “thinking” in Japanese. It’s deprogramming your English biases and teaching you to not think about it. Don’t worry about the lack of a visible subject – your subject is right before your eyes!

Don’t think. React. Be ureshii. – J

Language education, and many other kinds, fill the mind with all manner of trivia, from which the word trivial is derived. This information is like specs of information on a hard drive, fragmented and difficult to use. The mind must be freed from this disorganization to progress in a more relaxed and efficient manner.

I would like to return to doing more teaching and tutoring, but one psychological barrier is knowing how people are educated beyond my capacity to influence. People are bombarded with facts and figures in an effort to “spray and pray” as if firing an assault rifle in fully automatic fire mode. The hope is that enough information will “hit” the student and “stick” within him or her long enough to do some good. Students then cram for tests one after another, advancing to the next level without any firm grasp of their knowledge.

It is one thing to learn something; it is quite another to understand something. This difference creates a great deal of grief over a lifetime.

To start to understand things, they must be made simpler; they must be taught slower; they must be explained with clarity; and they must be shown more than once in a natural, comfortable manner. Both the conveyor of knowledge and the recipient of knowledge must become comfortable with the subject.

Another computing concept explains this idea well. RISC means Reduced Instruction Set Computer. In other words, it means a computer that is more efficient, and therefore, does not have to work as hard. It’s computing smarter, not harder.

Through the avoidance of waste, proper instruction methods appear to be moving slower at any particular moment of time, but achieve their medium and long term goals faster than traditional methods. More importantly, knowledge that is linked together (i.e. not fragmented) leads to understanding: first, of little things; later, of much larger things.

Thus the paradox: the best way of teaching I know will appear to be time inefficient (even though it is not), but will give people greater certainty in their knowledge (if they participate).

Tutoring is, I believe, the cause of repairing the damage done by violent collisions between students and modern education systems. This is just as much true for teenagers and children dumped on the wayside of the great conveyor belt as it is for adult learners who are unable to make a breakthrough when crammed into language learning sessions with little time for individual assistance.

You can teach facts and figures on an industrial scale, but you cannot teach understanding like this. It is also too irresponsible to say, that is something for people to find on their own; it is simply the duty of others to provide input. This places the responsibility for the output on the vessel being filled with knowledge. Failure is deemed to be the failure of the vessel; bad child, stupid adult.

That is not good enough.

A great deal of entirely intelligent people are being failed by this system. They are being shown pieces of a puzzle without any sense of how to put the puzzle together.

The good teacher should teach learners how to string together pieces of related knowledge and make those pieces more useful as a whole than as a collection of parts.

That is how we can defragment the human mind.

It’s just a matter of how to do it. – J

So you want to spell things out in simple terms? To say it straight? To make things crystal clear? In Japanese, this is being hakkiri (はっきり) about it. There is no kanji for “hakkiri”; it is a native Japanese-ism that implies the literal truth.

Japanese society is full of white lies. This is not so different from the old saw of, when a woman asks you, “Does this dress make me look fat?” you answer “no,” regardless of whether it does or not! Speech itself can be full of hewing and hawing, with things like the “um” ‘s that Obama was known for during his candidacy and early presidency. Statements can be filled with all manner of fudging and imprecision.

“Hakkiri” is used in Japanese as an adverb, chiefly in the following way:

hakkiri iu (はっきり言う)

Here, “iu” is the root form of the verb to speak/ to state. At least, in the way we will see it, those readings work:

To state clearly.

To clearly state.

To plainly state.

To distinctly state.

If someone is fumbling a response to an awkward question, like, oh, do you like me and not that other girl, a response might read:

hakkiri itte kudasai! (はっきり言ってください！)

So, an urging – insistent but not overbearing – that the other party tell it to her straight, whether it’s what she wants to hear or not. This is a plea for seriousness, for honesty, and for bluntness.

Of course, actually replying clearly and plainly may not lead to the result the girl would prefer.

In one scene in a Japanese video game I was recently playing, a young female magic user rescued from low-level demons was in a conversation with the knightly main character (of that arc, at least). The question arose as to, if she was able to use magic, how did she get captured like that in the first place?

As the magic user tried hard to avoid the subject, the knightly character gently suggested that she must have been terrified of the demons and froze in place from fright.

To this, her response was:

h, hakkiri itte nai de kudasai!! (は、はっきり言ってないでください！)

As this is a bit problematic to try and read literally, let’s put it like this:

“D, don’t spell it out like that!”

