Javerend's Study and Tinkering Log 📚 🪛

[javerend]

Javerend's Study Log

Spoiler Content Warning

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In this log I will talk about general spoilers for the stuff I’m reading!
For club reads or for major important plot points, I will hide content in drop downs, but the general content of shows or books or manga I’m working on is fair game! You have been warned!

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Greetings, friends old and new!

I have been a natively user for several years, but have mostly kept off the forums in favor of keeping a study log over on the wanikani forums. A lot of my more formal progress and goal type stuff I think I’d like to keep over there, but the natively forums seem like a nice chill place to kinda just talk about japanese and japanese related stuff that I’m working on as I’m working on it.

A brief self-introduction

I’m Javerend (ジェイブレンド, the “jave” rhymes with “cave”), but you can call me jav or javes or really whatever you’d like, and I prefer he/they pronouns.

I have a BA in philosophy and linguistics, and despite not managing to get into any of the rapidly dwindling number of humanities grad programs in either of those areas, have continued to do a lot of the same sorts of reading and research that you might do in a masters program on my own time.

Since graduating, I have focused mostly on the research literature of second language acquisition (SLA) and sociolinguistics, and in general I’m more interested in the pragmatics side of how languages work, which gives me a lot to think about when studying japanese!

For my japanese studies, I started by learning my first kana on April 1st, 2021, and have not skipped a single day of study since then. I’ve tried to really branch out and try as many different things as I can, reading manga, playing games, reading visual novels, watching streamers, reading novels and light novels, subscribing to a newspaper, dipping my toes into aozora, and even trying out some classical japanese stuff.

Stuff I like and might talk about!

• 癒し系 - anime, manga, books, tv shows, as long as they can hit the right vibe stuff like ３月のライオン, ヨコハマ買い出し紀行, 宇宙よりも遠い場所
• Cute Romance - hand in hand with iyashikei stuff, I love some stupid sappy romcoms, stuff like ホリミヤ, とらドラ！, even stuff like 四月は君の噓 with a lil drama to it. If you can go “あぁ…青春…” I’m probably in
• Thinky stuff? for lack of a better word - on the polar opposite end, I also enjoy the kinds of really big pictures philosophical stories you get in stuff like 銀河英雄伝説, in the 物語シリーズ, or in 宝石の国
• 東方Project - long time fan of the games, music, and characters, and especially of the fan creation scene
• Vtubers - I have gone down such a rabbit hole watching japanese vtubers (especially indie ones) this year to improve my listening, and it’s been a wonderful time
• Cooking - I cook a lot, and sometimes might post pictures if something looks real tasty
• Birds/Nature - I’m an avid outdoorsy walker/hiker/climber and really like to go look and take pictures of birds, or if I’m lucky find some really cool rocks
• Tech Tinkering - I really love buying old consoles and fixing or modding them, and I have a whole super cool retro game setup for my desk that I use extensively for my studying. Chances are if I’m playing a game, I’m playing it on hardware unless there’s a good reason not to

Like I said earlier, not gonna focus too much on ‘goals’ or anything here. I’ve been studying japanese for long enough and successfully enough that I’m pretty happy with the methods and kinds of routines I’ve settled on, now it’s more just about doing a lot more with the language.

Anyways, that’s probably enough yapping to start off, よろしく!

[javerend]

As a first lil update, this week I have been spending most of my japanese study time playing 大神. I’m playing the HD release on steam because the mouse controls for brush drawing are so much nicer than using a wii mote

I’ve played ~8.5 hours so far and made it through the end of the first real dungeon, and in that time added almost 200 new flashcards to my anki deck. My general principle with anki is to only add words that are either common enough to have a JLPT level tag (in whatever list my yomitan pulls from), or ones that seem useful or fun to have, so that’s not a complete indication of how much stuff I’m having to look up while reading this

Without a doubt in my mind this is the hardest thing I’ve put sustained effort into reading, but a lot of these words I’m getting I think will be helpful in other places. Lots of old kanji forms and old object vocab that will help with 蟲師 and 狼と香辛料, lots of religious words that will help with reading 東方 stuff more quickly

