NHK is the Japanese equivalent of the BBC. A channel with no adverts which the viewer funds. Unlike in Britain, I don’t actually know anyone who pays their TV licence. It seems like there isn’t any legal requirement to pay the bill and no one ever gets any fines.  So when the NHK man comes a knocking, people pretty much ignore him until he goes away. Perhaps as a result of this lack of funding NHK isn’t the most exciting of channels, choosing to focus on news and educational shows. Most of which are dull but some can stick out from the crowd and be quite fun to watch.

One very throw away programme they put on goes by the name of 0655 (or 1155). It is just a 5 minute thing put on as a space filler in the schedules. Named after the times it is shown, it consists of short random animations and clips. The aim of it is to get you up and ready for your day or wind you down before bed time. This programme first caught my attention when it showed an episode of Simon’s Cat, which are cute little animations about a man and his cat. They first turned up on YouTube so I was surprised to see them on TV, more cat fun followed and it completely charmed me.

Ore, Neko (I’m a Cat) lasts barely a minute but is wonderful. NHK viewers send in pictures of their cat and they are shown on telly with a fun little musical accompaniment.

The cat on this particular day was called Chaff.

But just what is this singing cat trying to tell us? Let’s find out:

おれ、ねこ　おれ、ねこ
ore neko, ore neko
I’m a cat, I’m a cat.

ここ　おれの家　ここ　おれの家
koko ore no uchi, koko ore no uchi
Here is my house. Here is my house.

これ　いつものご飯　これ　スペシャルご飯
kore itsumono gohan, kore supesharu gohan
This is my usual meal. This is my special meal.

それ　大好きおもちゃ　それ　落ち着く寝床
sore daisuki omocha, sore ochitsuku nedoko
That is a toy I love. That is the bed I unwind in.

おれ、ねこ　これ　家のやつ
ore neko, kore uchi no yatsu
I’m a cat. This is my house’s human.

こいつ　ご飯をくれる　こいつ　遊んでくれる
koitsu gohan wo kureru, koitsu asonde kureru
This human gives me food. This human plays with me.

おれ　ねこだから　こいつの言葉わからない
ore neko dakara koitsu no kotoba wakaranai
Because I’m a cat, I don’t understand what this human says.

おれ　ねこだけど　こいつの気持ち　なぜかよくわかる
ore neko dakedo koitsu no kimochi naseka yoku wakaru
Even though I’m a cat,  for some reason I can always understand this human’s feelings.

おれ、ねこ　おれ、ねこ　おれ、ねこ　おれ、ねこ
ore neko, ore neko, ore neko, ore neko
I’m a cat, I’m a cat. I’m a cat, I’m a cat.

Now we know all about Chaff, lets hear from Miro, a female cat.

あたし、ねこ　あたし、ねこ
atashi neko, atashi neko
I’m a cat, I’m a cat.

ここ　あたしん家　ここ　あたしん家
koko atashin uchi, koko atashin no uchi
Here is my house. Here is my house.

これ　いつものご飯　これ　スペシャルご飯
kore itsumono gohan, kore supesharu gohan
This is my usual meal. This is my special meal.

それ　大好きおもちゃ　それ　落ち着く寝床
sore daisuki omocha, sore ochitsuku nedoko
That is a toy I love. That is the bed I unwind in.

あたし、ねこ　この人　飼い主
atashi neko, kono hito kainushi
I’m a cat. This person is my owner.

この人　ご飯をくれる　この人　遊んでくれる
kono hito gohan wo kureru, kono hito asonde kureru
This person gives me food. This person plays with me.

あたし　ねこだから　この人の言葉わからない
atashi neko dakara kono hito no kotoba wakaranai
Because I’m a cat, I don’t understand what this person says.

あたし　ねこだけど　この人の気持ち　なぜかよくわかる
atashi neko dakedo kono hito no kimochi naseka yoku wakaru
Even though I’m a cat,  for some reason I can always understand this person’s feelings.

