Day in the Life of an Idiot

If people want to see me being an idiot while I practice my speech for tonight... enjoy?

Also? When looking to see how my name was officially translated into Japanese on the Japanese edition of Archangel Protocol, I discovered I am Aida. Which? I kind of like, considering how problematic Ri/Li is?

 I am not anywhere near a Japanese language expert. I mean, I am studying Japanese on Duolingo, having taken one or two community education classes with a native-speaker. That's it.

But, there I am, doing the dishes, watching the third season of "Free!" when we get to this really poignant moment. This friend of the hero's, who has been struggling with swimming (it's a sports anime about competitive swimming), ends up having a break-through because a friend he thought lost to him (the hero) makes a big personal sacrifice in order to swim with him/compete with him. The hero looses this particular race, but the friend is turning around, towards healing. It's a BIG moment. I was already crying, because one of the things that I love about sports anime is that always, ALWAYS about The Team, and how we don't win alone, even when we compete on an individual basis. You always fight for your friends. ALWAYS.

At any rate, my rant is this.

When friend turns to hero after winning the race, he says:

Haru. Tadaima.

The translators chose to write this as: Haru, I'm back.

NO.

Tadaima is something you ONLY say TO YOUR FAMILY, when you walk in the door to YOUR HOME (when you walk into anyone else's house, you would say, "Pardon the intrusion," though literally "I am disturbing you," Ojamashimasu).

So, what his friend is saying, which is far, far more meaningful in this context is: "Haru (my family, hence NO honorifics). "I'm HOME."

It is even more important, that Haru replies: Okaaeri which is the intimate, familial form of Okaerinasai. "Welcome home."

That's how your FAMILY greets you when you return home. YOUR FAMILY. Your mom says okaeri. The butler or your auntie you haven't seen in a decade would say okaerinasai. Your BEST FUCKING FRIEND would probably say okaerinasai.

These two men not only acknowledge that this friend is home, but that they are family because they share this love of the sport.

This is so much more powerful then, "Haru, I'm back."

What the hell, Viz Media translators? TOO GAY FOR YOU??? I mean, it's the only thing I can figure. Free! is a fan favorite for all the slash, so I can only figure that someone at Viz Media said, "Oh, you can't have him say: I'm home. Too gay! Besides, those dumb English-speaking fan fic writers don't need any more fuel!" Although, I thought the second season of Free! was all about the gay subtext, but maybe there was backlash? Except the Japanese would feel this like a gut punch, like I did (which, frankly, is rare since most of the time I catch one word out of six hundred and five billion.)

/rant.

I will return to the regularly scheduled programming next blog. 

As you know, gentle reader, I am attempting to teach myself Japanese. Currently, I've found a method that really seems to be working for me, the Pimsleur method. (I think it works because I am a HEAVILY auditory learner who needs a lot of repetition. There aren't even books that come with these CDs. It's 100% listen and repeat. EXACTLY what I like.) I bought the Pimsleur "Conversational Japanese" after having gotten half way through the library's copy, and then I took out Pimsleur's "Japanese: A Short Course." What's been fun is comparing these two.

My conversational Japanese is all about keeping it simple (and picking up the ladies, but that's another story), so for making chit-chat they taught me this:

Person A: O-genki desu ka? (You okay?)
My response: Genki desu (I'm okay!)

Japanese: A Short Course has the same set up, but uses different words.

Person A: Ikaga desu ka? (How are you?)
My response: Genki desu, okage-sama de (I'm okay, thanks to you.)

ISN'T THAT ADORABLE??  I absolutely love that the polite response to "How are you?" Is "Fine, THANKS TO YOU."  I suppose we have something similar in English in that you can sometimes say, "I'm fine, thanks for asking" and that's generally the same vibe here, but the -sama is a particularly polite honorific and I just find it super kawaii! (cute)

The other odd difference is that on the "Conversational" CD we learned to ask where the train station (eki) is.  On the "Japanese: A Short Course" I'm asking for the street (touri). From this I have surmised that the cool, hep cats take the subway and the dorky, stuffy "a short course" people are stuck walking the streets.... 

You will also note that I am exclusively using Romanji here.  That's because I am a loser and have not committed to learning any Hiragana or Katakana yet (don't even speak to me of Kanji.)  Honestly, this is about goals. My goals for learning Japanese is not to read it or write it.  What I want to do is be able to understand spoken Japanese and maybe be able to formulate a response if spoken to (very secondary goal, although the Pimsleur method is giving me a lot more confidence in that secondary goal.) So, Romanji works for me right now.  I do feel like a loser. Speaking of the cool kids, they all write in Hiragana or whatever.  I can recognize a few syllables, but put them together?  Nope, not yet.