I see someone on the video game rating thread proposed that it was around natively level 36? The hardest thing I have to compare the language to is 風の谷のナウシカ at 34, and it’s definitely harder than that. It’s probably somewhere in the N1 levels, I just genuinely have not read anything around this level to really compare it to

Every kanji in the game gets furigana, so it’s pretty fast to look up words, but the downside is that there’s just a lot going on language-wise in this game. You’ve got some super honorific register stuff, a lot of ateji stuff, you’ve got a lil bit of old man and dialect speech, there’s a chuuni swordsman who calls all his attacks with fancy names, there’s a hip poet guy who speaks half in english, most of the 妖怪 speak with old grammar forms and are written all in katakana, and on top of that even the regular folk usually have some kind of speech quirk or are using very uncommon words. Without the furigana, there’s no way I’d be able to touch this game for quite a while, looking things up would just be way too slow to actually play through the game.

The last time I played this in english was in 2018, so it’s been long enough that the story is almost completely fresh to me. I remember vague bits and pieces of plot and how the game ends, but not a lot of specifics. I briefly tried to play it in japanese a few years ago, but could barely pick out anything that was being said

This playthrough has gone significantly better than that. I am able to understand what’s being said most of the time, and I’m playing it at a speed where it’s still enjoyable as a game, but it’s probably still looking to be a 60-70 hour game at the speed I’m playing it, which is a far cry from the 20ish hours it took me to beat it in english

[eefara]

Aaaah, it’s been a long time since I last played 大神 (in English); I’ve bought it three separate times, but only the most recent in Japanese (on switch, for a cool ¥600 or so). I’m curious how difficult I’d find it; that screenshot you posted is like 30%, maybe 40% intelligible to me, given no other context for the conversation.

[soggyboy]

@javerend

the “jave” rhymes with “cave”

I thought it was like javelin

[javerend]

@eefara

that screenshot you posted is like 30%, maybe 40% intelligible to me, given no other context for the conversation.

I have intentionally cherry-picked a section from one of the more difficult types of dialogue where the other gods are addressing you in an extremely honorific way (Specifically, this is a line that @daisoujou and I have talked about at a few different points before, trying to figure out what was going on)

Most of the game isn’t this bad, or is at difficult to parse in other fascinating ways

@soggyboy

I thought it was like javelin

I will never blame anyone for not knowing how to pronounce my name correctly, because it is originally from a conlang my friends and I made in high school

It’s sort of a portmanteau between a fabricated word: “jave” /d͡ʒeɪv/, which meant something sort of like 元気 and could be used as a greeting, interjection, or mean ‘good’ when describing events or activities, and the word ‘reverend’

We never built up the language beyond a hundred or so words and it mostly used our baby understanding of french grammar. The language was intentionally hard to read with commonly broken rules for inserting things like silent 'q’s into the orthography, because… well, because we were dumb high schoolers desparately doing anything instead of working on our AP US History classwork

[eefara]

@soggyboy

I thought it was like javelin

Haha, I’ve somehow been saying “java-rend” (like coffee java) in my head for a while.

[Daisoujou]

@eefara

Haha, I’ve somehow been saying “java-rend” (like coffee java) in my head for a while.

Exactly how I’ve been imagining it too, and I’ve forgotten everything about how proper phonetics are read so I’m going to just assume this one is correct.

[javerend]

That’s probably the most common, the funniest one is definitely when people who don’t speak spanish look at it and go “ha.ve? ha.ve.rend?” like how did you get into spanish mode buddy

Hearing all the many ways people try to read it is one of my life’s great joys, even more so now as a linguist. Throwing fake words at people and seeing what pronunciations they default to and how naturally they read them is a common experimental technique, and now any time someone reads my name I get to run a little lab on them

[Daisoujou]

You know, reminds me of how often English speakers struggle with Daisoujou too, which I don’t at all blame them for, but I’m a bit confused at how commonly people try different vowel sounds on the sou and jou. I think I get basically “Daisujo” a lot

[Jintor]

Sup dork.