That is, it’s bad enough that’s what actually happened, she just doesn’t want him to say it in such blunt, literal terms. This being no more than gentle teasing, it goes no further than that. She remained happily rescued and appreciative of the hero.

Now, the real trick follows:

hakkiri suru (はっきりする)

By adding the “suru” suffix, we make what precedes “suru” into an action verb. Normally, this is done for kanji compounds like for “benkyou” (勉強), which is normally read as “study,” turning it into “benkyou suru” for the verb “to study.” (There is a nuance to this that only language nerds would want to hear, but it is a common verb so it gets the point across.)

So, as I said at the start, “hakkiri” does not have a kanji (and never did).

Yet we can still turn it into a verb!

In this incarnation, it becomes the verb “hakkiri suru,” or, to make plain/ to make clear.

When applied to an intangible object, such as a person’s feelings, we can use the “saseru” suffix:

kimochi o hakkiri sasete (気持ちをはっきりさせて)

This is skipping ahead slightly but, this reads as the “soft imperative” form of make (your) feelings clear.

This can be to yourself or to others. If you are a male lead of an anime or manga story where you are in the middle of a love triangle, or square, or pentagon (and so on…), you may hear this phrase spoken (iu, いう、言う) to you.

As in, make up your mind. ^^

I hope I have successfully spelled out how Japanese people talk about spelling things out.

– J

Usually, when お疲れ様です (o-tsukaresama desu) rolls off the Japanese tongue, it can be safely understood as “Thank you for your hard work.”

The “o” part means that this applies to someone else. The “tsukare” part is a direct reference to fatigue.

The “sama” part… in kanji, this is the same “sama” that is used as an honorific, but there is another, highly relevant reading here. This kanji is used in words and idioms relating to situations. Or rather, what something seems to be.

Example:

様子 (yousu) = appearance

様式 (youshiki) = pattern

様相 (yousou) = aspect

It is in this sense that 様 marks that someone else (because of the “o” honorific) seems to be tired.

The “desu” is simply a copula adding a verbal punctuation mark affirming the sentence in a polite manner (as it is the polite form, not a plain form like “da”).

So, by idiomatically remarking upon how someone else is tired, this is implicit recognition of that person’s hard work.

An Anime Pun

In the mecha anime television series Godannar, puns are heavily involved in the names of people and machinery. But never mind that. We’re focused on a different pun.

When the leading character of the show, Go (shown above), is done his “work” for the day (he’s a giant robot pilot, that’s his day job…), he gets mobbed by staff who keep going

「お疲れ様です」

in different speaking styles. At the end of the ritual, he wearily remarks

「疲れてねえよ。」

“I’m not tired.”

(The writer of this article takes a brief moment to laugh.)

Now, where it really gets funny is… at the start of the show, it’s his wedding day. (So of course some giant monster picks that day to attack. Of course.) And his angry left-at-the-altar wife pursues him all the way onto the battlefield, not being the “nobly waiting” type.

To boot, she calls him by her pet name for him, Go-chin. Rather than -chan, this uses -chin because put together, this is an… impact sound effect. gachin, gochin… it sounds very similar. It’s like the sound made when an anime hero smashes something with his fist, like Go’s personal combat style.

So with all this revealed in front of his co-workers, he is greeted with the following:

「お疲れ様です、ごーちん。」

“O-tsukaresama desu, Go-chin.”

(The author rolls on the floor, laughing.)

So after that, Go says very wearily,

「疲れてねえよ！！」

“I’m not tired…!!”

Perhaps not in a physical sense…

So there you have it. A gag based largely upon a literal response to a figurative expression.

Did you know Japanese had it in it? Did you? Well they know how to do pun gags too. Note it for future reference. – J

I only just saw this, but try this link and take a look. It’s by the Japan Foundation and well, I can’t draw and I can’t program in Flash by myself, so I don’t want to repeat anything that might be done here.

What I don’t know, being a hardened veteran, is how much this will help people in intermediate levels of learning. By all means, I want to hear how it works out for you. But that may be asking too much.

Still, enjoy the link and the site. It’s there to be used. Use it.

The word はっきり (hakkiri) exists only in hiragana.This does not mean it is unimportant. Rather, it simply means that its roots are entirely native Japanese.

This word is most often pressed into service as a “suru” (する) verb, which means, adding “to do” (or conjugations thereof) at the end. So, we get this:

hakkiri suru

This means, to make clear, to make plain, to make distinct.

In other words, to make things plain, to make things clear.

Example

Annoyed townsperson: “All I saw at the time was a red hat… ah!! はっきりした!! I know exactly who the thief is now!!”

