Hi,

You make a good grammar guide, but sadly few people will ever use it. It is foolish not to put the guide in romaji and have it help people that are tourists or beginners in Japanese. Japanese has all over 200 kana, with all the variations. A better approach is to have both the romaji and kana.

Not using romaji, which appears partially due to people being infected with Jim Breen’s madness, is doing more to hinder Japanese instruction than to help it. When a casual user needs to look up a word in Japanese or understand some pointers for speaking Japanese, hitting them over the head with kana and kanji is absurd. Even Google translate has a romanization option. Everybody looking to learn Japanese is not a full time student and many want to speak it and not learn kanji or kana. Furthermore, many Japanese know how to use romaji, because that is how they input Japanese on their keyboard or phones (before it is converted to kana or kanji).

I’m just letting you know, that not everybody agrees with Jim Breen’s ridiculous, elitist, and pompous anti-romaji crusade.

Feel free to discuss in the comments.

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I’m going to be revisit the two particles with the following story.

While chatting over dinner at a restaurant with fellow exchange students and some Japanese students, one of the exchange students exclaimed,

「私はつまらない～！ ＼(*^o^)／」

We all had a good laugh because it seemed like she was saying she was boring.

If you’re reading this K, I don’t mean to insult you in anyway. Honestly, it’s the kind of mistake we’ve all made in the past. So exactly what was wrong with what she said? Doesn’t 「私はつまらない」 mean “I’m bored”? If not, how can you say “I’m bored” without insulting yourself?

The topic: direct relation=0%, implied=100%

The answer will probably blow away some of you new to this language. 「私はつまらない」 can mean either, “I’m bored” OR “I’m boring” or more accurately, 「私は」 gives us no information on which interpretation is correct.

The 「は」 topic particle only tells us the general topic of the conversation and has no direct connection to the rest of the sentence. All it says is, “this is what I’m going to talk about” and doesn’t explicitly specify its relation to the rest of the sentence.

私はつまらない～！ – As for me, boring!

As you can see from the translation, saying 「私はつまらない」 without any context is highly suggestive of your incredibly boring and dull personality. If there was additional context, you might be able to pull it off such as the next example.

A)　みんな、楽しんでいるよね？ – Everybody’s having fun, right?
B)　私は、つまらないよ。 – As for me, boring.

Here, you can make the argument that you’re saying you’re bored because the question just asked was whether everybody was having fun. Another example is when you make it very clear that the role of 「つまらない」 is completely unrelated to you.

A)　この映画は面白いの？ – Is this movie interesting?
B)　私は、つまらないと思う。 – As for me, think (the movie) is boring.

The identifier: it’s this one

So if the topic particle doesn’t really seem to work, what if we use the 「が」 particle instead? The 「が」 particle doesn’t specify whether you’re boring or bored either. It just identifies you as the one that is 「つまらない」. Whether that means boring or bored is kind of pretty much up to the interpretation of the listener.

A)　私がつまらない。 – I’m the one that is boring/bored.
B)　?

B would be pretty puzzled because A is identifying herself as the one that is boring or bored and B didn’t know they were trying to find the one that was boring/bored. The only context in which 「が」 would make sense here is if you were trying to identify the one that was boring/bored, in other words, answering the question, “which is the one that is bored/boring?”

A) 誰がつまらない？ – Who is the one that is bored/boring?
B） 私がつまらないよ。 – I’m the one that is bored/boring.

If you do a google search on “私がつまらない”, you’ll get a small number of results because this kind of situation is pretty contrived. So 「が」 doesn’t really work for our purposes.

Conclusion

In general, unless you want to make a distinction between your own opinion versus other people around you, you should generally avoid using 「私は」 at all. The ambiguity of topic’s role in the sentence makes using 「私は」 and 「つまらない」 together a dangerous combination.

「私が」 doesn’t really work either because it identifies you as the one that is boring or bored among all the people who are potentially bored/boring. The only context in which it would make sense is if you knew somebody was boring/bored and you were trying to figure out which one among a group of people was the boring/bored one. It’s not a very likely scenario, which probably means you’re not using 「が」 correctly.

