Journey's End (Week 5)

Desmond

  Hello again everybody! Its been another fun filled week for us in Japan some of us are a little sad to be leaving next Saturday. We have all bought a lot of stuff over the course of the trip and now it is becoming a problem to try and fit everything in our luggage without going over the limit. ((((° д °;))))

  The highlight of this week for me was my birthday on the 27th, the RA's at the dorm were nice enough to get a drinking party planned for the event so on Tuesday we went to Shinoki-ya, a Japanese style bar. I don't remember much of that night, but Professor Yang also attended the drinking party and took pictures for his blog as well. Everyone who went had fun just like the first time, however I did not throw up this time which is a plus (~ ¯ ▽ ¯) ~

  Later, I looked at Professor Yang's blog post to see the pictures he took of that night since I was too drunk to take any myself. However, upon looking at the blog post I noticed something was wrong:
yang2.jpg


Professor Yang wrote that there was no special reason that we gathered to drink even though we had it planned a week before as a birthday party for me (#´Д`) On the other hand he did mention in the next sentence that I had my birthday cake so he clearly knew it was my birthday, however I guess that isn't a special reason to be celebrating (╥ ﹏ ╥). However I can forgive him, because he is the one giving me a mark on this blog.
╮ (─ ▽ ─) ╭

Also, another thing that I noticed while looking at his website was this:

yang1.jpg


Professor Yang spelled our blog name as "Trans-Loast-Lation" instead of "Trans-Lost-Lation". Its a simple mistake however it is also pretty funny because out of all the group names to spell wrong he spelled our group name wrong, the group that was in charge of looking at errors in the English language while in Japan. 

We also moved to the new dorm this week and it was very difficult moving all of our stuff uphill to the dorm, however while exploring the new dorm i noticed some signs and buttons were very obscure in their purpose such as this green button in the shower room, apparently Vincent accidentally pressed it and people ran downstairs to see if everything was okay. It turns out it was an emergency button that should only be pressed if someone died or something. The next day, Peter also pressed it thinking that it was a light switch since it was green. So after that they decided to put a sticker on it that says emergency, however I still think that it should have been a red button instead of green so that people that cant understand Japanese could know what it meant.



Anyways, I will be one of the few people that leave Japan when the program actually ends so there are a lot of things I need to do to prepare for that. I will be back in Calgary next week so I'm kind of sad and happy at the same time.



Jessica


Wow! I can’t believe that our Senshu Program is coming to an end. I really got to say I had a blast with all of you people. Of course we also will have to thank our wonderful RAs for teaching and helping us out for the last few weeks. Thank you lovely RAs.

I’ve also interviewed some exchange students from our new dorm, for their opinion on why mistranslation occur. Because they too have knowledge with 2 different languages, they may have different ideas on why mistranslation occurs.
境喧(きょうけん)is a student from the Shanghai University, and had come to Japan in September 2013 to learn about the Japanese language. One reason for mistranslation between languages is that there are no exact translations for a word, because it may not exist in the other language. For example the word羨ましいis translated to jealousy using Jisho.org, which is like an negative feeling. But then again, there are many levels of jealousy, but they all use the same word. However, in Japanese, 羨ましい is like a lowest level of jealousy in which, you are happy for the person, but also wishes you have it too.

“I believe that language is created by the person and shows the characters of the country, region and people.” – 境喧. This can be shown with the English language example from our previous blog, in which different versions may occur due to different countries.

From our 4 weeks of staying in Japan, I believe that the English level in Japan is quite high and we are able to communicate clearly with each other without any problem (minus some grammar errors, but the message gets across ^^). The minor problems that occur are due to the lack of vocabulary on both parties. In addition, there are words with multiple meanings in both the Japanese and English language. Sometimes the word we choose to use may not be expressing what we want to say in the other language.

From all the interviews from many Japanese students, there are reoccurrence for reasons for why mistranslation occur. One mentioned quite often is the cultural differences between Japan and other English-speaking countries. Because of those differences, there are certain words that do not exists in the other language. Even, within the same language, the way of using the words may also vary depending on the place you are in. Another common reason, is the difference in sentence structure (ie: SOV Verses SVO) and grammar (ie: Past, Present and Future VS Past and Non-Past).

During my stay, my friend asked my about why are there silent letters in some words in the English language, such as know. After some research, it turns out those words were used in the olden English. However as time pass, the language has evolved and people do not pronounce those letters anymore. It’s not just English, the Japanese language has also changed as generations come and go.

That’s the End ^^

Rebecca

Ello fellow broggers~~!久しぶり‘s (Hisashiburi: Long time no see; the plural is incorrect but that’s just my EiHongo’s (English/Japanese mix))~!
It is finally another week again and probably the last week of blog posts in Japan~~~ I hope everyone has been having a great summer~! As of today in Japan, June 1st marks the first day of summer!!! I was so びっくりしました(Bikkurishimashita: Surprised) when I heard of this news for I thought it was already summer a LONG time ago! The past week has been nothing but cloudless skies and a sauna like weather! I almost feel like a piece of 焼肉 (Yakiniku: Japanese dish of fried meat) being barbecued by the sun’s rays every day. As my time to stay in Japan is more limited now, I try to get out as much as possible! To see, try, play, and enjoy as much of Japan as I can with the time that I have left. This is how my weekend went.

