fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5219 ]

[ SECRET POST #5219 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5219 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

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02.

[Wind in the Willows]

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03.

["A Little Princess" by Frances Hodgson Burnett]

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04.

[Live-action Powerpuff girls reboot]

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05.

[Shadow and Bone]

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06.

[Vivy - Fluorite Eye's Song]

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07.

(The Queen's Gambit)

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 27 secrets from Secret Submission Post #747.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I have a midterm exam this weekend and I'm hugely underprepared, but that's not made any easier by just... not agreeing with some of the course material? The subject is Japanese, and with languages there's a certain amount of challenge about what the convention teaches us to do verses what actual native speakers do IRL, but some of the stuff in the course is really annoying me!
Like they've given the translation of 'café' as 'きっさてん', instead of 'カフェ', which is... what I've heard actual Japanese people use? And I looked it up and 'きっさてん' means something more like 'coffeehouse' which... isn't really the same thing?
And they say '*These* are the words you use for your own family and *these* are the words you use for someone else's family', but a) I don't like 'ちち' and 'はは', and b) I can't find anyone in movies or TV shows using them! It's all 'とうさん' and 'かあさん' everywhere I look!
If I were on campus, I'd approach one of the teachers after a class or tutorial and ask them about it, but I'm studying online (I'm about 1000k from the uni itself), and I'm far too anxious to write an email about any of this. So I just sit, and seethe.

Hmmm. Yeah learning a language is always a struggle when it comes to formal language Vs slang/casual, Japanese even more so because it's coded into the very language and culture.

From what little I know, ちち and はは are used as very formal and polite expressions of father and mother. おとさん　and おかさん are used more in casual settings. I guess in English it's something like father and mother Vs dad and mom.

I'm not too sure about the coffeehouse Vs cafe but I'm speculating that it has to do with westernisation of Japan. Japan has a history of teahouses and what not so I wouldn't be surprised ifきっさてん is refering to the historical Japanese word for cafe. On the other hand カフェ is written as a English translated word for cafe. You can tell by the usage of Katakana instead of hiragana. Katakana is used almost exclusively for English loan words or sounds.

It might be that western style cafes in Japan are referred as カフェ while traditional coffeehouses are referred to as otherwise or that modern usage of the word カフェ is more prevalent nowadays and has more or less replaced the old Japanese word in modern times.

Anyhow this could be incorrect because it's been awhile since I took Japanese classes. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

When I took Japanese in college, the teacher (who was Japanese herself) told us we should use ちち and はは when talking to someone else about our own parents, and the only people who used とうさん and かあさん that way were little kids. I did as she said for a while when I moved to Japan, but I quickly realized all my friends who are adults use (お)とうさん and (お)かあさん all the time. I can only guess it might be a regional difference, or generational.

DA same and I'm very sure that it's mainly generational and a bit regional but it's also a matter of a "teaching foreigners to talk proper first so they don't accidentally make an ass of themselves" approach to teaching Japanese outside of Japan.

+1

When I was learning Arabic, the teacher made it very clear we were first going to learn how to read, speak, and write like the newspapers/the proper way (I also believe we were learning the Levantine dialect; I figured we would learn the Egyptian dialect since it's so popular, or at least made popular by soap operas and movies...) before we could try learning how to speak like natives, or made the decision to start learning how to speak in a particular dialect.

Gotta know the rules before you know which ones are okay to break and how.

This.

Huhh that's pretty interesting. I'm guessing it's more a generational thing with more people relaxing usage of the more formal way of speaking Japanese. From what I understand there are different forms of Japanese for speaking with employers Vs casual speaking and that formal speaking is rooted in more archaic/historical language so maybe modern Japanese folk tend speak more casually nowadays.

When I learnt it, I always got the sense that ちち and はは were used in a formal/professional setting with お母さん and お父さん used in more casual settings then finally getting rid of the お with friends and family.

+1 to this. ちち　&　はは　are formal. And Japanese language courses are going to mostly teach you the proper way to speak. I haven't known the Japanese language to be as critical of loanwords as French, but teachers are going to want you to go by what's in the textbook. And in my experience they stick rigidly to the textbook, especially if you're using Genki, which can be a bummer. By all means though, keep learning slang/casual language on your own because it's probably more in line with why you want to learn Japanese (novels, games, shows), but the classroom is the classroom for good or bad. And good luck when you get to Keigo, hoo. がんばって！

(Take all of this with a whole bag of salt as my level would be N4 or N3 at most and I've never been to Japan because unfortunately I'm a poor bitch.)

When I think of something like Starbucks I think of a cafe. When I think of a kissaten I think of an ambient that's more like a traditional tea house but not so traditional - and Wikipedia seems to agree.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kissaten
So, yeah, you're not going to a Starbucks kissaten and that's where textbooks can be VERY misleading. I learned that word 喫茶店 when studying for N5 as well and I believe you have to learn it as "standard N5 vocabulary" but... nah, go for "cafe" if you're talking about a modern type of place IMO.

As for mom and dad I keep seeing ie. kaasan (yeah even without the o-) between close friends in dramas and the such, but hahaoya when the person is talking to someone they don't know well or is of a higher hierarchy ... But Wikipedia seems to agree that you should call someone else's mom "okaasan" and it's the word that should be used in the household as well so I'm willing to assume modern usage expands that sense of household to close friends whose "okaasan" you know. See: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/母親

Sorry if I didn't explain well enough (sleepy af) and again, take all of this with a grain of salt but hope to have helped

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