あたし、ねこ　あたし、ねこ　あたし、ねこ　あたし、ねこ
atashi neko, atashi neko, atashi neko, atashi neko
I’m a cat, I’m a cat. I’m a cat, I’m a cat.

I love how these 2 songs show the difference in male and female Japanese. Chaff, the male cat, refers to himself using ore, this is a very harsh boyish way to refer to yourself. It is mainly used by little boys or men trying to sound tough. Miro, the female cat, on the other hand uses atashi. This is a very cutsie way of saying I, only said by young women. Chaff also refers to his owner in rather a over familiar almost derogatory way by using yatsu and koitsu. These words can be translated as fellow, guy or bloke but in English I couldn’t think of a unisex equivalent so I just went with human, this is a cat speaking after all. Miro uses the much more usual and polite hito which just means person. She even uses the word kainushi which actually means owner.

So we can tell that Chaff is an impudent little rascal while Miro is a wonderful, polite Nadeshiko of a cat.

As I have pointed out before there are three different alphabets used in Japanese. One of which is called katakana and is generally used to emphasise words and to write words of foreign origin. There are many, many words that Japanese people say which come from English but unfortunately these can be difficult to understand. This is because the Japanese pronunciation is often very different from the original word and this has a tendency to fry English speakers brains. It is probably better to treat such things as new completely separate Japanese words.

This katakana problem inspired one of my house-mates to think up a Katakana: Does it work? game. He thought that due to the fact there are less vowel sounds in Japanese, words written in Katakana can be impossible to read and work out what they refer to. For example, you can take a word like バン, it might represent ban or a van or maybe even a bun.

This leads to this little word:

This word is the title of the first Tokyo Jihen song in the video above and without context it is impossible to romanise. It could mean either lamp or ramp. Is Little Miss Ringo singing about light fittings or skating? When I first heard the song many years ago, I didn’t have enough Japanese knowledge to realise which it was.

The reason for this problem is that not only is there no ‘l’ sound in Japanese but no ‘r’ sound either. The closest sound the Japanese make is somewhere between the two. A ‘lr’ sound, if you will. This sound is VERY HARD for English speakers to say, if you want to attempt it here is Koichi of Tofugu fame to teach you. For the same reason when Japanese speakers talk in English this half ‘lr’ sound rears its ugly head in all sorts of ways (probably where that old ‘egg flied lice’ joke comes from). So the problem isn’t that Japanese speakers aren’t just mixing up their ‘l’s and ‘r’s but also saying neither and English speakers simply can’t comprehend the sound they are saying and our brain processes it into one or the other.

So back to that song and as I said without context it is impossible to translate its title. Due to the very handy cheat sheet below I have managed to work out that Ringo is using a lot of car vocabulary: windscreens, wipers, motorways, indicators and the like. Therefore ランプ must refer to the off ramp of a motorway.

Unless, of course, she is talking about the car’s headlamps.

Gah…

It turns out that in translation, context is everything and even then it can still be confusing.

Japan has quite the drinking culture, in many companies you are expected to go out with your colleagues after work, get smashed with them, get back home at 1 in the morning and then come into work the next day at 6am fresh-faced. To do anything else would make you a bad worker. Quite what effect this has on Japanese society I have no idea but it does result in a few unusual posters in bars. Once, upon going to the loo, I was confronted with this, staring me in the face.

It made me very confused, let me break down why…

お体を
okarada wo
Your body

大切に。
taisetsu ni
carefully

注意
chuui
Caution

いつまでも美味しいお酒をのみましょう
itsumademo oishii osake wo nomimashou
Let’s drink delicious alcohol forever.

As you can see, what I thought everything meant really didn’t make much sense. I really didn’t have any idea how to approach the xxをxxに sentence structure but luckily, for some reason, suddenly started to see it everywhere. From the TV shows I was watching to posters drawn by school children.