This uses a past form (“hakkiri shita”) to say, outside of English grammatical order, that it is plain, and clear, what was true in the past.

Put another way:

Random townsperson: “All I saw at the time was a red hat…. ah!! I know exactly who the thief is! I’m sure of it!!”

Now, to hakkiri suru is to make something plain in the present and near future. Other verb conjugations can be used to further refine the use.

If you want to hakkiri sasetai, this is adding saseru + tai. This means, you want something made clear… by someone else.

Cultural Relevance

This isn’t just a phrase used in detective mysteries (though it is). One of the most important themes in Japanese popular culture is sincerity, after all. People want to see others face up to their feelings (because that’s hard) and bring drama to a conclusion.

For example, by having the main heroine confess her love to the main hero. Or something.

Romantic plots are something that the audience wants made hakkiri by the end of a show. They are not always, and audiences are usually disappointed if that is the case.

Not Every Situation Is Formal

One of the real, visceral failings of standard Japanese courses is that they only teach the formal versions of verbs in the classroom. Granted, this is good for academic situations, the conduct of professional business, and interactions with public officials, and all students do need to learn formal versions. Nonetheless, students are tangibly harmed by the inability to use and understand plain and informal Japanese that is commonly employed in real life.

For our purposes, the classroom is not real life.

Anyone attempting to read manga to learn Japanese (and if you want raw material for this, just go to J-Comi; see previous post) absolutely will not succeed without a broad understanding of informal Japanese.

Furthermore, informal Japanese is necessary for full enjoyment of anime, film, and normal, everyday conversation with Japanese natives.

For businessmen, small talk is far more difficult to engage in without informal Japanese. Thus, a firm grounding in it is necessary.

The Really Basic Basics

基本の基本は (The basic basics) are like this:

行く　（いく） = iku, “To Go.” Root version/ plain, informal version.

行きます 　（いきます） = ikimasu, “To Go,” Formal version.

Let’s alter this slightly.

We’re going to use the volitional tense, which reads like “Let’s do X.”

学校に行こう。（がっこうにいこう。）= gakkou ni ikou. “Let’s go to school.”

This is the plain version.

学校に行きましょう。（がっこうにいきましょう。） = gakkou ni ikimashou. “Let’s go to school.”

This is the polite version.

The first version would be naturally spoken by young boys, but the second version would be naturally spoken by young girls.

This is such a basic, basic, fundamental comprehension issue that it is scarcely worth the time to even try to teach someone how to read manga if this is not covered.

It’s vital to understanding the feel and tone of Japanese dialog. If you have an interest in this, make it your business to learn the plain forms of Japanese verbs – starting with the most common ones that you will see. Besides, the plainest form is the root form, also known as the dictionary form. You do want to be able to look these up in a real dictionary at some point, don’t you?

– J

以上の文

Beyond the two uses of 以上 (ijou) mentioned in the previous post, there is an additional use very important to all aspirants to pass tests like the JLPT and so forth.

In the headline above, 文 (bun) means sentences. (When reading Japanese, it is always a good idea to assume that when neither singular nor plural is specified, it is plural. Skew plural unless otherwise noted.)

The の (no) particle simply joins the two. Here, 以上 (ijou) functions as an adjective. These words combine to form the phrase:

The Above Sentences

Since the 以 (i) part of 以上 (ijou) indicates relative comparison, this means, taken overly literally, “up, relative to the position of these words.”

In other words, relative to THIS SENTENCE, the bolded The Above Sentences is above THIS SENTENCE.

Without making a big deal about it, 以下 (ika) can be used similarly, but in the reverse:

以下の文 = The Below Sentences

Note for the record that when used with numbers, 3以下 can mean “up to 3” (therefore, lower than, or equal, to 3). This is unlike 3以上 which always means “more than 3, above 3, greater than 3.”

Example

以上の文を読んで下さい。

“Read the above sentences.”

A fuller version including the entire implication would read, with “above” shifted to a new role as a preposition, “Read the sentences above the position of this sentence, that is, the sentence you are reading right now.”

The ability to read this instruction, understand it, process it, and proceed to actually doing as you are asked in the absolute minimum time possible, is a valuable skill when taking a standardized Japanese language test.

Many Japanese e-mails, letters, and so forth, end with the above kanji, read as ijou. This is used in the same way as many Americans would use EOM, standing for End of Message, indicating that there is no more message to read.

In Japanese, it one “word,” but is actually more of an abbreviation. Let me explain.

