Useful Japanese (Just In Case ^.^)Follow

Just wondering.. are the Romanji (i.e. English) characters universally understood by Japanese players?

Excuse me = Sumimasen, not suminasen. ^^

Also, some of these are kinda useless:

WAR „³ Senshi
BLM „³ Kuro -> Simply the color "black"
WHM „³ Shiro -> Simply the color "white"
RDM „³ Aka -> Simply the color "red"
THF „³ Shi-fu -> There's no "th-" sound in Japanese. This would be "Thi-fu".
MNK „³ Monnku -> Romanized. "Monk"
SMN „³ Shoukanshi
DRK „³ Annkoku
PAL „³ Naito -> "Knight"
BRD „³ Ginyuushijin
RNG „³ Kariudo
BST „³ Kemonotukai
DRG „³ Ryukishi

Translating romanized job-names isn't going to do much for the JPN players. You may as well just use auto-translate. They mostly understand the three-letter abbreviations anyway, since that's what appears in the /search listings.

Also - This is a question I had a LONG time, and finally got it answered recently.

Targetables in-game are shown in English. If you see a Goblin Weaver, it appears in the Japanese version as "Goblin Weaver", and not in a translated form. Therefore, there is no difference in using <t>-derivatives and typing out the name in your party communications, except of course the speed of your typing. :)

I'm back „³ Tadaima -> That's usually only used to mean "I'm home!" Outside of that context, you'll probably get laughed at a bit for using it.

Pitiful (how sad) „³ Kawaisou -> You can also use Taihen - I see that way more often myself. Similarly...

Yes „³ Hai -> Un
No „³ Iie -> Iya

Un is a bit more casual and cordial. Iya is a bit more expressive and vocal than Iie. For example, if you need to quickly interject when someone's asking to pull, "Iya" will get your message across more quickly than "Iie".

Good Morning „³ Ohayo Gozaimasu
Hello/Good Afternoon „³ Konnichiwa
Good Evening „³ Konbanwa
Good night „³ Oyasumi Nasai <- This can be (and often is) truncated to just "Oyasumi".
Nice to meet you „³ Hajimemash*te <- Literally, "This is the first time."
(Friendly greeting word) „³ Yoroshiku onegaishimasu <- This part would actually be the "Nice to meet you". For added politeness, add "Douzo" to the beginning - "Douzo yoroshiku onegaishimasu." If you really want to be polite and friendly, /bow afterward. (Helpful hint - to avoid targeting someone in particular, try "/bow <me>". That will do an indiscriminate /bow.)

Heh. I won't bother mentioning the romanization of some of the vowel holdings...eg "Arigato" versus "Arigatou" versus "Arigatoo" versus "Arigatoh". There's plenty of arguments back and forth about that. :P I usually type "ou" and "ei".

Some other useful tidbits - The JPN input system requires them to switch between input systems while they type, so you will occasionally see a "w" or "u" or whatnot as they type. That's a typo on their part which got extracted out during the character conversion process. If you're capable of reading kana or kanji, just read that in with the rest of it. For example, you might see someone typing a name followed by the Unicode "w". That was probably the player intending to type "wa" and then translate it to the "ha" particle for object declaration, but accidentally typing just a "w".

Oh, one other important thing! If you're trying to /shout for a Teleport or somesuch, you'll get more attention of you use the autotranslate (Excuse me...). That will translate directly to "Sumimasen-ga..." (literally, "Excuse me, but...") which would be much more polite. Often you'll see Japanese players actually saying what effectively translates to "Please forgive the /shout, but..."

Edited, Mon Sep 6 17:51:49 2004 by Cutriss

Edited, Mon Sep 6 17:56:34 2004 by Cutriss

Something else I think should be addressed...

Don't think that Japanese talk to each other the way you've seen it in anime. Many of the over-the-top situations you may have seen in your favorite shows are just that - over the top. A gaijin like yourself using the word "baka", even in an amusing or joking context, will find himself quickly drawing the ire of the party.

Whatever feelings you may have about inequities between the Japanese and the US, consider yourself a guest if you're invited to a party of Japanese-speaking individuals, and handle yourself as such. The odds are fairly good that you need them more than they need you.

I would recommend against that. Some of the word separations and spellings are inaccurate, and while it might be fine for conversational use in-game, you'll get dinged a lot if you try to use it for a writing assignment.

As an example, there's a *very* distinct difference between sayounara (which some people might write as "sayoonara") and sayo onara. :P

*snugglez Nights* (I miss you, where've you been?)

Like I said, I really don't know Japanese, and the one's I've partied with were pretty spiffy whenever I used auto-translate. But it was much more fun when I could somewhat talk to them using certain key phrases (Kjsoul, you were soo fun ^.^). Granted a lot of small choice words I know are from anime, I'd warn them that my basic knowledge of Japanese was from anime, and I was lucky to have forgiving and understanding parties thus far who would play around with me.

A lot of these were basically copied and pasted from other sources and I tried my best to get them somewhat accurate. Gomenne ^^; if it isn't in context or have poor spelling or mistranslations or grammatical errors or whatnot ^^;
Just thought they'd be spiffy to know for curiosities sake if not for other helpful purposes.

(Basically, most of the checking involved just putting the word in Google and seeing if it exists, so that's where the Sumimasen/Suminasen mixup occured)

Edited, Mon Sep 6 20:27:49 2004 by Merodi

Isn't that true with any (except the really crappy) PT that one is invited to?

I have never seen this mistake really. The only thing like this you will see a lot of is with "OK" where the O is in kana. If you see a 'w' think 'LOL'. If you see your name and a 'w' with some japanese you can't read, they are probably making fun of you thinking you can't read it. I have seen it many times.

as for ha and wa. for the topic marker you type H-A
watashi (ha) janala rate me down.

Janala



Edited, Tue Sep 7 01:29:59 2004 by alphaoneffxi