[Naphthalene]

@eefara

that screenshot you posted is like 30%, maybe 40% intelligible to me, given no other context for the conversation.

It seems weird without context. I know all the words in there, but it’s still hard to make sense of it.

我が君 my liege
雲隠れ（る) to disappear (e.g. to run away, to go into hiding)
給いて = くれて to do a favor, not sure if literal (e.g. “that really helped deescalate tensions with enemy clans!”), just honorific (e.g. “such a display of skills!”), or ironic (e.g. “where the frick have you been all this time?”)
目 eyes
こそ (emphasis)
隔つ to separate
とも (here) short for ということも even though
→ 目こそ隔つとも even though you were separated from my eyes themselves (i.e. I haven’t been able to see you all that time)
なんでう (guessing definition 3 here since we miss context and the end of the sentence) expression of deep feeling “what to say?/of course”
心隔つ separate(d) from (my) heart
や I assume it’s the enumeration particle, not a weird sentence ender, so we are missing the other thing(s) that is not happening.

Actually, making the breakdown (and finding out about the 3rd definition of なんでふ, which I did not know), I feel like I’m getting it now It’s still unclear to me if the boar (爆神) is mad or relieved though (I started thinking the former because of his design, but maybe the latter actually?)

[javerend]

@Naphthalene

Actually, making the breakdown (and finding out about the 3rd definition of なんでふ, which I did not know), I feel like I’m getting it now It’s still unclear to me if the boar (爆神) is mad or relieved though (I started thinking the former because of his design, but maybe the latter actually?)

With the context of the previous line being about how you are his 慈母 (you are playing as an incarnation 天照大神 in the game), and with the story context that you have been sealed inside a statue for 100 years and are just now returning to save the land from darkness, I think it’s definitely a relief thing

@Naphthalene

給いて = くれて to do a favor, not sure if literal (e.g. “that really helped deescalate tensions with enemy clans!”), just honorific (e.g. “such a display of skills!”), or ironic (e.g. “where the frick have you been all this time?”)

With that same context and some other samples of the gods talking to you, definitely the honorific usage here. The rest of this conversation gave me kind of a tone impression of a kind of gruff warrior talking to their lord, using really formal language but without much eloquence

@Naphthalene

や I assume it’s the enumeration particle, not a weird sentence ender, so we are missing the other thing(s) that is not happening.

I’m pretty sure it’s actually a sentence ending particle here, since the next line moves on to a new thought:

Here’s a video timestamped where someone plays through that section, but he spends quite a while working on each line so you might have to skip around.

New to me from looking even more into this today is that that つ is also a grammar form! (but my dictionary also says 隔つ is the same meaning as 隔たる)

【古典・古文】助動詞「つ」　『完了・強意』用法の訳し方　使い方・意味

Playing through this game has been a really rich experience, there’s so much new stuff to learn when you really dig in to almost any line, and having furigana on everything has given me a lot of really easy opportunities to dive into stuff that I otherwise would be skipping because looking up every single thing by radical would take forever

[Naphthalene]

@javerend

I’m pretty sure it’s actually a sentence ending particle here, since the next line moves on to a new thought:

Okay, yes, it turns out that や as an ending particle can mean

③〔反語〕…（だろう）か、いや、…ない。

which does fit that the main character never left his heart. Olde Yamatogo is not my strong suit.