It is important to remember that people generally will assume you’re talking about yourself unless you say otherwise. So for the most part, you don’t have to say 「私」 with either particle. People learning Japanese often get so catch up with the contrived differences between 「は」 and 「が」, they often forget the option of using neither. So to conclude, in the original story, I would probably suggest to K to say something along the lines of the following instead next time.

「なんかつまんない～！ ＼(*^o^)／」

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気まぐれ会話のルール：
１）会話の続きは、「@kimchi314」の返事で行う。
２）会話の続き以外の返事はダメ。
３）返事は、日本語だけ。
４）話し手を明確にする。

例えば、「@kimchi314 A：ありがとう」

Update: I will retweet any interesting replies (with maybe a little embellishment). Eventually, I will follow good contributors. Use #kimagure for meta discussion about 気まぐれ会話

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http://twitter.com/kimchi314

I’m going to try something interesting (or at least I hope it turns out interesting). (Hint: read post title)

I’ll wait a few days to start or until I get 100+ followers.

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四川黒ごまタンタン麺

Ahh, the rich and complicated world of ramen. There’s so many things to cover but let’s just start with the basics. First of all, ramen is everywhere in Japan so finding it is like trying to find a Starbucks, not very difficult. However, Ikebukuro is perhaps one of the neighborhoods more famous for it’s ramen. There’s one I particularly liked whose name I can’t recall where you can crush your own fresh garlic (I love garlic).

Main Ramen Types

Before we get into all the crazy ingredients that can go into ramen, you should first become familiar with the major types of ramen. These types will be generally enough to get your ramen fix in most generic ramen shops. Of course, many restaurants try to come up with clever names but it’s usually just marketing for these basic types of ramen.

• 醤油ラーメン (しょうゆラーメン) – The most common and generic type of ramen. Nothing much to comment on here except that it doesn’t really taste like soy-sauce at all. Sometimes 「醤油」 is written as 「正油」.
• 塩ラーメン (しおラーメン) – A simple, refreshing salt-based flavor. (It works great for hangovers.)
• 味噌ラーメン (みそラーメン) – As the name “miso ramen” implies, the soup’s flavor is based mainly off of miso. If you like miso, you’ll probably like miso-ramen.
• 坦々麺 (タンタンメン） – A spicy soup with the taste of sesame seeds either black or white.
• 豚骨ラーメン（とんこつラーメン） – Literally meaning “pork bone ramen”, the soup is flavored by boiling pork bones in water. This gives the soup a whiteish color. Personally my favorite type of ramen.
• チャーシューメン – Most ramen come with a slice of pork flavored differently depending on the ramen called 「チャーシュー」. This ramen is for lovers of 「チャーシュー」 as it has several heaped on.
• ねぎラーメン – For those who like 「ねぎ」 or green onion, this ramen is for you. It’s heaped with the stuff.
• つけめん – In this variation, the noodles are dipped in the soup as you eat. I don’t really like it that much because it tends to get cold very quickly but I do enjoy a spicy one occasionally.

A typical ramen menu (among other things)

This is the main list but there are other types of ramen out there like 「カレーラーメン」, for example.

Noodle Types

In addition to the major types of ramen, sometimes the cook will ask you how hard you want your noodles. Personally, I prefer al dente as do many of the more hard-core ramen enthusiasts. You can even ask for soft but who likes soggy noodles? Another great trick for a really filling meal, if the option is available, is to save the soup and order an extra ball of noodles. This is called 「替え玉」（かえだま）. It’s like an extra bowl of ramen often for as little as several hundred yen!

1. めんの硬さ（めんのかたさ） – hardness of noodle
2. 固めん（かためん） – hard noodle
3. 普通（ふつう） – normal
4. やわらかめ – on the soft side

Ramen Ingredients

Oh boy, this is going to be a doozy. A small number of ramen shops give you a list of ingredients, allowing you to choose each and every ingredient in your ramen (often charging you extra for each one). My wife usually picks miso, butter, and corn…. Ugh…

In Japanese, this is called 「具」（ぐ）, which basically describes the solid stuff in any kind of soup or stew. There are a lot of ingredients so I’m only going to go over the major ones except for those we already look at in the major ramen types.

