speak real japanese
August 17th, 2005 by heatherthis is a very generous fella, what a cool site. he’s bilingual and posts frequent phrases in his blog, to help people Speak Real Japanese, http://learning-jp.blogdrive.com/ he includes helpful pronunciation tips, and different ways to use words and phrases.
the author chooses to write in romaji, so my only wish is that it included the kanji and hiragana as well. i did try going to the Japanese dictionary, clicking ‘check if keyword is romanized Japanese’ and pasting in the phrase: Eiga wo mini ikanai from his post 14 Aug, which the author says it means “Do you wanna go to the movies?”
the search results in:
映画を見損なう 【えいがをみそこなう】 (exp) to fail to see a film [G][GI][S]
so the meaning doesn’t match up. and i’m confused on the hiragana, since it doesn’t match up with the romaji… i’m confused. i assume the romaji is for a different bunch of characters. and hence, why i wish it included the kanji.
alas, it’s a great resource otherwise!
August 17th, 2005 at 12:39 pm
Hi, thanks for your nice comments on my blog “Speak Real Japanese.” Well, I tried typing in Kanji before, but it seemed like Blogdrive wouldn’t accept Japanese alphabets. I may transfer all the data to a website in the future, and there I’ll include kanji, as well as hiragana & katakana.
As to the meaning of “Eiga wo mini ikanai,” I should have included a notice that it can also mean “I don’t go to the movies.” It may sound confusing, but the meaning of the sentence depends on how you pronounce it. If you put “?” at the end of the sentence and read it like an English interrogative sentence (higher pitch at the end of a sentence), it means “Do you wanna go to the movies?” This expression is casual, but commonly used among friends.
Thanks for your opinion; it helps me to improve my blog.
MT as Sushi-King
PS. I added a link to your blog.
August 18th, 2005 at 3:33 pm
That’s a great site. Well found!
September 2nd, 2005 at 5:38 am
Hey, I’m browsing your site and thought I’d lend my meager understanding of japanese. [Eiga wo mini ikanai] is more casual than the search, it’s what someone would actually say. the 見 is mi for watch, and ikanai means “not go”.
Literally the sentence means something (not completely sure) like “Movie watch don’t go”, but is closer to “Won’t you come and see a movie?”
Negative’s are used pretty often in japanese, often if you’re being polite when asking.
Btw, I’m not quite sure what your search did, since it added the failed thingy in.
September 29th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
Unfortunately I couldn’t connect to the site, so I don’t know what he says there, but here’s a kanjification of the phrase.
Eiga wo mi ni ikanai? = 映画を見に行かない？ Wanna go see a movie?
In this case, “映画を見” is a noun phrase and a purpose, as in the pattern “purpose + ni iku”.