To use a video game example, one “potential” (a.k.a. battle skill that triggers a certain % of the time under given conditions) in the game Valkyria Chronicles 1 (well, I say “1” because there’s a 2 and now a 3 about to come out) is written in Japanese as triggering when 3 以上 enemies are at fairly close range.

The maddening thing about this type of writing is that this can mean “3 and up” or “more than three.” The “i” part indicates comparison, the “or” part in “3 or more”, and the “jou” part indicates above, for the “more” part.

(Full disclosure: The first version of this post had me thinking that it needed to be “greater than 3,” but it isn’t necessarily so. This is one of those things where it’s great to have full context to be extra sure. While not the point of this article, I regret the slip. – J)

So with this in mind, why end a message with “more than”?

Well, it’s not the complete line, that’s why. It’s just a shortened version.

以上は無し

Take this version, ijou wa nashi. The “wa” is the usual topic particle, and this is the kanji-ized version of “nashi,” which a big, fat nothing. No, really, it signifies lack of existence.

Read like this, the message can be easily understood as saying, (the message) contains nothing further.

Or as we would put it in English, End of Message.

In a military context, this could be used verbally to end a spoken message. The Japanese is the same, but the English would change. In British and American military culture, the proper word would be the order, Dismissed.

Put differently, that will be all. There are many ways to put such a message, but the meaning – that the message has reached its end, and there is nothing further – is what must be understood, without needing to worry about the specific word involved.

Japanese people in business contexts simply expect everyone to know what 以上 (ijou) represents when used at the end of a message. Now you actually do know.

It’s About The Little Things

Some other things in my life have stabilized so I’m going to devote a little time to this blog to put some ideas out.

Nihongo: A Precision Instrument

In Japanese literature, the meanings of Japanese words in their own language are full of precision and nuance.

Each word fills a distinct role. Words are used with great care. Words are employed to present facts, as well as to conceal them.

These roles are well defined even when they extend beyond the literal meaning of a word. The implied, or idiomatic, meaning is well defined as well.

Therefore, Japanese authors are able to know exactly what their words are, and are not, saying.

Let’s take, for instance, gender.

Japanese has gender specific and gender nonspecific ways of referring to people. Japanese references are further divided in ways that separate references to people and references to things.

But that doesn’t mean everyone has to play by the rules, or take them as absolute. Not at all.

Plain but not rude forms of referring in the 3rd person are kare (for males) and kanojo (for females). For those who know a little Japanese, kanojo is used as a word for “girlfriend” as well. Let’s call it a female gender specific version of the English idiom significant other.

The pronoun version can always be differentiated because of the presence of the topic (wa) or subject (ga) particles.

Example: Kare wa Alan.

Example: Kanojo wa Karen.

So where does that leave us for words like koitsu and aitsu?

Koitsu, soitsu and aitsu are slang versions of kono, sono and ano. These identify objects by their physical location relative to the speaker.

Kono is for something right in front of you.

Sono is for something a visible distance from you, but still not far.

Ano is for something significantly removed.

So let’s take for example, oh…

Koitsu wa nan da?!?!

(i.e. What the heck is this thing?!?!)

A question like this punts on the whole issue of gender. The speaker has no idea whether this creature is male or female. Nor, quite likely, does the speaker have any idea what species the creature is supposed to be.

The choice of “koitsu” tells us two things:

• The encounter is at close range.
• The speaker is being rude for emphasis.

Incidentally, this is a Mokona, a fictional creature from the shoujo (girl’s) anime Magic Knights Rayearth. (It’s about schoolgirls who get ‘called’ into becoming Magic Knights on a fantasy world to save it at least.)

Let’s try a different version using “are” (pronounced more like “ah-re” with the strength on the “re” part).

Nan nan da yo, are?!?!

(i.e. What the heck is that?!?!)

Now in Japanese, you don’t need two “nan” ‘s to ask a question. This is the “nan” in nanda, nani, etc, 何だ、何、and so on in kanji. (Those with Japanese script enabled will see that it’s the same kanji at least.)

So, properly speaking, “nan nan da yo” isn’t proper Japanese. It’s like a stutter. “Wh… what the heck is that?!?!)

The point is, actual Japanese people will understand that the surplus “nan” is for emphasis, like bolding or italicizing the what part of the sentence. (Due to Japanese grammar, the “nan” part – the “what” – comes at the start of the sentence.)

In an anime, either outburst would be considered comedic levels of impoliteness, likely contrasted with over-politeness by another character.

Nan nan da yo, are?!?!

(What the heck is that thing?!?!)

Maa, kawaii~~

(How cuuuuute…)

…Something like that.