1. のり – seaweed (you know the stuff)
2. 煮玉子（にたまご） – boiled egg (my favorite), among other similar variations of egg including: 「半熟玉子」（はんじゅくたまご） and 「味玉子」（あじたまご）
3. メンマ – bamboo shoots
4. もやし – bean sprouts (pretty standard)
5. ナルト – steamed fish-paste cake, you know the one with a pink swirl on it (impossible to find picture due to comic named after it)
6. キクラゲ　- some sort of mushroom, usually chopped up to look like black stringy things, pretty tasty

Also check out this the wikipedia ramen entry. There’s a lot more information about ramen as well, such as regional specialties. It’s all in Japanese but there’s also plenty of yummy pictures to feast your eyes on. Lovers of garlic and thick とんこつ soup like me will love 熊本ラーメン, though as I painfully learned first-hand, you probably don’t want to actually eat all the garlic chips.

So there you have it. Welcome to the wonderful world of ramen! This post just barely scratching the surface so you haven’t seen nothing yet!

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Thanks to the kind folks who’ve contributed to the audio fund, I now have enough funds there to cover a mic under $100. But you know what? I’m going to pay for it out of pocket because I’d like the donations to go to something more than just gadgets that I want to buy anyway. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank those who have contributed so far (discreetly ordered in dollar amounts heh). Thanks and I hope to bring some audio to the site in the near future.

• Mike C.
• Steven S.
• Jeff M.
• The Compagniye Store
• Jonathan G.
• Oliver N.
• Daniel C-W.
• Helen F.
• Llorenç S. C.
• William T.

Thanks again!

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Phrases won't help you if you can't read the menu

If you ever learned how to order food in a classroom and/or textbook, let me assure you that is not how it’s done. Because Japanese employs a relative system of politeness, as a customer of the food establishment, you are automatically on top of the societal ladder regardless of your actual social status. Of course, that also means you’re at the very bottom when you meet with customers in your own job.

This typically means you need the following skills for ordering food in Japan.

1. Very little speaking skill: You’re not obligated to say much. Just grunt and point at what you want (I write this just in case but this is a joke as grunting is generally frowned upon). Ordering food in Japan typically involves as much grammar as saying the name of the dish and maybe 「と」 if you are ordering multiple things (and a period if you insist).
2. Awesome listening skills: You do however need to understand a bunch of honorific language spoken very, very quickly by somebody who has to say the same thing over and over again
3. Awesome reading skills: Unless you want to eat only in fast food or family restaurants, most restaurants have no pictures and can look like some sort of ancient Chinese poem as far as you know unless you’ve beefed up learning the names of various dishes in Kanji.

Contrary to popular belief, you can eat big in Japan (at least for a limited time)

Let me tell you, I thought I was pretty good at Japanese when I first arrived in Japan but when I went to buy something for the first time at a convenience store, I didn’t understand a lick of what was being said. How embarrassing!

So in this multi-part series, we will look at various types of foods and what they are called so that you can easily order them like a pro! In this part, we’ll look at some phrases that should help you navigate your way through convenience stores and fast food restaurants.

Conbini and Fast Food

You don’t really need to learn menu items in advance for convenience stores （コンビニ） or fast food restaurants. Obviously, you just pick up what you want in convenience stores and pictures are plentiful in fast food restaurants including mostly food you’re already familiar with such as the standard burgers and fries. However, the employees are going to ask you all sorts of stuff such as whether to take out or if you want to order the combo. And if you’re new to this, chances are highly likely that it will sound like a bunch of gibberish.

Just try to catch a few key words from these phrases because it’s going to be really fast. And of course, the universal rule of learning languages is that asking people to repeat themselves will not slow it down one iota.

Conbini expressions

1. お箸おつけしますか？
   Would you like chopsticks?
2. 袋にお入れしますか？
   Shall I put (your items) in a bag for you ?
3. このままでよろしいですか？
   Is it ok just like this (without a bag)?
4. 温めますか？
   Shall I heat up your food?

