Welp, I tried, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what that second part of Rumia's text means. If only I were better at Japanese~
I can't tell which kid is cuter. Leaning more toward the blonde one. Also, the way Koakuma's hair covers her eyes is kinda creeping me out right now for some reason.
HarryHedgehog said: Welp, I tried, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what that second part of Rumia's text means. If only I were better at Japanese~
It was probably the difficulty of telling that "こうなった" is actually two words. "こう" is the こ variant of そう, meaning "like this" and "なった" is the past form of なる, right? Would've been easier to tell if there'd been a に in there. I don't think I would've gotten it if the translation wasn't there!
Also, blonde girl is definitely the cutest. Go go Gagdget grouchy eyebrows! And I might have to steal the concept of Koakuma's hair looking like that if I ever end up drawing her again.
I really don't speak, write, or read Japanese. I know about half of the hiragana characters and only a handful of basic Japanese terms. Basically the few things I can learn from watching subtitled anime from time to time and studying Hiragana charts one weekend.
I did decently well reading it aloud (though this time I did confuse た as に for some reason), but seeing the little っtrips me up because I don't know what it means really. I would've seen どうして as translating to "why" if I remember right, which doesn't look to be the case here.
HarryHedgehog said: [...], but seeing the little っtrips me up because I don't know what it means really.
The little っ in the middle of a word doubles the following character’s consonant, so なった is “natta” instead of “nata”. Cannot be used before a, i, u, e, o and n for obvious reasons. A little っ at the end of a word, often in front of an exclamation mark, means that there’s a sudden stop and the end of the word isn’t drawn out.
Rumia said: How’d it end up like this…?
You might want to have a look at Pixiv image 20890055 to jog your memory.
Zaku_Zelo said: You shouldn't let one interpretation of a Touhou to dictate how you see her everywhere else.
You're right, but I worded what I said completely wrong. I love and hate THAT Koakuma. Koakuma in general is one of my favorite Touhou characters overall. On the off chance you're referring to me associating this Koakuma with that Koakuma, well, you got me there.
HarryHedgehog said: I really don't speak, write, or read Japanese. I know about half of the hiragana characters and only a handful of basic Japanese terms. Basically the few things I can learn from watching subtitled anime from time to time and studying Hiragana charts one weekend.
Ah. That would pose a problem in reading this, yes.
I did decently well reading it aloud (though this time I did confuse た as に for some reason), but seeing the little っtrips me up because I don't know what it means really. I would've seen どうして as translating to "why" if I remember right, which doesn't look to be the case here.
To elaborate a bit on what kittey said, the っ is a glottal stop, when the speaker briefly stops air flowing out of the throat. In addition to doubling the following consonant or cutting off a preceding vowel, sometimes it's also used before a vowel to represent a half-choked sound—though never in an actual word, as far as I know.
Anyway, if formal class-type learning is out of the question, I recommend finding a way to listen to simple words being said while you can see them written in front of you.
Ah, yes, I get it now. The only term I can think of that I know right now that would use such a thing is ganbatte, which would be がんばって. And がんばて wouldn't be the same thing as がんばって? Am I right?
Moonspeaker said: I recommend finding a way to listen to simple words being said while you can see them written in front of you.
Sounds like a good idea. My only resources are whatever I can find for free on the internet, so I'll look for something like that soon. Thanks for your help, by the way. I appreciate it.
This is one of the most comprehensive free Japanese resources out there now, and is arranged in a grammar-focused, ground-up fashion which I find much more appealing than most textbooks, which teach fixed phrases with minimal context first for speed's sake and have to come back to fill in the understanding gaps later. The main downside of those lessons are the lack of practice examples/assignments, so consider supplementing with something like this, which will also help with listening/speaking issues.
Same boat as me. An aspiring linguist who must make do with what he has. I've been to tae kim's website (good stuff) but not Glasnot's second site so I can't say much of it. A good free site (IMO) for learning the kana is this one: http://japanese-lesson.com/characters/index.html
It has flashcard-like drills accompanied by audio pronounciations for each one.
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