When someone says “comic book” in English, I’m guessing most people, like me, think of Superman, Spiderman, Batman, X-Men, or some other super-hero (powerful-sounding-word+man) based storyline. The Japanese version of comics (manga) are completely different, though.
I found a compact series called 「マンガ、日本の歴史がわかる本」 (Which is hard to translate as it comes out as something like [...]
Entries from June 2008
June 29, 2008
Japanese history through manga
June 26, 2008
Ambiguity in English
I continue to realize the existence of problems in English the more I study Japanese.
Of course, I’m sure everyone already knows the problem with the sentence, “The boy watched the girl looking through the telescope.” Was the boy using a telescope to watch the girl? Or was the boy watching a girl who [...]
June 25, 2008
Something to consider
In Japanese, いる expresses that an animate object exists. This does not include trees and shrubbery, as they do not move of their own volition (except treants).
ある expresses the existence of an inanimate object. Things like boxes, cars, and books ある.
But what about the AI robots of the future?
June 24, 2008
The end of こいこい
It’s an undeniable fact that I’m the master of こいこい.
Our new-ish PC came with the computer version of こいこい, a Japanese card game. (Mini-fact: Nintendo made its claim to fame as the leading production company of the game cards, called hanafuda, used in this game)
The game is cake. Well, it used to [...]
June 21, 2008
A little bit about the man behind the curtain
For lack of anything really interesting to write about at the minute, I’ll write 8 factoids about myself since it has been demanded of me by Deas. I should warn you, though, that on the Japanese magnitude scale of “interesting” I register at “not very”. Most people don’t read these things, anyways.
1. [...]
June 14, 2008
More earthly movement
I was about to hop in the shower about 30 minutes ago when the ground began to quake again. Once again, the telltale alarm of the wine glasses clinking together started up.
It was a pretty big shake, so I turned on the news as soon as it stopped (I had my daughter in my [...]
June 9, 2008
Back on the table - Japanese subtitles once more
My wife and I went out to see Charlie Wilson’s War after dinner last night for our wedding anniversary. When we watch movies in English together at home, we usually have Korean subtitles on for her, and the result is that when I describe the scene I watched in English with the same scene [...]
June 3, 2008
Yet another story of super kanji to the rescue
Yet another story of how kanji saved my life…would have sounded a lot more dramatic and probably would have been a more interesting read. But, seriously - Kanji rock. Kanji are superheroes. In fact, in the upcoming 8th season of Smallville (yeah, I watch it - What’s it to you?!), we find [...]
June 1, 2008
Points come through, camera in hands
Dear Pacific-right-siders and others interested in our humble existence,
We recently acquired a tool that enables us to document images and sound. We’ve put the mechanism through a series of tests and would like to share a few of the results with you here.
I created a new dish this evening: Sun-dried tomato and gnocchi [...]