Fast food expressions

1. こちらでお召しあがりですか？
   Is it for here?
2. 店内でお召しあがりでしょうか？
   Is it for here?
3. お持ち帰りですか？
   Is it for take out?
4. お飲み物はいかがですか。
   How about a drink?

The lists are pretty short but the whole process is pretty standardized (and probably in a manual and everything). It should be enough to get you out the door with your food at the very least but feel free to add other expressions you’ve frequently heard that I missed in the comments.

Finally, if you’re bored see if you can identify the various おでん ingredients. I’m not going to bother going over them because as I recall, it’s all self-service at the convenience store.

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Chrome English version (Win XP):

Chrome Japanese version (Exact same machine):

I’m now considering switching to Chrome with this discovery. It’s much faster than Firefox and the themes look nicer than Firefox personas because it’s not scattered across all the UI elements. Still, with web development, you’ll have to pry Firebug from my cold dead fingers.

By the way, the images in this post were cropped and re-sized using the new image editing tool built in Wordpress 2.9. It works but it’s still kind of buggy. For some reason, it won’t let me crop to a really small size. Also, you can’t crop it more than once without saving it first otherwise it crops a completely different area.

Speaking of CMS, I tried Drupal 7 on a demo site. It looks completely revamped. My biggest gripe looks fixed finally. You can actually navigate away from the page or lose your wireless connection and come back to the page without it going of of its way to erase all your content. Wow, that’s a low bar to clear. The book module navigation doesn’t look any better though. <sarcasm>Nobody write books online anyway, right?</sarcasm> Looking forward to what’s looking to be a painful upgrade process once it comes out.

So there you have it, my random tech news update. Nobody cares anyway, right? Apple’s releasing new shit today! If you ask me, an iPod touch with a bigger screen is lame, no matter what it does. It sucks that you have to hold it in one hand while using the other to interface with it. Your thumb will probably get in the way and your wrist won’t last for very long. In any case, I’m not keen on reverting to one-hand typing on a device that doesn’t even fit in my pocket.

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シャツを着る。- Wear shirt.
ジャケットを着ています。- Wearing jacket.

Awesome. So we’re done right?

No.

If things were that simple, I wouldn’t be writing this. You will appreciate how flexible and awesome the English verb “to wear” is compared to 「着る」. It’s like Superman vs Steve Erkel (forget that one episode where Steve Erkel was Superman). We can wear hats, pants, gloves, scarves, shoes, accessories, just about anything that sticks to your body. Unfortunately, you cannot use 「着る」 with any of these items. The only thing you can use with 「着る」 are things that cover your upper-body such as shirts and jackets. Things that extend from your upper-body down past your waist such as overcoats and dresses also use this verb as well. So what about everything else? Well, I prepared a wonderful list for you to study. 「など」 means “etc”. Have fun!

Things you wear and their respective verbs

1. 着る 【き・る】- to wear
   Clothes that cover your-upper body and more (シャツ、ブラウス、ジャケット、ドレスなど)
2. 履く 【は・く】- to wear
   Clothes for your lower-body and feet （ずぼん、ジーンズ、靴下、ブーツ、靴など）
3. 被る 【かぶ・る】 – to cover
   Items that go over such as hats （帽子など）
4. かける – to hang
   Items that hang such as glasses and sunglasses （メガネ、サングラス）
5. 巻く 【ま・く】 – to wrap
   Items that wrap around such as scarves （スカーフ、マフラーなど）
6. 締める 【し・める】 – to tie
   Items that fasten such as neckties and belts （ネクタイ、ベルト、帯など）
7. 着ける 【つけ・る】
   Items that attach such as wigs and earrings （かつら、イヤリング、ピアスなど）
8. はめる – to insert
   Items you stick your finger into such as rings （指輪）
9. する – to do
   A generic term for things like gloves, earrings, necklaces （手袋、イヤリング、ネックレス）

And don’t forget that these verbs are just for the actually act of donning the item. You must use the 「～ている」 progressive tense for when somebody is in the state of wearing them. I’m tired so I won’t even go into the words for taking things off. You can go with just 脱ぐ（ぬぐ） for clothing and 外す（はず・す） for accessories.

I have to confess that I’m not exactly a fashion guru so do feel free to add types of apparel I missed in the comments.

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