From these I discovered that when this grammar is present on a poster often the verb しよう (shiyou) is dropped. The meaning of this verb is Let’s do. This turns the sentence into an informal command. So when you put it all together the sentence becomes…

お体を大切にしよう。
okarada wo taisetsu ni shiyou.
Treat your body with care.

This all makes sense given the picture but what about that last sentence on the poster? “Treat your body carefully, Let’s drink delicious alcohol forever.” That’s either incredibly mixed messages or I’ve missed something there too.

I recently had the pleasure of watching Stephen Fry’s excellent Planet Word TV series. Much like his earlier English Delight radio show, Planet Word was a very interesting look at language and how it shapes us. As someone who is not only learning a 2nd language but also teaching his 1st to people, I really enjoyed this programme and what it had to tell me.

The final episode of the series focused on literature and one small part really got me thinking. It concerned Shakespeare’s famous “To be, or not to be” soliloquy, a passage which is powerful and haunting yet, as they point out in the programme, has become a cliché and lost its strength. Watching the show was the first time I’d ever really thought about that speech and what an amazing turn of phrase it is and I thank the makers of the programme for that. As the show continued they looked into how it has been translated and changed in other languages and if those translations really convey the message accurately. As they didn’t mention it, I began to wonder how “To be, or not to be” has been translated into Japanese. I took my question to Google and discovered a gold mine.

On YouTube I found a video clip from a Japanese play called Tenpou Juuni Nen no Sheikusupia (12th Year of the Tenpou Era Shakespeare). This play apparently is a retelling of all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays in the setting of Tenpou era Japan (1830-1844). I’m not sure of the tone this play takes but judging by the videos I’ve seen it looks pretty humorous. In the clip I found Tatsuya Fujiwara, who some may recognise from the likes of Battle Royal and Death Note, delivering various translations of “To be or not to be” from down the ages. This delighted me but I wondered how accurate these translations are. The language used here is a minefield of old-fashioned Japanese but with the help of my Japanese teacher I was able to decipher it and discover what “To be, or not to be” literally means to the Japanese people.

The following is 12 ways “To be, or not to be” has been translated over the years:

生きるべきか、死ぬべきか、それが問題だ。
ikiru beki ka, shinu beki ka, sore ga mondai da
Should I live or should I die. That is the problem.

生きてとどまるか、消えてなくなるか、それが問題だ。
ikite todomaru ka, kiete nakunaru ka, sore ga mondai da
To stop living or to disappear and die. That is the problem.

このままでいいのか、行かないのか、それが問題だ。
konomama de ii noka, ikanai noka, sore ga mondai da
Just like this is fine? To not die? That is the problem.

やる、やらぬ、それが問題だ。
yaru, yaranu, sore ga mondai da
To do it, not to do it. That is the problem.

生き続ける、生き続けない、そのが難しい所だ。
ikitsudukeru, ikitsudukenai, sono ga muzukashii tokoro da
To carry on, not to carry on. That is the difficult place.

生か死か、それが奇問だ。
sei ka shi ka, sore ga kimon da
Life or death. That is the tricky question.

どっちなのだ、さーそれが奇問！
docchi nanoda, saaa sore ga kimon
Which is it? Aaah that is the tricky question!

長らえる、長らえぬ、それが奇問じゃ。
nagaraeru, nagaraenu, sore ga kimon jya
To live a long life, not to have a long live. That is the tricky question.

長らえる、長らえぬ、ここが考え所じゃ。
nagaraeru, nagaraenu, koko ga kangae tokoro jya
To live a long life, not to have a long live. Here is the place where I think.

死ぬかましか、生きるかましか、思案をするはここぞ。
shinu kamashi ka, ikiru kamashi ka, shian wo suru wa koko zo
To force myself to die or to force myself to live. It seems like I consider here.

長らえるべきか、しかしまた長らえぬべきにあらざるか、ここが思案の所ぞ。
naraeru beki ka, shikashi mata nagaraenu beki ni arazaru ka, koko ga shian no tokoro zo
Should I have a long life but then again should I not have a long life. Here is like the consideration place.

