Learning Japanese and my Japanese girlfriend?

Question

I have a Japanese girlfriend and I am also TRYING to learn Japanese. But I have a MAJOR problem, any time I ask my girlfriend what someone is saying in Japanese she always gives me a rough answer, like I would ask "What did he say?" in a surprised way or something and then she would answer me saying what ever it was they said but then she would say "or SOMETHING like that".Either they said a certain thing or they didnt, right? I know Katakana and Hiragana but no Kanji, I was in Japan for 10 months and only know a few Japanese words. Whenever I asked my girlfriend about the sentence structure she told me about the way it goes and all that, but.......she also told me that a lot of things are left out because they are OBVIOUS. So if I go to have a conversation in Japanese, I wont KNOW what they are exactly talking about and means that I will have to GUESS all the time! Surely this can NOT be RIGHT!! When someone says something in Japanese the other person who is listening is BOUND to know

When ever someone says something in Japanese the other person who is listening MUST know EXACTLY what they are talking about instead of having to guess all the time.

Answer 1

Your girlfriend is exactly right.

The Japanese language structure is so different from English that word-for-word translation is almost always impossible. To do more than a 'rough' translation requires professional training, even for a person fairly fluent in both languages.

And it's also true that a lot is left unsaid in Japanese, due both to linguistic and cultural reasons.

Let's take "Obasan wa Coffee ne", for example. This short sentence can mean:
1) "You'll take coffee, right?" (a niece talking to her aunt),
2) "I'll take coffee" (an aunt talking to her niece/nephew, or a middle-aged woman talking to a child), or
3) "The middle-aged woman ordered coffee" (between two waitresses at a coffee shop - less likely than the first two but still possible).

There's even the expression "Read the air", which roughly translates "Try to understand the situation without being told exactly what's going on, you idiot."

If you can, try to get some real Japanese lesson and you will see what she means.

Answer 2

No, she's exactly right. "Japanese is an ambiguous language." I think that was in a Japanese text I have somewhere.

But we do the same thing to a certain extent in English. Like, if you have a conversation with a friend, she might say something like:

"And then I said something to her, and she was all, like . . . . Ya know?" And the thing is, if you've been following the conversation, and know your friend and her friend, you *do* know exactly 1) what was said, 2) what the friend said back 3) the general feeling of the conversation.

It's the same way in Japanese. Only, like, plus alpha. I've lived here 18 years, and I still have break into conversations with "WHO said that?" "WHICH hospital?" And sometimes I'm completely off. (-: But it feels sooooo good when I can participate and be 100 percent on target. Just keep at it -- it will make sense the more you speak and listen to Japanese!

Answer 3

Having a Japanese girlfriend helps, but to really tackle the language you need a structured lesson plan. Believe me...my wife is Korean, been married to her for 3 years...and I barely speak a word of Korean (no matter how hard i try). I tried learning on my own...doesn't work, I always ask my wife how to say something in Korean...she teaches a bit of vocab, but actual sentence structure and word use is totally out of my ability. What both you and I need are intensive lessons with a professional who can break the language down and make us understand piece by piece the meaning and usage of the words and sentence structure. We can only go so far alone...and to truly grasp the language, one needs to be taught properly. Good luck with that!

Answer 4

You are so right! It's very frustrating trying to 'eavesdrop' on conversations as pronouns aren't used. *LOL*

If you listen from the beginning of the conversation, the people being spoken about are generally mentioned in the first sentence or two, then everything is contextual after that, though politeness levels on verbs often give a clue to the social status relationship between people.

To ask what someone said, just use 'nan-tte'. Good luck. :-)

Answer 5

Japanese is extremely different from English. It is one thing to understand it, and it is a completely different thing to become habituated to converting from one language to the other quickly. She is obviously not skilled at this difficult task. I would cut her some slack.

Answer 6

ur girlfriend is useless..

instead of caring for u, she gives u fraustration..