On the 31st of May, we  引越し-ed (Hikkoshi: Changing residence; -ed is also improper, Becca’s EiHongo) to a new dormitory which was located closer to the Senshu University. It was also during this time I noticed that within the washrooms of the Kenshukan dorm there was a translation error~! Hohohoho~! Thought I wouldn’t notice eh, well Kenshukan was wrong!



The following says 便器が詰まらないように、数秒レバーを下げてください。御協力よろしくお願い致します。The translation should have turned out to be “Please hold down the lever for a few seconds so that the toilet will flush ”, instead they used “ can’t be stopped up” which is grammatically incorrect and makes no sense. I mean like… “[it] can’t be stopped….is it going somewhere?!?! If it is…holding down the lever will not make much difference. LOL. Even with the small translation and spelling mistakes made in Kenshukan, I am going to miss that old dorm very much. A lot of great memories and friends were made in that dorm. This being said, the new dormitory is めっちゃ(Mecchya: Very; Slang)きれい(Kirei: Pretty), I almost feel like I am living in a hotel, but anyways we had our引越しuntil around 1:30PM where we them proceeded to celebrate our weekend with a special trip to Disney Sea ~!


Like the saying goes about time, 時間は貴重なものです(Jikan ha kicyou na mono desu: Time is a precious thing) that’s why we should make the best use of it~! We arrived at the place at 3:15PM and started our evening waiting for the ride called the Tower of Terror, the wait was really, really LONG!!! We waited in line for almost 3hours for a ride that lasted maybe 10 minutes; with this said….they ride was still a great experience. I was able to see how much the Japanese technology had improved, proving that it is one of the fastest growing countries in the world~~ Although my buddies and I had lots of homework and presentations due the following day, we still stayed in the amusement parked until it closed at 10PM. That day is a day I will always remember as a day we 仲間’s (Nakama: Comrades; Becca’s pluralized EiHongo) YOLO-ed our assignments and went all out in playing to our hearts content! 


Hope you got a peek at what Japan is like, if you ever travel, I hope our blog helped out a bit~~
I can't wait to be back! Who knows....I might even come back to Japan next summer~~~ Whooohooo~~
But until then, PEACE OUT~!~!!


Vincent


This week, I wanted to talk about something a little different.  Throughout the course of this adventure, I had many instances where my own personal knowledge of Japanese language was put to the test.  To me, this is truly the essence of being “lost in translation”, and in the final post I wanted to write about the more literal meaning of this group’s travel blog.

The previous weekend, everyone in our study group participated in a home-stay for three days, two nights.  I was set up with a family of five.  They were very welcoming of me into their home, and I greatly appreciated their hospitality.  Communication with the host parents was easy, as both of them spoke English.  However, the children did not; they were learning though.  As I spent a lot of time with them, playing games and such, I found it was challenging trying to communicate with them.  Not only in listening to what they were saying to me, but trying to say things to them.  Furthermore, they didn’t know the extent of my vocabulary knowledge – which isn’t very large – so they often used words that I did not know the meaning of.  It was challenging, but we still managed to enjoy the weekend together.

Another amazing and rare opportunity that occurred during the home-stay weekend was my visit to a karate dojo.  Their eldest child attended karate classes on the weekend, and invited me to come along.  Even though I did not have the actual clothing for karate, they allowed me to join in their exercises.  It was a very special experience.  They had one of the brown belts take me aside, and he ran beginner exercises with me.  It was very difficult because he spoke literally no English, and because my Japanese was not adequate enough  I had to learn the moves by following his movements.  He would demonstrate for me, and then I would copy.  At first, it was difficult, but with time we both started to work together very well.  It was an amazing feeling.  He taught me a few karate terms, such as “age-ude”, “soto-ude”, and “uchi-ude”, which are the names for specific blocking terms.  I also learned “gedan-barei” (another block), and “mae-geri” (front kick).  He also taught me the proper way to do the ceremonious bow at the end of class, and I joined the other students in the closing ceremony and the cleaning of the dojo.  Honestly, despite being “lost in translation”, it was one of the coolest moments of my life.

The entire home-stay was an amazing experience, and even though communication was difficult, I still got along with everyone that I met.

Lastly, the dormitory we were staying at was being closed down, so we moved to a new building.  To celebrate, a couple of the resident assistants and I woke up very early in the morning to watch the sun rise.  Never have I seen such a beautiful shade of red.  I was at a loss for words as to how wonderful it was… this feeling is something that you cannot translate.

Thank you for reading.  I hope that when you come to Japan, that you do not get lost.


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