あります、ありません、あれは何ですか？
arimasu, arimasen, are wa nan desu ka
To exist, to not exist, what’s that?

As you can tell I was probably a bit too literal and cheeky with some of these translations (especially as mondai can just as easily be translated as question) but it lets you discover the flavour of the language a bit. I’ll also let you decide for yourself which translation captures the true spirit of the original.

I have spoken before about packed lunches but not about the cooked lunches they serve at Japanese schools. Unlike in the UK, in Japanese schools everybody eats the same thing. The children collect the lunches from the kitchen and then dish it out and eat it in their classrooms. Once everyone has been served their food the class rep for the day reads a sheet given to all the classes containing a few facts about what they are eating.

These sheets of paper are delightfully named, Paku Paku Dayori. Paku paku is one of many Japanese onomatopoeic words which translates to the sound of chewing, while dayori means information. A serious translator may render this as Lunch Information but I prefer to call them Munch Munch Information sheets. These notes contain the menu, something about one particular piece of food being eaten and, this being Japan, a little mascot. Sometimes there is even a quiz.

While sitting down and trying to read the Munch Munch Information I have found that sometimes the way that Japanese classify and teach the children about food is very different to how it is done in the UK. For those interested, here are a few sample school meals that I’ve had recently and translated Munch Munch Information to go with them.

Lets put our hands together, yell Itadakimasu and tuck in.

Today’s menu:

• rice
• sesame seed soy sauce mix
• soup with fried tofu, shiitake mushrooms, carrots, sweet potatoes and daikon
• tuna ageni [Note: ageni is a Japanese style of cooking which first fries the meat and then boils it after]
• milk

Fish… Protein rich food which makes your body strong.

Fish is rich in protein which makes our bodies. Chiefly it works to grow muscle and produce blood. Also, because you can eat this fish’s bones, the calcium will make your bones, teeth and other things healthy. Today’s ageni is made from grilled and simmered tuna.

Quiz!

What colour group of food is fish?

1) Black 2) Red 3) Green

———-
Original Sheet

Wow! When I said that food is classified differently, I wasn’t joking. I guess that the quiz at the end is confusing you a bit. In Japanese schools food groups are classified into colours . In the original text it talks about food in the ‘red’ food group. My Japanese teacher tells me that the red group is basically food high in protein so I translated it all mention of it to ‘high protein food’ instead. I kept the question a more direct translation simply to fry (and then boil, much like tuna ageni) your brains.
———-

Today’s Menu:

• turmeric rice
• minestrone soup
• curry
• milk
• fruit salad

About spices

Every time spices are used they can add colour, smell and spiciness to cooking. Curry powder is an ingredient in today’s curry. In order to add things like sharpness, spiciness, yellow colour and a nice smell to curry powder many spices are mixed. The turmeric which is in turmeric rice is the source of curry power’s yellow colour.

———–
Original Sheet

This one was a bit more straight forward but for those who can read Japanese have a look at the last sentence on the original paper. After I read that, I thought the Japanese language had begun using some form of recursion.
———–

Today’s menu:

• Sliced bread
• spinach sauté
• chilli con carne
• milk

Spinach

There are dark coloured (high beta-carotine) vegetables and light coloured (low beta-carotine) vegetables. Spinach is a dark vegetable. High beta-carotine vegetables contain lots of carotine which makes things like your nose and throat healthy . Today the school lunch has high beta-carotine vegetables other than spinach in it, such as carrots.

———-
Original Sheet

Here was another example of different Japanese food terminology, referring to high beta-carotine vegetables as dark coloured and low beta-carotine as light coloured. I was also shocked that the Japanese words for high and low beta-carotine (which obviously I had to look up) were being written down willy-nilly on a sheet that 6-year-old Japanese kids are supposed to read. Hell, I had to check what that meant myself, I wonder if the little kids could get their heads around it.
———–

That was 3 days worth of Japanese school food, aren’t you just jealous of my tasty lunches?