[OT?] What is a kawanaga? (I'm Japanese!)

[Tsyr]

Actualy, I'd suspect that you may have hit on it... kawanaga and kaginawa are basicly (from a purely sylabelic standpoint, mind you) the same word, just... garbled. That's not even close to accurate, of course, and it totaly ruins the word, but americans have a habbit of botching other languages. We botch our own enough as it is...

What probably happened is one RPG used it, then basicly every other RPG since then has just copied the word and not done their own research on it.

Just as an aside, from someone who speaks the language far better than I probably ever will, how would you translate the phrase "Soulmoon"? I've been using "Reitsuki", and using the kanji for "rei" and "tsuki", simply placed after one another, but I know that's probably wrong. It's a name I use on a lot of message boards and IRC.

 

[Agback]

The correct english is "I'm Japanese", not "I'm a Japanese."

Why do you say that? Both "I'm Australian" and "I'm an Australian" are both grammatically correct and colloquial.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Aitch Eye]

Until I checked the dictionary just now, I didn't realize Japanese could be used as a singular noun; so that usage seems to have fallen away in the U.S. at least, and it has a sort of archaic feel to it. Is it still current in other English speaking countries?

 

[darkbard]

to say in japanese "i am a japanese person" is not to link an adjective and noun as we do in english. there is a separate noun for peoples' nationalities (nihonjin, in this case). so, while it does sound archaic in english, this is a mistake often made by japanese speakers of english.

 

[Dragonblade]

Yokoso! Syunsuke-san!

Nihon no doko kara kimashi-ta ka? Ore wa 2 nenkan de Tokyo ni sundeta. Amerika jin dakedo, okusan wa nihonjin.

Nihongo ga pera pera janaindakedo, kekko hanaseru. Waseda daigaku de ryugakushi-ta kara.

Ore mo "kawanaga" tte kiita koto arimasen.

 

[Dragonblade]

Hmm....

Because the board filters out the word S-H-I-T, it screwed up my Japanese writing.

The mods need to fix that. Thats ridiculous.

 

[tarchon]

The convention in American English, peculiar as it is, is that -ese nationality adjectives are seldom used as nouns when describing people.
"I am Chinese" but not *"I am a Chinese."
"I am Japanese" but not *"I am a Japanese."

The substantive (noun) forms are somewhat more common in the plural, so "Three Chinese are visiting" sounds less odd, but this still can be perceived as awkward.

However, when describing things, particularly breeds of animals, they are commonly used as nouns.
"I have a Pekingese." (dog of that breed)
"I have a Burmese." (cat of that breed/python of that species)

Otherwise, these adjectives are also lacking in a corresponding noun, so constructions like "he is a Chinese person" are used. (Special note: though once standard, "Chinaman" is now, strangely, considered derogatory.)

British/Commonwealth English however is much freer with the use of these adjectives as nouns.

Other classes of ethnic adjectives are:

adjective -> noun

ROOT+ese -> none
ROOT+ish -> ROOT (Turkish/Turk)
ROOT+ish/ch -> ROOT+man/woman (Irish/Irishman, French/Frenchman)
ROOT+ic -> ROOT+er (Icelandic/Icelander)
ROOT+an/ian -> same (Canadian/Canadian)
ROOT+i -> same (Israeli/Israeli)
ROOT+ite -> same (Hittite/Hittite)

And a number of irregular forms include:

Greek -> Greek
Swiss -> Swiss or none
Soviet -> Soviet
Spanish -> Spaniard

Similar weird systems appear in other European languages.

 

[Mindcrime]

This thread has just mutated into the King Kong of "Well, actually..." threads.



Chris

 

[ninthcouncil]

Hmm....

Because the board filters out the word S-H-I-T, it screwed up my Japanese writing.

The mods need to fix that. Thats ridiculous.

But not that uncommon in obscenity filters, and not just for that word. The inhabitants of a certain Northern England town have long been frustrated by the garbling or erasure of their home's name by these things. As an experiment....

Welcome to Shorpe, Mr Aake.

See what I mean? That's S-C-U-N-T-H-O-R-P-E, A-S-H-I-T-A-K-E

 

[Zhure]

For what it's worth:
http://lfw.org/shodouka/http://line...dosearch?sDict=on&H=PA&L=J&T=kawanaga&WC=none

Three Matches Found

(exp) anyone can make a mistake



Even Homer sometimes nods



being carried away by a current


Greg