@javerend

New to me from looking even more into this today is that that つ is also a grammar form! (but my dictionary also says 隔つ is the same meaning as 隔たる)

It is! But it’s indeed 隔たる here. つ (and ぬ) connects to the 連用形 (so へだちつ here?). At the same time, it turns out that 隔つ can also be used as a 下二段, so へだてつ, I guess?
I don’t know why both exist and what is the difference between the two. Plus, I’m also unclear on the difference between つ and ぬ when it comes to expressing completion…

@javerend

and having furigana on everything

The furigana of つかまつ going over both り next to it makes it look like it’s a weird kanji combo with the reading かえつかまつ

[javerend]

@Naphthalene

It is! But it’s indeed 隔たる here. つ (and ぬ) connects to the 連用形 (so へだちつ here?). At the same time, it turns out that 隔つ can also be used as a 下二段, so へだてつ, I guess?

oo good call good call

I flipped through the index of my classical reader, and it gives almost exactly the same usage for both ぬ and つ, even down to being able to use them for parallel actions, so maybe it’s either a regional difference or a sound change thing? No idea

[javerend]

On a very different note, today tried out watching the first episode of ８６―エイティシックス― S1 | L32 with jp subs and wow boy howdy there are a lot of military words that are just pure noise to my brain I suspect a lot of them will get re-used here, and it will only get easier from the first episode but wow that was a slog.

I like the show though, watched it when it came out but with en subs. Also a lot of those words will come in handy for my long long term plan to read 銀河英雄伝説 | L45, working slowly in that direction… someday someday

Also seeing some excellent and very useful language here that you probably aren’t going to find find in slice of life

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personal note scribbling to try to make sense of military organization

Ok so we got スピアヘッド戦隊 spearhead squadron who are an 精鋭部隊 elite unit, somehow related to a larger 大隊 battalion and we’re all in the 軍隊 armed forces

[cat]

If you would like to mainline war vocab in text format I can suggest 永遠の0

Also probably 虐殺器官, but I only got 20 pages into that before I was like “why am I reading this? I hate war books ”

[mitrac]

more data for you

@javerend

Throwing fake words at people and seeing what pronunciations they default to and how naturally they read them is a common experimental technique, and now any time someone reads my name I get to run a little lab on them

@soggyboy

I thought it was like javelin

I’m on team javelin. I can totally see how a younger me having just finished 4 years of high school Spanish would have been more creative and gone the “have” route though.

@javerend

We never built up the language beyond a hundred or so words and it mostly used our baby understanding of french grammar. The language was intentionally hard to read with commonly broken rules for inserting things like silent 'q’s into the orthography, because… well, because we were dumb high schoolers desparately doing anything instead of working on our AP US History classwork

once again, your friend group sounds like soooo much fun

[暁のルナ]

@cat

If you would like to mainline war vocab in text format I can suggest 永遠の0

For videos, this short ranked list may be of interest: What are you watching today? - #464 by Vie

@javerend

Ok so we got スピアヘッド戦隊 spearhead squadron who are an 精鋭部隊 elite unit, somehow related to a larger 大隊 battalion and we’re all in the 軍隊 armed forces

Fantasy manga or novels can also net you words like these, if that’s something you’re interested in, fwiw.

[javerend]

@暁のルナ

For videos, this short ranked list may be of interest:

Little bit of relief seeing someone else expressing that 32 might be too low for 86. The light novels are at 38 and I cant imagine getting long strings of military words without actually seeing the kanji makes them any easier to understand. Felt like I was going crazy having to pause almost any time someone opened their mouth

I wouldn’t say mainlining military organization or rank vocab is like a pressing goal or anything right now, just gotta mix a little bit in here and there if I ever want to even attempt doing logh stuff since there’s a lot of politicking about ranks and assignments and tactics and the overall organizational structure of governments and military organizations in it. That part of the nitty gritty military stuff is not particularly interesting to me, but the political and social stuff that I’m more interested in tends to be locked behind walls of that kind of vocab, so gotta pick it up in some way.

[cat]

@javerend

there’s a lot of politicking about ranks and assignments and tactics and the overall organizational structure of governments and military organizations in it. That part of the nitty gritty military stuff is not particularly interesting to me,

What I did for this with police ranks (same deal when reading police procedurals - all the fun power plays are tied to ranks) is look up a chart like this to refer to:

I don’t necessarily have them memorized and I certainly couldn’t tell you what they translate to in English, but I have a vague idea of where people fall in terms of power which is probably all most native people consuming the media have anyways